The thing is, Arielle, that the law doesn’t make a distinction regarding how many people had already bought the content, where that content originated, or why the person reporting it had done so. The service provider, i.e. us in this case, still needs to make sure that it doesn’t continue hosting infringing content once it is notified about it. So, while I have no way to know whether or not your suspicions are founded, it really doesn’t matter. People shouldn’t share/sell other people’s content without their permission, regardless of who the creators are.

Wagging
fingers at people who try to stop it from continuing and stating that
only the victims have a right to complain and that until they do no one
should take action is NOT supporting the victims (the content creators
in this case). I suggest you take a step back and evaluate the morality
of what you’re preaching.

Some of us are getting the distinct impression that the ones complaining about the S/L content are doing so to get rid of competitive content rather than out of any sense of morality about victimized S/L creators. I have noted with interest lately that the most vocal ones have nothing to say when it is an Opensim creator that has had content botted and distributed. One would think that when it is one of ours, they would be that much more vocal than ‘victimized’ creators on another grid.

The S/L creators whose content is being distributed really cannot be termed victims anyway when 1. they don’t market here and 2. they have likely netted 10’s if not 100’s of thousands of Lindens from Opensim people buying their products in S/L after having had the opportunity to demo them here in Opensim. Another thing, it had to have taken a lot of time and trouble to specifically name all that content with the correct product names and creators because it doesn’t come out like that naturally. Maybe it is a snub of the nose at S/L creators, maybe it is a message to Opensim people where to find it in S/L or maybe it is the largest demo release ever with the covert blessings of the original creators.

Thank you Arielle.

What you are saying here in the post certainly sounds like the correct method of dealing with it up to the point it went. The article itself seems confused as to what happened so hopefully the author will read your post and correct the article so as to not confuse or worse, mislead future readers.

I also will apologize here for implicating you as having a bias towards the S/L content. I lumped you in with some Kitely residents who do and jumped to a conclsion.

When we become aware of suspected copyright violation (without getting an official DMCA takedown request) we contact the person who has that content rezzed in their world and ask them whether they have a license from its creator to use it in Kitely. Almost always they don’t and they just remove the content themselves. If they say they do then we get back to the person who reported the issue for additional information.

As for Kitely Market product listings, when we receive information that makes us believe that a product listing includes content that was made by a third party, we request the merchant verify that they have an explicit license from the creator to sell that content in Kitely Market. Assuming that they do, we then require them to add a line to their product listing that explicitly names that creator and states that the product is sold in Kitely Market with their permission.

In this particular case, we didn’t receive a DMCA takedown request and we weren’t provided with sufficient information to warrant the removal of any content ourselves. We contacted the region owner, pointed her to the accusations that were made on our forums, and she removed the content she knew or suspected was what that forums post referred to. Lacking concrete proof of Kitely TOS violations on her part, we didn’t suspend her account. Her Kitely account is still active.

A DMCA takedown notice has to be filed by the copyright holder but a red flag can be raised by anyone or anything.

Kitely is a real business that pays taxes, it is regulated by Israeli and US laws (including DMCA as our servers are hosted in California). We are the ones that are held accountable for hosting unlicensed content if we do not take action to remove it from our system once we become aware of its existence. The aforementioned quote demonstrates that we do not need to receive a DMCA request for that to be the case.

Impierce, Thanks so much for explaining it for me 🙂

Copy text (i replied to Lurker by mistake)

Filling DMCA by whom ?

Filling DMCA by IKEA that is a RL business and follows international fiscal and commercial laws in case an OS creator is profiling their furniture using them as background image in a 3D software is one story

Filling DMCA by a called creator in a game that is not a RL business, is not issuing any invoice, not applying VAT, not regulated by any competition council for market share violations, not offering any valid warranties, using an exchange that is not regulated by any central bank is a ghost story that can only remain as a discussion in your virtual invented courts

Filling DMCA by whom ?

Filling DMCA by IKEA that is a RL business and follows international fiscal and commercial laws in case an OS creator is profiling their furniture using them as background image in a 3D software is one story

Filling DMCA by a called creator in a game that is not a RL business, is not issuing any invoice, not applying VAT, not regulated by any competition council for market share violations, not offering any valid warranties, using an exchange that is not regulated by any central bank is a ghost story that can only remain as a discussion in your virtual invented courts

The point is that you are treating all content the same llan. Neither the laws nor the original S/L creator required or even asked you to deal with the content at Fashionestas in the manner you did. You really have no idea if it even is a copyright violation in the strict sense of the term because you don’t have specific legal notification from the original creator as to the status of the content in Opensim. Copyright violation complaints are supposed to be only from the proven content creator to prevent abuse of the takedowns and give both parties the opportunity to address the alledged infringing issue with each other. Suspensions and terminations of accounts in no way should be because some heckling trolls who at best are trying to take down competing content.

Thank you Lurker.

