Have you been a victim of fraud?

I sure have!

Share your thoughts, experiences, DOs and DON'Ts on fraud, copyright breach and poor ethics in Second Life.

Here is the recent event that has upset me. I am sending you a letter I sent to the support team for OnRez. It will explain it all. Your thoughts would be appreciated. Your help even more!!

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Hi guys,
One of my customers has reported yesterday they saw my shapes being sold on your site.
The name of the offender is Sar__h St__m (this is just one of the identities used by this person on your site continually - judging by the feedback of one of her “happy” customers she has had many more).
Sarrah has used photo (textures) from my displays and has added her own text and is selling over 30 items on your site promising complete avatars for half of the price of my items.
I of course can not sell complete avatars as clothing and other items I used for styling are made by other content creators in SL. What Sarrah is doing is fraudulent and it is in breach of copyright since she has used texture that was done by someone else without their permission.
My concerns:
Sarrah is giving bad name to good merchants and is associating her scam act with reputable brands.
When approached Sarrah’s reply was verbatim: “It’s only a video game, hehehe”
People like Sarrah give sites like yours bad name as the items listed can not be trusted.
I would like to know how can I take this further. What do you have in place for addressing issues such as these?

Here are the examples of what is being sold and what actually the genuine article looks like:
FAKE
http://shop.onrez.com/item/369036
ORIGINAL
http://www.flickr.com/photos/luminarist/472437015/in/set-72157600047661128

please get back to me asap as you can imagine this is quite upsetting and serious matter to people who create content in SL

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If you prove someone has taken your work you can file a DMCA claim and LL will remove the non complying content.

Thats is your only recourse.

I dont see how you could POSSIBLY prove someone stole your shape design though. Unless they were using your same vendor pics.

Theres too many varibles involved to prove decisively that those values were "yours"

Plus they could easily come up with the same values, since the Appearance editor doesnt exactly lend itself to 100% free expression.

It would be like trying to copyright a SINGLE non textured prim.

Wouldnt make sense to me.

You may want to take the offender's name out of the post. It is against the forum rules to "name names". I've been told that Mad Designs made a lot of their shapes no modify lately because of reproductions of their shapes. Anytime you have a shape that is no modify, the owner can create their own by copying all of the slider numbers. It may be unethical to resell the copied shape, but is it fraud?

you know this forum its like a soap opera you can watch a few episodes when you have the flu and come back in 6 months and not have missed a thing

If you are a EU resident, you missed quite a lot.

I have ammended her name - thank you. I do not come to forums much.

yes, we have made them no mod due to that

no selling copyied shapes is not fraud - fraud was general question I asked - this person is making fraudulent claim that she offers shape, skin, hair, eyes and clothing for 500L - see picture from original post - when she does not - that is fraud!

no one can offer whole package unless then made it themselves - skin used on photo she used for her vendor is from Naughty Designs, Hair is from Cake etc.

So I guess not only did she breach copyright as she copyied photos I have done but she also is making false claims about her product.

does firstland count?

How about unannounced surcharges?

any of them lets discuss
I am sure this is not the first or last post on this topic
lets discuss - share what you got

My comment was about LL's unannounced VAT charges, and there's been enough discussion about that. but sorry to hear about this happening to you.

ahh I see
I heard about that - lovely as always they are
thanks for support

i predict more to come.
theory: id verification is being indrocuced in part to facilitate taxation of residents. first vat, then gst, then state sales tax.

many of us saw 'firstland' all over the sl website, in the viewer land search menu and so on. we were promised firstland, but once we went premium we discovered firstland had been axed by ll many months earlier.
classic bait and switch by ll.

well I tell you what... that person (judging from the ad copy) has more balls than a guy on crutches at the "running of the bulls".

sadly certain items just MUST be made no mod right now... shapes,skins, items that rely on their shape to be sold( purses hats shoes, flexi skirts and hair come to mind)...

is it right? no. a few tweaks of the permissions sytem could fix this, but I couldn't tell you how hard that'd be to actually design.

you do have a valid complaint, and I would pursue it with LL... they may not be able to do anything about onRez, but if this person has inworld vendors, and is still foolish enough to steal not only product but advertising images, I think LL might be inclined to do something about it (and really, what kind of nit wit doesn't even change the product name? I mean shapes? come on... the competition can't be that stiff or vendors that desperate...)

That`s just sick! I`m sorry man, I hope you get this one resolved.

Also troubling to me as I know you use my products, she promises "hair, clothing, etc included!" BS.

How is she getting top star ratings? Is she registering alts for this or did she somehow really get ahold of the shapes numbering and the products?

Either way she needs to be stopped and I hope onrez will take it down. I may send them a take-down request as well regarding her and the fact she is claiming to be distributig my products.