This article was updated on February 25, 2025 at 1:48 AM CEST with the below affirmation I have received from Linden Lab:
Linden Lab remains committed to upholding intellectual property rights and fostering a responsible digital environment. Recently, we identified and removed an unauthorized media player circulating in the virtual world that enabled the streaming of unlicensed movies and TV shows, violating our Intellectual Property (IP) policy.
Unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material undermines the creative industry and violates our platform’s terms of service. Our Intellectual Property policy outlines our approach to protecting copyrighted content and can be reviewed here: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Intellectual_Property
The original article continues below.
HiVid represents one of Second Life’s most glaring open secrets: a massive unauthorized movie distribution service masquerading as a legitimate service. With nearly 10,000 titles listed for sale at just $2 per movie, complete with unlimited viewing and free shared access, the service openly defies industry standards. The telltale signs of piracy throughout their catalog, from streaming service watermarks to content exclusive to other streaming platforms.
I recognize that this post will ruffle some feathers, and a lot of people in the community will be upset with me for even entertaining the idea of covering this, but we need to have an honest conversation about what’s happening here. While major streaming platforms charge $20-30 for permanent access to a single new release, HiVid offers the same at fraction of the cost, all while operating without any visible business entity or any terms of service.
Investigation Transparency Notice
As part of my investigation, I have shared my complete findings with many of the major production studios whose intellectual property is being sold by HiVid, as well as with the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center and the Motion Picture Association’s Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment.
While this article focuses on publicly verifiable aspects, I have also uncovered and documented additional evidence and findings that I cannot responsibly disclose at this time to prevent potential misuse and obstruction of any potential investigations being carried out by the interested parties. All findings have been shared with the relevant authorities and production studios.
I reached out to HiVid with a list of questions prior to publishing this article, but did not receive any replies. I will update the article with their responses if HiVid gets back to me.
For questions regarding the investigation, please contact hivid-investigation@slnotes.com.
What is HiVid?
Before we dive into why I believe HiVid is distributing movies without authorization, let’s go over what HiVid is, and how it works.
HiVid is a movie streaming service in Second Life that requires its own inworld TV to be used. Customers purchase this TV for L$1,299 (approximately $5), which lets them browse, purchase and stream movies directly from their Second Life home.
Once a resident purchases the HiVid TV, they gain access to their catalog of close to 10,000 movies, each priced at either L$399 (roughly $1.5) for older titles and L$499 (around $2) for recent releases, including movies that have just come out. This pricing is suspiciously low compared to real streaming services – something we’ll have a closer look at later in this post.
The HiVid TV is advertised as including features such as:
- Unlimited viewing of purchased content with no expiration date
- Synchronization feature allowing multiple residents to watch movies together
- The ability to have friends watch your purchased movies with you at no additional cost
- Weekly rotating complimentary movies
- A request system where you can request movies not currently available in their library
HiVid operates entirely within Second Life, conducting all transactions in Linden Dollars and maintains no presence outside Second Life. There is no official website and no real world business entity attached. All customer interactions, from browsing, watching and purchasing movies, all takes place within Second Life.
HiVid is far from a small one-man operation, below is an organization chart of HiVid based on the staff list available at their inworld store location. To the best of my knowledge, this information is accurate as of the time of this blog post being published.
Update as of 2/22/2025: One of HiVid’s staff members reached out to me in confidence informing me that nobody at HiVid other than the owner has any knowledge of how HiVid operates or obtains their movies. They also went on to explain that they are instructed to respond with specific answers when asked about the legality of the movies. As a result, I have decided to redact all staff names except for the Developer and Owner of HiVid.
Some movies sold by HiVid, specifically those sold as Meipons are provided with transfer rights, allowing the customer to watch the movie and then re-sell the movie once they’re finished watching it. HiVid allows the renting of a market stall at their main location for customers to list and re-sell the movies.
HiVid also sells franchise kits for L$30,00 (around $120). For this price, the franchise business get the required vendor objects, access to sales tracking tools and can appoint store managers as needed. The owner of a HiVid franchise make 10% commission on sales and can offer discounts up to 5%. Interestingly, they can’t advertise that their prices are lower than the main HiVid store, even though they’re allowed to have discounts — a bit confusing if you ask me.
International Distribution Rights
This section alone could probably be the entire blog post, as it exposes what is perhaps the most fundamental impossibility of HiVid being a legitimate distributor.
One of the biggest red flags about HiVid is their de facto worldwide distribution of close to 10,000 movies with no geographical restrictions in place whatsoever. To understand why this is impossible, we need to look at how movie distribution actually works in the real world.
Movie distribution rights are incredibly complex and are typically negotiated on a territory-by-territory basis. Even streaming giants like Netflix, with their massive resources and industry connections, must navigate the complexity web of regional licensing agreements.
This is why Netflix’s catalog varies significantly from country to country, and why you have probably been met with the frustrating “This title currently isn’t available in your country” message whenever friends from across the globe sends you a link to a Netflix movie.
The process of securing distribution rights even for just a single movie for one specific country or territory involves extensive negotiations and massive financial commitments. At a high level, these agreements will typically include specific terms such as:
- Release windows (when the movie can be shown)
- Territorial limitations (where it can be shown)
- Duration of rights (how long the license lasts)
The make-believe reality that HiVid can offer unlimited worldwide access to thousands of movies, while charging just $2 per title, isn’t just unlikely, it’s impossible. Why? because this would require:
- Negotiating with every major studio and thousands of independent producers.
- Securing global rights that even industry leaders such as Netflix and Amazon can’t obtain.
- Managing compliance with varying media laws across the globe.
- Maintaining legal teams across multiple territories.
The complete absence of geographical restrictions in HiVid’s service isn’t a cool feature, it’s a clear indication that they’re operating without any legitimate distribution rights at all. Any Second Life resident can purchase and watch any movie from their store regardless of their physical location, something that no legitimate streaming service has ever been able to offer outside of their own productions.
Unrealistic pricing structure
HiVid prices are unrealistically low. Movies released in 2023 or earlier are listed at L$399, whereas movies released in 2024 or later (including newly released movies), are listed at L$499.
At the time of writing this blog post, the average exchange rate, as listed on the LindeX Exchange Market Data page is L$252.7 / USD, meaning that a 2025 or 2024 movie is being sold for just short of $2 and a title from 2023 or earlier comes in at just around $1.6.
This pricing is suspiciously low when compared to legitimate digital movie retailers. Major platforms such as YouTube, Apple TV, Amazon Prime and Microsoft Store consistently price new releases between $19.99 and $29.99 for the permanent access option. For example, the recently released “Flow” movie from 2024 is currently listed at $19.99 on both Amazon and Apple, and “Moana 2” from 2024 is listed at $29.99 across Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Youtube, yet at HiVid both movies sells for $2.
What makes this pricing disparity even more weird is that HiVid includes features that none of the major platforms offer. Typically movie streaming services restrict viewing to the individual user, or household while HiVid allows customers to let their friends watch the movies with them at no additional cost.
When asked, HiVid customer service claims that they ‘pay a fee for every movie that is watched’ but fail to provide any evidence to support this claim. Taking market pricing into consideration, I don’t think there’s a single production studio out there willing to license even a single stream at the prices HiVid charges, let alone unlimited streaming and sharing.
Streaming Service Logo’s and Platform-Exclusive Content
The most compelling evidence comes from the movies themselves. I documented hundreds of instances of streaming service watermarks and intro logos appearing in HiVid’s offerings, strongly suggesting these movies were ripped directly from other platforms rather than obtained through legitimate channels.
