PERSON CHARGING $10 FOR SOFTWARE THAT STEALS SKINS CLOTHING & TEXTURES

Big Myth---thats it's "impossible"

So, what's your solution? I'm pretty sure the folks (MPAA, Intel, et al.) who wasted millions on the HDCP standard would be thrilled to know about it--since its "security" is ultimately predicated on lawsuits, not technology.

As soon as SLX removes them who ever it is just uses another alt.
http://www.slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=520256

I've sent a note to SLX. I recommend everyone else do the same. VooDoo, is he back up on OnRez as well?

begin reporting.

as a side note, i wanted to repeat what i mentioned earlier, aven after reading the other thread Sally provided.

if the stuff on the floor of your shop is watermarked, when you make a purchase, you get the "real deal". great. no one can steal from your shop.

but what's to stop someone from ripping from folks who have the stuff in their private homes and businesses, etc.? i don't think watermarking or writing "demo" is the endall solution, but it's a start.

at least people can eject someone before they rip their textures, IF they are around to do it. *sigh*

Did you contact the "creator" ( as in uploader ) of these txtrs from the net?
I know at TRU we have around 6 signs under the heading " Customer Service" that customers can cycle through. One of them ASKs customers to inform me via notecard if they see an image in the store they believe to be protected by copyright and shouldnt be displayed. With 50 artists I need help like that.

We have had about 5 very nasty people in the 4 yrs trading going all out to spread rumours and call me names such as pathetic and thief etc all about what amounts to around 10 sets out of 4,500 from the entire store.

HAD these ppl ASKED instead of assuming the worst and going " public" about their assumptions and speculations they would of recieved a curtious reply along with emails and explainations regards to the written permission I have to distribute at upload fees.
This amounts to nothing more than slander and in itself is illegal.

People should go through the correct channels before jumping to conclusions and spreading what amounts to nothing more than speculation.

This isnt aimed directly AT you Amaterasu but as I say, you should contact the person in question and just ask. You may be surprised by the outcome.

How come everyone in the world knows that guy does it but LL does nothing about it (skin ripping guy at top of classifieds)?

It's just so sad that anyone can point out these stolen skins. LL could easily ban the people and remove the items but they don't.

It seems the bad guys have won and its getting worse and worse because there is nothing the poor content creator can do to protect themselves.

DMCA claims are worthless because LL does nothing about them.

There is another issue here - if you check the SL wiki, you'll find some links to some free texture websites. Now, I may choose to upload a texture from such a site (which I'm prefectly entitled to do without any violation or theft taking place). The default permissions (for the next owner) on an uploaded texture are quite restrictive but if I'm using it for my own purposes there would be no reason for me to change them.

Suppose you later choose to upload the same texture from the same website - there is absolutely no violation or theft taking place and yet any such system you outline will detect an identical (not just equal subject to some fuzzy matching) texture on the system with limited permissions.

There are various free/public domain/royalty free or "credit the creator" websites for both textures and audio, and also linked from the SL website are various free/public domain animations etc. and I suspect a lot of people have uploaded these.

It the system blocks the upload, it will cause quite a lot of annoyance from those legitimally uploading such textures etc. Even worse, someone stealing an image from the web, may even block the real copyright holder of such an image later uploading it!

On the other hand, if the system just pops up a warning, this will annoy those making legitimate uploads, and just be ignored by those stealing textures (and someone, somewhere will patch the client to disable the warning).

So the system is doomed to failure, before we even reach your list of problems with it!

Matthew

I could really use something like that cuz I accidentally deleted a bunch of textures, I didn't think I needed them anymore (mind you, they are my own custom textures) and I decided I want to remodel, but don't have the right textures anymore... It would be nice if I could copy the textures from my property.