We do our best to follow the laws that regulate our company’s actions given the location of our servers (California, US) and the country where our company is registered (Israel). We could debate whether they should be changed, but until they are those are the laws we’ll follow.

Understandably you have things you have to comply with. I respect that, but when people present no factual information I feel there is no do process for the grid owner. Maybe you have to act the way you did, but that does make it right per say

It’s complex as what is it isn’t illegal content. Hard to prove.

Anyway thanks for your clarification.

Filling a DMCA takedown notice forces a service provider to act in certain manner or risk losing its safe harbor protection in the US (other countries have different laws). But that isn’t the only way a service provider can be informed of illegal activities on its site (even in the US). A service provider needs to act to takedown such content when it becomes aware of its existence or risk losing DMCA safe harbor protection.

“To qualify for the § 512(c) safe harbor, the OSP must not have actual knowledge that it is hosting infringing material or be aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent. It is clear from the statute and legislative history that an OSP has no duty to monitor its service or affirmatively seek infringing material on its system.[12] However, the statute describes two ways in which an OSP can be put on notice of infringing material on its system: 1) notice from the copyright owner, known as notice and take down, and 2) the existence of “red flags.””

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act

Getting a detailed report from a user can be a red flag. Getting an unspecified report, as had been the case this time, can’t result in removal of content as we had no direct knowledge of what that infringing content was. But prudence dictated we contact the world owner and notify her of the report and ask her that if any infringing content was uploaded that it be removed. Acting otherwise would have been negligent on our part and could have potentially removed our DMCA safe harbor protection.

There are process in place to deal with illegal content. Filling DMCA the legal tool to use. It’s the law ! I’m not for illegal content but in how it is handled. Do I don’t need to evaluate my morality. Theft is theft. But you are innocent till proven guilty, or I thought so. Wait till you are sued for violating due process based on claims that may not be factual. We are a society of laws and procedures. Maybe I should sign and start throwing around accusations so you can investigate those who mod stolen property and sell it as their own. Big well known names

I have right to my opinion and I’m sorry you don’t like it. I love when people talk about morality here do they practice that in rl? ( Not saying you) I’d bet we all have friends In who have copied songs or movies and I’d equally bet people don’t run to the owners or police about it. There are DMCA’s that are filled

There’s a witch hunt going on and if your willing to allow that to happen then you help weaken our legal system.

You run a good grid. I’m sure you are good guy and want to the right thing. All I advocate is let the process be handled by the creators and their request the like lady did here. That is the right way not someone names DMCA Gridskipper.

Hi Koshari,

Just FYI, images like the ones you’ve posted usually go through, whereas embedded URLs are briefly withheld for moderation (buy not necessarily considered spam) until I can get to the moderation panel. Spam filtering is an automatic system by Disqus – I do not initiate spam withholding, although I can review anything held as spam and decide to approve it. I cannot say exactly how Disqus decides which posts are spam, but it does a pretty good job. Having said that, it did erroneously withhold one of your recent posts, which I’ve just approved, and I cannot tell you why it did that. BTW, if I know someone is posting content, as you have done, I tend to keep an eye out in case future posts are withheld. Please remember, however, that I’m not at the keyboard 24/7 so sometimes there’s a delay.

Finally, if something you post isn’t appearing and it should, please email me at: lawrence.pierce@hypergridbusiness.com

As I’m quoted in the article, it doesn’t matter who notifies us. If we have a valid reason to believe that there is a problem then we’ll act to resolve it. In this case there wasn’t any concrete information given by the person who posted about the issue so we were left with pointing the region owner to the forums thread and asking her to “remove any unlicensed content she may have uploaded into Kitely” (that is a direct quote of my request). She obviously knew what it was about and, even according to the person who complained, had removed at least part of it before we asked her to restrict access to her region until she finishes removing all such unlicensed content.

You seem to care more about the process than about the fact that unlicensed content was actually present and removed.

Why do you think it is okay for unlicensed content to be distributed until the content creator takes action to remove it?

An injustice is an injustice even if no one complains about it. Pointing fingers at people who try to stop it from continuing and stating that only the victims have a right to complain and that until they do no one should take action is NOT supporting the victims (content creators in this case). I suggest you take a step back and evaluate the morality of what you’re preaching.

False assumption? Certain the link to your forums gave clarity to the sitaustion. You state you contacted her and asked her to remove illegal content. You do not say you contacted her and asked if she did. By asking her to remove unlicensed content you as making g the assumption she is guilty based this post. That’s how I’d take it if you contacted me inthst manner. And let’s look at the name of the original poster …..DMCA. They are self acclaimed vigilante police seeking out suspected illegal content. Not a creator like the creator that just posted here. This poster validated my position that you people taking matters in their own hands. It’s one thing if a creator bring it to your attention, it another for a random person to make that accusation. Again I could accuse anyone.

