Bot

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A bot is an avatar which is controlled by a machine, rather than by a human.

Ever since residents reverse engineered the Second Life protocols and released their work to the public, anyone could program a custom client. Therefore, it is possible to write a program to perform automated actions with an avatar. This can have various uses, such as to perform group invitations (which isn't possible via LSL), performing as a non-player-character (NPC) in a roleplaying game, as mannequin in a shop, to increasing traffic by camping, etc. Later the graphical SL viewer was also released as open source, but it is more common to use the resident-developed libraries for automation.

Not all bots are not banned from Second Life, but the software is now subject to the third party viewer policy and bot users are expected to mark their avatars as scripted agents. Since the third party viewer policy came into effect, it is a terms of service violation to use CopyBot and programs like it on the Second Life grid.

CopyBot

CopyBot is a program written with libsecondlife (not affiliated with or distributed by the libsecondlife team) that connects to Second Life which allows users to make copies of objects without the permission of their creators.

• CopyBot does not need permissions to copy an object. The copier does not even need to own the object.
• CopyBot cannot copy scripts.
• CopyBot can only copy objects it can directly see. It cannot enter a shop and copy all of the products because all it can see is the vendors. In other words, CopyBot can't copy contents of prims.
• CopyBot is not an object in Second Life, nor a script. It is a program which a person runs on their computer instead of running the regular Second Life viewer. It logs in as an avatar.
• Using CopyBot or any other software to make copies of avatars, objects, or textures that you do not own without the permission of the creator is a breach of the Second Life Terms of Service and will result in being banned.
• If an object of yours is copied, you can file a DMCA notice against the copier. You can also file an abuse report about the use of a noncompliant client, but this is not an effective replacement for a DMCA notice.
• Help or Mentors will not tell you where to get the CopyBot.
• CopyBot and other clients that work like it have been banned from SL, unless they have been programmed to restrict themselves to copying only the user's own creations. The use of programs that can copy other residents' creations is a violation, even if you do not use that ability.
• The CopyBot Defeater tries to get rid of CopyBots by sending the message "!quit" over and over again to everyone in range. This did work for a few hours as the original CopyBot would interpret it as a command to quit, but CopyBot was quickly patched to ignore it. These objects only serve a historical purpose now and do not have any real effect except to annoy everyone.

How can I stop the messages from CopyBot Defeater ?

1. Go to your chat history window by click on the "Communication" at bottom left corner of your interface.
2. Open "Local Chat" tab at the bottom, and click [<<] button at upper right corner.
3. Scroll through the list of names and find the one called copybot and click on it then check "Mute Text" below. NOTE: There may be more than one bot so you might have to do this several times to stop them all.

Attention: Doing this can in most cases mute the owner of the land you muted the copybot defeater in so if you can't hear the owner of the land you might want to temporarily unmute the copybot defeater.

If it still doesn't stop after this you should contact the owner of the object and point them to this page, explaining that their script does not have any functional purpose. As a last resort you can file a Help Request to attempt to mediate the issue. If you are familiar with libsecondlife programming, there is source code for a program available at http://libsecondlife.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/IMResponder/ to log a bot in that automatically responds to !quit messages from objects and informs the owner of the issue and where the object is located.

Related Topics

• What is a bot?
• User:Crone Dryke
• Blog Posts:
  • SL Blog: Much Ado About Bots - Discussion of whether or not certain bots should be banned
  • Conclusion to the Blog Post on Bots - Conclusion that camping bots will be banned, land bots are fine (for now)
• CopyBot:
  • About CopyBot, similar tools, and the Terms of Service
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CopyBot
  • Trademarks and Copyright in Second Life
  • Linden Lab Policies