When you purchase a movie from legitimate services, you never see Netflix’s distinctive intro sequence or Apple TV+’s glowing logo animation at competing services. Yet, HiVid’s library is filled with streaming service identifiers. I’ve documented movies beginning with intro sequences from Netflix, Apple TV+, Hulu, Paramount+, OutTV Originals, Amazon Originals, Lifetime Movie Club, and others, and mind you, I have only sampled a fraction of their selection.
Just as concerning is HiVid’s offering of platform-exclusive content. Streaming services often invest heavily in exclusive productions that are only available through their own platforms. Yet HiVid’s catalog includes numerous exclusive titles.
Let’s take Netflix for example:
- Chris Rock: Selective Outrage from 2023
- Iliza Shlesinger: Hot Forever from 2022
- 13: The Musical from 2022
- Ricky Gervais: SuperNature from 2022
- Taylor Tomlinson: Look at You from 2022
Similarly HiVid offers “They/Them” from 2022, a Peacock exclusive, and “Disfigured” from 2008 exclusively available on Amazon Prime Video. These are just a few examples among many – all being sold for next to nothing.
How could HiVid have legally obtained distribution rights to content that is exclusive to other platforms? They simply can’t. It once again just highlights that HiVid appears to be operating illegally, distributing copyrighted content without authorization.
Watermarks from known piracy sites
If the streaming service intro sequences weren’t enough, the situation becomes even more blatant when we look into HiVid’s animation category of movies. Throughout my investigation, I have documented numerous instances of movies bearing visible watermarks from well known unauthorized anime streaming websites such as 9anime and Anix.
These watermarks remain visible throughout the entire movie, making it crystal clear that these copies were sourced directly from the unauthorized streaming websites, and we’re not just looking at unauthorized distribution here, we’re looking at HiVid redistributing content that was already pirated by other sources in the first place.
9anime and Anix no longer exist today as they were taken down by MPA/ACE subpoena’s, for more information on the specifics of the takedowns please check the below articles from Torrentfreak
- Article featuring information regarding the Anix.to takedown
- Article covering the takedown of 9anime, and 9anime later resurfacing as AniWave
No terms of use or subscriber agreements
What are my rights once I purchase a movie? What are the rights of HiVid? How many times can I watch a movie? What happens if HiVid shuts down its business tomorrow?
These are just some of the questions that would typically be answered by the terms you agree to when purchasing a license to stream a movie or sign up for a streaming service. Here’s a few examples:
And these are just a small portion of the legal documentation customers are typically presented with and agree to when signing up, purchasing a title or subscribing to streaming services.
Here’s the thing though: ‘purchasing’ a movie from HiVid is buying into an illusion. Without any terms of service or user agreements, you have zero legal protection for your investment. What you’re getting isn’t a legitimate license to a movie. If HiVid disappears tomorrow, your entire movie library goes with it, with no recourse, no legal standing, and no protection. After all, how can you claim rights to something that was never legally sold to you in the first place?
While customers of legitimate services such as Netflix, Amazon, and Google are protected by legal agreements, HiVid customers operate purely on blind trust, there are no safeguards in place at all.
No indications of being a legal entity
While I would have been happy to order a financial report from Moody’s or a similar credit rating agency, HiVid does not provide any business information at all, yet they are somehow able to license and sell close to 10,000 movie titles at a global scale.
Despite significant efforts in searching for legal entities doing business as HiVid, I was not able to find any registrations anywhere in the world. While there are a few entities doing business under the name HiVid, none are in the business of selling streaming access to movies.
You would think that a business with global distribution rights to more titles than Netflix, MAX, and Disney+ would at the very least maintain some kind of business presence outside of Second Life.
For now, I think it is fair to assume that there is no real legal entity behind HiVid.
Mapping HiVid’s library
When I first began this investigation, I started by manually documented each movie HiVid offers in its catalog. This approach quickly proved impractical given the sheer number of movies listed for sale. As of February 1st, 2025, HiVid’s catalog contained approximately 9,767 movies available for purchase.
After realizing the futility of my manual attempt at documenting the library, I shifted my approach to focus on understanding technical infrastructure. By analyzing the network packages between the Second Life viewer and HiVid’s infrastructure, I was able to quickly throw together a python script that would ultimately help me document their entire catalog.
Given the sensitive nature of my investigation at the time and to ensure I didn’t cause any disruption to their service, I made sure to implement aggressive throttling in my script. This meant that my automated data collection process took nearly 15 hours to complete, but it resulted in a comprehensive database of their entire library – pretty neat!
The next phase involved cross-referencing the scraped HiVid data against legitimate distribution channels. I signed up for IMDbPro and started gathering detailed metadata for every title in HiVid’s catalog, including information about production studios and official distributors for every single movie sold by HiVid. and once again, Python to the rescue.
This process revealed some crucial evidence: across their entire catalog of close to 10,000 movies, HiVid is not listed as a distributor for a single title.
My work on data collection and documentation continued close to a week, and some very interesting technical details started to surface, but as it includes information that could be considered crucial in potentially ongoing investigations by the intellectual property owners and authorities, I will have to cover those in a later blog post once I am certain it won’t obstruct any ongoing efforts taking place.
Having the main distribution company and list of distributors for each title in the catalog helped me in prioritizing which production studios to reach out to, and equally importantly helped me build a solid piece of the overall documentation.
The Movie Industry’s Blind Spot
One of the most puzzling aspects of HiVid’s operation is how they have evaded the legal teams of major film studios for three years. The entertainment industry typically acts swiftly (and aggressively) against unauthorized distribution, so why hasn’t HiVid faced similar scrutiny?
I think Second Life’s unique nature creates the perfect blind spot. Despite a dedicated user base, Second Life remains obscure to mainstream industies. Major brands that once had a presence left a long time ago, I don’t think they really understand how Second Life works these days.
Traditional anti-piracy efforts focus on channels like websites and p2p technologies. The virtual world and the Linden Dollar economy probably seem alien to the industry. Buying virtual TVs, rezzing them and then watching movies on them might not fit the typical patterns they look for.
As mentioned earlier, I have actively been documenting my investigation and have shared all evidence with the production studios, authorities and the Motion Picture Association. Whether these efforts will finally prompt action remains to be seen.
What about Linden Lab?
A question I continue to ask myself is how HiVid has managed to operate openly for three years without any intervention from Linden Lab. When confronted about the licensing, one of HiVid’s representatives responded saying that “Linden Lab is well aware of the legal parameters of HiVid as we have been open for 3 years.” But this only raises more questions than it answers.
When I reached out to Linden Lab on February 10th with a high-level overview of my investigation and asked them to confirm HiVid’s statement, I received no response. A follow-up email sent on February 13th was also met with silence.
I’m not a lawyer, and my legal knowledge is primarily limited to contract law and EU regulation. While some people may bring up the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and its safe harbor protections regarding inaction after becoming aware of infringement, I think there’s a much simpler point: wouldn’t it be smart to take action to protect your platform’s reputation, regardless of legal requirements? Allowing potentially infringing content to be sold openly could signal to legitimate content creators that their rights aren’t being protected.