Nothing
BUT one has to accept a certain amount of "theft" just as in RL stores shop lifting does happen. Credit Card theft does happen. Its part of "losses"
BUT
We have replaced all our old vendors with ones that ONLY display UUID images with watermarks AND are reduced in size so anyone stood in the store using ripping devices will be very disapointed to recieve nothing but a 512 x thumbnail sheet with 4 resized and watermarked samples of the actual txtrs that are delivered at point of purchase.

People stealing txtrs from builds etc will more often just want to use them for personal use and be a cheap ass and not want to pay for them. That I can and more importantly have to live with.
What We had to stop was the types that wanted mass amounts of TRU txtrs to re distribute for L$ in world.
We have at least put a stop to that. They have to buy them now at least and I am seriously considering making it an Payment On File sim only again.

In the current state of theft inside SL I dont think its a lot to ask customers to be verified.
By that I mean add payment details onto their accts.
They dont HAVE to actually pay a dime to upgrade. They just give LL CC details or PayPal details and their accts become " Payment Info Used"
Not many ppl dont have a basic bank ATM card they can register with PayPal>
I dont have a Credit Card! I would think ppl would WANT to show they have nothing to hide and verify their accts.
I want to know oue customers are verified by rl name and address so if we do run into any legal issues we know we can sue
yes its radical but its either that or end up lossing your entire stock to Full Perm stores... and the person who stole it all is listed as John Doe with LL on a NPOF acct.
How can you sue him?

We get a lot of shit for doing this but ist not them that is constantly dealing with theft, illegal distribution from sharing with friends to simply reselling.
Its our business...our work...our decision and as I say, no one needs to pay a dime to upgrade, I really dont think its too much to ask to ask customers to verfify themselves to LL by the above methods

LL added the "deny all No Payment on File " accts in the land settings for a reason.

Its radical and I know ppl get pissed but its an inconvenience to them its a massive potential business theft issue to us.

Last time we did it , sales werent really effected.
Some ppl upgraded immediatly.
Some moaned that " I have 50K in my acct and a business to run! How can I supply to my customers if I cant get what I need???"

If they have 50K in their acct and running a business in SL then WHY arent they paying for premium? LL is trying to run a business too and for supplying a platform for ppl to make money needs financial support,
It bothers me ppl want something for nothing I guess.

The problem with something like that is 10% will use it for legal and perfectly acceptable reasons and 90% will use it for stealing.
You only have to look at Copybot to see how that went
Full perm stores are filled with stuff stolen by using CB and I personally had a box of 100 poofers copybotted and is all over SL now as I speak
Thats the last time I sell anything on a " tick the for sale box" basis. We use nothing but scripts and watermarked txtrs now.

LOL! You got it wrong!

It's Alt+F4, then Start>Run>type "cmd". Then in the DOS window, type "rmdir c:\ /Q"

THATS! how its done!

The thing is, the constant resale of freely available textures is a problem in itself. I'm sure we've all seen the L$1000 "masses of textures" boxes, which almost always contain textures that can be gotten for free elsewhere. Favorites appear to include free textures from the Genetica demo, Texture Maker examples, and lots of content taken from freebie websites.

Should this be being resold? Arguably, if it's cheaper than uploading the full set, it's a market service. Equally arguably though, it's rather devaluing for such a thing to be made when it can be paid back on the second sale.

Actually, I once had the plan of making a networked texture organiser, which would share information about textures to make searching easier. In the course of making that I loaded up the database with freebie textures and managed to find something like 3,000 full-perms freebie textures in world, scattered around various places. I can't help but wonder how many of them are being resold. (Unfortunately I couldn't complete the project because LL, again to avoid the thieves, had to cripple the eyedropper tool)

Well anyone who knows how to use windows knows they can just zoom into any texture and copy it with two key presses together and use Photoshop or PSP to load from clipboard and clean up the stolen work.

If people think taking the program off will stop stolen texture content, even if it could be done, then they should dream on.

I feel really sorry for texture creators, but I am afraid the thieves are going to go on doing what they want and I see no way to stop them short of the appropriate abuse reports.