Second Life Gang Using Copyright To Stop Discussion Of Its Tactics?
from the this-doesn't-sound-right dept
I'll admit that the details on this one are a bit confusing and not explained well for those of us who don't use Second Life. But, reading through the (admittedly one-sided) documents pass along by Pixeleen Mistral, it sounds like a vigilante group within Second Life going by the name Second Life Justice League Unlimited, and which has avatars designed to look like trademarked super heroes, had a private wiki, which was leaked. The publication, the Second Life Herald, wrote about it, using information from the wiki... and the SLJLU has used a copyright claim to Typepad in an attempt to get the stories taken down. Seeing as the publication of the contents was part of a journalistic effort, it seems like a pretty clear case of fair use, and it's a bit upsetting that Typepad automatically sided with those making the copyright claim. Of course, it seems equally ironic that they would be using copyright claims to take down such content, seeing as they appear to be infringing on the trademarks of various comic book publishers.
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Filed Under: copyright, second life
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Also, I feel that copyright has definately gotten out of control. People and companies seem to be using it as a defense or attack mechanism in order to destroy something they don't like, namely other people doing something similar to them. When it comes to reporting, I know you're supposed to go in-depth and give much detail for the editors to weed out, but copyright suits due to it? What are we supposed to do? Call them "The Group Which Shall Not Be Named"? That itself sounds much like copyright infringement as well as being a boring story.
The world has gotten sue-happy. Everyone needs to stop suing everyone else, calm down, take a chill pill, and learn to freaking relax. So what if someone makes reference to something you did or own? It's at the point where they try to make money from it without your permission that you have to worry about.
If I create an item and call it The Next Cool Thing and a reporter writes about it, I would be glad they used the name and an image of it. I would demand it was spelled right and the picture was clear. If someone invented The Cooler Next Thing I wouldn't sue, I would devise a marketing campaign to ensure that there was no way to accidentally confuse them as being the same. And likely to point out flaws in it. If it was Really Cool I might even buy one myself. And then I would go out and invent The Last Coolest Thing Ever and wonder if they can top that.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The Second Life Justice League Unlimited (which uses copyrighted and trademarked superheroes) wants to stop publication of an article on them by using ... copyright?
Not that most normal (non-RIAA/MPAA) people would really see much wrong in adopting superhero characters in the first place, but the way some people seem to thing copyright and other imaginary property is a license to control the world around them is whacked.
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This boils down to a simple business decision. The party claiming copyright infringement can has a valid claim to sue the service provider if they do not take down alleged copyrighted content. The user who the claim is against cannot sue the service provider for taking down content due to a spurious takedown request. The only sensible option is to take down the content, and avoid getting into the legal complexities of copyright law in order to work out if the takedown request is valid.
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Re: Homage/Parody
Last I looked, that was a matter for a US court to decide on a case-by-case basis. Parody stands as a valid form of fair-use, but only if a court decides it constitutes parody.
As for homage, I don't *think* there is any precedent there. Every instance of homage that I can reasonably recall (mostly fanfic and similar) resulted in the defendants settling before trial.
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Re:
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First...
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is anyone besides me wondering what the hell has this WORLD come to? Online vigilante groups with secret agendas? excuse me, Costumed vigilante groups!!! Filling copy right infringement cases?
I want my Pacman back......
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....
I mean its not as if the items were created and put forth in such a wiki with intentions of public access..
I fthis is the case is it infringement?
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Re: ....
Someone obtains a copy and distributes it widely. Have they infringed on your copyrights?
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Re:
Ironically, if the JLU weren't using names and images that are the trademarks of highly litigious corporations, there wouldn't even really be a story here, now would there?
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I'm just curious
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Re: Re:
Seriuosly, are we that dysfunctional as human beings that we have to recreate the pitfalls of life in virtual setting? We have already seen virtual bullying, virtual thugs, virtual ponzi scams, virtual racism, etc...Whats next Virtual rape???? (probably been - there done that, but who knows anymore?!!?)
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reporting and fair use
There is no serious argument that this was not an example of fair use. The JLU is using the DMCA not to protect their intellectual property, but to attempt to cover up their activities.
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Re: reporting and fair use
Prepare to meet The Anti-Mike.
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Re: Re: Re:
The human race didn't suddenly change its behavior because of the invention of the telephone or the fax machine. Virtual environments aren't going to do it either. People are still people.
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It's a fake story anyway
Here's the website I found: http://kryptonradio.com
Apparently this Alphaville blog that got the takedown notice is about the activities of fictional people in an online game, so it's not a newspaper. They helped some kid steal and pirate a few thousand pages of somebody's private wiki, and got caught.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: It's a fake story anyway
That's a fair number of accusations.
1. The JLU is a charity and community serve organization. Even though they did create a wiki containing users' personal information in order to use that information against them in the context of the platform and possibly action against them in real life.
2. The website "kryptonradio.com" upon opening it has two instances of copyright and trademark infringement.
3. There might be a good argument to be made about the activities in SL being roleplay or augmented reality, but when a users' data is collected without consent, which *is* the real story here, its not a fiction. And whether you consider the Herald a proper newspaper or not, it is still reporting, and such reporting is protected under the law, both constitutional and copyright.
4. You made an accusation that the Herald, a group of people reporting on virtual world news, helped in the releasing of the documents. They weren't *stolen.* They are right where they belong. Its just the contents are now shared and the extent of the activities of what you called a charitable organization is now plastered on the web. More importantly, this is the first accusation I have seen where the Herald is accused of helping steal anything.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The other side of this story
JLU is indeed a charity and community service organization within Second Life. We dress our "avatars" in superhero uniforms taken mostly from DC Comics characters like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc. Many of the avatars in Second Life dress as other copyrighted characters, from Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars, Marvel Comics, etc. At no time do the JLU volunteers make a monetary profit from any of the work we do. If DC Comics asked us to stop dressing as their characters, we would comply instantly, but so far they haven't. In fact, none of the SL residents have been asked to stop dressing as Star Trek or any other characters. As for us, we're just comic book fans who enjoy looking like the characters we love.
One of JLU's missions is to help the "residents" of Second Life by reporting the actions of people who would rather disrupt the enjoyment of others than play the game. Some of the actions of these "griefers" are equivalent to a Denial of Service attack, since they prevent Second Life users from building and selling their creations. For that reason, JLU sometimes researches serial griefers to gather information that could be used for criminal charges. All of the information we gather is available by searching the Internet, and it is (or WAS) stored behind double password protection on the JLU wiki, intended to be used by JLU members only.
Aside from a few chat logs copied from inside Second Life, the majority of the information in JLU's private wiki consists of meeting logs, news stories, ideas for security response and patrolling, and the members' fictional character back-stories. I would estimate that more than 90 percent of the wiki's content was authored by JLU members.
Recently a new member joined JLU, and after spending four days as an applicant, he was given the passwords to access the wiki. Shortly after that, the wiki content began appearing as torrent files, as web pages, and as content in stories in the Alphaville Herald. The Herald has gotten a lot of mileage out of the leaked wiki files. To date they have posted eleven separate stories about JLU's wiki, many of which contained text from the wiki itself. One Herald article contained approximately one hundred reports authored by JLU members concerning activities within Second Life. I'm not a copyright expert, but I do not believe this can be called Fair Use. JLU filed copyright takedown requests against the companies who hosted the torrent files and web pages, and most have complied with the requests. We finally filed a claim with the owners of TypePad, who asked the Herald to remove the material from their pages, and finally removed it themselves when the Herald decided not to comply. As a side note, I would not accuse the Herald of assisting anyone to steal the wiki pages, because I have no evidence of that.