Some may ask whether Linden Lab is in their right to remove content that they suspect infringes upon someone else’s intellectual property, and to that the answer is yes they can. Not only they list “infringing or unauthorized content” as an example of Prohibited Content in their Content Guidelines, they also specifically call out that they can remove any content as they see fit:
“We may remove any Content or listing, or change any Content rating that we, in our sole discretion, determine violates these Guidelines. We may restrict or delete Content, or suspend or ban your account(s), if we, in our sole discretion, determine that you or your account(s) have violated this policy.”
Furthermore, they specifically state that “Linden Lab may elect to remove allegedly infringing material that comes to its attention via notices that do not substantially comply with the DMCA.” in their Intellectual Property Infringement Notification Policy.
Linden Lab’s historical hands-off approach to content monitoring is well known, but with their recently announced changed stance on content protection, could this be an opportunity for them to put their money where their mouth is? Time will tell.
Our Critical Thinking Shouldn’t Stop at the Login Screen
The success of unauthorized content sellers in Second Life, whether they’re dealing in furniture, clothing, skins, or as in this case, movies, relies heavily on our willingness to suspend disbelief. We need to remember to apply the same critical thinking in-world as we do in our everyday lives.
Ask yourself, would you trust a website offering unlimited worldwide movie streaming for $2 per title across the entire library?
By supporting unauthorized sellers and services, we’re not just risking our own purchases, we’re actively contributing to a system that undermines the entire premise of Second Life.
So the next time you encounter a deal that seems too good to be true, pause for a second and apply the same scrutiny you would on any other online platform. A legitimate business, virtual or not, should be able to provide a basic level of transparency, terms of service and in cases like this, verifiable business information.
When a service claims to have worldwide distribution rights to thousands of movies at a fraction of the market prices, while also not willing to explain their licensing model or provide basic legal documentation, it’s time to ask yourself if that L$399 purchase is supporting something you would want no part of in the real world.
So what now?
This investigation started out with me trying to document a problem, but somewhere along the way transformed into a commitment to drive real change.
I will continue to raise awareness both within and beyond the Second Life community and I will continue to engage with Linden Lab, the intellectual property owners, and the authorities when necessary.
Change won’t happen overnight, but with continued pressure and awareness, my goal is to ensure that the issue can no longer be ignored, not by Linden Lab, and not by our community.
What About All the Other Services?
While this blog post is primarily focused on my investigation of HiVid, they aren’t the only ones operating in this manner. As part of my investigation I have identified similar services, and while they may not be as known, they’re not going to be left unnoticed
To those of you running similar services, I want to be clear: my investigation doesn’t end here. If you’re distributing or selling content you don’t have the right to sell, it’s only a matter of time before you’ll find yourself and your business as the subject of blog post like this one.
Hey there!
Closing the discussion for now, thank you for all of your comments.
There are still a lot of pending comments in the queue, I’ll review them, approve the ones adding value to the discussion and reply as time allows.
If Linden Lab started cracking down on Copyright infringement we wouldn’t have SL. It’s built on copyright infringement. The only good I see coming of this is corporations having even more control over what happens both inside and outside SL, and SL users having even less freedom while using it. You’re only doing greedy corporations work for them.
Yes, and isn’t posting names of the avatars (some literally use their RL names in their avatar names) a violation of sharing personal info in a public space?
People all over the world are sharing their RL TV screens while watching a movie or TV show on platforms that allow screen sharing. Including educational facilities. I do agree with the above as well. We come to SL to enjoy freedoms we do not get in RL, or to enjoy a life we were denied due to a disability we didn’t ask for… They are not selling any ACTUAL movies, but watching a movie streamed from someone’s RL home…
Also my RL movie theatre is showing RL Movies for $5 a person on Tuesdays through the next 2 months.
Hey, thanks for the comment. The publicly available names of the avatars are advertised as as representatives by the business itself. I carefully made sure that anything displayed and shown is only reflecting what is at public display when you enter the HiVid store.
I understand that having a disability is not something that anyone ever asked for, and I very much feel with the people struggling.
My goal has never been to contribute in taking away joy from the users. Unfortunately someone is profiting off selling thousands of illegally obtained copies of movies, content that they have no right to sell – disabled or not, we as the community should not accept that behavior and instead consider that content being sold this way could ultimately, one day, be what ends up shutting down the virtual world we all love.
Your RL movie theatre may sell access for $5, but do you also get to take a copy of it with you home afterward to rewatch?
No one is taking it home, they’re watching what someone else is sharing. Discord, Kast, etc. are allowing multiple users to watch one person’s personal screening from their own computers/TV. In a special event in SL, over 50 people were watching a screening that was being shown on ONE person’s computer, using Discord.
You’re comparing something equally illegal on a single case basis, to a criminal enterprise raking in thousands of dollars on a regular basis. How do you even defend this? Is this Ben? Barry?
I am just curious as to how much money they made all together.
So the question is now, what about the thousands of members who paid to watch movies thinking the service was legitimate and pouring thousands of dollars (lindens) into it? Who is going to be compensating the victims of this ‘scam’ that Linden Labs allowed to go on for three years in plain view? The owners of HiVid basically walk away with all the money?
YES EXACTLY!
“Your RL movie theatre may sell access for $5, but do you also get to take a copy of it with you home afterward to rewatch?”
No but then technically what you got from hivid wasn’t a copy it was a digital download which could only be viewed in SL.
I don’t think the statements necessarily have to be exclusive. When you purchase a movie ticket, you generally get to watch it once. With HiVid you got to take it back with you, let friends watch for free, as well as watch it as many times as you wanted to, no restrictions.
It’s in many ways apples to oranges.
what happen if you bought one of there tvs and wont rez now
Nothing, you bought a fraudulent product, it was removed. Yes it sucks but nothing will happen, you’re out that money.
My inworld name is very similar to the owners name – I had MANY messages over the last couple of days asking why their TV had vanished and could they have a refund.
This is not okay, one thing is to reach out to the owner (which in itself is futile as they are likely banned) another is not making sure you’re reaching out to the right person.
Hivid is not only thriving on stolen content it is, paying its staff peanuts (less than $2 and hour), requiring staff to install software to rip content including the recently introduced subtitles to be extended to all movies, introducing (introduced) membership plans which previous perks/ features like access to the vault of reduced price movies, lucky chairs, loyalty discount tiers which were available to all are now being limited to those who not only pay for the illegal content but also pay a monthly fee to hivid.
The greed of this “creator” knows absolutely no bounds, and people saying so in their group are being muted and threatened to silence them, while the hard core of Hivid sycophants are openly praised and applauded for calling out anyone who questions the cult.
The labs recent clampdown on copybotting and content/ copyright theft is likely going to come back and bite them in the ass over this, the level of hypocrisy is astounding!
A Senior Hivid staff member has openly confirmed that they have discussed the “business” with the lab and that they have made the lab aware that they do NOT SELL movies, they sell people the ability to access those movies and each individual who accesses them does so at their own risk. This is not indicated anywhere in the Hivid store, nor their market place listings for the tv, nor any other documentation that they provide with the sale of either tv or movies. In fact it is quite to the contrary, almost everything they say and do leads one to believe that you are buying the movie.
The lab has let this go on for years, now there are thousands of SL residents that have paid money into this system, there are a significant number of people that have over 500 movies bought and paid for, that is somewhere in the region of 250000 lindens per person, or $1000US
I have in excess of £600US invested in it before I realized what the situation was, the staff when questioned stated that Hivid pays royalties on every movie watched, the inclusion of netflix exclusive content alerted me to the fact that this is clearly a complete lie!
The man is nothing more than a thief, he is making a vast fortune from selling people something he does not own, nor has any rights to distribute in any shape or form, and he continues to refine the money extraction process to get more and more out of the people that fell for his deception.
