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.

[Larry Rosenthal]

I posted an image to this group that clearly shows that the ER browser not only -links too- but copies and inserts- copyrighted IP into "new scenes" that are then "owned" by a new user.

this is the sort of business practice that will end in a lawsuit and damages awarded to the rightful IP owners.

unless.

Cube3

[Taranis]

http://vrml-x3d.ning.com/photo/photo/sh ... oto%3A3082


Larry Rosenthal said:

I posted an image to this group that clearly shows that the ER browser not only -links too- but copies and inserts- copyrighted IP into "new scenes" that are then "owned" by a new user.

this is the sort of business practice that will end in a lawsuit and damages awarded to the rightful IP owners.

unless.

Cube3

[Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona]

ER has provided a solution that I think is good and easy for everyone:

http://kb.exitreality.com/questions/29/Restricting+embedding+of+you...

Please if Rory may read this, can you explain us how to do 2 things if it is possible:
1) Disallow any content from a site to be indexed (allow nothing)
2) Allow only embedding a vrml world from a site that is in a certain domain name. For example, if I own mydomain.com, make my vrml worlds only embeddable in pages that are on mydomain.com

Thanks for making quick progresses on this. We need solutions, not a flame war.

[Larry Rosenthal]

and i assume ER will be providing the SERVICE of doing the work to needed for this solution to all who ask for free? Ill assume there alot of work for them to do-- adding the code to every page on the web. They can start by calling my company and either setting up a license to display and use our content, or provide the work needed to prevent their "tool" from doing it just the same.

the entire methodology here is backasswards.
The right answer is to remove the functionality that allows ANY derivative usage of content NOT licensed for commercial usage by ER. ONLY content on the ER server should be able to be editable by the ER "browser" users.

Guilty until proven Innocent...?



good luck with that.;)

cube3



Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona said:

ER has provided a solution that I think is good and easy for everyone:

http://kb.exitreality.com/questions/29/Restricting+embedding+of+you...

Please if Rory may read this, can you explain us how to do 2 things if it is possible:
1) Disallow any content from a site to be indexed (allow nothing)
2) Allow only embedding a vrml world from a site that is in a certain domain name. For example, if I own mydomain.com, make my vrml worlds only embeddable in pages that are on mydomain.com

Thanks for making quick progresses on this. We need solutions, not a flame war.

[Rory]

Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona said:

ER has provided a solution that I think is good and easy for everyone:

http://kb.exitreality.com/questions/29/Restricting+embedding+of+you...

Please if Rory may read this, can you explain us how to do 2 things if it is possible:
1) Disallow any content from a site to be indexed (allow nothing)
2) Allow only embedding a vrml world from a site that is in a certain domain name. For example, if I own mydomain.com, make my vrml worlds only embeddable in pages that are on mydomain.com

Thanks for making quick progresses on this. We need solutions, not a flame war.

Hi Jordi and the rest,

1) The robots.txt I have previously posted does this but this robots.txt will do it as well:

User-agent: ExitRealitySearchAgent
Disallow: /

This will tell the crawler not to index anything on the domain (please note that as per the robots.txt documentation each subdomain needs it's own robots.txt).

2) I didn't write the particular documentation in question but after a quick look that functionality could added by changing the Proto with something like:

# Line 41
if (worldUrl.indexOf(allowedUrls[i]) == 0)
{

allowed = true;

break;

}

And putting "http://www.mydomain.com" in the list of allowed urls. I haven't tested this but it should work for both exact urls and general domain urls (it should even work if you wanted to restrict a wrls use to a subfolder of a domain "http://www.mydomain.com/myfolder/"). I will pass this to the person responsible for that documentation as it is an excellent idea and assuming my change is correct should be a very simple and useful addition to the documentation.

As a side note I do read most discussions and find the feedback interesting and useful, even if I don't have the opportunity to contribute to the discussion.

[Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona]

Hi Rory,

I ask you question 1 because for some people the access to robots.txt is not always possible because they host their files in very limited free servers.
But, if for example one leaves blank the allowed urls field, what is the behavior of ER? Not allow anything, or allow everything?

The point 2- I see you agree, and it's good because it may be a good solution for ER and the owners of the worlds.

Now what we should do is to make a good beta testing while this is developed. Can everyone test these things?

Rory please clarify what does the browser do if one uses no urls (blank) as allowed urls, and if you do any test or know more about possibility 2, tell as soon as possible.

Thanks for these new improvements.

[Rory]

1) The other method that crawlers use while indexing is to check the meta tag for on the HTML page they are indexing. VRML lacks this specific meta tag, we are already discussing this problem and there are a couple of ideas one of which we will put forward to the consortium as a proposal for a standard. Watch the x3d & vrml lists for developments on that in the near future.

2) I'm not sure what you are asking here but if you use a blank url in the allowed urls it will always block the vrml browser from loading the file, no matter where it is, no matter which browser loads it.

[Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona]

Thanks Rory.

If anyone makes tests of this, please tell us your results.

[Larry Rosenthal]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10064740-93.html?tag=newsLatestHea...

i suggest a read.... Google has continually LOST in these type cases..

cube3

[fabricator]

Bruce Lehmann said:

3: re-name the content (giving it the appearance that it is theirs). Merely finding with a search engine is one thing. Mis-using it under these parameters is quite another. Example: A link to anothers world is not the issue, a link to another's world while representing it as your own is.

Well for technical reasons it's not possible to have chat for ExitReality _and_ not have it start with q.exitreality.com . Think of q.exitreality.com as a frameset generator like Blaxxun had, and I think ER also track which worlds are popular using it.

here is an example listing for an item with a proper world info node:
Chateau
The linked from section is blank, obviously need to re-index everything for that to work.

The only real issue seems to be the lack of a 3d link to the author's site. The vrml version of a hyperlink is a Anchor tag with the description field filled out, ER uses a different setup though. The ER search engine has a lot more information and options in plain html, than it does in ER itself (vote only works in html for example).

Roy, any chance of randomizing the results a little ?
The same worlds always rise to the top because few dig through multiple pages to find some cool new world which was only just added. The lack of vote option in 3d doesn't help either.

[Doctor]

I realize that this discussion is not the place to talk about issues with ExitReality that I am having (but that are not related to the protection of builder content), but since Rory seems to be connected with the ExitReality design team and is reading this discussion I thought I would ask one hopefully small thing --- Where can I submit a report of some issues that I am having with ExitReality? I checked the ExitReality web site and did not see an obvious link to a support page nor an email address to which I can explain my problem. I want to provide the designers with a brief explanation of the display issue, provide a screen snapshot of what I am seeing, and offer a (hopefully) quick solution that the designers might use.

Are there any ExitReality people reading this discussion that could direct me to the correct venue for discussing ExitReality issues?

My apologies to everyone for my intrusion into this discussion.

[Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona]

I think this is the time to be positive, as Rory is making great progresses or influencing them on ER, and we all could give feedback.

I like how the search engine is changing, and I insist that adding the display of WorldInfo would be great, when one enters the world or somewhere that is seen.

If someone doesn't want their worlds or domains there, the new proto allows that in a very easy way.

If you test all this, and we spread it enough, so it is known by everyone building in VRML, the problem disappears.