Finally, I want to address the us of the words "gang" and "vigilante" when referring to the JLU. The JLU does not take any offensive action against griefers, even if we are attacked by them. Far from being vigilantes, we are much closer to what I like to call "A Neighborhood Watch in Second Life." We observe and report violations of the Terms of Service, as requested by the owners of Second Life, using the reporting tools they provide. Referring to JLU members as vigilantes is a tactic designed to make us sound like bad guys before you even get to know us.
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Re: Re: It's a fake story anyway
Last time I looked up the meaning of the word "steal" it meant taking something that doesn't belong to you without permission.
And then from what I can piece together from the rest of this juvenile diatribe, the Herald gave explicit instructions on how to download the entire thing yourself. The last time I looked up the meaning of the word "piracy", it meant helping people download stuff that doesn't belong to them.
So it sounds like what you're saying, Jessica, is that you support stealing and piracy, because it sure looks like that's what happened here. You don't have to be Einstein to read that article and not figure out what was really going on here. It sounds like a lot of kids got together and made up some kind of justification for stealing somebody else's stuff and went for it.
And now because they don't have a legal leg to stand on, they're engaging in misdirection and handwaving to make it look like it might not have been illegal and hope nobody notices. This may fool the kids because it's what they want to hear, but it won't fool any grownups reading this.
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Believe Alphaville "Facts"?
The issue with the content on the Herald was not limited to a few small excerpts used to illustrate the content of articles. In some cases the articles were mostly or even completely comprised of copied materials. Also, comments on Herald articles are moderated and the administrators willfully permitted links to full archives of entire website downloads. Very a much in violation of copyright laws, both domestic and international.
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An interesting tidbit of information
Here's a quote from the leader of the Justice League Unlimited talking about shooting griefers if he ever sees them in person.
[22:35] Kalel Venkman: Had I been home at the time, I'd have been within my legal rights to shoot them all dead
on the spot.
[22:35] Kalel Venkman: Four shots, wouldn't even empty the clip
Here's a snippet of California's cyberstalking laws:
422. Any person who willfully threatens to commit a crime which
will result in death or great bodily injury to another person, with
the specific intent that the statement, made verbally, in writing, or
by means of an electronic communication device, is to be taken as a
threat, even if there is no intent of actually carrying it out,
which, on its face and under the circumstances in which it is made,
is so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate, and specific as to
convey to the person threatened, a gravity of purpose and an
immediate prospect of execution of the threat, and thereby causes
that person reasonably to be in sustained fear for his or her own
safety or for his or her immediate family's safety, shall be punished
by imprisonment in the county jail not to exceed one year, or by
imprisonment in the state prison.
For the purposes of this section, "immediate family" means any
spouse, whether by marriage or not, parent, child, any person related
by consanguinity or affinity within the second degree, or any other
person who regularly resides in the household, or who, within the
prior six months, regularly resided in the household.
"Electronic communication device" includes, but is not limited to,
telephones, cellular telephones, computers, video recorders, fax
machines, or pagers. "Electronic communication" has the same meaning
as the term defined in Subsection 12 of Section 2510 of Title 18 of
the United States Code.
California's Castle laws only apply when an intruder is INSIDE a person's house AND presenting an immediate threat.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
An interesting tidbit of information
Here's a quote from the leader of the Justice League Unlimited talking about shooting griefers if he ever sees them in person.
[22:35] Kalel Venkman: Had I been home at the time, I'd have been within my legal rights to shoot them all dead
on the spot.
[22:35] Kalel Venkman: Four shots, wouldn't even empty the clip
Here's a snippet of California's cyberstalking laws:
422. Any person who willfully threatens to commit a crime which
will result in death or great bodily injury to another person, with
the specific intent that the statement, made verbally, in writing, or
by means of an electronic communication device, is to be taken as a
threat, even if there is no intent of actually carrying it out,
which, on its face and under the circumstances in which it is made,
is so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate, and specific as to
convey to the person threatened, a gravity of purpose and an
immediate prospect of execution of the threat, and thereby causes
that person reasonably to be in sustained fear for his or her own
safety or for his or her immediate family's safety, shall be punished
by imprisonment in the county jail not to exceed one year, or by
imprisonment in the state prison.
For the purposes of this section, "immediate family" means any
spouse, whether by marriage or not, parent, child, any person related
by consanguinity or affinity within the second degree, or any other
person who regularly resides in the household, or who, within the
prior six months, regularly resided in the household.
"Electronic communication device" includes, but is not limited to,
telephones, cellular telephones, computers, video recorders, fax
machines, or pagers. "Electronic communication" has the same meaning
as the term defined in Subsection 12 of Section 2510 of Title 18 of
the United States Code.
California's Castle laws only apply when an intruder is INSIDE a person's house AND presenting an immediate threat.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
the takedown notice
.....
Jen Beeghly-Hills, Jan 27 06:02 pm (PST):
Dear Sir or Ma-am-
We apologize for the need to contact you, but it has been brought to our attention that content attached to your blog at http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/ is currently in violation of TypePad's Terms of Service. You can view TypePad's Terms of Service at: http://www.typepad.com/legal/terms-of-service.html
Specifically, you are displaying copyrighted text and images without permission. Because of this, we must ask that you remove the following content as soon as possible and that you not repost this material, even partially. Here is the list of content which needs to be removed:
From the post:
http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2010/01/jlu-wiki-reindexed-and-republished.html
* the image: http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/.a/6a00d8341bf70253ef0128771a194c970c-320pi
From the post:
http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2010/01/justice-league-unlimited-secret-wiki-unmasked-by- the-wrong-hands.html
* the image: http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/.a/6a00d8341bf70253ef012876c304a7970c-popup
* the text:
"[18:49] Heinrich Arun: There is a Jewcamp
[18:49] Heinrich Arun: on Sl
[18:49] Gaara Sandalwood: Oh gawd seriously?
[18:49] Heinrich Arun: Zeide Camp
[18:49] Heinrich Arun: Yes
[18:49] KFCMan Nexen: so where are we trollin
[18:49] Gaara Sandalwood: Okay screw these fail plans KFC's been doign I'm
checkign that out
[18:54] Leebra Mai: backup
[18:59] Gaara Sandalwood: JLU faggot right here
[18:59] Gaara Sandalwood: In the zeide kamp sim
[18:59] Heinrich Arun: Oh man
[19:00] Heinrich Arun: On mein way
[19:00] Gaara Sandalwood: WHOOOO
[19:01] Heinrich Arun: Hey, shit getting hot down here
[19:01] Heinrich Arun: Requesting /b/ack up
[19:02] Gaara Sandalwood: Two JLU here
[19:02] Gaara Sandalwood: Everyone fail plannign gtf here
[19:02] Atheron Alter: Where are the JLU?
