The Thieves Motherload

Umm, not totally possible. Emerald can tell me who is in radar range and I can TP directly to anyone on that list. But if they are not in radar range, Emerald is not going to tell me where they are.

I suspect I would leave SL not long after this happened. The whole idea that some people I meet are "not full citizens" really bothers me.

**It's stupid question time again, yay!** Seriously, as usual, I KNOW it's a stupid question, but I still don't know the answer, so..........

How does your everyday Jane or Joe Avatar, just out there shopping, maybe looking for something special for their first SL apartment, know that something they see, like and are amazed is free, or cheap, is there a way to know something is stolen? NOt only for noobs, but also for those of us who are basically SL consumers, we buy what you make. How can one know that something is stolen?

No not really, I have only known when someone has said "hey you want these animations, they are stolen", if i found them in a freebie box I would be near to clueless and I am only aware things actually get stolen because I read this forum, if I didn't read here I would probably not know that anything got stolen in SL at all.

PS I am not aware of anything in my inventory that may be stolen

The only *maybe* way of telling is if the creator of the item is not the owner AND the store/whatever is not a labeled resell place or a yard sale - but that is not always true either.

Yes this implies that stores labeled resell or yard sale don't sell stolen items.

I agree with this - but I also think that severly restricting the functionality available to unverified accounts could prevent a lot of casual content theft. Restricting the inventory size for unverified accounts as well.

For me, I have a simple rule: I only buy things from their creators.

For freebies though, it is a much harder proposition. Here, another couple of rules:

-- Any full perm freebie that is not ancient content is suspect.
-- Any freebie box containing things from multiple residents is also suspect (sad, because such boxes made up the entire stock of the Freebie Warehouse, which was such a wonderful place to know about back in 2006).

If you don't get a freebie from the creator, you have to look at the creator field, and then check their profile and see if it is likely that this person gave away this item. If the item is full perms and the creator owns a store, it's often stolen.

True story: within this last week a random guy showed up in our homestead, and sat down to watch my friend's alt sort inventory. After talking for a minute or so, he said: "I can give you better hair than that", and handed her 4 FULL-PERM hairs, one of which was made by Tami McCoy. I'm sure he was puzzled by his ejection, and although I would bet he did not himself steal the hair, we forwarded the info (and hair) on to Tami, and she filed yet another DMCA. Sigh.

:0 i com-plete-ly understand... it's a case of, 'not everyone gambled, not everyone sext-ed, but -everyone- trades stuff.' :\ i'd hope it was an extreme minority of us who do not remember their first time coming to sl and engaging their friends and their world via making and giving away (legitimately) free shtuff. it's a terrific freedom, so i don't want any 'golden geese' killed by ruining it.

-but,- logically reduced, that is where the problem lies, or at least its intersections with free, anonymous accounts. it gives serial abusers so much room to do what they do, and when it's like that, what first appeared to be a 'right' to transfer away items starts looking more like a 'abused privilege' to me.

the halfway then, is not to rescend transfer; just restrict it to non-anonymous accounts. :\ still free accounts; just the cost of postage and some hangtime until one can be enabled. a simple process in the end, although to start with it again could potentially be another dicey backend recode.

:0 the last thing i'd say for it, although this is never the kind of 'argument' i ever like - if this were a way for the future, those coming to sl then 'would never know' what it was like before, i.e. 'know what they're missing.' :\ gambling and all the other 'restrictions' put into place the past few years haven't yet 'killed the fun'. if this restriction were explained upfront in the registration process, i don't think most people will turn off -too- much... an honest user will be more interested in 'getting stuff' than 'giving away'. at least to begin with... and i doubt that the 'giving up' of one's rl name and address to the lab is chilling at all for one who might come to sl with dreams of becoming a merchant.

some thoughts. obtw msr secret argent ferret ;0 i didn't know you played guitar!! ;0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_q5J9Fwz58&feature=player_embedded
'yr playing it all wrong; gotta strum from de inside'

I assume that is the only thing with a remote chance to work. As in RL. Education and social, responsible behaviour.

;0 often it's tough for creators to tell too! ;0 (when it's not their own work)

Step UP! has compiled some notes to help crank up your 'b.s. detector' lol, to help protect everyone from thieved works and shoddy BIAB areas... can stop by my main store in Centaur; i've a stepup kiosk there - it's free! Bax Coen and a number of other inworld places have kiosks out, so check 'em out...

p.s. :0 i'd forgotten about those old suggestions too; other account restricts like inventory size and such... i'll note those down too as potential suggestions/solutions...

I am a perfect example of that. The stuff sold in my store is all made by someone else for me.

I really don't know. Those who were "not full citizens" would be so by choice. Indeed, that's the choice they've made *now*; changing it so that choice isn't a license to steal, scam, and grief with impunity doesn't seem that onerous a condition. I'm not entirely clear how it's better that the choice be removed altogether (although that would be fine with me, too).

Something else you might want to think about. This would make ripping tools MORE acceptable, because using ripping tools would be the only way new customers could pass stuff around.

Not all of them, by any means. The only reason LL opened the floodgates for anonymous accounts was because they couldn't handle verifying people outside the USA... and these days people outside the USA are the majority of accounts.

If LL was capable of making it such that everyone COULD get verified, they wouldn't need the anonymous accounts in the first place.