How do you know he doesn’t own any of those movies? Have you been to his house? I personally have over1000 DVD’s & VHS’s sitting currently in storage. Waiting on a new house to move them to. I used to be a member of Columbia house that sent you movies monthly and BMG for CDs. So very easily to have tons of movies at home to stream to others. It isn’t hard to set up something like that. As far as whether or not he has rights to share or distribute them. Again, speculation, as we don’t know who he is in RL or what his real life consists of.
Strangely, the ownership of a copy of a movie doesn’t mean that you have the right to then digitize it making essentially endless copies of your one, and charge others to use it. That’s basically resale however you want to phrase it. The right extended to you as far creating digital duplicates go as far as a personal duplicate, and definitely not making back 100+ times what you paid for it. The money flow is what’s drawing the attention here.
“Hivid is not only thriving on stolen content it is, paying its staff peanuts (less than $2 and hour),” and so did SecondLife and Linden Labs since the movies were paid with lindens and LL allowed this ‘scam’ to go on for three years.
I am not Ben or Barry, he is a dude, I’m not dude… But I’ve watched countless of movies on discord from other people’s systems. I have no idea what Ben or Barry does except, provide a service for those who cannot afford, even a movie ticket in RL, can enjoy. What did they do to you that was so horrible. They’ve been open for years now and yet no one bothered them until now? Suspicious, I think.
They got greedy, they started charging for the use of the “free” lucky chairs and people started complaining and less than a month later here we are!
Spot on. They changed their business model because revenue wasn’t cutting it, and that exorbitant monthly membership fee is likely the root cause of this situation. Whoever advised the owner to make this shift bears responsibility for this mess.
Moreover, applying real-life compliance and regulatory standards in SL is absurd, especially when the rest of Inworld embraces activities that defy reality—like flying. Where does one draw the line? Intellectual property, you say? Hardly. Every day, millions are made in the real world from reprogrammed fire sticks and other streaming devices.
The owner built an entire technology platform and profited from it. His real fault? Greed—plain and simple.
That was the tipping point for most people. They got greedy and it bit them in the pixels.
oh no the poor movie studios. this is small potatoes, and provides great enjoyment and roleplay for folks in SL. You’re really going to ruin this for everyone?
All of the movies i’ve paid to access via hivid are movies i already own, but don’t have a reliable way to watch synced with my partner, and the roleplay of going through an in-world video store is a lot of fun and provides value, so i’m happy to toss them a few lindens for a movie i already own.
This literally does the movie studios minimal harm, and provides enjoyment for people, and you’re out here narcing. You’re gonna be that guy?
Eris, the thing is, it’s a bunch of stolen content they didn’t have a right to sell you access to, sold at far greater than operating costs to you making them a tidy profit. This was always going to be shut down as they continued to try to make take home money in amounts that had them living comfortably over content they didn’t own or have a right to provide access to. They’re likely to see years of legal problems from this, and lose far more than they tried to gain, and you are the one who ultimately threw your money away over what could have been had for less than the cost of a single HiVid movie at the same level of legality. The same level of rp short of “going to the video store” is still possible for a one time cost at greater fidelity with no lost features. With the advent of discord and private individual streaming platforms, blatant money grabs like HiVid are a thing of the past and should be shut down so more people don’t continue to buy vaporware.
Is it even being sold at higher than operating costs? They charge just a few hundred linden dollars for a “dvd”, and they’re providing unlimited access to that movie that streams from their servers in a way that all viewers are close to perfectly synced. Servers cost money. SL land also costs money.
We don’t actually know how profitable this is.
Yes, it’s illegal, but it fills a gap in a very user friendly way. And snitching on it doesn’t help anyone but movie publishers which certainly aren’t going to fill this gap in a way that benefits users. They’ll just shut it all down and kill off access via this method, hurting users.
Discord steaming is possible, yes at higher fidelity, but that’s not in-world. It’s fiddly and requires all the people watching to open the stream in a separate application. Unless you have multiple displays, it pulls you out of second life. It’s immersion-breaking.
Finally, “vaporware” is the wrong term to use here. Vaporware refers to software (or hardware) heavily advertised but never actually releases. Half-Life 2: Episode 3 is a great example of actual vaporware. Hivid exists, it’s not vaporware lol.
You can share movies with friends, who will or not pay for their own copy. So, 5 people buy the membership but they share those with 10 friends each. so, 45 people are watching for free. They probably won’t pay. There is no profit in allowing the sharing of movies, passing them to someone else when you’re done. Most already have the movies in RL or can watch them on their own devices. I still have my old LL TV from CSI: NY to watch the episode dedicated to Second Life.
You say it’s stealing, but there’s the whole debate over digital piracy and whether or not it’s actually theft, since in truth, nothing is technically stolen and you’re simply copying or transferring data. You can also bring into the argument that it potentially introduces people to content that they otherwise would never have seen or heard of, thus potentially gaining new fans, that will then pay into the content through genuine means. Essentially turning it into a form of free advertising.
I also think the majority of people would have no problem with the owner of HIVID profiting from the service he was providing, since he was providing something that they clearly found useful and that they were willing to pay for, whether legal or not.
I think what Eris says is actually correct, and these movie studios are making vast sums of money, and that from a moral standpoint, what HIVID was doing is nothing to be incensed by and is in fact rather trivial. People watching some movies together in Second Life, a platform that only has around 600,000 active users, the majority of which that have probably never watched any of these movies to begin with, and that likely already subscribe to various streaming platforms legally, is having zero effect on anything to do with movie studios and their potential profits.
I think that by targeting these types of things within Second Life, you’re actually effectively killing Second Life, diminishing its popularity and making it a less interesting and fun place to be. Now people can no longer watch movies together in Second Life, and have another reason not to be there. The only winner here, is the writer of this article, who can pat himself on the back and think how ‘morally right’ he is, by ruining other peoples fun. It’s essentially like the petty neighbor that calls the police over an unauthorized street party, because he has nothing better to do with his time.
There is always that one guy out there who does the whining dance that say, “Ohh this is so wrong….” So I logged on SL and found out the HiVid TV is gone from the theater it was in… (Granted that TV was bought by my SL wife)… I just know that TV might be gone from there for now, but I am sure she will just find another one to take its spot… Its a good thing she didn’t get too far invested into HiVid…
Seems like this is oh so conveniently coming at a time when Hivid just changed their lucky chairs and started doing memberships. I suspect some people have gotten their panties in a bunch and suddenly they’re doing this to make Hivid pay. The thing is, There are platforms that we all pay for IRL that have sharing as well, so this is nothing new. I’m betting this is just cause people are whining over the change related to lucky chairs. you used to get free movies and now you don’t without a membership. My guess is that’s what this is all about. There’s always a handful of twats that have to ruin things in SL for everyone, that’s what I’m seeing here.
I completely understand why you would think that, but it all really comes down to coincidence. I started my investigation on the 26th of January while the subscription service was announced by HiVid on the 2nd of February.
You sure, you weren’t part of the HIVID owners and got booted out, starting a retaliation against them?
Would that not be rather self-incriminating?
For the record, I have never had any business dealings with HiVid prior to writing this article in any capacity.
