what do you do..

...when you find the skin you bought at a full perms store to give away as a freebie, is one of those stolen naughty island skins?

Ive bought a lot from this place, mostly you can see its just lower end of the market clothing that was never made to be sold for a lotta lindens. I saw this skin, didnt look THAT great but just "ok" in the picture on the box- thought it would be a great addition for my freebies for residents - never find enough guys stuff ...so i bought it. Placed it in my freebie place, then my partner saw it- and was shocked that infact it was a blatant copy/theft of his very own skin he paid a few thousand for at naughty island...

Obviously i didnt try it on as i do with many of the items i get for the freebie store so didnt see it was a fabulous skin at all.(and it was fabulous, my partner showed me his skin, then the copy, so i could see it was identical)..was just chuffed id found sometihng for the guys at last. As soon as i was told it was a stolen skin i removed it from my freebies and told everyone why id removed it and how distasteful i found theft of this type.

Should i report the place thats selling it to the original creator, is there a protocol to follow when you find these items?

Fai x

I would contact the original owner/creator of the Naughty Island skin and tell them what you discovered about the skin purchase. Supply any information you can, like the name of the store, LM's, the item you bought. Leave it up to them to take any action, it was their product that has been stolen.

I'm sure that the Naughty Island owner/creator will take it from there, and they will be grateful for you letting them know.

Yes report it to the original creator. I sell full perm sculptie maps on condition that the maps may not be resold. I have had several of my loyal customers inform me that someone was indeed reselling the textures. I was glad that my customers were looking out for me. The original creator is the only one who can file an infringement claim and get LL or SLEX to take action.

Oh Oh those naughty skins are still being sold a 0L.......I thought they caught that person while back. They had all kinds of bad lucky these past 2 years..

I bought it at a 10L full perm store last week, friday i think...to be honest..it didnt look so hot in the pic on the box it came in...but..my partner recognised it straight away, unpacked, wore it...its identical...makes me mad, thanks for the info, shall indeed bring it to the makers attention.

Fai x

SL has busted and banned some skin thieves a while back. I was pretty impressed. You need to let the orginal designer know.

"CX"

If those things are anything like the other full perms stuff, they are all over the grid, sometimes being sold as the creation of whoever ripped the skin textures. Catching one person doesn't stop anything. It's nearly impossible for anyone to tell what was stolen and what was released by the creator as a BIAB (yes, some things actually are).

I think that responsible resellers, though, would gladly take any items down IF informed by the original creator of the item that it was stolen. This is more difficult to do with a 'ripped' skin that shows the texture ripper as the creator, though. Perhaps the original creators could make some photos showing a side by side comparison to distribute to resellers so the responsible ones can remove them. Hearing rumors is not enough, because it could just be another reseller trying to get rid of the competition that starts the rumor.

To apply this to the original post, yes, you should contact the original designer and let them know. I would recommend this even if you bought the skin in question at my business partner's store - she sells skins for $10 as contents, not in the boxes themselves. She has said before that if she receives notice from the creator (whether from the creator themselves or the creator's website - something documented) she would take it down, no problem. I don't want to speak for her, but I get the impression that these stolen skin rumors are making her contemplate giving up that part of the business entirely, because the tiny amount of money it brings in isn't really worth the hassle. However, I sometimes wonder, as widespread as these skins are in SL, if newbies can't get them at her store for $10, they might get stuck buying them for hundreds of L$s from some other reseller. I very rarely see these things distributed for free in my travels around SL.

I buy full perms items to give away to residents as a thank you for renting from me...and also to help the new people to second life that rent starter homes...i pay for them full perms...to give for free...also use them as incentive gifts when i send out questionairres.

The place I bought this skin was not a skin store..but a big place where you can buy all sorts of full perm items for resale, not just skins. It was the only male skin for sale, there were a few female skins too i think though.

A while back I used a freeplace to spend newbies to for those Naughty skins. ( which I had no idea where stole.) I had the creator contact me about location after i pointed out said stolen skin that appeared on the forum. At first they thught i had something to do with the stolen skins, but infact all i was doing was refering newbies to that location. Hence to sum up in a good light, i was thanked by them for pointing out the location. And the said stolen skins were removed. Thats why i know about this issues and Naughty skins

Well as you said you can`t catch all the bad people, but like Chip Midnight said. The program to steal skins is out there. "SO what are we to do?2 In fact Chip`s point was NOTHING......But to continue to file abuse reports on stolen creators objects and textures........