Builder Content

[Bruce Lehmann]

With the advent of all these new virtual reality platforms coming up there is an issue I feel needs to be addressed. That is, creator content and its use and protection. In example, when one of the new VRML/X3d based platforms started, I know of at least 2 creators that found out that their content was being used only by trying out the program and then discovering that it (both worlds and avatars) was there. There was no acknowledgement or credit given to the artist. The fact that when the Blaxxun development server was/is up and running and these worlds were listed might give the appearance that this is free content, it is NOT. I manage 5 weekly newspapers and one of the problems I constantly run across is Junior Editors wanting to pull down a great picture from the internet or even their e-mail and print it in their papers. The standing rule is, if they cannot show me a disclaimer on the site or CLEAR permission/releases to use this content, it is a no-go. The internet tends to give a lot of people the impression that it is a free-for-all when it comes to content.
Another point is that content creators need to read carefully when submitting their creations to these places. In some cases, you are literally giving your creations away to the companies.
It doesn’t take that much more time or effort to at least, on the companies’ ends, to give to the creators the credit that they are due. Some of the work available is pure art and should be treated as such. If it was easy to do everyone would be doing it. Including the platform providers. On the other end, if we, as builders and creators, see that content is being used we should let the users know that they need permission or at the least credit the creator.
In my personal case, I have implemented this in the form of not linking any worlds but my own. I had some worlds like the Abbey and the Waterpark on the main page of this site. I have now taken these down and either leave to the creator to link the worlds themselves or request/allow me to do it.
I am not taking shots at these new platforms. I am excited about the idea that some of these are using the technology that most of us like to build in. I merely want to make sure that we as creators are not abused and short changed in the process of introducing these new ideas. Without quality content, there is no 3D web in my opinion. You can provide the way to get there, but it is no good without great places to go.
I would love to see other views and possibly some ideas on how to protect what we create.
I would HATE to see good builders pulling their work off the internet in order to protect it. That would be a loss for everyone who value this virtual environment.

[Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona]

I like philosophizing sometimes... well, I do not,LOL

What one sees in the pictures you show, Alain, is this: one can't register an idea, but you can register the particular shape of that idea. For example, you can register a particular picture of people having lunch in the countryside but not the ABSTRACT IDEA. You can't own all the rights for every pic of people having lunch in the forest. This is what law says.

Thus, I can register a particular 3d world of a house in a valley, but I can't have rights over 3d worlds of other people that have a house in a valley. Mine has other colors, other textures, other shapes, that is what I register. But the abstract ideas can't be copyrighted.

But this is very simple: you can protect your work. Just prove that you own the original document to a host server, and they will delete the account of the stealer, and even the domain name provider will cancel the account of the client. I have done that dozens of times. That's why I told you to register your content.

[alain]

yes yes , you are right ....

well ...
I jumped now on my old puter where I still have , since 2002,
the conférences the artist Valery Granger ( nomemory.org )
made at that time at Fondation Cartier in Paris. ..
It was a flight view about "World Wide Web" , the history of net art etc

http://www.cafepress.com/vgrancher.11075664



But what impressed me ,at that time ,was when he was explaining that he made the first

contractualisation for the first net art piece sold to a museum :

"""A la même époque, avec la Fondation Cartier qui me passait commande pour une pièce de

net art nommée "self" (Ce fut la première fois qu'un musée au Monde achetait une pièce

de net art) pour l'inauguration de la galerie virtuelle du site de la fondation, on

était confronté au problème juridique du mode d'acquisition de ce type d'oeuvres.

Aussi, je décidais d'apporter une solution juridique qui allait avoir un écho

international inattendu, car bon nombre de départements juridiques des musées

n'avaient pas trouvé de solutions et contournaient le problème.
je décidais de concevoir un contrat..""""""