I’ll speak up as well, does it matter? The scam was taking place and Linden Labs allowed it to happen for 3 years. Many of us thought HiVid had licensing through LL to do what they did. After all, they did it in plain sight. It seems the greedy move to charging a membership fee was a bone of contention for many HiVid members (including myself) so it’s not surprising that someone somewhere raised a flag. Whether it was you or not is irrelevant. I think you’re just telling the story of HiVid, a story that Linden Labs should have been aware of three years ago instead of being the absentee landlord position they’ve taken for the last 5+ years. It is what it is. It is sad however that so many people spent so much money and will not likely see a linden in compensation (I’ll lose over L$20,000 worth). I am curious what will happen to the mystery owner… well, mystery to us, since Linden Labs has always been fully aware or who and where they were. For three years. Vent over.
In a way you are right, and also wrong..
this investigation was not born from the resent that Hivid created by fleecing the userbase with the memberships, so this would have happened anyway.
But, given the money grabbing greed that Hivid has shown with the memberships, and the disgusting statement that the membership plans are to reward people who support hivid and not the scroungers that just take, as in those of us that have bought movies but cannot or will not pay a monthly fee on top, has left them in a position where not many people have any sympathy for them so the backlash is spreading like wildfire.
Had they not shown such utter contempt for the thousands of people that actually paid for them to build up a lucrative scam, there would have been a much greater chance that this post would have faded into obscurity, but now, I really don’t think that is going to happen.
When they started the memberships and took away the benefits they gave to everyone they were made well aware that they had overstepped the line, but the prospect of even more ill gotten gains pushed that to the side and now its coming back to bite them.
I find it hard to care but you are right it doesn’t make sense LL have permitted this for so long.
That’s it over now though, of course nobody will be refunded.
I don’t have a dog in this hunt particularly, although I support your valid and important efforts to report on thoroughly, with investigative journalistic methods, this scourge on the grid. I’ll admit I can’t wade in and give this a real line-by-line examination, but I think you need to pan out wider and see more what this is about.
I don’t have a dog because I don’t do Zindra hardly at all. And one of the many reasons is because THESE PEOPLE, these video pirate stores RUIN A SIM. And it is hard to find a sim not ruined by them. That’s because they attract traffic; they sometimes get 40-avatar pile ups; they often buy the 128/128/0 point on the sim and force sky landings, etc. These are just a blight and a menace that from my perspective as more of a G and M Mainland man, are a reason not to “go Zindra”. I hate it. I keep one area open where I can seldom land without a flurry of unwanted spam from an automatic spammer from one of these video parlours. I tell my tenants to try to block that avatar, that spamming object, but they merely then change them and PS make it hard to find in their blur of laggy content prims. So from my perspective, from the copyright POV which I fully support in and out of SL, and from the blight/lag/quality of life perspective, they need to get gone in the worst way, hat tip to you.
So why is Linden Lab turning a blind eye to all this? Weird, eh? They don’t want to be a safe haven for creators and they are rolling out “Operation DMCA” type campaigns to try to reassure inworld creators? So hey, what’s up? I will tell you.
1. Linden Lab needs “things to do” on the grid. In our media- and porn-saturated world, apparently the cohort of people in Zindra with these services don’t find “each other” stimulating enough and need porn to entertain them and liven up their sex lives. That seems awfully said to me as an old-school old person who believes in more organic love styles but ok, it’s a free county. But Linden weighs the need to appear like they protect the creator class versus the need to keep concurrency from flat-lining, and they opt for allowing this entertainment.
2. The amounts of revenue from these pirates aren’t big enough to really move the needle for Linden Lab, for whom it is still not likely their MAIN source of taxable revenue on the MP — mesh bodies and heads, mesh clothing and furniture, mesh vehicles and land of course (the main revenue source) are all greater income streams. They have to be. So there is no motivation to do anything different.
3. The companies themselves also probably don’t find this tiny hemorrage from their empires from a cohort that makes up…5,000 people a night? I’ll bet less? No idea. Maybe they just write it off as brand recognition exercises, who knows. You asked them. They won’t tell you. There is no constituency but us — small businesses who care about protecting copyright for OURSELVES and see protecting it for the big guys OUTSIDE of SL is part of that continuum. We are not a big social base, my dude.
4. There is another dark piece of this in our wonderful ecological system. “You don’t need land to have fund,” say the “rootless cosmopolitans”. But…if you are going to view porn or even Bambi in G rating, with your friends and lovers and do the things that go with viewing, whether hopping on the anims or taking cute screenshots of yourselves for your feeds, you NEED land. So especially the ADULT land sellers are complicit in this. They need this to stay, as it helps their bottom line. I assure you I do not on my crappy little 8192 or whatever it is with working girls who block that spam because they have different kinds of clients/more modest needs than those big warehouses, clubs and expensive Zindra home parcels. But you can see on the map by flying around just “who profits”. And those are people who buy enormous parts of the grid and tier it from LL and they represent LL’s most lucrative and important revenue stream.
So I don’t see that anybody had any reason to do anything about this ever for the reasons I’ve stated, but given how everybody in SL has an angle and a fiddle, I think you need to explain better for the masses what YOUR real interest is in this.
I also completely discount Bubba’s forums posturing about how easy it is to license movies. Baloney. Not THESE movies. Not from THESE streaming platforms. I mean, I can watch an Uzbek dissident indy film from YouTube that is unlicensed or even licensed, I don’t need any streaming. YouTube BTW is good enough for a lot of people; it often just won’t work well on SL land.
Hey Prokofy,
Thank you for the detailed comment, I agree with many of the points you bring up.
My interest in this (and motivation by extension) is very simple, it’s about driving meaningful change by shedding light on a problem that has been hiding in plain sight for far too long. The success of unauthorized content distribution such as this example relies heavily on our collective willingness to look the other way, both us, the residents, and Linden Lab. As evident by some of the reactions to my article, many don’t even question the legitimacy even after being shown the red flags – some even actively defend the practice.
When we accept large-scale copyright infringement, we damage not only Second Life’s credibility and future potential, we actively contribute to a culture that devalues the work of the thousands of talented residents who invest their time and creativity into creating original content.
One of the points you bring up is the need for things to do in Second Life. I think this is an extremely important aspect, and perhaps even deserves an article of its own.
If anything, this has shown that there’s a clear desire and need for shared movie experiences. Outside of Second Life, there are plenty of legal options for watching movies with friends and loved ones at a distance. I myself use Teleparty to watch Netflix in sync from time to time. The key difference here is that these services require each participant to have their own streaming account, and in turn, a proper license to view the content. Could Linden Lab develop a solution for this? Probably, but it would require dedicating time and resources to implement it properly.
At the end of the day, I think it’s important that we take action and raise awareness. I fully sympathize with those who are upset with me for bringing this problem to light. Some of those who have reached out to me have invested more than L$100,000 in their movie libraries. However, ignoring the problem and letting it continue longer than it already has will only make the inevitable impact and damage much greater.
I find it particularly disturbing that there are creators out there who take part in events side by side with Hivid, turn a blind eye to it, or actively praise it, while then going on to complain and gripe that lindens do little to nothing to protect their content from theft.
The lab is, allegedly, having a clampdown on content theft and of course many would say its about damn time, but what kind of example is it setting to ban those who use a copybot to steal a few items while at the same time allowing a “company” to make thousands of dollars from stolen content, admittedly stolen and served from outside of SL but does that, or should that, make any difference when whichever way you try to butter it that stolen content is clearly being bought and paid for IN sl and the lab is processing, and profiting from, those payments.
Not only that, they are banning people who discuss copybotting on other platforms like youtube without any actual proven theft taking place in SL, which IMO is even more hypocritical, hard though it is to imagine it getting any worse!