:0 that'd be the only way they could -get- stuff for themselves; they could not transfer re-uploaded items from their account to others... do ya grok the 'can get/can't give away' premise?? (or am i not seeing the loophole you're positing?) again to emphasize, this should be account/top-server-level, and not any part of the client/viewer interface or protocols.

and are you sure you mean 'customers' and not 'thieves'? ;0 (or even residents in general? maybe still i don't understand what you're going for... just i wouldn't go around pointing the problem at innocent customers or residents...

whatever the loophole you might have in mind, point being, i think it still a much longer, tougher route for serial thieves to continue to ply their trade in the face of a 'no-transfer' priv. can't make it easier, or just stand still in place; they don't care much about our thoughtfulness over these matters lol. ;0 except when they threaten their pursuits...

noted down your suggestions to muse over some later as other options...

p.s. and yah, i agree it has some 'international' probs, -perhaps-... but so far all i'm looking for in a snailmail is a name and address (and they'd probably want to throw in some 'i affirm' verbiage and a signature), and that shouldn't be anything 'illegal' in any country. the 'key' to the process is that the lab must snail back a letter to that same address, again with perhaps a keycode to verify the account. so if they don't actually live there, they don't get to enable transfer/give-away on their account.

some websites go as far as to want a copy of a driver's license or other such thing to confirm id; i'm not looking for that here (although if it were to play out as a process, legally they might -have- to consider such additional docu).

THIEF

Brenda is a sweat-shop boss.

I guess not.

If I was faced with this, I'd make something, save it to XML, put the XML up on pastebin or flickr or some blog, and tell the guy I wanted to give the stuff to "pick it up from http://example.com/whatever". Because for something I make, that's perfectly legitimate... and most of my best stuff is open source anyway. BUT, you get people doing this, it just legitimizes the whole process of passing around content *outside* second life where there's no protection whatsoever.

Obviously that wasn't good enough, back in June 2006, for Linden Lab. All KINDS of alternatives were suggested by desperate residents. They believe they can't handle verification outside the US on any reasonable scale, period, or they wouldn't have created the problem in the first place.

Psst...over here...Croach bags...LOLex watches......I got 'em.

I'm not a fan of the no transfer proposal for basic accounts. This would prevent new participants from even being able to do the most basic tasks. A texture for example, isn't applied in the same way to a prim if it's no transfer.

:0 ahhh, oh yeah now i getcha. ;0 but that 'back-alleys' thieves even further, and most residents are not going to be as easily fooled or tempted to follow their route. and the extent of damage is reduced greatly to just handfuls of avatars, instead of all over main grid. so, while you have a point, it's one of those 'extremes' that reduces the prob, not exacperates it. at least, to me it seems.

one thing though i should say, if your prob with it is more 'prim-based' copying than maybe other types of assets, i sometimes have to re-read certain things with 'different assets' in mind. it has seemed on occassion that different assets needed different solutions considered (it's easy for me to just look at it from the 'texture' point of view only). but i guess in the end, all assets are postable to a website, sure. i can understand a 'what's the point' POV about that, but that's not an attitude i'm gonna remain in myself... ;0

point is, 'does it make their havoc harder to do?' if so, then i'm interested.

:0 can you refresh me on what the prob is with that?? i don't do much more than very simple prim-texturing myself, usually only with library shtuff... what happens?

i would hope there'd be no interference from setting up something like that; it would be an overall account/sim-level restriction. you could -set- stuff you make to be transferable, but if you had an anonymous account, you would get denied to actually pass that item to someone else, irregardless of the permissions of the object.

and yah - i can imagine the havoc that might cause with residents wanting to buy gifts for each other, but could direct them to xStreet, just like with copiable/no-transfer items. thinking of which, then such a no-transfer account could not sell via xstreet either... hmm bonus for that.

k well i'll be off soon to rl... think and talk and all that stuff! take care have fun.

Perhaps, but it also makes it more common for people to be going around wearing stuff with their own name as the creator. Especially after people start setting up *legitimate* XML freebie blogs with the content inline. Someone's going to come up with a standard zip format with the XML and the textures all bundled together.

I'm an old hand at seeing what the law of unintended consequences is gonna do next. I've been fighting it since 1979. I've done my time in the copy protection wars. The biggest effect that really tough copy protection did? It made the cracked copies more valuable than the real thing, because they boot up faster, run from a hard disk, don't eat their magic gold-labelled floppy, or whatever.

;0 okay argent, just one more... always appreciate your experience and thoughts.

option 1:
a) leave potential thieves with full, free, anonymous transfer abilities for main grid and for xStreet.

option 2:
a) push thieves offgrid to their own websites buried in the web.
b) they push their urls and 'how-tos' onto residents.
- 1: they balk at suspicious behavior.
- 2: they balk at the complicated procedures.
- 3: they question the 'pusher' as to why they have to go about this way.
- 4: they are actually 'not that newb' and know who/where to report suspicious behavior.
- 5: the website urls get back to lab and creators for dmca filing. (yes, i know complications with internation services acknowledging take-downs; again 'some' better than 'none')
- or, 6: the resident takes them up on it and 'pirates away' - to their own account, never to share these items.

honey i know there ain't no solvin' bad people... can only 'manage and marginalize' them. ;0 well we'll see if there's any 'anywhere' from here... one day at a time! take care have fun...