Regarding Stolen Content

The periodic threads about using content without permission usually just get a "dag, that sucks" from me but this past weekend the magnitude of the situation really became apparent. I was plant shopping to finish up a project. Many of the plants were very nice, original work. Some I saw had clearly just been scanned from catalogs or books. Not kosher but no skin off any particular avatar's, um, avatar. And then others, lots, many were being sold by avatars other than the name in the "created by" field. I first noticed it when a tree I purchased from one of the big name garden centers was being sold somewhere else for much less. I'd rather buy things directly from their creators since I appreciate being treated the same way so I started inspecting things before buying. It was depressing. One place had the work of many different avatars and was even selling the Linden plants.

Someone who could catch a monkey has written in another thread about actively seeking out his own copied work and dealing with the perpetrators directly. Others have raised the alarm here on the forums about stolen content belonging to others. My experience has shown me that reporting these instances can become a full-time job! I don't have any desire to become a content busybody. I don't have that kind of time and there is the outside chance some of this reselling is legitimate. Yet I know if it were my work that was being stolen I'd want to know.

So, to the content creators I ask: How often do you receive tips of potentially stolen material? Do you appreciate having others on the lookout? Do you actively patrol the grid for stolen material? Do you receive "false alarms?" Do you hire others to look for your work where it shouldn't be?

To the average resident: Do you just see it as a problem between the creator and the "borrower?" Do you just keep an eye out for only your friends, the big names whose work you recognize easily, or everyone? Does the stigma of being an informant, stoolie, narc inhibit you from getting involved? Do you like pie regardless of who made it and where it came from?

How often do you receive tips of potentially stolen material?

Once every month or two.

Do you appreciate having others on the lookout?

Yes. Absolutely.

Do you actively patrol the grid for stolen material?

No. I'd rather spend my time creating things, and the amount of time I have for that is limited enough to begin with.

Do you receive "false alarms?"

Yep. Most of them in fact, or at least I can't be certain enough to risk accusing someone who's innocent.

Do you hire others to look for your work where it shouldn't be?

No. I depend on my loyal customers to alert me when they see something suspicious.

I have yet to have a clear cut case of theft of my work. I've had many where I just wasn't sure. There are some of my skins that I'd know right away, and others that are pretty straight adaptations of licensed source photos that many people use where it stands to reason that someone using the same source and similar techniques would arrive at something that looks very similar. Theft has gotten bad, no doubt about it, but turning the grid into a witch hunt where innocent people have their good names ruined out of overzealous paranoia would be worse, imho. When I do find a clear cut case of theft though I won't hesitate to file a takedown notice and AR the hell out of the person and I hope my customers will continue to notify me when they see something suspect.

Are you not talking about resale here? How do you know it's stolen?
Could this not be a matter of selling things second hand? If so, isn't that legal? I mean, if I buy a 200L dress somewhere and then sell it to someone (if transferrable) at a different price, isn't that my business?
Believe me, I've bought some things I'd gladly sell again to recoup even a fraction of the cost

I saw stuff at SLASH that is selling for less at UK Designs (unless it's something really really similar). I'd assume that some deal was made between them, not that I'm looking at stolen goods.

What am I missing here?

....this really nicely laid out "open air market" that I stumbled upon while out browsing yesterday - selling all freebies!!!! And the type freebies that most anyone would recognize by sight. AND (if I recall correctly, but I'm pretty sure) being sold as no copy/no mod.

The strange thing is (strange to me at least) is how lovely this shopping area is - the type place I would enjoy shopping if it were offering something besides items found free in most well-known freebie places. The owner of the market has nicely-worded ads in her classified & picks section of her profile.

Why in the world would someone go to so much effort to showcase and sell freebies??? Some of the original content creators may be long gone from SL, but still....isn't this unethical? I feel like making a "sandwich board" type of sign to wear that says "You can get anything in this shop at "XYZ Freebie Place" - FREE! and walking around there.

It's actually kinda tricky to know if the creator wasn't doing consignment work for the seller, or otherwise has some re-selling agreement. In the well-known garden shops, I'd certainly be surprised if there were any "pirated" material of that sort. So that's one kind of "false alarm." (Another would be megaprim-based plants, the main creator of which probably everybody knows. Some sellers have glued on another prim as root--sometimes with added functionality--which kinda hides the megaprims' creator name.)

There's also lots of *misses* just comparing creator and seller. The problem is that most plants are basically textures, and the prim's creator is more or less irrelevant to the actual "content" one is purchasing if the texture has been ripped.

.............