[19:03] Heinrich Arun: Zeide Kamp
[19:03] Heinrich Arun: Jew town
[19:08] Leebra Mai: and being drunk
[19:08] Lyra Gravois: I JUST ADDED
[19:08] Leebra Mai: please join us at WU
[19:08] Lyra Gravois: COBY TO THE EQUATION
[19:08] Lyra Gravois: lololol
[19:08] Leebra Mai: oh shit"
From the post:
http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2010/01/jlu-wiki-leak-plexus-linden-gives-superman-copyri ght-tap-dance-lessons.html
* the text starting with:
"Meeting of October 07, 2007 morning
[9:40] Plexus Linden: Ok...just for clarifications sake
[9:41] Kalel Venkman: Yes?"
through the last line of the post:
"[10:03] Kalel Venkman: [20:25] Barbara Onomatopoeia: may i share that
with kalel
venkman and other members of the group?
[10:03] Kalel Venkman: [20:25] Plexus Linden: Certainly ;-)"
From the post:
http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2010/01/jlu-wiki-leak-second-life-abuse-report-frenzy.htm l
* the image: http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/.a/6a00d8341bf70253ef0120a7e8d490970b-pi
* the entire table which starts with the item:
IR# Subject Filer Date Filed Reported From Report Text
4384 phils ghost Superman Magneto 2010-01-06 14:57:21 Sandbox Goguen Phils was spotted copybotting a car wearing clothes that he used copybot to aquire
and continues through the end of the post.
From the post:
http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2010/01/linden-gteam-and-jlu-improper-conduct.html
* the image: http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/.a/6a00d8341bf70253ef012876cabc0e970c-pi
* the text which starts with:
"Not the leader of the Linden Labs Governance and Response Team, but
certainly one of its more influential members. Of the G-Team, Plexus is
the most conversational and responsive, and is currently listed in the
Brainiac database as an external operative. This gives him access to our
communications system, and the ability to wear and use the avatar key
logger in the commlink (which he uses in full knowledge of what it does)
and the ability to use the Brainiac Mini terminal he now wears on his
right shoulder."
through the last line of the post:
"[9:24] Samantha Lowell: I suggest, for the time being, we keep a very
low profile in the field"
Additionally, any of the copyrighted content which is reproduced in the comments of your blog is your responsibility and thus needs to be removed.
Please remove this material as soon as possible and contact us to let us know of your compliance. If we have not heard back from you within two business days, specifically by January 29, 2010, we will remove the disputed content.
Sincerely,
Jen
TypePad One
Six Apart Ltd
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: ....
You know quite well it isn't as simple as that. The JLU have illegally copied private chatlogs between nonmembers, given to them by corrupt Linden Lab employees (in violation of LL's Terms of Service), which the JLU are now claiming is "Their" property...
Furthermore, the wiki contains a number of false, defamatory and libelous statements about competitors in the grid security business (such as myself), which were used as a basis for a rumor campaign outside the group to damage those persons business reputations. You can't copyright that stuff either...
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Re: I'm just curious
Second Life users own their content. However in this case the wiki in question was hosted on webservers outside the control of Linden Lab, so they are really only tangentially involved due to employee violations of their terms of service in disclosing user chat logs to JLU members.
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about the Herald
Good primers on the Herald and its mission may be found in the following articles:
"Raking Muck in the Sims Online." Farhad Manjoo, Salon.com, Nov. 16, 2003.
"A Real Life Debate on Free Expression in a Cyberspace City." Amy Harmon, The New York Times, Jan. 15, 2004.
"My Second Life as a Muckraker: Inside the Tabloid that Rocked the Virtual World." Mark Wallace, Wired, April 2005.
"Burning the Virtual Shoe Leather." Stephen Totilo, The Columbia Journalism Review. July/August, 2007.
The Second Life Herald by Peter Ludlow and Mark Wallace: a chronicle of the emerging societies in cyberspace. Mathew Shaer, LA Times Book Review, Nov. 11, 2007.
The intent of the quoted materials and screenshots were to document the nature of the spying and data gathering being conducted by the JLU and to document the role that some employees of Linden Lab had in this process. Of course, since this story broke there has been an attempt to paint the Herald as being a pro-griefer organization (apparent also here in the comments). I suggest reading these articles for an independent analysis.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The JLU's "mission" is to "fight griefers" in Second Life. They've gained quite a bit of reputation and influence from doing so, in the community and with Linden Lab, owner of Second Life. The problem is that the JLU has a history of infiltrating and helping to organize griefer groups, directing their attacks against wealthy users (i.e. estate owner landlords) in order to encourage them to join their security group, and to give the JLU griefer events prepackaged for them to "combat" with abuse reports to Linden Lab. Because of this, the JLU is responsible for 1/6th of all abuse reports filed on the Second Life grid, and Linden Lab sees them as great "griefer fighters"...
In a nutshell, they operate a huge false flag operation in order to perpetuate and justify their own existence and build their influence and reputation...
As a real world example, imagine if an intelligence agency armed and trained a bunch of disgruntled 3rd world people (say, fundamentalist muslims) or disaffected military veterans (like Timothy McVeigh), who then went and attacked the US, giving the government the pretext to justify passing lots of draconian antiterrorism laws that restrict the Constitutional rights of the citizens and justifies excuses for invading foreign countries and engaging in wars against people who never attacked us.... uh, yeah...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: It's a fake story anyway
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: ....
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: It's a fake story anyway
Actually, it means depriving someone of the use or possession of something, by unlawful means.
The infringement of intangible rights can be more serious than actual stealing, though. Stolen property can be returned, but infringed rights cannot be rolled back to their uninfringed state.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: about the Herald
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
Actually, rape was one of the first virtual crimes in online communities. This article dates back to the paleolithic BBS days, and is a classic must-read for anybody interested in studying online communities, IMHO:
http://www.juliandibbell.com/articles/a-rape-in-cyberspace/
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: It's a fake story anyway
And what you seem to be ignoring is that a loosely defined organization took it upon themselves to pull data without permission and against a terms of service that they agreed to in furtherance of a dubious aim. What you, and other people weighing in on this forum and others, are also ignoring is that the only way to find out if a user of the platform is in this database is for the database to be published. There's no Freedom of Information Act request to be filed, there is no established relationship you can use to justify a court to demand them to open up their wiki without something more than a base suspicion that a user might be in it. And no user outside of the JLU has control over the information the JLU maintains.
Suggesting that publicizing a wiki that consists of violations of privacy is the same as stealing and piracy means that you don't know the meanings of the terms.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Let's get back to the original topic, though. Herald management has stated that the wiki pages were provided to them by a wiki author. Sounds legitimate, doesn't it? While technically it's a true statement, there is no denying that the requirement to provide login credentials twice before a user can access any wiki content indicates that the content is not intended to be seen by the general public. Because there was wrongdoing involved, this meets my dictionary's definition of "steal," which is "to take or appropriate (another's property, ideas, etc.) without permission, dishonestly, or unlawfully, esp. in a secret or surrepititious manner." The fact that the JLU Applicant admits he was "told not to share the information" confirms that he knew it was wrong to steal the files.