"""""At the same time, with the Fondation Cartier going to command me a piece of net art called "self" (This was the first time a museum in World bought a piece of art net) for the inauguration of the virtual gallery Site of the foundation, we were confronted with the problem of legal mode of acquisition of this type of work. So I decided to make a legal solution that would have reflected international unexpected, because many legal departments of museums did not find solutions and to circumvent the problem.
I decided to design a contract"""""



funny to retrieve it now still on web :

http://www.nomemory.org/conf/data/conf3.html

[alain]

alain said:

yes yes , you are right ....

well ...
I jumped now on my old puter where I still have , since 2002,
the conférences the artist Valery Granger ( nomemory.org )
made at that time at Fondation Cartier in Paris. ..
It was a flight view about "World Wide Web" , the history of net art etc

http://www.cafepress.com/vgrancher.11075664



But what impressed me ,at that time ,was when he was explaining that he made the first

contractualisation for the first net art piece sold to a museum :

"""A la même époque, avec la Fondation Cartier qui me passait commande pour une pièce de

net art nommée "self" (Ce fut la première fois qu'un musée au Monde achetait une pièce

de net art) pour l'inauguration de la galerie virtuelle du site de la fondation, on

était confronté au problème juridique du mode d'acquisition de ce type d'oeuvres.

Aussi, je décidais d'apporter une solution juridique qui allait avoir un écho

international inattendu, car bon nombre de départements juridiques des musées

n'avaient pas trouvé de solutions et contournaient le problème.
je décidais de concevoir un contrat..""""""



"""""At the same time, with the Fondation Cartier going to command me a piece of net art called "self" (This was the first time a museum in World bought a piece of art net) for the inauguration of the virtual gallery Site of the foundation, we were confronted with the problem of legal mode of acquisition of this type of work. So I decided to make a legal solution that would have reflected international unexpected, because many legal departments of museums did not find solutions and to circumvent the problem.
I decided to design a contract"""""



funny to retrieve it now still on web :

http://www.nomemory.org/conf/data/conf3.html

humm

not sure if I reedit my message here ( ? )

I wanted to add that I like his art

ex

http://www.nomemory.org/webpaint/data/googlevg.htm

and I say nothing about his serie " Made in China " LOL

[Doctor]

Hello again.

I am just going to add a small comment to this discussion that might be related to what Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona said earlier. If I understand his proposals (and please correct me if I am misrepresenting what you mean, Hiperia3D), he is taking the view that we should opt to protect ourselves legally in the event that a piracy of our 3D content occurs. I think that this is a reasonable idea for significantly sized projects. However, in the event of electronic content piracy it can (I believe) be quite expensive to try and enforce legal action against the pirate, especially when the pirate is in another country. In addition, the pirate may be in a country that does not participate in any "international" electronic copyright program (in which case the pirate gets away), and the pirated content may have also circulated among hundreds or thousands (or more) of users, and trying to clamp down legally on all possible people that possess one's copyrighted content is virtually impossible (just look at the problems the music industry has with piracy). Thus, I think, most of us in this discussion are thinking hard about how we might protect our content to prevent piracy in the first place -- in addition to the legal (post theft) form of action that one might also take.

Am I essentially correct in the intended focus of this discussion (i.e. protect content to prevent theft, rather than only add legal protection for post theft situations), or do people have other thoughts on this matter? It is not my intention to detract from what (I think) Hyperia3D is saying (which is an important component of electronic content protection), only to solicit an opinion from the rest of you as to what the focus of this discussion should be.

Or, it occurs to me, I am just stating the obvious and everyone already understands the distinction and importance of both pre- and post-theft protection, in which case please ignore this posting. :)

Personally, I have been concentrating my thoughts on how to address the pre-theft protection issue, since that seems like a more technical problem (as opposed to a legal/international-policy issue) and I can have a more direct effect on the technical aspects of content protection (since I know little or nothing about the legalities of copyright protection, but know slightly more than nothing about scripting and networking).

Thanks for listening to (or rather, reading) my comments.

[Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona]

Hi Doctor,

These options are not exclusive. Protecting your rights can be free, at least at certain level.
The url I gave (SafeCreative) is an international organism in which you can register online your files, texts, images etc, and even website FOR FREE.
When you need it, they can also give you certificates of the registration.

Remember every time you sign up for something in Internet, that you have to accept a long contract that nobody reads? Well, in that contract you use to accept things like NOT publishing contents that are racist, sexist, promote hate... and copies of copyrighted content.

So when someone copies you, you can go to their host or domain name provider and ask them to control the situation. They will usually delete the copied content in 24-48 hours, and if the user does it again, cancel their account.