Almost completely off-topic, but speaking of Linden plants: I know of one pioneering maker of scripted plants who has free-to-copy instances of the Linden plants that show him as their creator. I trust him implicitly, so I'm sure there's some explanation for how that came about, but was just too distracted to ask him the history. Then very recently I came upon one of the big Linden eucalyptus trees with a completely different creator, also free-to-copy. (In both cases, the system recognizes them as "Linden plants" in that one must have that landscaping permission to use them on a parcel.) Anybody have any idea how these came to exist? (I know there's an expensive piece of third-party software that actually made the Linden plants, but I think the set isn't extensible by mere mortals.)

Since I'm not a creator in SL, I didn't know about all this 'theft' stuff, at first. Most newbies probably don't, either. I think it really sunk in when I purchased a few AO's at a creator's small shop. They had signs explaining theft and to, please, only buy from vendors with their names on them. Someone else had been placing there own vendors side by side, etc. Not only did I buy from the 'right' person, I learned something new and from then on, I was much more vigilant when purchasing elsewhere.

I encourage all creators to do the same, even if you have not experienced theft at your location. Place a sign up in your own shop and make sure it's visible. Newbies will be made aware of the problem and will understand the reasons behind the differences in price that you can find in SL. Most people (I think, I HOPE!) would rather deal with the original creator...

How do you know when someone has the permission to sell other people's work? I certainly wouldn't want to bother someone with an IM if there was an agreement between creator and another store (not sure if I make sense, here...)

If you use the 'build' button, and select 'tree' as the prim type, it will show you as the creator of the linden plant. The downside is you get a random tree every time, so you have to work at it a lot to get the one you want

-Atashi

Thanks! (Well, I was expecting something more intriguing, but it's good to know. I think I haven't used "luck of the draw" landscaping since I discovered the plants are all in the Library folder, so I'd never have discovered it on my own.)

its more than you think. i like looking for new places to shop and came across a store as well that was selling freebies. at ridiculously high prices. the same freebies you can get at Free Dove, or Freebie Island. i even have a nieghbor selling the very items i have for free at market value. how do ya stop it?

I sometimes create things with an alt. If I need/want to work in private with no interruptions. So that would show a different name as the creator, although the alt I use for this has the same first name as my regular AV. I did this specifically for customers who inspect objects first, hoping they would get the hint if the creator & seller names were similar. It was only a concern one time when I got an IM from someone asking if the eyes they purchased were stolen because they were made by someone besides me. I explained the name was my alt and if they look at my alt's profile it has classifieds and picks to my store.

I had been working for a long time on skins and just was not satisfied with the way body shading was coming out. I was given, with permission, .psd files to help me out, which they did help...a lot. With the changes I've made and permission to sell the skins, I do...but it still didn't quite sit right with me that it was not 100% my own work, so I have a sign up at my store that I did use the assist of templates with permission. You'd be surprised (or maybe not) the amount of people who have IM'd me since those signs went up, outright asking for the templates, either for free or some have offered money. That I do not have permission for, and wouldn't do anyway.

Much as I HATE HATE HATE being a snitch, and do will practically anything to avoid it in most cases, this is one case where I don't mind at all.

If I go somewhere and see someone selling a pack of textures that I myself have already bought from a texture seller, or seen in his/her store, yes, I will IM the texture maker and tell them that someone is selling their texture packs, in case they don't know about it and it wasn't a previously arranged deal. (Which it never is, but I always say that anyway.)

Only once have I been told of someone stealing one of my designs. I took a look at yes, it really was way too much of a theft, so I wrote the house builder a note saying the similarity was too strong, and would he remove the house from his offerings, and he did.

coco

as much as people hate it when other sell freebies, I do not mind it., IF....

If the freebies have been arranged in a way that I can see what I am getting, easily,
if they are prices at 10L or less

and if the seller states openly somewhere on a sign, that these items can be purchased for free in other places in SL

I do not mind paying 10L or less for a freebie if I really like it, it will save me the time of having to sift through boxes and boxes of freebies to find that particular one

as for freebie island, ew, been there, way too laggy and not very easy to find anything.

I have thought about creating a store with all the freebies sorted out much like one would do in any department store, in sections. have them labled and such properly with a huge sign that states that these are freebies etc

but then realized that is pretty much what others (honest others) have done LOL

anywho... as for stolen stuff, can not say I have seen any, but have heard of a lot

as for textures, a lot of times ppl might think it is stolen, when in fact the 2 creators may have photosourced from the same place.
For example I was out looking for some nice drapes the other day, and went to a well known texture shop, saw some that I liked but they were not well done and obviously photosourced. So I went hunting the web, found the EXACT same drapes and photosourced them myself, with some nice modifications and not bragging but mine ended up much cleaner and nicer than the ones I saw.

That is not theft, so who is to say these similar products we see are not the same type of situation.

A lot of the freebies of today -

Are the stolen content of yesterday.

I'd agree with you on those points

However in the case I cited:





The freebies were nicely arranged, however, the *minimum* price I saw was around 30L and went up to 100L (of the items I personally looked at before shaking my head and leaving)



No sign



These were items I've seen (and had in my inventory...several times...lol) from Yadni's Junkyard and Sarah Nerd's Freebies. I haven't been to Yadni's in awhile, but Sarah's freebie store is pretty well organized.

