Protecting Intellectual Property
How the Permissions system helps to protect IP
Permissions help protect content creators by giving them an extra layer of security to control the use, modification and share-ability of their content. This has been put in place to enhance the legibility of content on the market, making it easier for the original creators to profit from their works. In the past stealing items, modifying them, and reselling them had become quite common especially with the use certain 3rd party tools and viewers.
This caused quite the commotion within the Second Life community and it became a serious issue that needed attending. As a result LidenLabs "restricted access to its developer code", restructured the code base and moved it to a more suitable and secure service.
One of the more popular tools used to steal content goes by the name of CopyBot.
CopyBot in action copying an unaware residents accessories
A brief description of what CopyBot is and how it can/should be used
Copybot is a well known third party viewer for Second Life that is known for its controversial use and endangerment of copyright and protection of IP in Second Life.
CopyBot was originally made by the libsecondlife group as a "Backup tool" that featured importing and exporting as one of its prominent features, this also became its most infamous feature. Basically it granted residents"the ability to copy the prims [they see] on someone's avatar, or an individual free-standing object." [1] to a .XML file which was intended to be used to assist in content creation
CopyBot was leaked to the public and its exporting features were exploited for self gain. Copies of original content started making there way to the market and it wasn't long before LidenLabs was held at the stake to fix it.
An Analysis of ways in which creators of content can protect (or open up) their creations in a virtual world
In the rapidly developing age where digital content is quickly finding its way into the main stream copyright laws and intellectual property have expanded there area of effect to accommodate.
There are many different licenses you can use to protect your content for different reasons and in different ways, the main licenses you can find are from General Public License (GNU) and the Creative Commons (CC).
In brief GNU aims to provide licenses that allow you to share and change anything that has the license applied to it, derivative works also have the same license applied to ensure continuity. Basically GNU protects "your rights with two steps: (1) assert copyright on the software, and (2) offer you this License giving you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify it." [2]
Since GNU licenses mainly apply to software, Creative Commons aims to cater for a much larger range of works. Creative Commons Licenses are split into 4 different elements, to make a total of 6 free licenses anyone can use.
- Attribution
Others must credit you as the original author
- Non Commercial
May not modify, share or reuse the original work if its is going to be used commercially or to make money
- No Derivatives
No modifying the original work, but sharing is allowed
- Share-A-Like
Anyone creating derivative works must apply the same license as the original work
All these license have been made to help us protect and secure our work or freely distribute our work without the fear or repercussions of sharing.
Biblibooboo
[1] taken from "http://secondlife.wikia.com/wiki/CopyBot" on 21/4/17
[2] taken from "http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html" on 21/4/17