We are going to disagree on how you handle these situations. Again I’m all about support a creators request…. not someone random seeking to take matters in their hands.

Again, if anyone finds them please don’t post it on the public forum, just contact me privately so that we can avoid publicly accusing a person that might actually be innocent. I’m in search under Koshari Mahana in Kitely.

Hi Lurker,

The article is accurate, but missing some information. The complaint was done on the Kitely forums. Following which I contacted the region owner asking her to remove any unlicensed content she may have uploaded into Kitely, both from her world and from her inventory. She replied in the forums that she had done so, but the person who posted the complaint claimed that that world still contained problematic content. I then asked that person for details while asking the region owner to make her world private until she finishes removing all problematic content. She did so at my request (we didn’t have to force this change on our own). You can see this forums thread here:

https://www.kitely.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=4396

I suggest you pay close attention to the last post I wrote on that thread. It shows that you are commenting here based on a false assumption about what exactly transpired and how we handled it.

*(I dont’ know if these photos will go through or if they will be marked as spam because they have a url)

These are the two I’ve recently found for free floating around the hypergrid. It’s impossible to say where they were copied from because I have had them for sale in several os grids, InWorldz and in SL. They may not have even been copied from a place where I have them displayed, they could have been copied from a person who purchased them legitimately and actually lives in them. Because the creators name has been changed it’s apparent that they found a way to download them to their computer and upload them again, fully textured.

I can only think now that there is probably no way to get them off the freebie market entirely, especially if they have been put out with full perms (I always have them set as copy/mod).

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4d88508eea41b8d58b516feb19c38e53ab56baef76e9926da1b530ba8a6f1105.png

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8d0c0d82eb52f41767775d69fb32f8e0063a6d9fa650bf0e6fecd164af215f80.png

Ilan, do you feel the a author fairly represented your actions? When I compare your comments I’m not sure it did. Certainly you know if it did.

I’m still bothere that action was taken based on an email. Because I could submit a complaint without factusl basis and appears you would investigate?

I agree. I wish I knew which buildings you were talking about.

Hi Arielle,

I can’t speak for the other people you have issues with but I can tell you that we (at Kitely) treat all copyright violation complaints the same, regardless of where the content was taken from. I really don’t know why you’ve gotten the impression that we focus on content from SL (or from any other source for that matter). If you have a link to any such statement from me then please post it.

Thanks for your post and I’m sincerely sorry you having to fight this battle. Am I correct in assuming you are building and selling in OS? I do support you as a creator taking action and working with grids to address those who stole your work. This is how this process should work, with you taking action and notifying grids. As you can read I’ve taken issue when that hasn’t happened and grids have taken actions without direction from the creator.

Again I don’t support distribution of know stolen product being sold here. I hope you get resolution to this.

99% of the discussions surrounding the copying and distribution of content has been that of S/L creators who do not market here nor can even be bothered to file DMCA’s for it here in Opensim. It has unfortunately detracted attention away from Opensim creators who market here and have also had their products freely distributed. My issue with Ilan, Terry/Butch and Maria is that their public focus has been on content from S/L rather than local creators.
Personally I would suggest posting a couple pictures of your botted buildings here or Opensim Virtual so we know which buildings they are to either remove them from our inventories should we happen to have them or report to you directly who is distributing them.

I’m currently having a problem because 2 of my buildings (that I know of) are floating around the metaverse as freebies. I know the name of the person who claims to be the creator and I’ve tried to contact him but he’s not responded. It hurts. I have not taken any formal action as of yet other than to request that the people displaying the items take them down, and they have, they were very nice about it because they had no idea that the person who claimed to be the creator wasn’t actually the creator. Again, it’s not so much about the money, it’s about respect. It feels awful when I go into a free store and see my creations with someone else’s name on them being given away for free.

Of all the grids I’ve ever been on Kitely is one of the few who show respect for their content creators and I will defend Ilan Tochner to my dying day. I have not found any, not even one of my buildings as a freebie in Kitely. Once someone listed an item of mine on the market, I contacted Ilan, with proof that it was mine (proof is critical) and he promptly contacted the person who listed it and asked that it be removed, which it was. I would never expect a grid owner to remove something without proof. Ilan is fair, he sees all sides and acts accordingly. He doesn’t jump the gun, he investigates. I wish all grid owners were as wonderful and respectful as he is.

Circling back…
Now I am trying to find out how to contact the person who is claiming to be the creator of two of my houses and giving them away for free on various grids (again, not on Kitely). But I refuse to name names on a public forum because one never knows how things unfolded and who is actually the thief until they investigate it. If anyone reading this happens to see any of my builds being given away with another creators name on it, please don’t write it online in a forum, please contact me privately so I can look into it personally.

i would really spend my annual bonus for a 6 months US trip to follow a court about an infringed mini dress shirt paperwork listening the experts and creators explaining the judge about their copyrights in front of an audience

“as interests you” …so modest