I'm sure the Herald editor(s) had a sense of wrongdoing as well, when they published the first article about the stolen wiki files. The article describes the "secret Brainiac wiki," calls it a "leak," and describes the file theft as "group infiltration followed by betrayal." As documented in the initial article, a Herald editor was warned by the wiki's owner, Kalel Venkman, that any technical information the Herald published would be subject to immediate DMCA takedown, yet the information was published anyway. As for whether the Herald is pro-griefer or not, right after they called the JLU "a spandex tights fetish and role play paramilitary organization," they published a group photo of the griefers who stole the wiki files and added some comments sympathetic to that group. The conclusion should be obvious.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
re: GreenLantern's comment
To some extent, I can see a parallel between the user "Haruhi" and Daniel Ellsberg, in that both individuals had access to sensitive, private documents, and both individuals felt that it was extremely important for the public to see the information contained therein.
In this case, the user Haruhi was given legitimate access to this database, called "Brainiac" apparently. Only members of this JLU group, as well as certain Linden Lab employees, had access to this database.
When the user Haruhi saw that the database contained transcripts of conversations that were recorded without the consent of the individuals involved, as well as personal information including location, roomates' names, pictures, and other information, all gathered without the consent of those involved, and in violation of the ToS of the software platform (since this database was accessible from the SecondLife platform using an interface), the user Haruhi apparently decided to give the information to a journalistic entity (although I'll admit that the Herald is more akin to the NY Post than the NY Times).
There were very serious concerns that the information contained in this private database was being used, or could be used to stalk and harass people, or worse (as demonstrated by the death threat allegedly made by user Kalel Venkman quoted above). It constituted a massive violation of privacy for the users who were listed in this database, none of whom had given authorization for this information to be collected, and all of whom had an expectation of a certain degree of privacy while using the SecondLife service, as per its Terms of Service regarding disclosure of private information.
Ironically, much of what was removed from the Herald involved conversations between people unrelated to this JLU, that had been gathered by this JLU organization without the consent of the parties involved. I am still puzzled as to how anyone can claim copyright to illegally recorded conversations between third parties? Perhaps the creators of this database were simply hoping that the respondents would counterfile against the DMCA claims, thus providing their names, addresses, and phone numbers so that this JLU group could then add that to their database as well.
This is where the real danger lies with the DMCA: If someone compiles private information about individuals, information that can and probably was used for the purposes of stalking, harassment, and allegedly death threats...and if someone then finds this database and attempts to alert people as to its existence...and then the authors of said database issue a DMCA takedown order, the publishers are left in a very difficult bind, due to the information that they would be required to provide to the individuals who compiled this database if they wished to counterfile.
Would you willingly hand over your name, address, and phone number to a group of individuals who appear to have already compiled lists of names, phone numbers, addresses, pictures, even names of roomates of their enemies?
Therein lies the problem. Counterfiling the DMCA filed by this Kalel Venkman and his JLU group means handing over personal information, information that in all likelyhood will be shared with his entire group. Information that could very well be used for the purposes of stalking, harassment, or worse.
If I read a chat log in which an individual discussed shooting and killing someone on whom he had compiled all kinds of personal information, I would be very hesitant to counterfile the DMCA claim, because clearly doing so would put the myself and family members in very real danger.
That is the real story here, and it poses a very difficult legal question: What do you do when served with a DMCA takedown notice from someone who compiles this sort of database and talks about shooting and killing the people in it? No sane person would counterfile, and thus it does not matter whether this Kalel individual actually has copyright over these works, because his DMCA complaint alone is sufficient to have them removed, regardless of merit.
But this is small time compared to what might happen in the future. Suppose that the Washington Post or NYT publishes a story about an alleged member of a criminal organization, known to make death threats against his enemies, whose names and addresses and photographs he keeps on hand. If this individual or organization then files a DMCA against the publisher, would the journalists realistically counterfile and provide their personal information to the Yakuza or Mafia or MS13 or some other similar organization?
One of these days, I am certain that such an event might happen. I remember a "60 Minutes" piece about Yakuza members who received organ transplants in the US. If those Yakuza members had filed DMCA complaints against CBS, what happens then? Whether the information is copyrighted or not, it would be taken down if for no other reason than counterfiling is simply not a realistic option.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: It's a fake story anyway
Firstly, the leaker had been personally given authorized access by Kalel Venkman himself, so there is absolutely no question she accessed the data as an authorised user/editor. Thus claiming a 'hack' or 'theft' is a mislabelling.
"Leak" is the proper term for release of proprietary data which was either obtained by the wiki owners themselves in an illegal manner, or which illustrates them engaging in illegal, immoral, or unethical activities. The leaker, as an authorised user/editor of the data resource, was within their rights to release this data to the public because it illustrates the criminal nature of the organization collecting the data, and the leakers actions are protected under the Whistleblower Protection Act, which protects such acts whether committed as members of government, corporate, or nonprofit entities to expose the criminal, immoral, or unethical activities of said organization.
(Some have tried to claim the whistleblower act only protects government employees, this is not true). Said infringement thus serves a public purpose under the auspices of the Act and is therefore protected.
Most importantly, the JLU's activities illustrated in the leaked data bring defamation and disrepute upon the copyrighted properties of DC Comics, Marvel Comics, and Warner Brothers, in addition to defaming and libelling those they spied and kept dossiers on.
Finally, the JLU does not own the rights to most of the content that was leaked, particularly they do not own the rights to the recorded speech of non-JLU members, nor do they own the rights to the JLU logo or to their avatar designs. The JLU acknowledges this in the wiki itself, thus illustrating to the public that they are aware that they are in violation of the copyrights of others and are prepared to take countermeasures if they are ever held to task for this violation.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
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This is all silly
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DMCA Used on Virtual Whistleblowers
The Justice League United, a role-playing group in Second Life, first used their takedown tactics on my blog at secondthoughts.typepad.com when I published the documents leaked by a character who infiltrated the JLU organization. Various file-sharing sites like sharebee also got the takedown notices when the Alphaville Herald later published stories linking to the amassed material of this vigilante group, then the Herald itself had the material removed too after not complying with the notices (I didn't comply either but maintained that DMCA notices were being filed frivolously in a chilling effect on investigative journalism).
I published the JLU document that contained the "brainstorming notes" about a scripted device designed to work with the SL client in gathering data on avatars, piping it to a third-party wiki, and then *making it available on demand inworld to officers of JLU*. THAT is what is at issue. The device itself, designed to violate privacy and scrape and store information including chat lots offworld for ue later inworld, violates the TOS (and RL civil rights).
The Herald has it muddled -- journalists should be insisting on the right to report on public speech inworld, just as they do in real life, especially on public matters in the public interest. The vigilante antics of the JLU aren't a private matter, but impact the public interest as they have taken it upon themselves to spy on their fellow users outside the TOS.
But we should not reinforced a pernicious reading of the TOS in violation of First Amendment protections that would imply that journalists -- or Justice Leaguers -- don't have the right to copy and/or report on public speech in a virtual world on third-party blogs. Indeed, given the closed nature of the private corporation Linden Lab and the closed nature of these vigilante groups, it's the only way you can function. It's a classic whistle-blower's role, and it's a role that not only journalists or bloggers can claim, but citizens' groups, too.
What's in violation of the TOS is scraping the speech and then piping it back inworld to use to harass, follow, speciously abuse-report, etc. people they don't like, not the publication of chat on third-party blogs -- because Linden Lab has no jurisdiction over third-party blogs.