To get this done, they will ask you a number of requisites, that are showing proofs that content is yours, etc. and for that you have it registered at SafeCreative and similar sites. I have models of the letters you must send, I'll post them here if needed.

BUT I think we must do both things:
- protect you legally
- find a way to protect contents by software

[mars]

I will try to explain pre-theft protection and post theft protection to alain using salvador dali as an example.
in his painting 'time' dali depicts time as a number of clocks, some hanging losely from branches of trees, others dripping from a small set of drawers in the foreground. one can imagine that dali must have at some point had paint on his hands like that, time melting and being fluid like this, being something which one can form into representations of objects perhaps.
i hope this explains it well enough.

i just wanted to add that having one's identity stolen is perhaps an analog of what content theft is. a while ago a certain individual who shan't be named as '18' placed a large amount of links to personal avatars on his server with links etc, and even pretty pictures.
i wrote at the time, as did a number of others, to the web host. the reply we recieved was that they weren't interested unless we addressed them on paper headed with a solicitor's stamp.
protecting copyright is from the outset pretty expensive, it would be much better if we had this kind of protection by another means
the fact is that theft of personal property or the means of subsistance of a person is something that even an anarchistic society would frown upon.
perhaps some day we will organize our world to be a place in which things like property are meaningless, a world in which the cooperation of human beings is assumed. in which sharing is the currency of invention. but until then many of us actually need to be able to protect copyright in order to make a living.
it is like, if someone could just take your job would you be happy about that? well perhaps if you could in turn take the job of a banker, or perhaps mr. nicolas sarkozy.. maybe yes, alain is right. this makes more sense now.. and i think that i will have the job of alain, so that i can have enough time to write on forums and make excellent worlds;)

[Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona]

Well, this is for all of you: if you value some of your avatars, please upload them to SafeCreative or another analogous service, register it with all rights reserved, and next time someone steals your avatar and puts it on a page, tell me. I'll help to prepare a letter for the host and we'll try to do it.

People tend to imagine this is very hard but it's easy. Emma and me were copied more than 15 times in the last months. All of them we succeed in claiming and deleting the copies.

Please if your website or worlds are copied, tell me. But before that, register it for free at one of those services.

[alain]

thanx Jordi , I will use it when I will do "excellent worlds ;) " LOL

more sériously ( or less ) thanx too mars to point the "art" question because as I can't speak seriously about protection ( un voleur est un voleur , he has to be punished ) I looked at all the mix between artists , and web and painting etc , as it appeared in these last years ( or some centuries ) .

( hey , hope to see you on Lutece / MixED the friday sept 5 , btw :)

[Doctor]

Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona said:

Well, this is for all of you: if you value some of your avatars, please upload them to SafeCreative or another analogous service, register it with all rights reserved, and next time someone steals your avatar and puts it on a page, tell me. I'll help to prepare a letter for the host and we'll try to do it.

People tend to imagine this is very hard but it's easy. Emma and me were copied more than 15 times in the last months. All of them we succeed in claiming and deleting the copies.

Please if your website or worlds are copied, tell me. But before that, register it for free at one of those services.

I have a few questions regarding services like www.safecreative.org.
1) How can one verify that a site like this is a legitimate service and not a scam site that will turn around and sell our content, or circulate information about us to spammers or worse?
2) How can we be certain that an organization like this will actually do anything that they are claiming, or that they even have any legal power to take ANY action on our behalf?
3) What can such an organization do if tens of thousands of copies of our content appear across the internet? Will they really go after each and every offender on our behalf?
4) What can such an organization do if copies of our content appear on web sites that are outside the jurisdiction of those countries that are participating in international copyright enforcement (e.g. China, Indonesia, Malasia, Iran, Most African countries, etc.)?
5) If a user in Spain claims that the content is his, and that I just managed to register his content (that I supposedly pirated) with SafeCreative before he did, what happens then? Expensive lawsuits? Will SafeCreative cover the court expenses?
6) If a lawsuit and court activity ensues, in which country should the lawsuit and court proceedings be held? What if both I and the pirate are in Canada, but SafeCreative is in Spain? What if I am in Canada, the pirate is in Sweden, and SafeCreative is in Spain? Etc.

