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WindLight, where art thou?! »
Just how did he get the bed?!
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Reuters Second Life as well as Your2ndplace report on the ‘SexGen Platinum Base Unit v4.01′ and the ‘SexGen Platinum+Diamond Base Unit v5.01′ being subject of a RL copyright infringement case filed by Kevin Alderman (Stroker Serpentine in-world) against John Doe (Volkov Catteneo in-world).
The plan of action:
- Force LL / PayPal to release Volkov Cattenea’s identity.
- Sue that real life person for copyright infringement on the two SexGen beds.
At your2ndplace.com Nobody Fugazi wonders about how the bed was actually copied. As far as I know copybot and it’s descendants can copy/steal prims, textures, animations, … but not scripts. There were some - or all - no-perm scripts compromised in the past, though. Now I’m not sure if I ever saw an original SexGen bed up close, but I do know if you recreate an object from scratch (the script the bed is based upon is open source?), a different creater then the original bed would be shown. From what’s said in the Reuters article I do conclude that it’s where the original beds that were suddenly on sale for 4k L$ (+- one third the price of the original):
The SexGen beds are sold as “no-copy” objects, normally prohibiting their replication. Alderman said he doesn’t know how a copyable version of his product began to circulate in Second Life.
I assume that the beds are ‘non-mod’ also, and know of no way to change transfer/copy settings on a non-mod item. So did by accident SexGen released a copyable version of the SexGen beds? Or is there a Second Life exploit only few know about? And if you - in a non fraudulent way - obtain a copyable, transferable item, does that not imply that you may sell it at a price you see fit? A pity Reuters didn’t ask Catteneo how he got hold on copyable versions of the SexGen beds in the first place. If there is a way to change permissions or get a ‘full copy’ in someway, we might be able to transfer the good we own/have into our inventories to an OpenSim server. Which would make OpenSim a whole lot more interesting. Or maybe it would allow us to backup our inventories?!!!! *so hoping this was not an accidental wrong release*
(I’ve tried Sheeplabs’ search on SexGen to see by whom the ‘infrigning SexGens beds’ were created and owned, but that returns only a few results and none concerning the two SexGen beds.)
An interesting side discussion on all this is that Eric Rice finds we should look at the bed as source code: software within software. Yes, it contains scripts so I understand his approach, yet that would make a SexGen bed software, scripted shoes software but a tank top - only a texture and perfectly ‘copyable’ with copybot - a virtual good? Or should we look at our pants, sweaters and prim hoods as Second Life add-ons too?
Update: Using subpoena’s Kevin Alderman’s lawyers were able to obtain IP data for Volker Catteneo. By now they found out how they ‘doubled’ the SexGen beds by crashing a sim to cause rollbacks and ‘trick’ the inventory system and Volker Catteneo’s Real Life identity has been traced.
Tags: copyright, patent, second life
- More of The Same on Trademarks
- Second Life Fankit or inSL?
- Sexgen mystery ft. Google Analytics
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14 Responses to “Just how did he get the bed?!”
I honestly don’t see how the guy could have gotten a functioning bed with the same scripts without a script being copied. And that would mean that there is a fault somewhere. As you wrote, Copybot doesn’t do scripts… so…
Maybe the guy was selling a cheap knockoff and calling it a sex gen? Then it is trademark infringement, which is a weak case because the filing for trademark registration happened *after* the alleged infringement began…
Exactly,
in a flemish forum I already developped a discussion about copyright issues :
First of all, the victim has to proof that the defendants copy is really a digital copy of the original. In this case the DMCA could be used.
In case the defendant reverse-engineered the bed, which is likely because like all software development different implementations can result into the same functionality, we have a case of patent infringement if the victim would have patented his revolutionary product.
It’s sad to tell, but the victim is in a weak position. He didn’t protect his invention, product and possibly his most important asset and is now facing competition from a competitor reverse-engineering his product.
His only chance is to try to prove that he was victim of a copy-bot and script copying. But for this he needs the cooperation of the defendant. And let’s hope the defendant isn’t able to prove that he legitimately bought a full-perm bed.
The outlook for Kevin looks quite grim. I hope the best for him.
The two options on how he acquired it - if not reversed engineered - are:
I’m still hoping for the latter, actually. Is that mean? It’s just, it would open up tons of possibilities for exporting/importing stuff.
Bella - patent infringement cannot exist unless a patent was filed. And if you look at the legal filings, you’ll find trademark and copyright violations were filed after the alleged abuse.
The more I look at this case, the more I wonder how wrong it is. One quote I pulled from an article in another entry I wrote (http://www.knowprose.com/node/17697 ) says that the allegation that the beds ‘are similar’.
Thus, people who look alike are copyright violators. :-)
err. I meant ‘the trademark and copyright registrations were filed after the alleged abuse began’ and ‘the case is apparently based on the fact that the beds look similar’.
Vint:If I recall correct, OpenSim does not do the LSL at this time (well, at the very least, not editable via the user interface), so even if the scripts were “exportable”, they would be not very useful.
There’s still lots of stuff to be done there (well, e.g. so far one can not “sit” on something, or “wear” the prim skirt =) - but indeed it is a matter of time.
And then at some point maybe there would be the reason to do the “LSL to C# compiler”, or something similar :)
or just wait till “official” server moves to C# itself :)
Well, as much as I know about this event is that…
It occured before copybot.
It wasd limited, and cannot happen again.
As well there have been exploits in the past, so…
It is possible that a no-copy item became copyable at some point in time for a short amount of time.
Why the lawsuit, I’m wondering? LL would have reverted the items had there been actual stolen beds, but the money traces are less likely, and they can’t make people pay a higher price for beds that weren’t sold at that price.
They’re very nice beds, though, it’s a great program.
So that’s seems to come end up to LL’s system problem,,,,again?
[…] battaglia legale nasconde ulteriori retroscena. Non è ancora ben chiaro come Cattaneo abbia “trafugato” il letto: SexGen è un oggetto che non può essere […]
is it really a sexxgen bed? We have some that are just like them that we had made from animations bought legally and scripted to do the exact same thing and you cannot tell the differance between the two.
we sell them at a way low price since if you sell a lot at a cheaper price you will make more sales and more money vs a few at a higher price.
In less than a week we have covered the cost of development and since I own the land we have low overhead that allows us to under cut the competetion.
Its called free enterprise
[…] Reuters reports on Linden Lab complying with the subpoena requesting Catteneo’s real life identity data (Remember? The whole SexGen copyright/trademark/hack story?): […]
[…] RL USA news thingie wrote a story about Stroker Serpentine’s SexGen bed and non-Second Life people got really […]
I can see how not a lot of people caught this, but there were some rumors about a bot that could copy scripts. When Linden Labs did get the exploit pointed out to them, they quickly and quietly closed that loophole.
See here: http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/tag/DesuBot/
That was dated July 17th, but anytime within weeks before then, the Sexgen script could’ve been ripped by the very few aware of the exploit.
[…] Rosedale to trial over this? Or is he hoping to achieve the same results that Stroker Serpentine - SexGen beds, remember? - and Marc Bragg - this one on illegal land acquisition and the ‘legal properties’ of […]
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