[Opensim-users] Announcement of inventory tool (MyInventory), mostly of interest to grid operators/grid nauts

Thu Nov 15 13:42:57 UTC 2012

Snow crash,

I agree that before you release the software I would consult a lawyer, this can open you up to a lawsuit.  Something the Lindens from SL have been dealing with since day one.   

I am a grid operator/owner, my grid is small and just starting out.  I am still deciding on open or closed grid myself because of creators licensing because I know some creators will not create on a open grid because of this issue.   

This is a murky subject at best.   See this is one reason I left SL among others.  I have a avi on SL I do not play any more but have items that I have payed for on that avi that I want to use on another avi.   But can not.   Because of permissions.   This is the same issue as moving from one grid to another.  Does purchasing a item give you the right to use that item on another avi or grid?   That is the real legal question here.   I do not know that answer.  And I do not think it has been answered in open court?   I know in the US record and movie companies have been waging a war against digital rights and the abuse there.   

Bottom line should there be a way to control legal rights to digital property in OpenSim.   Yes! The how's and limits need to be discussed between developers, creators and grid operators.        

As for your software in theory a good idea.   I have the same feeling about having to restart a avi on different grids myself.  

I would like to hear from OpenSim creators on their feelings on digital rights issue. I know the SL creators stand on this issue.    

Snowcrash my one and only problem with your software would be that as a grid owner would allowing you to use that software on my grid open my grid to a lawsuit and for that matter would that discourage creators from coming to my grid.   