I think besides just the amazement at seeing free items for sale was how really pretty the market was and how well thought out. *sighs*

It's a problem we should all be aware of and react according to our desires.

I keep an eye out for anyone that I am aware of. I'm always on the hunt for great poses and animations, so these "rip offs" I find most frequently. But if I'm suspicious, I'll spend a few minutes investigating on behalf of the creator whether they know me or not.

I don't care about stigma. I will contact creators regarding suspected theft and think no more on it. I have a huge respect for content creators, and their work should not be ripped off. If they grow bitter and leave, that's only a disservice to all of us.

I like most pie, but most especially I like a really good coconut cream pie.

there was mention of linden trees being made in sped tree/spread tree/something else and that creators could use the same tool if they had it. worth about $10,000 USD in licensing I think though.

qie got schooled! thats so awesome

i sell stuff at 3 different places, all yard sale types... as in, used (or resale). some stuff i made is now being resold by others too.

if you make something transferrable, then i don't see why it can't be resold or given away.

I agree with Chip's statements. Also wanted to add that I endeavour to keep adding new products, keep improving quality and have better marketing than the rip-off places. Also, as I have (mostly) scripted products, it's harder for them to replicate that.

I thought people would only bother to steal expensive items such as skins, but a while back I found someone had ripped one of my chocolates textures. So no doubt some of my card images are being used and sold down some back alley somewhere... but the part they won't have is the script, which is what makes them unique

I have also reported (to the creator) full-perms textures I recognised being sold at a market. The seller didn't even bother to re-name them - duh!

I keep a general eye out for this nonsense. I was in a store recently looking at big animal avies. There was a person there I noticed after awhile taking loads of photos. At first i just ignored it, but the longer I was there it became obvious she was taking detailed photos of everything.

I IM'd the owner who came right over. When questioned, the person quickly tp'd out. The creator told me she wasn't too concerned as her Avies would be difficult to duplicate for a variety of reasons. But, she was way cooler about it than me. I was really pissed.

I will IM a content creator in a minute, major or minor.

As for resale - I operate a resale store as some of you may know. I try to stick to major content creators - and buy my items from other residents who want to clear their inventory, etc. There is a right way to do resale, and most of us in SL do it correctly in my opinion. Not all, but most.

I have an info card I send out to potiential customers which says what I don't buy: Textures, freebies, free to copy or full perm items. You would be amazed at the number of people who still try to sell me these items! *shakes head* And I too have seen a million Linden freebies being resold at obscene prices. I have a potted fern in my store that is free to copy; I see it ALL the time for sale.

Oh...the pie. Chocolate cream, pref baked by someone I trust.

Well, sometimes people have paid many thousands of lindens for these things only to have someone else give them away for free?

could it be this person bought a Business in a box only to have others start giving everything away for free?

Besides, isn't some of it the shopping experience? i've argued before that i'll gladly pay for some things that might be freebies if someone has taken the time to provide a nice shopping experience or catagorized them well.

/me hates freebie stores, even when i was new. I'd gladly pay 50L just so i don't have to look though 100 boxes with 1000 things in them to find the gems.

Some months ago, when I was fairly new and still relatively naive I paid a LOT of L$ to a guy who had a huge plot (quarter of a sim or so) of 'his' content for sale.

The story was, he was leaving SL for good due to a family crisis and needed to cash out for as much as possible.

He was openly selling the whole deal, several thousands of items, from jewellry to vehicles, furniture etc., all full perms to anyone who wanted them and I know he made several other sales at the same time.

Being a trusting sort, I assumed I was getting the foundation of a reasonable marketing opportunity until I could get up to speed myself.

A few weeks later I started to put these items for sale when I noticed a discrepancy between the creator and owner names and actually contacted the creator of some really nice jewellry, only to be told the truth about her items having been ripped off, given out as freebies and even sold.

I've learned my lesson and now check things like that before buying.

Needless to say, I don't sell the items I bought. Just create my own stuff now.

I am assuming that is me, unless their are any other wierd residents proud enough to document their monkey catching skills.

Yes, Porky, it was you I was referring to. I hope you'll consider doing some classes on the side in monkey catching. I can't be the only one who could brush up on those skills

Thanks for all the feedback and input above. I've learned a few things.

I've just been told by someone that one of my boxed textures in my freebie section, actually selling this particular box for L$1 is still sold by the creator, what surprised me about this is that i got this box out of one of S.N.'s freebie boxes which people in these forums quote often as being one of the most honest freebie vendors.

Anyhow, I've IMd the creator asking if these are allowed as a 'resale' or 'freebie' product, if she says no I will obviously remove them.