I believe my publication of their plans to spy on people is like a RL equivalent of an expose of a quasi-official group, or non-state actor operating with the tactic consent of a state, that spies on people so as to violate their civil rights. It's not "publication of a design document of a business" which is what JLU says it is (they elevate their RP group to the level of a business and their documents as copyrighted invention documents, but it's surely a stretch).
This may all seem silly and superficial and "in a game," but that's because tekkies don't grasp the larger issues here, that as communications virtualize more and more (in the cloud, on social media, etc.) and mega private corporations with millions of users gain more and more control of people's online communications, civil rights are being violated, just as they are violated if the U.S. government taps telephone conversations. It doesn't become less of a rights issue just because it's in a virtual world, or a private corporation enables their special friends in a vigilante group to spy on others.
Focusing on the fact that the JLU itself violates the copyright of Marvel comics is a distraction -- spying on people with scripted devices in a virtual world to violate their civil rights is wrong whether or not you yourself violate copyright; invoking DMCA takedown notices to stop whistle-blowers who protest this violation of both TOS and RL legal privacy right is frivolous and pernicious.
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Re: Re:
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Re: re: GreenLantern's comment
However, the issue isn't that they violated private conversations only. They did that, but they were private conversations they obtained access to because they were one of the parties in the conversation. In some states and countries, that's all you need to have the right to publish a conversation from a telephone call, the consent of *one* of the parties.
It could be argued that these conversations are not like telephone conversations, however in several ways -- they take place in a public world online with open access between characters in a virtual world in which real life names are not given unless someone decides to put them on their profile.
But other conversations this group gathered were public in nature, i.e. in public room chat, or in public situations like sandboxes where they were undertaking their vigilante roleplaying work, filing abuse reports on people they decided were violating the TOS. So those conversations cannot be considered private, and the right to copy and dicuss them on third party sites should be upheld. But they went further. They gathered all this information, and combined it with whatever RL info or inferences they could scrape off the Internet at large; they combined it with private conversations. The result was a huge database of secret-police style dossiers on people, which they then piped back into the virtual world through the device on demand to be able to keep hunting "miscreants". They also gave this information and this device to Linden Lab employees -- and here's what no one is mentioning! to the RL FBI.
It was their claim to be cooperating with the real-life FBI in the U.S. that prompted me to publish everything I could on them. A Linden Lab employee seems to have cooperated tacitly at one time with these people in violating people's civil rights. For them to stand by while they go to the *FBI* becomes even more troublesome.
I'm all for combatting griefing. I don't take the cynical and nihilist view to griefing so many do. I'm all for contacting the FBI, when the griefing reaches the level of harm in real life or severe monetary loss, etc. But the victim himself should go to the FBI, not some vigilante group.
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Re: The other side of this story
You're an abusive group functioning outside the law, and your harassment of writers who publicize your abusiveness is even a more grave form of violation of civil rights.
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Re: DMCA Used on Virtual Whistleblowers
What?!? We're huge believers in property rights. In fact it's one of the things that we believe most strongly in.
and you only get interested in DMCA takedown stories because you want to undermine property rights and bang on corporations, not because you care about journalism.
Again... what?!? I have no interest in undermining property rights at all. I'm a huge supporter of property rights. I honestly think you must be confusing us with another site.
Separately "bang on corporations"? Again.. what?!? I find it hilarious that half the time people accuse us of hating big companies and wanting to destroy them, while the other half the time people insist we're a shill for big companies and trying to harm individuals. Which is it? Can you get the story straight?
And yes, I do, in fact, care quite a bit about journalism, which is why I write about the subject frequently.
So, please, before you throw around insane accusations, get your story straight.
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You have now been exposed to Second Life's resident toxo plasmosis poster girl, Prokofy Neva, whose paranoid schitzophrenic ravings about leninist conspiracies and bolshevic e-terrorism reach new heights of lunacy in creative prose. She naturally writes better gonzo journalism than Hunter ever could, and unintentionally as well.
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I LOL'd
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Copyright and Common Sense
If the folks who gained entry into the Justice League's wiki had been willing to paraphrase, they could've written whole books on the subject, composed whole wikis of their own, devoted whole online newspapers to the unraveling of the Justice League's internal workings and the intent behind the design of their technology. The Justice League couldn't have done--and probably wouldn't even have tried to do--a thing about it. Plenty of people have been expelled from their ranks for doing just that, in fact, with no further action than a "You've violated our trust. We are no longer interested in your service. Bye bye."
But the Herald and the people publishing to it--and Prokofy too--were silly, and missed what I suppose was a "grand opportunity." Copyright is about more than the simple dissemination of information; it is about the FORM AND PRESENTATION of information and works of creativity. If you can't grasp that (or how it doesn't apply to works created by employees of the government acting in their official capacity), at least don't whine about it all over the Internet when you get in trouble for violating it.
And WHAT trouble? Simple removal of materials published in violation of U.S. and international copyright law? Wow. Ouch. That's horrid! It's like torture, but with an eraser! It's like people following you around in a virtual world screaming obscenities and crashing the server you're working on while trying to be constructive and imaginative. It's like calling a grieving family on the phone and harassing them about their loss. It's like sending disgusting and unhealthy things through the mail. It's like visiting uninvited a complete stranger met on the Internet and scaring his family. It's like vandalizing the property of a business when crashing their online services doesn't work as planned.
Please! Apply a little common sense.
Prokofy: there's no conspiracy. People have been out to get you before--probably still are--and it certainly wasn't the Justice League. In fact, they've probably stood up for YOU (directly and indirectly, both against griefers and Linden Lab) more often than you realize or care to admit. You have a lot to be angry about; it's a shame you're having trouble aiming it in the right direction, and instead see the need to lash out at anyone around you whom you think you can hurt through print.
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Related to that is the fact that much of what was reprinted, and then taken down due to DMCA complaints, involved that same information, including chat logs between individuals that were not affiliated with the DMCA filers at all, thus questioning the validity of the copyright claims. I would highly doubt that claims to copyright the conversations of others, especially when recorded without their consent, would stand up in any court in the US. You mention "form and presentation," but the chatlogs were presented exactly as they would have appeared in the game, or as printed out from the game, so the "form and presentation," if anything, belongs to Linden Lab, and thus it would be their responsibility to file the DMCA. As for the personal information and pictures that allegedly were on this database, without the consent of the parties involved...look, even the best litigator you could find wouldn't be able to win that case for you. You can't claim copyright to someone else's image or personal information without their consent.
Furthermore, it would be difficult to paraphrase the discussions of the "inner workings" of the JLU's "technology" because the information that had been compiled was basically just vaporware. It was barely in the planning stages. No code had been written, not even pseudocode, it was just a summary of a future plan. I'm not sure exactly how it could have been paraphrased any more than it already was, and as there were no specific trade secrets involved it could easily fall under Fair Use. I saw nothing other than a description of a plan for possible implementation in the future of a system without much discussion of how it would actually be programmed. The main point for publishing that information again falls under Fair Use because the plan mentioned the possibility that this system would block thousands of users without their knowledge. The DMCA filer could easily have asked to remove any information that was sensitive or a trade secret, while leaving the parts that would fall under journalistic Fair Use, but that was not what occurred.
