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]

Yes, that is. And I agree in that the best way to avoid something is that they CAN'T do it, if it is impossible through software protection.

Doctor said:

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.)

[Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona]

Now that ExitReality was launched, I found that it has some flaws that have to do with this. I think that the recognition of authors can be improved. My critic and possible ways to solve this are here expressed:

http://news.hiperia3d.com/2008/09/worst-of-exitreality.html

Basically as any url can be embedded with just a special link, many businesses may use your vrml world for them without asking you. By the nature of small worlds opposed to communities, the worlds in ExitReality are much more vulnerable to this than in Blaxxun.

Take it as constructive criticism. I like ExitReality and would like all this fixed.

I fear that many unscrupulous businesses and people may use your material commercially without crediting you or sharing any revenue.

[Doctor]

Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona said:

Now that ExitReality was launched, I found that it has some flaws that have to do with this. I think that the recognition of authors can be improved. My critic and possible ways to solve this are here expressed:

http://news.hiperia3d.com/2008/09/worst-of-exitreality.html

Basically as any url can be embedded with just a special link, many businesses may use your vrml world for them without asking you. By the nature of small worlds opposed to communities, the worlds in ExitReality are much more vulnerable to this than in Blaxxun.

Take it as constructive criticism. I like ExitReality and would like all this fixed.

I fear that many unscrupulous businesses and people may use your material commercially without crediting you or sharing any revenue.

Thanks for the article --- an excellent observation.

The blaxxun Outers also had this problem, since links to many worlds were available through many sites (e.g. people that posted their browser favorites list, or sites like the Teleport) that did not explicitly give credit to the VRML authors. Any wrl files could also be loaded quite easily into multiuser chat mode by using the blaxxun frameset generator, and the wrl files were readily accessible in the browser cache (if not the blaxxun plugin cache itself).

A minimal example of what ExitReality could be doing to give credit to the authors can be seen on the website for ABnet (http://vrmlworld.net/). On that site each entry in the world list at least has a link to the VRML world builder's web page, and I believe each builder had to request that their entry appear on the ABnet web site, so consent is implied.

[Bruce Lehmann]

I agree 100%. This kind of "cavalier" attitude about others creations is one of the things that started the content discussion on WBandD and continues to be discussed. It is one thing to offer them as places to go while giving credit to the creator or at least aknowledging honestly where it came from, it is completely another to re-name it, which gives the appearence of being their own attraction. I too like Exit Reality and would like to see it grow, but not at the expense of the original creators. It will be sad if some of these people pull their worlds down because of this. That will be a loss to everyone.

Also, at least in the outers, no one else could easily alter wour content.

[Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona]

Yes, and they say, in the interview to Virtual World News, that the "repository" took them 3 years to be done. In those 3 years they had enough time to see who were the authors.

In Blaxxun, one of the worst experiences I had was when a restaurant called "Hermanos Egea" used my valley world in their site. They said "visit our 3d chat", and my world was embedded in a frame, surrounded with other frames of their business. I called the attention of their host, mailed them, and they deleted the frame that contained my world.
I also got linked from a spam porno site, that said that my 3D world was a porno meeting place, but I claimed to Google and they deleted the site from their results.

In ExitReality, danger of things like this is even bigger. Because they can do this in that 2 ways:
1) Add a link text or image saying "Visit my 3D home", and link to yours. Visitors will think this is not yours.
2) Add a frame and embed the 3D world through ExitReality inside. For visitors, the 3D world will appear as "Hermanos Egea" did with me.

ExitReality, as it is now, allows this. And the difference with Blaxxun is that with Blaxxun you could claim against the people that did that.
In ExitReality, you can't. You would have to claim against ExitReality.
So it's bad for us but also for them, that may be in legal problems in the medium-long term.

You say you fear that creators will remove their worlds. I did it. I deleted my account and all the files where I had my worlds.

When this is fixed (I hope it will be soon), all my files will be there again.

For now, please add a sign. In the next posts I'll tell what we can do to avoid this for now.

But it's mandatory that ExitReality would add some way to display the author and their sites to every visitor. Some ideas:
- a floating window when one arrives, that appears displayed for some seconds. This window may not be alterable, and will be displayed in every copy of the scene.
- impossibility to edit the scenes listed in the search engine, locate the authors and allow only them to modify these permissions (make modifications temporary only/ or never/ etc at creator's wish)

There may be more ways. The 1st way is easy. Just say authors that they must add their info in the WorldInfo node. Then, modify the search engine and the world index to display its contents, and add a floating window when they come to display it some seconds.
WorldInfo node was designed for this. See this example

Second needs a rewrite of some parts of the program. I understand that it would require more time, but it's almost mandatory. But if they just add the first easy way, it wouldn't be so bad.

[Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona]

It is important that whatever you do, do it together. I mean, if you go to claim one by one, ER may not listen too much. But if all together request them to change, they will listen.

Also, if you consider you must make a legal claim or a public claim in some website or to their emails, it's also good that you make it together.

