…it’s your responsibility. Not theirs.
Now, if the Lindens put some vigorous enforcement into DMCA reports, we might be getting somewhere. But to tell the userbase that it’s THEIR responsibility to inspect individual items before purchasing…well, that’s crap and we all know it. Especially when one of the commenters on their blog post reframes the issue a little more strongly than me:
The words of this post are about as comforting as an unexpected notice from the IRS.
Nice feign there Lindens, but not enough.
YOU need to do your part on DMCA’s and follow the law as well by removing all instances of a stolen item, THIS INCLUDES THE DATABASE, not just in world copies which are easily stored on the alternate account of any individual who makes their money off of stolen content.
YOU need to boot the confirmed thieves instead of just slapping them on the wrist because you don’t want to lose their tier money.
YOU need to act more quickly when proper DMCA’s are filed, and work to prevent the individuals responsible from simply signing up another account and starting over again.
This is NOT about how the content creators haven’t been doing what they need to. Yes, the DMCA process is difficult to understand, but why bother spending the time to go through the process when Linden Lab will not enforce it as it is required to be enforced?
Content theft in Second Life is not out of control because the content creators aren’t being careful. It is out of control because Linden Lab allowed it to get out of control simply because the individuals stealing and reselling content were also paying tier.
Linden Lab is complicit in the theft of content by their inaction, and evidence would lead one to believe that the reason is because they were more interested in the tier payed by thieves than they were enforcing rules that might actually take a little effort to enforce.
Well said. Delete the pirated content from the database once (if?) you determine it to be stolen.
Snarky side note: We Americans are used to the White House putting out news that is unfavorable to them on Friday afternoons when reporters are basically done working for the week. Things like increased unemployment, deaths in Iraq, etc. Am I out of line in thinking that Linden posted this item on a Friday afternoon for perhaps the same reason?
Filed under: content theft, intellectul property, opinion, Second Life | 6 Comments »
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