Another Idiot Out To Steal Items

A friend of mine who owns his business in SL had a interesting experience with a month old newbie. He was aware that someone was on his Radar HUD and after a minute decided to take a look with camera. He could see this guy right clicking on everything in one area and then he moved on to the next. When the newbie went to a third area, my friend flew over to see what was going on. As a courteous store owner he asked if he could help. The newbie answered in Chat "Who are You?", the answer given was "I'm the owner". Newbie guy then says he's there to see what he can steal, he's found out that enough store owners don't make sure this can't happen. Now my friend got the impression this person planned to resell some of what he steals. Needless to say, newbie guy got ejected after a warning. I guess if any of you have a business, it might be a good idea to double check your stores. All I can say is, some people lack the sense of a rock(virtual or real)when they think thieving is the thing to do.

Most of my sale items could be copied simply by someone buying one, looking how it's made and building a replica from scratch!

It's true and annoying. I've had several copycats in my store who acted exactly the same. Some say: ah well, just a newbie eager to learn. But I don't buy that, when someone spends 2 whole days (!) in a store with this behaviour. I also had a copycat who I ejected and banned after several warnings, but he managed to stand just at my land border and continued what he was doing. Newbies may be ignorant or eager to learn, but they are not intentionally pushy or rude. Usually these 'newbies' are alts from copycats.

Copying can never be prevented, but these copycats are the reason that my items are no modify by default, as much as I hate that. When my customers want modify items, I simply exchange them for free. A copycat could ask it too, but then he'll have to buy it first, and most copycats don't do that.

I have seen so many threads on this topic and it just amazes me that people are so completely slimy. As much effort as these idiots put in to recreating someone elses work....they could be coming up with their own thing and making an honest buck. I guess it just proves that every human element shows up in SL eventually....even the shitty ones.

What really confuses me is the skins......an earlier post pointed out a skin thief who was selling multiple skins by different creators as his/her own. How the hell do ya do that? Just the complexity of how that would work, causes a brain cramp for me cause skins are not transferrable...which means you'd have to recreate the whole dam thing in photoshop and re-upload it.... and without the texture to save to your hard drive....how the hell are these people doing it? It freaks me out every time i read about it cause I'd love to be able to do skins but my patience for the tediusness of it is nil....

(and my artists ego would never accept just imitating something I've seen, even if I could...I loathe the idea of something I sell not being 100% my own creation)

there is no complexity involved, it`s even simpler then trying to copy a 3 prim chair...

and about these sort of people, they are scum, low lifes of the society, they`ll do what they can to rip, steal or cheat their way trough RL/SL with the moral of a nutshell

thank god you can`t copy scripts and recreating them takes time and skills wich they do not have

i can't believe some people's nerve. i can't believe this person confessed. i can't believe you gave a warning.

hmmm
"He could see this guy right clicking on everything in one area and then he moved on to the next."

I wonder if this is why ppl tend to watch me when I go to a store (have had it happen a lot, where ppl will come and just stand beside me, you just know they are watching)
I do the clicking thing, but my reason is to get it to rez

and how did your friend know if the person was right clicking or left?
oh nm the little particles shooting out and the pointing hehe


but yeah I right click everything to get it to rez faster (and it works)

Just hovering your mouse over it will work too and is less expensive on the sim. Not that it's hugely expensive to right-click something - just more than hovering.

I right click to get the buy option so I can see what the item contains. Sometimes (actually most of the time) the picture you see only gives you a very brief discription of exactly what it is you are purchasing.........and if I can use the buy option to see the contents it helps me decide if I want to purchase. But a lot of people are now putting the contents in yet another box which hides the contents from you. I seldom buy those.

I've been disappointed too many times in the past after looking at a picture and assuming from the brief discription what I was getting. So I probably get a lot of stares when I shop too. But after reading this thread I guess that is part of the reason I see so many contents buried in a box on the buy option..........not sure if the reason but if it is them I can understand a little better and stop getting annoyed when I can't see what I'm buying using that method. Maybe the content creators could more throughly put exactly what you will get in the discription if this is done to help stop thievery of there stuff. Damned thieves making life difficult on everyone..........and making some of us look suspicious when we are truly interested in purchasing something.

If any of you sellers see me right clicking in your store it's just me trying to decide if or what I'm wanting to buy.........don't boot me, please. Ask me and I'll tell you.......especially now that I know that could be considered suspicious activity.

That does not work all the time. The right clicking doesn't work all the time either but more often than hovering does. Sometimes it takes actually going to edit to get something to rez........and that ain't 100% either if the sim is lagged.

I don't understand why the OP calls this "stealing" products - it is possibly copying, or maybe getting inspiration, but wouldn't the "copycat" still have to make the prims, texture them, assemble them, script them have a place to sell them and market them?

If someone had the nerve to ask me why I was right-clicking things, I'd probably say something stupid too. Just sayin'

"Scanning these items for viruses, ma'am"

I realize, though, that it's quite possible the guy was using the texture UUID copying thing in the older viewer.

It's possible to just mostly forget about the copycats.
This IS SL although I reckon all VR worlds will be susceptible. Stuff will be ripped where possible, the future is looking worse...So....
Expect (plan for) your goods to go wandering and turn up in flea markets for free. Eventually.
My stuff has been ripped too btw.
Just make more NEW stuff that they wont have.

i do this for EVERYTHING!

I AM OT...OH sorry

Just read the title first...whoops

/me slinks away in shame

I right click all the time to see how many prims things have....

Me too. But that got me ejected from a very popular sim once.

Mari

This entire thread shocks me. I right click like crazy. I'm nosy as hell. Even if I'm not buying something I'm curious how many prims it took. I just happen to admire other peoples work. I'm amazed from reading this that I haven't been booted yet.

I do the same thing.. no matter where I am I can't help but right clicking>edit things to see number of prims, and see how much is a single sculpty sometimes.. it fascinates me! I'm not about to steal anything at all, but I right click tons.

I also right click items if the texture is loading slowly, it moves up the priority, and makes it load faster.

I've even drag-selected whole stores to make it load faster than everything around.

Does that work? I've never heard that. Thanks for the good tip!

Yes it does!

Also, alt-clicking a texture can help too, but I prefer right clicking.

Nice, I have been doing the right-click all this time too personally... don't have all day for a mall to load *shrugs*

The OP's friend's experience sounds like the problem we had when the sheepbot was indexing everyone's stuff and people would go searching for things that were accidentally set to sell or selling for free. When I look at the new 'search all' I noticed that when it brings up a place it lists all the items for sale on that land and their prices. That might be a good way to check if you have your selling boxes set wrong.

My friend only got suspicious when newbie guy was clicking on everything in one store. And I do mean every single prim there, even the decorative plants which weren't for sale since they came from different garden stores. I usually just put my cursor on any vendor images to get them to rez in faster if they are grayed out, when I first arrive at a shop or mall. I do agree that the nerve to announce what he was there to do was something else. Newbie guy had to be lazy in the extreme. It's more fun to learn how to build your own stuff, stretch the imagination and creativity.

Sounds like he was looking for any 'Take Copy' items - and sometimes folk leave things copyable like that deliberately. I know I have in the past when I've created some small item for my own use that I'm not interested in selling but don't mind being copied.

After all, it could be another way of advertising - many names have become familiar because their free items have become commonplace.

It doesn't usually happen accidentally, and I wouldn't expect vendors etc to be free to copy, but if folk leave small things like vases or plants as free to copy, one might be forgiven for thinking they meant it.

Maybe he only thinks he's stealing.