Second Life Copybot Viewer Download
Doris Joo
If it does exist, does it really matter? I have argued here before that it doesn't. I am a woman who spends a lot of money in SL on clothing, avatar parts, furnishings, house parts, etc. I am not willing to spend time and effort looking on freebie sites for stuff that may or may not be good quality instead of just shopping at nice shops that have good-quality stuff and paying for it. I suspect that most people like me behave the same, and I suspect that that group includes most people who spend actual money in SL.
I am sure that there are many accounts who would drag whatever SL shops have copybotted content, but I question that they would be the same ones who would buy it from the original creators. I don't have the time or patience to drag a bunch of freebie shops looking for free, copybotted stuff. People like me are the ones who matter to creators. It doesn't matter to their bottom lines that someone who would never have paid for something got it free. What matters is that I, and people like me, paid for it. So why are they so hung up on copybotting?
mostly because with mesh becoming more prevalent, there are a plethora of full permissions building kits on sale for reasonable prices, and also a lot of the copybotters have moved off-platform and are into ripping mesh assets out of games and uploading them to SL. Is "safer" for them to do this as a DMCA takedown of these ripped/copybotted game assets has to be instituted by the asset copyright holder who is less likely to be a vigilant SL creator
there is still a copybot exploit of no-transfer assets due to a technical flaw in the platform, but Linden are aware of this and have said that they monitor it closely, until such time as they can work out a technical solution for the flaw
as in the old days, if you'r affraid for copybotters, yell "Quit!Quit!Quit!Quit.........." in public chat...
That had the name to help against copybot (not working of course) But quite some stores had scripts doing that.
The act of copybotting is legally debatable. It is considered theft by those who think copying an original is stealing. That is not always the case. Aside that : copying is also part of natural selection. It' s inherit in nature ( monkey see, monkey do ). If it' s technically possible to copy, people will copy.
I do not condone copybotting. But I am held responsible as an enduser, which is often frustrating. I unawarely bought at one merchant, who banned me outright, because I was wearing a group tag of a perceived seller of copybotted stuff. It' s a means to stifle competition by accusing the customer for what is bought without malintend.
The act of copybotting is legally debatable. It is considered theft by those who think copying an original is stealing. That is not always the case. Aside that : copying is also part of natural selection. It' s inherit in nature ( monkey see, monkey do ).
I think when profit for the copier & redirected revenue from the creator come into play it is theft. Mayhaps my opinion, & I know virtual things might not be the same as tangible product, but if it were to happen to me, I know how I would feel.
Isn' t it up to the teacher or headmaster to decide wether George' s work has been copied or originally created by Biff ? And if they don' t , can we blame Biff, aside harassing George, for (ab)using the system that much ?
I appreciate you're upset because your shoes got deleted, but that doesn't mean copybotting is mythical. It isn't as common as some merchants think and most of the things people think will stop it are about as effective as hanging a lucky horseshoe over the door, but it doesn't mean it's not real or that it shouldn't be reported if it's found.
No, it's definitely not a myth. Someone once pointed out a copybotted version of an item I made in SL. The sad part was that I sold the original item (made out of prims, no less) for L$10, so they wasted about 4 times that amount to re-upload the textures.
Not if the item relies heavily on scripting, as vehicles and games do. Scripts can not be copybotted, because the scripts you see 'inside' these objects are mere symbolic links to the uncompiled source code files. Also, a lot of original content can be easily associated with a particular brand in SL, so people who put copybotted items from established creators on display will be called out pretty quickly by members of the creators' customer base.
It's simply a big slap in the face of any creator of original content, relying on and trusting the permission system devised by Linden Lab. It's especially problematic and demotivating to new creators starting up a business and working hard to get established.
It is one thing to see someone's work and REPRODUCE that work by regular 3D modeling and texturing (or even prims) and another thing to use copybot viewers to get the item in question. The original creator may have taken a week of even long days to make an item. And oftentimes the "original creator" used a real life model as a reference so it was not THEIR creation in some sense. The thief takes a few moments and then sell "the same" product to (usually unsuspecting) avatars.
As mentioned above it "seems" like there is less copybotting these days and more ripping. As I read the TOS it is not "illegal" (as far as LL is concerned to upload purchased models to SL. This all came about when that practice was not only OKed but advocated for Sansar and with both platforms having (at least in part) the same TOS Sansar policy became part of SL's policy. The uploading of other people's models can STILL be illegal though as many of the download websites prohibit uploading to Second Life. And of course as we have seen in the past, some creators present these models as their own ORIGINAL work and then later get "caught" with fairly heavy backlash.
Copybotting and uploading of stolen mesh is rampant in Opensim. There are whole grids dedicated to stolen work. Likely some of mine is there. I know for a fact there are models from Trompe Loeil, Dutchie, LAQ and MANY clothing and hair brands. I have alerted some of the creators over the years.
The people that are taking the time -- often many hours or days -- to make items for Second Life really ARE "making our world". They give us choices on how to portray ourselves and our environment. Without them we would all be in cookie cutter mode. They do NOT deserve being slapped in the face with stolen models floating around. This not only hurts their income, but their egos and their dignity. Just not good at all IMO.
I am sure that there are many accounts who would drag whatever SL shops have copybotted content, but I question that they would be the same ones who would buy it from the original creators. I don't have the time or patience to drag a bunch of freebie shops looking for free, copybotted stuff. People like me are the ones who matter to creators. It doesn't matter to their bottom lines that someone who would never have paid for something got it free. What matters is that I, and people like me, paid for it. So why are they so hung up on copybotting?
There is an old saying. "Never say never". By copying somebody's item you are removing all potential for a need to buy the item. Saying in the moment "I wouldn't pay for it" is no excuse. It isn't about whether we would get your money. Its about compensation for our work. If we sell 400 copies of our work, we earn twice as much compensation than if we sold 200. Twice as much - to the penny.
Third, copybot enables my product to no longer be my product. When you buy an item, that store is the creator, which creates word of mouth and reputation for quality. Copybotted work can appear to come from the copybotter, which could totally kill commerce in Second Life.
Copybot is not a singular tool, of course. I'm sure there are many. A copybot is essentially just a modified/recompiled 3rd party viewer, that purposely ignores permissions. That's an inherent vulnerability of SL, but no more so than copying, say, a video is: if it can be seen -- aka, if a viewer can show an object, or a device a video, etc -- it can be copied. Other than trying to detect the tool, there's very little LL can really do about it.
Don't wanna nitpick myself, especially since I know you to be rather computer-savvy, but 'ripping files' is not necessarily what I would say a copybot does. Rather, as I outlined earlier, it simply does what every viewer does: decode the Matrix, as it were, and show you the object/build. Your LL viewer, or FS, simply has every bit of information it needs already to potentially be a copybot -- except we don't call this kind of activity copybotting, of course. Only difference being, that a copybot will essentially just use the decoded info, and recreate the object, but sans the permissions set on it. This makes them difficult to beat.
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