[Archived - Lovestory] Derivation Trees and Copyright infringement.

Posted by “Lovestory” on June 18, 2023.

IMVU did not invent DMCA protocol and only complies with the standard process because they are required to do so.

Harassment derived from DMCA concerns will happen and do happen, regardless of being able to verify derive chains or not.

IMVU tells you to sue the user because that is the next step after a the DMCA system has run it's course, it is DMCA policy and we are supplied with the person's information to escalate the concern beyond IMVU.

The problem is when we cannot even locate the parent product to get as far as a DMCA removal, we cannot exercise our legal rights if we cannot verify or even see the products behind the infringement, and that is the concern I posted about.

I think my end point is, if a product is derivable and gets derived, it should never be able to be hidden due to DMCA accountability. The product is making money, it is profiting, it needs to be able to be traced and I believe IMVU has a legal obligation towards DMCA policy to not make it hard (or impossible) for authors to exercise their rights of removal.

All other concerns you mentioned are unfortunate circumstances that happen regardless if the chains are visible or not.

Posted by “DiamondBones” on June 18, 2023.

I don't understand why when imvu see certain suspicious activity, they don't even wait for proof, they rely on a better safe than sorry method, and ban the account, waiting for them to contest it to get it back. However, when they see really obvious fraud activity being complained about, they barely lift a finger and tell us to go sue the user... This is why so many flock here to do these things, because they see an opening for it.

Posted by “DiamondBones” on June 18, 2023.

@Lovestory​ I know we have this in imvu, which I find amazing. Would be interesting if they could apply it to identical textures as well.

I've met many honest and talented creators who hide on purpose because folks like to try to knock them down for competition. So I can understand why some want to keep their privacy. I've had my products dmca'd out of pettiness and I had to share my real life home address with a psychopath just to get my items back in shop. He did the same thing to my friends but they didn't want to counter the dmca because they lived with children and were afraid for them, so they just took the hit and let it slide, which gave that nutjob the confidence to think he can continue doing it to many more people.

I'd rather only see what we need to see, instead of keeping everything open to the public, because we don't know who is out there.

I think if we're going to ask imvu to reveal something like this, maybe it is needed to ask them to revamp the way their security protocols are done.

Posted by “Lovestory” on May 04, 2023.

That would be perfect, for all intents and purposes we just need access to view these products within the hidden chains and PID's to make sure it is not stolen content, so that we may too remove them if it contains the infringing content. ♥

Posted by “RigsK” on May 03, 2023.

Thank you for the input. What do you think about having the ability to see PID numbers and 3D views of hidden product while looking at the the derivation chain? The hidden products would still not purchasable or derivable.

Posted by “Lovestory” on April 26, 2023.

I stopped asking IMVU to care about the theft years and years ago.. lol

But i do think we should be able to be able to remove the stolen items if we choose. The hidden mile-long chains are hindering that right.

Posted by “Lovestory” on April 26, 2023.

I am not asking IMVU to end all theft as I do not think that would be possible, I ask that IMVU allow all derive trees to have each PID accessible (clickable) for copyright purposes. So that the parent products can be checked for theft.

Posted by “Lovestory” on April 26, 2023.

I am afraid this is de-railing my concern, as IMVU has full control over the derive chain PID's being visible or not. I can then exercise my rights as the original creator and have the items removed via the designed legal processes. I only need them to provide that access so I have the choice to do that.

Posted by “DiamondBones” on April 25, 2023.

Also, to add, I feel pretty sure that if the site made it mandatory to submit our real life info if we wish to upload products to shop, (like make Cash Out Creators the new general norm), that means scammers will be snatching identities more, which is going to attract higher security needs... and since imvu ain't no bank... or prison... or the president's office guarding sensitive information... I'm pretty sure the site is not going to want to foot the bill lol Maybe Second Life could, since I think they're still subsidized by the gov lol

Posted by “DiamondBones” on April 25, 2023.

The problem is that if we want to follow the rules and not use 3rd party sites to override imvu's features, then we have to rely on imvu employees to use their staff privileges to unhide the products to check themselves. This is where being a grandfather creator or retired vip creator is inconvenient because the regular Customer Service ticket agents won't put in the effort needed. Even the current product flagging department is not putting in the effort needed, which is blatantly obvious because when they re-rate a product to UFI, they don't check it's deriviations to re-rate all it's sibling/parent meshes that are the same, or even use imvu's similar mesh scanner to find all the same ones out there that are not connected to the derive. Even google has a similar image search, so i'm sure if imvu wanted, they could add that in to scan products as well.

I'm trying my best to just move on so I don't stay stuck on problems that don't have actual solutions ready. Since we all know of the famous tango dance that's been going on back and forth with hackers and security online everywhere since the beginning of tech, where once one side updates to surpass the other, then the other side works on figuring it out, and this dance continues... forever. So I understand why imvu and other companies have either given up or only spent minimal effort because those who have spent billions of dollars on updating their security still have this problem. Our content on imvu is not as important as our money stored in our Banks, so obviously this company isn't going to invest in top security features available to modern day. But, I would at least like some security programs in place here to help imvu filter out the small fish, so that only the "best" would be scamming me LOL Since usually it's the small fish that out number the big ones anyways.

Posted by “4u” on April 25, 2023.

It's been like this since IMVU began. Sadly the more you get and discover the more you'll realise its organised fraud on a mass scale from the same people in the same location. I'm not sure what it's like currently as I no longer fulltime develop here but for decades there was like 4-6 major and organised fraud gangs. US IMVU support don't really care, and outsourced international workers only want to know the scam so they can replicate via the "family". Solution is, to keep pumping out new products and brand your shop at every opportunity, they can't steal what you're releasing tomorrow.

Posted by “Lovestory” on April 24, 2023.

I believe we need a more long term solution since the problem is rampant.

Posted by “ShopTina” on April 24, 2023.

That does make it pretty difficult to pull a DMAC file take down notice. Perhaps talking to VIP? To see if they could in fact find a workaround.