All my work has been copied from my shop :(

Today, april 26 2009, all my work from my shop has been copied, and is now full perms in a red box as a gift in a gold nugget. A lot of people already have all my art deco posters, and some other work. Can anyone tell me what i can do? I did send a few abuse reports to Linden Lab already.

Read this page, and follow the instructions.

http://secondlife.com/corporate/dmca.php

You'll need to send Linden Lab a physical letter, or a fax. If you send it via email, they'll reject it and tell you to send it in the mail or via fax.

Either way, your real-world signature must appear on the final document. If you can find a way to scan in your signature, you can assemble a faxable document in Word, and then send the fax using any number of online upload-to-fax services.

http://faxzero.com/

...is a pretty nice one, since it's free. (they place an advertisement on the coversheet).

Good luck with your issue.

Go into more detail on what your work consists of like what kind it is, how you made them,
and types of materials used. That way people will be able to put it more into context.
If it is all original stuff you made then you should have no problem pursuing a DMCA.

That's awful.

It's thievery, plain and simple.

Art Deco Posters? Did you originally paint them? Just asking cause I heard of a guy filing a DMCA and then it turned out he used pics of the Internet ... So his stolen work got stolen in SL... just sayin... be sure it is all your work....

This is where SL need to chuck their money and time, not the ratings, making peoples work simple and easy to protect, chasing thieves, etc.

Sorry to hear it Qiao, I imagine it's a shocking feeling. I hope you get somewhere with LL and learning how to protect your valuable work.

I'm relatively new to SL and am an aspiring professional photographer in RL. I am thinking of offering some of my RL work for sale in SL, but this thread has me a little concerned. Can anyone tell me how this can happen and what can be done to prevent it? Thanks.

You have to think of SL like any part of the internet. Anyone can copy your work, (it's harder in SL then on a webpage, but it is not that hard). If you have pictures that you feel you can sell in SL and Real Life my suggestion, unless you don't mind the chance that someone will copy and use it, is to not bother. I will say, MOST residents are honest, and just like you, there are just a few that are not, and it's like any bad thing, it gets all the hype. So really it's a personal choice. As I said before, think of it as putting pictures up on a webpage when you make textures, or upload pictures to SL.

I'm sure people can tell you things like watermarking your image and so forth, which will protect you some what, but watermarks don't show up on screenshots.

It would be very easy to copy your pictures. Think like a thief, spend a few minutes researching, and you'll find out how easy it is. If your RL work provides RL income to you, I would stronly recommend not putting your photography on SL. (Maybe a gallery of samples only to advertise your RL work, but not the stuff you want to sell.) Your work is easy to steal, Linden Lab will not help you protect it, and pursuing legal action against thieves (if you can even track them down) will be more expensive than it's worth.

Digital watermarks do show up in a screenshot. Digtal watermarks alter the actual picture slightly, so the watermark can't be seen, but can be decoded. The watermarking service I used claimed that the watermarks withstood alterations and degradation well.

However, digital watermarks only help you identify a particular picture as your own. They don't prevent work from being stolen. They won't help you find all copies of your stolen work (services have web acans for which you can pay to find your stolen work on the internet). They won't tell you who stole the work. And they won't guarantee that you can get anything from the thief even if you find the thief. Best bet is still don't fool around with SL.

I'm not sure that his work is any more "thievable" here than it would be on a website. With programs that allow screen shots and "grabs", stealing photos is easier than ever. Even with some of the pay-for-photos sites, watermarks are easily removed with a good clone tool in Photoshop.

Thanks for all the great replies. In RL I sell my work on line but I only deliver it in hardcopy prints. I do have rather small, low res images on my web site but they are just so people can get good idea of what I have to offer. I have made a number of prints for SL but I think if I'm going do business in SL I will follow a similar model to what I am doing in RL for the time being, set up a gallery like Amity suggested and point people to my web site where they can order the prints.