You mention a number of very disturbing events, and I hope that those things have not happened. Harassment and stalking and similar actions ought to be handled by the criminal justice system. If they happen in a virtual world, they should be handled by the service provider, or by the individuals who are leasing the servers from the service providers (ie Estate Owners/Managers). If stalking and harassing crosses from the internet over into the real world, then law enforcement agencies can easily subpoena the relevant data from the service provider (Linden Lab). Law enforcement agencies serve warrants to service providers such as ISPs to obtain data on other computer-related crimes, after all.
However, I fail to see how this JLU group has stood up for anyone but themselves. Linden Lab has provided users with tools to remove troublemakers from areas that they have purchased or leased from LL. The Terms of Service are quite clear about how residents should resolve disputes or in-world harassment, and the Land and Estate tools that can be used to remove troublemakers are very easy to use. I see no mention in the Terms of Service for the Second Life platform that authorizes any vigilante group to act as any sort of police force, and I see very clear guidance in the Terms of Service that specifically prohibit the collection and dissemination of personal information such as was done with this database.
If you want to stop the problem of "griefing" in Second Life, why don't you take off the spandex panties and go browse through the Public Issue Tracker, or JIRA (http://jira.secondlife.com) to see if you can help plug various exploits. Hell, if you have a valid SecondLife account, you can even file your own ticket if you feel that you have found a new exploit that could be used to harass other users. Serious security concerns, especially things that might result in server crashes or money issues, should be filed under the confidential SEC section of the JIRA, or else emailed directly to security@lindenlab.com
If you're even more serious about bug hunting, you should attend Soft Linden's Bug Triage sessions....oh, wait, your wiki lists him as a "possible griefer" so I guess that's why you guys haven't made any actual contributions.
If you want to improve the platform, then work with others to actually improve it, by fixing bugs and requesting new features through the official channels like the rest of us do. Compiling lists of your enemies and including all kinds of very scary personal information on it does nothing to actually improve the service or make anyone safer or happier. There are many employees of Linden Lab, as well as many volunteer residents, who have spent a lot more time and effort than you have, toiling pretty much in quiet, working to fix plenty of bugs and exploits that could be abused.
So like I said, take off the spandex panties, roll up your sleeves, and do some real [expletive] work if you're serious about helping other people and improving the platform. Otherwise maybe you should consider setting up a protection racket in the Sims Online or something.
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I wasn't confusing issues at all. If these people wanted to use the information they found when breaking into the Justice League's wiki, they sure screwed up their chance. The chat logs may have been what other people said, but not only did the unique composition have to do with the person who added the content to this wiki, but it was a part of a much larger body of work that was published to the Herald and other places. Taken as a whole on each site, there is no doubt that the inclusion of these works was NOT Fair Use.
No, the people who are confusing issues are the ones mixing copyright with the actual issues they are supposedly trying to bring to light in their publications. The authors of works being shared across the Internet are certainly within their rights to enforce their copyrights. Whether that's simply to exercise their creative rights or to try to, "cover something up," is irrelevant. The publishers opened the copyright door wide, and not only did they discredit themselves big time by violating others' intellectual property rights, but they screwed up any opportunity to have anyone take them seriously about their actual topic of interest. Oh. Except the griefers themselves, of course. They are taking it all VERY seriously, showing the hypocracy of their supposedly sarcastic, "Internets are SERIOUS business," motto.
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Re:
Let's go back to the days in college, wherd you're asked to do a report on bees. You go to the library and find a book on bees. The book itself is copyrighted. However, in order to prove your claim, you take small quotations from the text in order to support your claims and points of view, along with citations pointing to the pages you found the quotation on.
The herald did the same thing, quoting from the wiki dump and pointing to sources of the quotations. Similarly, newspapers, blogs, and other outlets quoted from a dump of emails leaked from a university during the climategate scandal. What they are doing is not illegal, nor does it violate any copyrights. The JLU needs to pull its head from it's spandex-clad ass and realize that it fucked up. Try to right the situation instead of trying to cover it up.
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I'm also still confused as to what IP rights you have to conversations that were recorded without the consent of the parties involved. Why were those taken down? Did you have the right to publish them yourselves? Are you claiming copyright to other people's discussions?
Let's suppose that someone is brave enough to counterfile these DMCA requests, despite knowing that doing so will almost certainly result in their personal information from the counterfiling being uploaded to this "Brainiac" database for all members of your club to see.
Would you actually claim, in legal court documents, to have copyright over much of this information? Do you think that your "unique composition" argument will actually be successful? What specifically was it that made the chat logs a "unique composition." It appeared that the Herald reported it in the same format that one would find in the printout from Second Life itself. So either it was entered into the wiki in that form, invalidating any claim to "unique composition," or the Herald did in fact edit it to reflect the original composition style,
Also, your "larger body of work" doctrine still fails. You could claim that the published material exceeded that which would be allowed under Fair Use, but you cannot claim that all material then must be removed. Fair Use still allows for some use, and given that the total documents appear to have exceeded 1700 pages, the tiny amount of info published in the Herald certainly cannot be considered to be even remotely close to publishing the whole body of work...and again I must point out that you cannot claim copyright on other people's work, especially logs of conversations that did not include the individual claiming copyright.
No, I think that people are using DMCA and copyright issues to obscure the problem that several very disturbed individuals took it upon themselves to collect personal information, including pictures and living arrangements, of their perceived "enemies" from a virtual world. Regardless of one's opinions of those people who were considered "enemies" or whatever actions they may have taken in this virtual world, that does not justify this massive invasion of privacy.
If you think that only "griefers" are taking this topic seriously, then you are sorely mistaken. Unless, of course, your definition of "griefer" is "anyone who disagrees with the JLU." In that case, there is no point in going down that rabbit hole of circular logic.
Sometimes the enemy of my enemy is not my friend, but rather just another enemy to fear.
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the DMCA counterclaim I sent to Typepad February 4th
Six Apart Ltd.
548 4th Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
Fax: 415.344.0829
Email: copyright@typepad.com
February 4, 2010
Mistaken Removal RE: Ticket #9805: TypePad Terms of Service Violation
Dear TypePad Copyright Agent;
Please find attached to this letter a list of material removed by you pursuant to 17
U.S.C. Section 512. I have a good faith belief that this material was removed or disabled
in error as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material. I declare that this is
true and accurate under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of
America.
For the purposes of this matter, I consent to the jurisdiction of the Federal District
Court for the judicial district in which I reside. I also consent to service of process
by the person providing notification under Section 512(c)(1)(C) or that person’s agent.
However, by this letter, I do not waive any other rights, including the ability to pursue an
action for the removal or disabling of access to this material, if wrongful.
Having complied with the requirements of Section 512(g)(3), I remind you that
you must now replace the blocked or removed material and cease disabling access to it
within fourteen business days of your receipt of this notice. Please notify me when this
has been done.
I appreciate your prompt attention to this matter. If you have any questions about
this notice, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely,
Mark McCahill
[phone number and address elided]
Email: mark.mccahill@gmail.com
Enclosure:
the reproduction of Typepad's letter in the post here:
http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2010/01/typepad-threatens-takedown-of-herald-justice-leag ue-unlimited-expos%C3%A9.html
From the post:
http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2010/01/jlu-wiki-reindexed-and-republished.html
* the image: http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/.a/6a00d8341bf70253ef0128771a194c970c-320pi
From the post:
http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2010/01/justice-league-unlimited-secret-wiki-unmasked-by- the-wrong-hands.html
* the image: http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/.a/6a00d8341bf70253ef012876c304a7970c-popup
* the text:
"[18:49] Heinrich Arun: There is a Jewcamp
[18:49] Heinrich Arun: on Sl
[18:49] Gaara Sandalwood: Oh gawd seriously?