Todd
Virtual Realms Grid

On 2012-11-15, at 7:50 AM, Snowcrash Short <snowcrash.short at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi
> 
> Before this gets out of hand, let me clarify, this is not a backup tool, at least no per se, one of the features is the ability to backup content from an existing account (a backup which is governed by a policy).
> 
> The primary goal of the project is to move the inventory and the assets to their rightful users and to empower the users to use the assets as they want - within legal limits.
> 
> In an ideal world - except for special cases, the inventory and the assets backing the inventory is controlled by the user, and that is the goal of the project, to bring the inventory under the control of the user.
> 
> To this purpose it currently has two input streams supporting it (one more is planned), the first is client side access to .iar files, the second is download from the users existing inventory, to the extent allowed by law and agreements made between the user and grid operators.
> 
> Knowing that only a few of the grid operators using Open Sim has policies in place, this email serves as an invitation to make these policies public, and to implement - to the extent possible - these policies in MyInventory.
> 
> The question of attribution is only relevant when the assets are being distributed, MyInventory has currently no functionality for distribution. The as yet unfinished and only hinted at third input stream deals with distribution. The current implementation does not distribute any data, it only grants a user simpler way access to the assets the user has rightfully access to.
> 
> Best regards
> Snowcrash
> 
> 
> On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 1:19 PM, Marcus Llewellyn <marcus.llewellyn at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Melanie speaks sense. Consult a lawyer before someone else's lawyer contacts you. If you're willing to brave the legal worries this could cause you, the only sound policy to default to is one that respects how the content is licensed. This includes OSGrid, which respects user's copyrights.
>> 
>> Right now, there is no export permission. There easily could be, but it would require support from both the server and viewer side. Support for it would need to be virtually (heh) universal, or have a default that was agreed upon. A mantis for this feature request on the server side of things exists [1]. Supporting this on the viewer side would take a great deal more effort. You'd at least want those viewers with specific support for OpenSimulator on board (Kokua, Zen, Firestorm, Teapot, Singularity, Cool VL, and Radegast all come to mind). There will of course be legacy viewers (like Imprudence and Phoenix) hanging around that may not ever get patched for it, necessitating the need for the legally safest export flag default.
>> 
>> Things can get even messier. Even with an export flag, will this software preserve the creator name when the content is exported to another grid? More than a few licenses require attribution to be preserved. Will it allow upload to a grid or standalone where permissions have been disabled? I'm sure many content creators would be unhappy to hear they could be. With more caffeine in me, I might think of a few more important questions, and I have no doubt that others who follow this list will be able to supply them.
>> 
>> I don't want to give the impression here than I'm against the idea that a user should be able to backup their inventory. I would opine that most users would love this ability, and that many would respect creator's rights. But many of those same users want their copyrights and licenses respected as the law requires, and steps taken by software like this to ensure this was so.
>> 
>> Marcus
>> 
>> [1] http://opensimulator.org/mantis/view.php?id=5892
>> 
>> 
>> On 11/15/2012 5:03 AM, Melanie wrote:
>>> The reason StoredInventory is closed source and very restrictive is
>>> that exporting/importing of items that are not compatibly licensed
>>> is, in effect, copybotting.
>>> 
>>> The risks in making such a tool open source is that any restrictions
>>> can be trivially removed by the knowledgeable user, creating what is
>>> in effect the ultimate copybot.
>>> 
>>> The people who made StoredInventory were particularly worried about
>>> SecondLife, since open sourcing the project would have allowed
>>> people to remove the protections that were placed to enforce SL
>>> compliance.
>>> 
>>> This may result in SL suing the program creators as well as the
>>> program users and also may result in users of the program, whether
>>> these individuals infringe SL TOS or not, being banned from SL,
>>> possibly permanently.
>>> 
>>> Exporting content not licensed for export, or protected by a grid's
>>> TOS, is theft. Uploading it to another or even the same grid is
>>> copybotting, which legally is plagiarism. Profiting from it by
>>> selling the copies may also be fraud in some legislations.
>>> 
>>> My advice is to consult a lawyer at your place of residence, as in
>>> some jurisdictions producing software capable of performing these
>>> actions is a criminal offense.
>>> 
>>> IMHO, open source is a very bad idea for this type of software.
>>> 
>>> Best regards,
>>> 
>>> Melanie
>>> 
>>> On 15/11/2012 10:44, Snowcrash Short wrote:
>>>> Hi
>>>> 
>>>> I've been working on a client side tool for decentralizing user
>>>> inventories, which I will release as an open source tool in two weeks, some
>>>> of the features may be relevant to grid operators.
>>>> 
>>>> The basic premise of the tool is that the inventory and the backing assets
>>>> of the inventory items really should be controlled by the user. The tool is
>>>> born out of a frustration of having visited a number of grids. Each visit
>>>> to a new grid presents me with an empty inventory, and I can then spend
>>>> time searching for suitable item, clothing, attachments and
>>>> other accessories.
>>>> 
>>>> For this purpose I have created a tool which will allow me to backup my
>>>> inventory to a local cache and then upload the contents to another grid.
>>>> 
>>>> If my tool becomes popular, both the upload and download mechanisms may
>>>> have some impact on the grid-operators, hence this email to serve as a
>>>> notice.
>>>> 
>>>> The basic architecture is pretty simple, consisting of a number of import
>>>> agents, which can import the users inventory and backing assets to a local
>>>> database, and a number of upload agents which can upload inventory content
>>>> to a specific account.
>>>> 
>>>> Backup/Import
>>>> There are two import agents, one which will import .iar files and one which
>>>> works very much like I believe "Stored Inventory" works, which can backup
>>>> the inventory of an avatars inventory. Avatar backup/Import is governed by
>>>> a policy. Currently there are two policies, one complying with a very
>>>> restrictive interpretation of the Linden Labs policy on backups, and a
>>>> completely unrestricted policy, where anything that can be downloaded will
>>>> be downloaded.
>>>> 
>>>> When a new account is registered in MyInventory it checks if the account is
>>>> for a Linden Lab grid and limits the choices of policies to policies
>>>> suitable for LL's TOS, I cannot and do not know if other grids have similar
>>>> policies, I can well imagine that Avination has a similar restrictions, and
>>>> would like similar logic implemented to restrict the download. Any grid
>>>> operator which would like to have backup governed by a more restrictive
>>>> policy are invited to notify me and I will attempt to implement the policy
>>>> prior to the first release of the source code. or supply patches at a later
>>>> time.
>>>> 
>>>> Upload/Export
>>>> MyInventory supports two mechanisms for uploading inventory
>>>> content, traditional upload using UDP/CAPS and direct access to the
>>>> inventory and asset web-services.
>>>> Due to limitations in the UDP/CAPS protocol each upload will create new
>>>> assets, and as of my latest read of the Open Simulator code the asset store
>>>> does not support "single instance assets", i.e. it does not use a checksum
>>>> to verify if the asset already exists, for this reason MyInventory prefers
>>>> to upload using direct access to asset and inventory web-services.
>>>> 
>>>> I would propose that the grids which chooses to support MyInventory augment
>>>> their "GridInfoService" entries with the url's for the asset and inventory
>>>> web-services, e.g.
>>>> 
>>>> [GridInfoService]
>>>>      assets = http://assets.osgrid.org
>>>>      inventory = http://inventory.osgrid.org
>>>> 
>>>> Best regards
>>>> Snowcrash
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
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