We are expected to accept this streaming piracy because it is happening on servers outside of sl and therefore non of the labs business, but the lab at the same time makes it their business what people do on another platform because they dont like it.
Has the world really gone totally mad? How can anyone not see the hypocrisy of it is completely beyond me!
By law, LL is prohibited from “actively performing content policing of their own initiative” because Second Life is classified as “Safe Harbor”.
On the other hand “Safe Harbors” are required, again by law, to actively act upon reports of “intellectual property infringement” IF REPORTED and with INCONTROVERTIBLE EVIDENCE. That is, a reactive action based on evidence, rather than an active action based merely on content guidelines.
So if you see IP infringement — report it. LL will not — can not, by law — to act on their own initiative even if they themselves suspect that something is likely an IP infringement.
This has been on going for way longer than 3 years.
“User time spent online” and “returning users” are very important metrics so it’s an “allow it until we can’t” kind of situation for the execs.
Thank you for your time spent working on this.
And now LL scrub the topic in their forums spawned by this entirely despite already having locked it… What the actual heck?
because they shut it down and desperately want the embarrassing subject to go away perhaps.
Not seen any official statement from them anywhere, other than the one posted by Tjay here. They could have posted a statement on that thread but nope, lets get it under the rug asap, where have I seen them do that before I wonder 😉
My question is this.
Why hasn’t Linden Lab done this to Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who and other scifi content which has been sold in Second Life since the grid first opened? Hmm? Why hasnt Linden Lab went after clothing manufacturers who have blatantly copied designs from RL design houses? Hmmm?
Something smells fishy over tis…
That’s a somewhat greyer area I think, maybe fan art comes into it I dont know.
From what I understand the only thing the lab seem to legislate against is trade marks of goods, hence car makers making BNW’s and Audy cars etc, it would probably be hard to prove that a virtual chattel was a counterfeit of actual chattel without trademark logos and names identifying it as such, though that is also done also but not so much in the MP as in world.
There is also no real loss of earnings from it, given that not a single designer is making goods in second life to lose sales from, I am guessing.
I don’t know what the legal issues would be, that’s just my thoughts on it.
It says right in Marketplace if you try to report something. LL won’t do anything without a DMCA takedown notice.
It depends on the goods itself.
Fan creation of well known trademarks (Star Trek, Star Wars, etc.) *technically* are illegal but most franchise owners opt to not sue the creators because it is indirectly a marketing of those trademarks. As long as you don’t blatantly profit from your creation to the detriment of license holders, the franchise owners won’t care.
Clothing based on RL design houses are protected under “trade dress” classification, and that one has a requirement of “the average consumer would be confused as to the origin of a product if another product appears in the same or similar packaging”. There is no such confusion in SL since no RL design houses sell their clothing as virtual items in SL.
Finally, LL is protected as “Safe Harbor” classification. The stipulation of “safe harbor” is that LL will not, under its own initiative, perform policing of contents delivered through SL; BUT on the other hand LL will be required to, as soon as practically possible, remove infringing contents upon request/notice from the IP holder and/or with incontrovertible evidence.
Clothing Designs cannot be infringed upon. Google it.
However name brands and logos can be.
People need to understrand that LL will not act unless the owner of said copyright files a DMCA.
Copyright is complicated. Once the copyright owner files a DMCA. The infringer can file a counter claim and if the copyright owner does not file for a court order within 10 days of the complaint the content will be put back up. When the infringer files a counter claim, LL sends their personal info ( name and address ) to the person who filed the DMCA so they can process a court order.
Here is the thing… If you take someone to court for infringing on your copyright you have to do so in the country of the ( Infringer ). This complicates.
Also, once something is created and made public you own the copyright however if you did not register your copyright at the copyright office then it is very unlikely that you will receive the lost income, travel, lawyer and court costs back. So, the copyright owner will lose a lot more money.
Big Brand names like Harley Davidson, Disney, Nike and others have the money to do this but ordinary content creators in Second life don’t make enough money. Content creators should register their copyright but doing so for content created for second life everytime you make something would be very costly. Couple of hundred USD dollars for every piece.
This is just a symptom of a much larger problem. Next time you log in take a closer look at your surroundings. Notice how many 3d assets are game rips? The real reason LL is blind to this is the fact that if they really took enforcement of intellectual property seriously it would turn their metaverse into a baren wasteland overnight.
LL’s marketplace and entire platform allows this behavior to thrive with no verification of asset ownership and the ability to “fly by night” creating new alt accounts and setting up shop again with absolutely no roadblocks to sell your stolen assets under a different name. They even bypass basic know your customer laws by only verifying identities when you pull funds out of the platform through Tilia allowing you to fraud as much as you and funnel the funds through other sources in world that seem legitimate. Since they fired most of their support who’s going to trace the complex maze of virtual money laundering?
Second Life — and by extension, LL themselves — are protected as a “Safe Harbor” classification.
The stipulation of “safe harbor” is that LL will not, under its own initiative, perform policing of contents delivered through SL; BUT on the other hand LL will be required to, as soon as practically possible, remove infringing contents upon request/notice from the IP holder and/or with incontrovertible evidence.
Hence LL is, by law, prevented from doing their own verification, because that means “performing content policing by its own initiative”.
I am actually upset over this, as someone who purchased an Hi-Vid TV and had a couple of movies on there I had purchased.
I was entirely under the belief it was legalized, and Allowed due to the TOS standards, It had been around for years so I never thought twice about it.
Now the product is blacklisted, and Im out on L’s I spent on the Tv and Movies because It was marketed as safe and correct and not an “use at your own risk” type deal.
So this is upsetting that us as a SL community are now out of L’s due to this situation.
This is the biggest issue I see here. Was it illegal? Yes. Did some who purchased from Hivid know it was illegal when they purchased? Yes. Did EVERYONE who purchased from Hivid know it was illegal when they purchased? No.
And while it can be argued that it should be “common sense” that what they were doing was illegal, I would submit a few points for consideration:
1.) Because SL is an international platform, not all of our international friends are aware of the US laws that Hivid, LL, and SL are governed by due to their server locations. These international users trust LL’s enforcement of their policies and terms in order to determine if the content they’re purchasing is safe to purchase and make a real, monetary investment in. It might be “common sense” to US users who have a basic understanding of copyright laws and piracy concerns in the real world, it is unfair to assume that international users have that same level of knowledge, or even that the “least common denominator” of US-based SL user has that same level of knowledge, as not everyone cares enough about these kinds of issues to research them themselves.
2.) I am not a lawyer either – any knowledge of laws that I have is due to it being a personal interest, but I have no formal education in any of this. I state that as a preface to this assertion that is my personal belief: It is on LL to make sure that everything on their platform is compliant with US laws and their own terms. I’m not saying that Ben/Barry/whoever genuinely believed that he was allowed to do what he was doing – that feels hard to believe – but in the same vain of, “you teach people how to treat you,” LL “taught” Ben that what he was doing was “ok”, at least by LL standards, because he was able to successfully operate for 3 years. While Ben/Barry/whoever is ultimately responsible for his own actions in this situation, the biggest fault truly lies on LL, in my opinion. It is their job to police these issues on their platform and it seems like they either turned a blind eye to Hivid until this investigation/however many complaints were filed OR they were so detached from their own platform that they had no idea this was happening for so long. Either possibility doesn’t look too good for them.