[18:49] Heinrich Arun: Zeide Camp
[18:49] Heinrich Arun: Yes
[18:49] KFCMan Nexen: so where are we trollin
[18:49] Gaara Sandalwood: Okay screw these fail plans KFC's been doign I'm
checkign that out
[18:54] Leebra Mai: backup
[18:59] Gaara Sandalwood: JLU faggot right here
[18:59] Gaara Sandalwood: In the zeide kamp sim
[18:59] Heinrich Arun: Oh man
[19:00] Heinrich Arun: On mein way
[19:00] Gaara Sandalwood: WHOOOO
[19:01] Heinrich Arun: Hey, shit getting hot down here
[19:01] Heinrich Arun: Requesting /b/ack up
[19:02] Gaara Sandalwood: Two JLU here
[19:02] Gaara Sandalwood: Everyone fail plannign gtf here
[19:02] Atheron Alter: Where are the JLU?
[19:03] Heinrich Arun: Zeide Kamp
[19:03] Heinrich Arun: Jew town
[19:08] Leebra Mai: and being drunk
[19:08] Lyra Gravois: I JUST ADDED
[19:08] Leebra Mai: please join us at WU
[19:08] Lyra Gravois: COBY TO THE EQUATION
[19:08] Lyra Gravois: lololol
[19:08] Leebra Mai: oh shit"
From the post:
http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2010/01/jlu-wiki-leak-plexus-linden-gives-superman-copyri ght-tap-dance-lessons.html
* the text starting with:
"Meeting of October 07, 2007 morning
[9:40] Plexus Linden: Ok...just for clarifications sake
[9:41] Kalel Venkman: Yes?"
through the last line of the post:
"[10:03] Kalel Venkman: [20:25] Barbara Onomatopoeia: may i share that
with kalel
venkman and other members of the group?
[10:03] Kalel Venkman: [20:25] Plexus Linden: Certainly ;-)"
From the post:
http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2010/01/jlu-wiki-leak-second-life-abuse-report-frenzy.htm l
* the image: http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/.a/6a00d8341bf70253ef0120a7e8d490970b-pi
* the entire table which starts with the item:
IR# Subject Filer Date Filed Reported From Report Text
4384 phils ghost Superman Magneto 2010-01-06 14:57:21 Sandbox Goguen Phils was spotted copybotting a car wearing clothes that he used copybot to aquire
and continues through the end of the post.
From the post:
http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2010/01/linden-gteam-and-jlu-improper-conduct.html
* the image: http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/.a/6a00d8341bf70253ef012876cabc0e970c-pi
* the text which starts with:
"Not the leader of the Linden Labs Governance and Response Team, but
certainly one of its more influential members. Of the G-Team, Plexus is
the most conversational and responsive, and is currently listed in the
Brainiac database as an external operative. This gives him access to our
communications system, and the ability to wear and use the avatar key
logger in the commlink (which he uses in full knowledge of what it does)
and the ability to use the Brainiac Mini terminal he now wears on his
right shoulder."
through the last line of the post:
"[9:24] Samantha Lowell: I suggest, for the time being, we keep a very
low profile in the field"
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Re: Re: DMCA Used on Virtual Whistleblowers
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090501/0154374713.shtml
Copyright in SL isn't in a mess; if anything, it works pretty well, and the blatant theft there undermines a good system that can work better with more enforcement of policy.
You claim that the physics is so different in SL (due to the analog hole and digital creation theft) that we shouldn't have to apply RL laws to it. Baloney. Everyone does anyway. The world thrives and prouced $550 million turnover in goods and services precisely because it has a DRM system that largely *works* -- something of course you would find reprehensible.
Linden Lab has been incredibly dilatory on publishing guidelines for thirdparty viewers who violate copyright and invade privacy -- they are under tremendous pressure from these copyleftists who you've shamefully fanned in this post from last summer.
The screenshot DMCA gambit has been used once to my knowledge, and it failed.
You took the side of an extreme group in SL that called for this:
"What we do not want, and that's what this petition is about, are the following 4 restrictions that come by default on every prim that you rez:
1) Allow nobody to copy
2) Next owner can not copy
3) Next owner can not modify
4) Next owner can not resell/give away"
Sorry, but if you are for property rights, and for IP, and for copyright, you wouldn't have supported this group and their extremist calls. You claim you supported them merely "on technical grounds" because you said it was "impossible" in 2003. It hasn't been impossible; the only thing that is impossible is changing the incredibly stubborn and narrow-minded tekkie take on this problem which allows code to hobble human progress.
You effectively supported a pernicious, copyleftist assault on the JIRA:
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-8049
My effort to debate this in fact only led me to being permanently banned from the JIRA.
Your fanning of the EFF lets us know your true attitude toward big corporations. Sure, you like *some* big corporations like Google that create free opportunities for widgets and ad sales, but you hate AT*T, don't you, like a good little tekkie.
You get *your* story straight. You haven't investigated this at all, and you've merely lazily posted a paragraph of garbled text from Uri who isn't even identifying the legal issues properly.
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Re: the DMCA counterclaim I sent to Typepad February 4th
His coming to their defense while pretending to be defending principles is revolting.
If Mark McCahill really cared about investigative reporting and free speech and debate, he wouldn't have bullied me into resigning from the forums by letting these very griefers harass me endlessly and call for my resignation and destroy my sims.
What's especially awful about this interchange is Mark McCahill is implying that this speech in SL should remain ever protected, and never discussed on third-party blogs.
But it's hateful and anti-semitic, and it involves plotting to harm people. That *does* need exposure. We *do* need to fight for the right to publish such speech in the public interest.
It's just that this should not become part of a third-party espionage database combined with RL info and piped back inworld in a police operation.
BTW Heinrich posted "eviction notices" on all my tenants' doors causing them to move out and lose me business. That's the sort of destructive crime these people engage in.
Having an attitude that they enjoy endless protection from prosecution for these crimes is all wet, and it's what the Herald is known for. It undermines their case against vigilantism.
I am not for vigilantes dealing with these people, collecting dossiers on them, or punishing them.
But I am for the Lindens and RL authorities taking action. And that's what the Herald can't grasp as the right thing to do.
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Re: Copyright and Common Sense
Alex, you're a total arrogant ass. And you're so used to the stereotype of me in the Herald that you can't see reason. As much as you'd like to posture and get your gotcha glee for the day over this image, in fact I don't view the Justice League as a conspiracy against *me* -- I view it merely as violation of everyone's civil rights and TOS guarantees to privacy within SL.
I'm not "having trouble aiming". I'm aiming at the proper target -- but you just don't accept that it is a target. Griefers are a legitimate target; but so are vigilantes. Can you handle that? Or do you need to spout liberal truisms about freedom of information?