I ask these questions because it is my understanding that electronic copyright is a huge unsolved problem and that most cases in the international arena simply cannot be resolved to the satisfaction of the victim.

Again, I site the music industry as the obvious example. There are hundreds of thousands of websites that post pirated music for sale, and that are outside the jurisdiction of any governments that care to do anything about content piracy. As a result, music labels have worked hard with services like iTunes and PureTracks to offer their music in a form that has fairly advanced digital rights management.

I guess it must be obvious by now that I am a skeptic of claims that any (so called) international electronic copyright service will really have any teeth which with to enforce copyright protection. :)
No offense meant to you personally, Hiperia3D, as I realize that my comments above might sound like an attack. They aren't meant that way.
I would be very interested to hear your views regarding the six questions I listed above, as well as the views of everyone else.

--- Doctor (not trying to provoke an argument, just some discussion) ---

[Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona]

Doctor, the answer to those questions is simple: those services don't do that. They're not a lawyer, if you want to claim something in the court, they won't. Those are just a register. You will have to do it yourself.

You may not need SafeCreative or others (I don't remember the names, but many bloggers use another service). For example, if you sent your content to some service in which a time date was associated to it and displayed and that service is a reliable source, it may be used as a proof.

For example, some of my wife's posts reached the front page of Digg and del.icio.us. The dates are there, from when they were posted. A person from Iran copied her articles. We contacted the host and show them that the articles of the Iranian blog were of a date much more later than those of the dates in which other people sent her articles to Digg. In 24 hours they were deleted.

After that, she registered all her contents, and it was much easier.

If you can't demonstrate that you own the articles, you always could ask your host or something for a certification, but it's a pain.


I underline this: services of registry won't fight for your rights, they're just one of the ways that Internet has to register a date associated to your content. There are others.
And I'll add that hosts and providers are not too picky, you just have to show that you are the author and you don't need to go to a trial.
The music example is not the same. Claiming to hosts is much easier.

But you're right in 3 things:
- If domain name and hosts providers emerge (now most of them are in Europe and America) in lawless countries, and for example, one of them is in Iran, you can consider you won't be able to claim anything.
- If people make thousands of copies of your content, you surely will be able to delete them all by claiming to hosts, but it will be a pain.
- If someone uses your content offline, it will surely be unnoticed by you.

And for these, and to prevent, we better find a way to avoid it by coding and software protection.

[mars]

alain said:

thanx Jordi , I will use it when I will do "excellent worlds ;) " LOL

more sériously ( or less ) thanx too mars to point the "art" question because as I can't speak seriously about protection ( un voleur est un voleur , he has to be punished ) I looked at all the mix between artists , and web and painting etc , as it appeared in these last years ( or some centuries ) .

( hey , hope to see you on Lutece / MixED the friday sept 5 , btw :)

well actually yes alain, i think your worlds are excellent, it is one of the ways in which i can know that you are an astonishing and intelligent human being. the worlds are in some way the expression of your best and most salient and intrinsic ideas, at least while you make them.
all should have access to the potential to communicate what they want to add to the cosmos, something through which all of out consciousnesses connects.
we live on a planet falling eternally through space, our mother earth, which we may one day become a part of when existance dissolves to a ground state in the infinity of time..
alienation is not a barrier or a barricade, it is a disconnection to harmony. this disjointedness has some of us working against each other, it dissallows us to redeem other parts of ourselves to the whole which we know.
we must allow each other to have at least a rod to live by
i love your work alain, so i suppose that in some way i love you too
i do not want to see your worlds out of synch and distorted by others. it is important that such imaginings and dreaming of reality are not turned to the benefit of racing rats
protection of code is not the denial of the possibility of teaching, this depends on the builder, it is instead a protection of the harmony in which we can all become people who live in a world full of love and in which we can share the best of ourselves with each other in safety (which is also why it is good to pirate corporate things imho btw (red star))

[Doctor]

Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona said:

Doctor, the answer to those questions is ...

Thanks for the response, Hiperia3D. It sounds like we are on the same wavelength.
(i.e. Registering content is a relatively easy thing that we might do in addition to other protection measures.)