Before claiming, you must:
- think if you want your world/object/avatar links removed from their search engine results and website, or if you just want the author and link to your official website recognized.
- have a clear idea on why you want it.

Linking to an image in other server without permission is not legal. The same happens with your worlds. Taking copyrighted content from other site and showing it is an illegal copyrighted material distribution, unless the author allows you to do it explicitly.

The bad with ER is that they can waste your bandwidth because YOU host the files, and no one will know the worlds are yours. They are also getting great content (yours) to endorse their business, and nothing for you in return.

In my opinion, only the author should be able to link their own worlds. They could remove the ability to link to a VRML file from outside its domain/folder, and your works may be protected, and they could keep the ability to turn a normal web page into 3D.

Before taking legal actions or even sending a legal request to them, I would send them messages showing your disagreement. These messages should be polite but very clear.

I think that many of you have enough VRML knowledge to offer them alternatives that may allow them to continue their business and not harming you. ER may be good for you, just have to change and respect some things.

Again, take actions together, don't act individually or dis-coordinated.

[Rory]

Reading over this discussion I have the following thoughts on the options talked about.

Encryption of content, Digital Rights Management (DRM). Something that a lot of industries have been attempting for quite sometime with some difficulty. There are various reasons for this but the main one seems to be at some point you have to give the end user access to the content. Costs of maintaining an effective form of DRM would be too much for most companies in Virtual Worlds maybe with the exception of Lively and SL. Even then I have read that there are techniques for scraping the content out of these systems and we all remember the CopyBot controversy in SL.

Obfuscation of code. Useful for scripted content but in the end a competent coder can write a script that could format and rename the source. This is in the end probably more a problem for the coder who has to maintain the code regularly than it is for the pirate who only needs to get around this once.

no_cache in the url. The file/s are still accessible and someone with understanding of how urls work can fetch the missing content directly. This in the end causes the vrml worlds to load slower and puts a greater load on the owner's servers and bandwidth costs as return users have to redownload part or all of the content.

Crediting the authors of content in search engines. This is very important and is something we have heard in feedback of ExitReality web 3d search (here and other places). With X3D and VRML the model that Google uses for it's image search can be taken one step further with the display of the worldinfo node along with contextual links and information. This means that well known authors and sites can drive their reputation and traffic to their pages which they can use to generate revenue and business opportunities. Virtual Worlds can then be integrated more with the traditional 2d web, breaking that walled garden feel of many of the Virtual Worlds.

Disclaimer: these are my personal opinions don't necessarily represent policy of my employer.

[Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona]

Rory, just add support for the retrieval of WorldInfo. Most of the VRML files out there have this filled, even the oldest ones.

ExitReality can just add something to display this. WorldInfo was created for this. Please do it now, go ahead, that would be the best you can do. That way, even if someone takes a vrml world as personal scene, he/she won't be appearing as the owner.

I talk from experience when I say that copyright is not so easy to defend. I have made disappear many copied articles (or parts from them) from their servers. I know the way and as I said, it's not hard at all. You can't assert that as it is hard to keep things right, better don't do it. You know you're wrong.

Of course, there are things like e-mule, but I doubt any 3D platform likes to be compared to that.

It only takes to display the WorldInfo node. Why don't you just do it? It would be a good solution for ExitReality and the worldbuilders... Is there some rational reason to not do it?


Rory said:

Reading over this discussion I have the following thoughts on the options talked about.

Encryption of content, Digital Rights Management (DRM). Something that a lot of industries have been attempting for quite sometime with some difficulty. There are various reasons for this but the main one seems to be at some point you have to give the end user access to the content. Costs of maintaining an effective form of DRM would be too much for most companies in Virtual Worlds maybe with the exception of Lively and SL. Even then I have read that there are techniques for scraping the content out of these systems and we all remember the CopyBot controversy in SL.

Obfuscation of code. Useful for scripted content but in the end a competent coder can write a script that could format and rename the source. This is in the end probably more a problem for the coder who has to maintain the code regularly than it is for the pirate who only needs to get around this once.

no_cache in the url. The file/s are still accessible and someone with understanding of how urls work can fetch the missing content directly. This in the end causes the vrml worlds to load slower and puts a greater load on the owner's servers and bandwidth costs as return users have to redownload part or all of the content.

Crediting the authors of content in search engines. This is very important and is something we have heard in feedback of ExitReality web 3d search (here and other places). With X3D and VRML the model that Google uses for it's image search can be taken one step further with the display of the worldinfo node along with contextual links and information. This means that well known authors and sites can drive their reputation and traffic to their pages which they can use to generate revenue and business opportunities. Virtual Worlds can then be integrated more with the traditional 2d web, breaking that walled garden feel of many of the Virtual Worlds.

Disclaimer: these are my personal opinions don't necessarily represent policy of my employer.