Because the ultimate responsibility lies in LL, in my personal opinion, I would argue – fruitlessly, I’m well away – that LL is responsible for refunding its users any lindens invested in the illegal content, including TV purchases as well as movie purchases. In the nature of “innocent until proven guilty”, unless LL can prove that a user had conscious knowledge that they were purchasing illegal content, then it stands to reason that they have to assume the customers were led to believe they were purchasing legal goods. And LL’s failure to act for so long not only perpetuated the issue but it allowed for existing users to make further monetary investment into Hivid and also provided the opportunity for new users to make a monetary investment into Hivid that would not have had the opportunity to have now lost those funds if LL had properly stopped Hivid 3 years ago when it first began. (I know I, for one, did not purchase my Hivid or any movies until last year, so I would not have been able to make such an investment if Hivid had been properly removed from the grid when it first began.)
All that to say, do I believe that LL should be responsible for re-imbursing residents who paid into Hivid? Yes. It is their platform and they are ultimately responsible for making sure that illegal content isn’t here. But do I believe that they’ll actually provide that re-imbursement? No. lol I’m not that stupid.
Either way, it does kind of suck that such a huge form of accessible entertainment in SL is gone now. Most users that were using Hivid tv’s that I knew were doing so for “innocent” purposes like watching movies with partners or groups of friends. That’s not to say it wasn’t being exploited – I’m sure it was – but I do feel like it’s perfectly ok for users to “mourn” the loss of accessibility that Hivid provided them, even if that accessibility was ultimately illegal.
> All that to say, do I believe that LL should be responsible for re-imbursing residents who paid into Hivid? Yes.
Unfortunately, no. LL did not receive the Linden$ you’ve spent. It was a transaction between you and HIVID. Once you receive the amount of Linden$ you’re entitled to (by buying on LindeX, or through stipends, or from others), LL no longer has any fiduciary responsibility.
It is the same as in real world: If you got scammed out of several hundred US$, does the Federal government of the USA have any responsibility to refund you? No.
> they are ultimately responsible for making sure that illegal content isn’t here.
But as “Safe Harbor”, they are prevented by law in performing any active content policing by own initiative. On the flip side, as a “Safe Harbor” they have the obligation of removing infringing contents, as soon as practically possible, if such infringement is *reported* to them.
I think LL was part of this, new what was going on, and now have shut it down
LL is good at what they do, they may take a while to react but it will all get swept under the rug just like the whole Patch Linden thing (Amazing the guy is still working there) after all the proof was detailed out in a post larger than TJays. sweep sweep sweep nothing to see here.
That was one guy using a fake name, fake pic, pictures don’t prove anything as they can be edited, and for that person to show HUDs a person was wearing showed they themselves were breaking TOS as no official or legit TPV can show that, and nowhere was it proven that it was even the avatar pictured actually wearing that. Even so, it also doesn’t prove they were actively using the HUDs while portraying a child avatar; many were in the dangerous practice of housing a child and adult avatar on the same account. A lot of the cases mentioned if you look up went nowhere, so they frankly didn’t prove squat and the article was removed entirely as it was essentially slander.
“This is the biggest issue I see here. Was it illegal? Yes. Did some who purchased from Hivid know it was illegal when they purchased? Yes. Did EVERYONE who purchased from Hivid know it was illegal when they purchased? No.”
Says you. If you see a popular well publicized product available in SecondLife for THREE YEARS wouldn’t you think that it was legit? I mean, where was Linden Labs all that time? Profiting off this scam? After all the movies and TV were purchased with lindens, for which LL takes a cut of buying and selling. I honestly thought that HiVid had some sort of licensing agreement with Linden Labs, the same type of agreement that allows us to stream music in SecondLife (or is that illegal too?).
Myself I’ll lose over L$20,000 at the end of the day, an “investment” I can’t afford to lose and one that just means I will spend even less real money playing the game from now (afraid that the next thing I buy turns out to be a scam as well).
I agree, this sucks, and it will impact SecondLife in a big way when the platform has already almost succumb to a population of bots over actual human avatars. I get why this happened in the end, but at the rate of ‘absentee landlord’ that Linden Labs has been playing for the last 5 years it’s not surprising… and won’t be if SecondLife isn’t around still by 2035.
1 pirate salesman out..
a few more to go.
What about “XTV”, doing it for over a decade?
Can you please set a fire on this one too Tijay? Seems LL couldn’t be bother to look for more.
XTV – https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/XTVMOVIES-TV-SERIES-GAMES-YOUTUBE-AND-MORE/19043138
That MP listing includes a video of the seller saying he will get any movie you want in a few days, just ask him. The best support!
https://streamable.com/m6u8u
XTV appears to have been in “maintenance mode” for the past few days from what I can tell, and the owner of VEA seems to have pulled their TVs from the marketplace.
I’ll keep an eye out.
well i got royaly screw, i had over 500 movies bought and now no hivid
Jesus Christ, you guys are idiots!
The problem with HiVid is not the distribution of illegal content.
ITS-CHARGING-YOU-FOR-IT !!
Sure, I can set a stream on Discord with a movie or a football game for my folk to enjoy, but charge an entry fee? That’s what changes everything.
Doing piracy for your own use or to distribute freely between family/friends is okay in my book, been doing that for decades, but the moment you turn that into a business and start profiting off it, you’re entering a completely different realm called trafficking.
Making it even worse, is the fact that the dude is making absolute bank from trafficking stuff he doesn’t even own, so, somehow, it’s even worse than a drug dealer… f*** sakes…
That’s the issue here.
Geez…
“Doing piracy for your own use or to distribute freely between family/friends is okay in my book, been doing that for decades”
ooooh, so if you commit piracy for your friends and family (which clearly you’re doing since you’re trying to justify there’s a difference) that’s okay, but because other people got scammed by someone they thought was legit because Linden Labs allowed it to go on for four years, they’re “idiots”. Got it.
So this is fishy in my eyes. This conveniently comes up as soon as the Membership arguments… You can say what you like about when YOU started to look into it. HiVid was a very convenient way for me and my partner to sit and watch movies together, old ones, new ones, of all descriptions, we are both UK-based and as far as we knew it was fully legal in SL as HiVid has been going for years. Prommotions all over, Marketplace presence, clearly advertised and promotions all over, now come on you cannot tell me this is not SUS AF by this guy bringing this up now? Personally, and despite anything you say to the opposite, I think you got p***ed off by the new system and decided to grass them up!
Nice one as you have ruined our Movie nights completely!
Tjay isn’t the problem here, he started his investigation before the new membership options even existed. He was trying to figure out how something that seemed illegal was able to exist for so long especially given how blatant they seemed to be about it. Ben Vortex trying to make a boatload of money off people like yourself is the biggest part of the issue and why others likely brought it to his attention as he was addressing other IP theft, all well before any of the announced changes. None of this was any sort of a vendetta but trying to get it stopped before anyone else could lose any more money on something so fraudulent. Why are you sticking up for people that only wanted your money with minimal effort to get it using things they didn’t have a right to?
I want all my money Back and the guy who did this in a federal Prison for Wire fraud, and I thought with all the hype it was legal and for real, Hell he charged enough for it
Here’s an idea….how about LL go after those people whom copy bot another person’s items they work hard to bring into secondlife just as hard as they go after these people whom broke the actual law
Not sure I see a load of evidence of copy bot-ing items. What makes you think this is a huge thing, and not just a few people who do it?
Can you then tell me how ones like VEA TV are any different that offer free content after you buy the TV? Where do they get theirs from?