And I haven't followed the line the Herald is following. Read my blog. I don't think this is about copyright at all -- it's about HOW the material is used, and I absolutely insist on the right to publish chat. Absolutely. The Herald has gotten this wrong, not me.
The Herald incites crimes. Therefore its screaming now about the rights of criminals is rather suspect.
Even so, these criminals (griefers) do have rights. To fair and just processes. These cannot be ensured by vigilantes. And the vigilantes have rights, too -- as do journalists. Peter is missing that totally and in the process undermining journalism.
Peter Ludlow and Mark McCahill both have left out a hugely important aspect of this case that in fact they should be upholding:
o the right to whistleblowing -- even if the convos or the documents are private, if they illustrate abuse and violation of the law, they should be outed, and the whistleblower should not suffer reprisal. So that means me as a whistleblower -- but there's also the parallel issue of the JLU as a whistleblower on those committing crimes who are the griefers. It needs a careful parsing, but the way it looks now, my blogging isn't in violation of anything but their vigilantism is in violation of privacy and Internet stalking laws.
o the right to publish chat on third-party sites is sacred. And here, Mark and Peter's the invocation of the Linden TOS is not in compliance with the First Amendment values, and it is also not something even LL demands. They have no jurisdiction over third-party sites. Journalists and bloggers have to uphold that absolutely, and they didn't, and they're stupid.
If you read my blog on this you'd be better informed.
http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2010/01/the-justice-leak.html?cid=6a00d 83451cfe069e2012876d2d286970c
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Re: reporting and fair use
Again, you are muddling here.
You need to be clear.
Did the JLU REMOTELY scrape this chat? Did they obtain it under false pretexts? Without the knowledge of the parties?
Or are they participants in the chat, in public spaces like sandboxes?
If the latter, I'm all for upholding their right to publish the chat on their blog as a way to discuss matters of the public interest, which is the crime of these griefers.
But it's wrong for them to gather it along with data from RL, espionage, speculation, etc. an make a police-like dossier.
You just aren't getting this story straight, and it's maddening because you are undermining journalistic rights on the way to your star turn here.
The JLU doesn't have a case, and your defense is fair use. But they wouldn't have a case even if you published everything that was leaked, including the description of the scripted device, which I published (and which was taken down from Typepad too). They wouldn't have a case not because they published chat, which is ok to publish, but because they used it in a vigilante operation that even involved the FBI.
BTW, your spin on this is all self-serving, just as you did with the Evangeline story.
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Unfortunately, These Aren't Government Officials
It would be grand if this principle could be invoked about Linden Lab and the paramilitary groups it uses to police other residents.
In form, if not substance, they are like a corrupt Latin American or Eurasian government with death squads.
But in reality, they are just a social media company. They're a private company. They can do what they want. If they chose to have some of their little friends help them with governance, it's going to be hard to prove that they can't do that in their private club.
Still, I'm for trying, as I think these platforms with common carrier status and safe harbour and all the rest should have to protect civil rights like a government as they play that role in this case.
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Re: Re: Re: DMCA Used on Virtual Whistleblowers
Wait, so you posted a ridiculously uninformed opinion, which I didn't even respond to, and that's your proof?
Again before you throw around ridiculous accusations, get your story straight.
Copyright in SL isn't in a mess; if anything, it works pretty well, and the blatant theft there undermines a good system that can work better with more enforcement of policy.
If you are calling copyright infringement theft then you clearly do not understand this issue enough to discuss it seriously.
You claim that the physics is so different in SL (due to the analog hole and digital creation theft) that we shouldn't have to apply RL laws to it. Baloney. Everyone does anyway. The world thrives and prouced $550 million turnover in goods and services precisely because it has a DRM system that largely *works* -- something of course you would find reprehensible.
I find nothing about any of that "reprehensible" but I have to question your claims again. My position has nothing to do with physics, the analog hole or theft. I honestly don't quite know what you're saying here. If you honestly believe DRM is working, then I think you're probably deluded, but if it works, that's GREAT, not reprehensible. My point has always been that DRM is not sustainable and models based on it are not sustainable and so it's a bad business idea to rely on them. If you've found a way to do so, more power to you. That's not reprehensible at all. I just find it hard to believe it'll last. But good luck to you.
Linden Lab has been incredibly dilatory on publishing guidelines for thirdparty viewers who violate copyright and invade privacy -- they are under tremendous pressure from these copyleftists who you've shamefully fanned in this post from last summer.
I don't know what this means.
The screenshot DMCA gambit has been used once to my knowledge, and it failed.
I don't know what this means.
You took the side of an extreme group in SL that called for this:
I have no idea what you're talking about.
Sorry, but if you are for property rights, and for IP, and for copyright, you wouldn't have supported this group and their extremist calls.
I said I was for property rights. IP and copyright are not property rights, but privileges. If you can't understand the difference... and I'm beginning to believe that this is the root of your confusion, perhaps you should do a little research yourself.
You effectively supported a pernicious, copyleftist assault on the JIRA:
I don't know what the JIRA is. I don't know what "copyleft" means. I honestly don't know what you're talking about.
My effort to debate this in fact only led me to being permanently banned from the JIRA.
Again, I have no idea what JIRA is, and I don't see how you getting kicked out of it is my fault or reflects on me in anyway. It would appear to reflect on you.
Your fanning of the EFF lets us know your true attitude toward big corporations.
I agree with the EFF on some things and disagree on others. But I don't see what that has to do with big corporations. In my experience EFF is not against big corporations in any way, and neither am I.
Sure, you like *some* big corporations like Google that create free opportunities for widgets and ad sales, but you hate AT*T, don't you, like a good little tekkie.
Huh? No, not at all. I'm a customer of AT&T and I have a good relationship with many folks at AT&T. I disagree with some of their actions and positions, but there are very few companies out there on which I agree on everything on. And, for your info, I disagree a lot with Google as well, and have taken them to task a lot more than AT&T recently.
Again, you keep accusing me of stuff without having the slightest clue. It makes me wonder.
You get *your* story straight.
I did. You, on the other hand, appear to be having trouble with some rather basic concepts.
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Privacy?
I also note that the Herald's stuff hasn't been restored, which means, obviously, that their counter-claim was nonsense - and they either knew it, and lied to everyone about submitting it, or didn't know it and got slapped down by the Typepad attorneys.
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Update...
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Copyright
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All Fake
The did the same thing with an article on Wikipedia about McCahill, identifying him as Pixeleen well after the fact.
The Herald was forced to change its primary URL from the Second Life Herald to the Alphaville Herald by Linden Lab due to trademark violations, and they moved the server to a Canadian ISP so they would be out of reach of US copyright law because they knew full well they were in the wrong and it was the only move they had left.
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Re: I'm just curious
I used to think the same thing, but that was mostly because I was interested in ideas and stuff, conceptual art. Which tends to be very abstract, minimalist art.
Social commentary, etc. Mis-interpretted as snobbishness but really an emphasis on ideals.
I am not really a practical person, more futuristic, but really, when it comes to digital work, because of the costs and ease of use associated with memory, you need to feel confident about it for 3 years before you upload something and it is serious business, literally.
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Re: All Fake
Compare this to http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/mobile/232200759
Carrier IQ and massive wiretaps, class action law suit.
And McCahill was complaining about avatar keys in an online game and calling that privacy invasion.
Hey, McCahill, get a life.
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