[Rory]

Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona said:

Rory, just add support for the retrieval of WorldInfo. Most of the VRML files out there have this filled, even the oldest ones.
ExitReality can just add something to display this. WorldInfo was created for this. Please do it now, go ahead, that would be the best you can do. That way, even if someone takes a vrml world as personal scene, he/she won't be appearing as the owner. I talk from experience when I say that copyright is not so easy to defend. I have made disappear many copied articles (or parts from them) from their servers. I know the way and as I said, it's not hard at all. You can't assert that as it is hard to keep things right, better don't do it. You know you're wrong.
Of course, there are things like e-mule, but I doubt any 3D platform likes to be compared to that.

It only takes to display the WorldInfo node. Why don't you just do it? It would be a good solution for ExitReality and the worldbuilders... Is there some rational reason to not do it?

I wasn't suggesting not to protect one's content rather I was simply pointing out the difficulties one faces in doing so.

There is already a project in progress addressing the problem of credit. Bear with us the public beta has left us very busy, we have a number of things in the works that you should find pleasing.

[Bruce Lehmann]

Rory said:

Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona said:

Rory, just add support for the retrieval of WorldInfo. Most of the VRML files out there have this filled, even the oldest ones.
ExitReality can just add something to display this. WorldInfo was created for this. Please do it now, go ahead, that would be the best you can do. That way, even if someone takes a vrml world as personal scene, he/she won't be appearing as the owner. I talk from experience when I say that copyright is not so easy to defend. I have made disappear many copied articles (or parts from them) from their servers. I know the way and as I said, it's not hard at all. You can't assert that as it is hard to keep things right, better don't do it. You know you're wrong.
Of course, there are things like e-mule, but I doubt any 3D platform likes to be compared to that.

It only takes to display the WorldInfo node. Why don't you just do it? It would be a good solution for ExitReality and the worldbuilders... Is there some rational reason to not do it?

I wasn't suggesting not to protect one's content rather I was simply pointing out the difficulties one faces in doing so.

There is already a project in progress addressing the problem of credit. Bear with us the public beta has left us very busy, we have a number of things in the works that you should find pleasing.

Sounds good. Anything to help everyone to go forward. I find your platform to be excellent and see alot of promise in it. The people that have spent alot of hours creating their worlds are naturally going to be protective of their content. As would any other artist in any medium. I see abuse of content on the web all the time and that tends to make some people somewhat "gun-shy" of having their content abused. Please don't take this thread as an attack. I understand that there are several approaches to this issue and getting them discussed here is how to get the problem solved. I just want to see a solution that will work for most and prevent quality content from being taken down and being lost to everyone.

PS: I know you were answering Jordi but I had to weigh in on this issue.

[Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona]

Sorry Rory, I think I misunderstood you.

I reported the problem with authoring when ER was in private beta, by email and through other services, and in public forums in the AVW. You can see that my previous review was very positive, though I noted this issue. As that was not fixed when ER entered in public beta, I had to say it.

See that it is my only real criticism for ER. ER is a good product. Most of the negative reviews out there are just stupid. But this issue is something that should have priority 1.

It would be fantastic if ExitReality fixes all this. Good for the authors, that may get what you say (recognition, reputation, maybe new work opportunities as content developers). Also good for ExitReality, as that way they will be considered an excellent service for many people that have a mastery on VRML that you would not naturally see in years if you had to wait for new users to build something.

And also good for VRML and X3D. If they become insecure formats, no one will use them. If some service scraps and uses these without recognition nor asking exists, no one will use them. This means the end for ER and for all other projects based
on these languages.

When someone uses my content without asking me, even if they say it's mine, I use to denounce them, so this is not asking too much. Showing the WorldInfo may be enough for the 99% of these people, and if they don't like, they can just ask you or ban the search engine robot.

I think you will do a real effort, Rory, at least one sees that you have taken this seriously, and I congratulate you for that. People will be patient, as long as fixing such an easy thing does not take forever. Thanks.

On the other side, each one should do their part. I think that companies and software developers should add ways to display the author, ask people before using their content, and in the way of possible, add some protection to their files. Users should fill their real author details, and if they can, also register them everywhere they can.

If after that all someone makes a bad use, claiming in Internet is much easier than in casual life. It is easier to put down a site or delete a web page than recovering your stolen car, for example. It is so easy, that I fear saying how to do it in public.

[Taranis]

Yes, it's a "first" protection. Arsène from Revemonde ( Inside and Outside ) made an opensource example usable by anyone :
http://forum.revemonde.net/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=1666

If a site try to load the wrl out of its context ( original page or chat frameset ) it reloads the page where it should be viewed. Edit the code, indeed :).

Deighv said:

I am not a VRML creator and know very little of what is, and is not, possible when writing VRML code. However, is possible to insert javascript into the actual VRML code that would detect if the world was being run from a URL that it was not intended to be run from? I know this is possible in HTML when you'd like to prevent a unscrupulous website from linking to your content and displaying it in a frame on their own site and if possible with VRML it would help prevent unauthorized display of your world. You could, for example, have the script close the page if the world is found to be on a site, or in a frame, it was not intended for.