It’s not any more legal, BUT they also aren’t assholes trying to continually dig at your pocket for it and far less likely to be reported.
There are a lot of people who put a lot of money into the movies that they had and now can’t watchy them cause of the stupid crap hey did. I for one is highly pissed that I can no longer watch any of my movies and neither can my family and they had more movies than me.
I don’t appreciate the tone of this article – essentially blaming one of the victims in this. The author raises all kinds of red flags that he maintains should have been red flags, but really doesn’t take into account the way most people would approach such a service in SL. The price issue is one that I particularly would like to point out is not something most people would think about. I subscribe to Netflix and I pay a minimal amount of money for access to a fairly large catalog of entertainment, but I certainly don’t think about the cost per movie. This is further mitigated by the linden exchange rate. How many people actually know the dollar to linden exchange rate? I certainly don’t think about it much. This was represented as a legitimate service, and as others have pointed out, it existed in SL for several years without a hint of illegality.
Yes, the watermark issue would have been a bit of a red flag, but personally I don’t watch anime (and I suspect there are many viewers like me), which limits my exposure to that warning sign. I have only had two issues with movies over the year or so I have been watching HiVid movies… one was a sound issue, the other a framing issue, and in both case the problem was dealt with by HiVid (by refund).
I do appreciate that you uncovered this illegal business and did a service to SL community by exposing it, but take care in how you attribute blame in this debacle.
You thought this was a legal service and not just another pirate app? How? You thought this service would just exist only in SL, and not be a website too?
I don’t believe it. Everyone knew this was a pirate service, napster of SL and all that.
The issue lays firmly at the incompetant previous management at Linden who were using SL as a cash cow. I bought the tv two months ago assuming it was legit because it had a four year history. Some of the rude remarks are unwarranted because Linden created the false premis it was legal, the guy was not selling under the counter they had a massive shop.
They had a massive shop? Anyone can rent land from Linden or one of the many landlords… its not a huge expense at all.
You knew this was a pirate service.
No way you thought that SL had its own, internal streaming service, that was cheap as chips, and could only be accessed from SL. How would that even work? A company creates a service that works in SL for a few thousand users… but does not run it on a website or a phone app as well? Why would anyone do that?
I know! cause its a pirate service! – hiding in a low user count, in a relatively unknown game (second life), hoping not to get noticed and shut down.
I did not buy one, because the first time I saw it… I was like.. what service is this thing using? Can I log into it outside SL. The minute I realised it was in SL only, I realised it was just another TV/Film Pirating app, like the ones that spring up on mobile phones, last 6 months before they get noticed and closed down. Just took 3 years for anyone to notice on such a small user base as SL!
You knew… everyone knew… this was a pirate service
Agreed. I referred to Linden Labs a couple weeks ago as the “absentee landlord” because of the way they’ve allowed bots to run rampant in SecondLife with little or no control. And here we are with another scandal, Linden Labs allowed this to go on for 4 years so who wouldn’t think it was “legit” (that the owner had some sort of licensing agreement with LL).
Seriously, people complaining about Lindens lost because they purchased via HiVid ?
I mean come on lol ya’ll must have known it was illegal !!
Same goes for most of the music used by Dj’s in second life.
Most is pirated and your giving them tips.
All this is bothersome but what worries me most is the little guy/gal who works their butt off to put out original content in second life to pay their rl bills. Struggling, only to get ripped off by other residents.
“Seriously, people complaining about Lindens lost because they purchased via HiVid ?
I mean come on lol ya’ll must have known it was illegal !!”
And yet Linden Labs let it go on for three years. Who is the victim and who is the scammer?
That’s cause the millions of lindens that were used by resident to purchase there tvs and movies, LL made profits.. you had to purchase lindens to buy the movies.. duh
you mean all music that isent ai generated, cause no ones going to play public domain music
I mean this article is 90% trying to prove the system was a pirate streaming service… Everyone knew this already.
Its like the stolen models from other games, linden labs does not care, unless the owners of the stolen property care and contact them.
As some one above said, a lot of SL content is stolen from other sources, from textures, to mesh, to music being played in clubs, radio stations and the like. All of these things only exist because second life has an active user base of 100k or less. So the real world cares little about what happens in SL.
SL has a problem, it has a problem of success
The more successful SL is, the more the real world notices what happens here. The lack of copyright protection, the lack of licensing for music and video. The lack of consumer rights, or quality control.
If SL becomes too successful, it will be crushed by the Real world laws that currently ignore it.
I’d be careful about how much attention you bring from the real world on to SL. This may start as a small issue of film copyright/pirating with a few thousand users, and spiral into a microscope being put onto SL about what exactly happens inside it.
Careful how much light you make shine on this little game, because its very flammable and can catch lite and burn away very easily… I’m not sure SL can survive being looked at too closely by those outside it.
Don’t wake sleeping Dragons, and all that… not when you live in a house of straw
Something I haven’t seen addressed here is that the financial dealings in Hivid were outside of the normal LL and Tillia processing systems. Hivid required you to pay into its own credit account system that was debited when a movie was purchased (fortunately I didn’t have a lot invested in Hivid). I’m wondering if this creates a security/financial risk for anyone who ever bought anything from Hivid.
Hey!
During my investigation I found no evidence of external payment processing.
They did have a page where you could open your cart with movies (see screenshot attached here) but it did not allow for any payment.
The way their payment/wallet system worked were so that you would need to deposit Linden Dollars into either the TV or at the checkout area in their in-world store. After having done that, your “HiVid Balance” would then update to reflect the added Linden Dollars.
During my investigation I did not find any other way of depositing Linden Dollars to your HiVid Balance. All transactions would take place within Second Life using Linden Dollars.
Thanks for clarifying that.
I applaud you Tjay. I had no idea this existed. It’s the kind of thing that puts all of SL at risk, affecting everyone here.
Tjay i have a question.. DJ’s who get music off the net, would that not also be copy right infringement material. Did all these dj’s get the rights to have artists/music industries material or how does that work?
Very valid question!
In terms of obtaining licensing for internet radio (which is what clubs really are), I can only speak for the country I reside in, but here I would be able to obtain licensing online that covers either domestic or international use (or both) quite easily, very affordable and scales with the amount of listeners (or sessions) you have per month.
From the people that I have spoken to and from the little research I have done on music specifically, it seems like there are similar straight forward licensing options in most territories.
Are people doing that? The few people I have spoken to do who DJs does, but they had also been in the industry outside of SL in the past, however asking the DJ or the club is a good way to get some initial impressions – anyone with a license should be able to explain exactly what is covered and how it works.
In comparison to movies it’s an accessible option at least, whereas with movies, there is no way that it would ever be financially viable (or perhaps even possible) to obtain for distributing in Second Life, at least not in any manner resembling what HiVid offered.
I guarantee you 95% of DJs and/or radio broadcasters on SL aren’t obtaining licensing for it. Not that this really has much to do with the article but it was brought up. Anyone can SAY they got a license etc.. Start asking DJs to show proof of license and I bet they tell you to bugger off =)
Tjay, can you do bonniebots next? Yes they’re only gleaning what is already visible by anyone, but they aren’t anyone, they’re an algorithm collecting this info en masse that nobody asked them to.
I asked Ben Vortex if the movies were legal, he told me that he was buying licenses for the movies on his televisions. I purchased over 2800 movies from Hivid. I want to know if there is a lawyer we can contact for maybe a class action law suit to try and retrieve some of our money back from this fraud?