A cheating neighbor... is there anything to do?

My sl partner and I have a store on our home land, our neighbor too has a store on his land. Our home land was originally supposed to be residential only, however when our neighbor put his store out, we took it up with the land owner and she let us put our store out. Unfortunatly, our neighbor has been having 6 or more alts camping in a little box on his land throughout the day to cheat on his traffic numbers. We believe they are alts because they all disappear when he comes online, his land being so close to ours we can see him pop up on our scanners and see the 6+ alts disappear off the mini map. I have found this to lag the sim a little more than normal as well. Plus, the alts names sound too close to his.

Also, unfortunately he is copying our designs... and the disturbing thing about this is that he's using cam controls to look into our home (almost all custom build) for his ideas. I would feel different if I walked into a store and saw someone copy a design of ours yet that person lives on a completely different sim... but this is like trying to build in a sandbox and having some one right next to you watching your every move!!

I'm not quite sure what we can do about this, otherwise the sim is very peaceful and we are not wanting to move... however we are quite upset that this is happening and was looking for suggestions on what to do.

Perhaps ask for the covenant to be enforced. You'll both lose your stores if I understand you right, but you'll be free of the lag and he'll have no real reason to hang around anymore. You'll have to find a new home for your store, of course...

If they are stealing your designs you can file a DMCA claim I think. People who know the process can elaborate I'm sure.

The rest, only the Island owner can do anything about.

1. Using alts or bots to camp and build your traffic numbers is an abhorrent practice, but it's not cheating according to the TOS.

2. Using one's camera to look inside "private" spaces is an abhorrent practice, but it's not against the TOS either.

3. And how do you know he's doing this? Has he IM'd you, saying something like "Naughty, naughty, neighbors! Ha Ha!"?

4. Copying your designs may or may not be a violation of the intellectual property laws. Are his designs "similar" to yours, or exact copies? If they are similar, just how similar are they? (No, don't tell me. Tell your IP attorney, or file a DMCA takedown notice).

One thing you could do is to do your designing elsewhere. Rent a small space, and put up a high skybox for your workshop. At least that way, your competitor won't see your designs until they appear in your store.

That's a touchy situation to be in. Moving really isn't an option--unless you really want to...so here are a few tips and ideas:

* Talk to the land owner and express your concerns. Perhaps the land owner can help out in some way or another

* Stealing another persons designs isn't necessary illegal (especially in SL)--so just make sure your set-up is higher quality. Make sure your place of business looks better, make sure your product looks better...make improvements....change things. Keep your competitors on their toes

* Make sure your branding is higher quality

* Advertise more efficiently...

* Make your pricing more competitive and appealing.

Other than moving far away...you really can't stop someone copying your design...people do it all the time in the real world. Just make your product and branding better...

If you want to temporarily have some terrifyingly awful textures to uninspire him, let me know ...

If there are only two people in the sim, Client > Character > Show Look At would be the dead giveaway.

Yes, I knew there was nothing to be done about someone copying a design... but the camping on his land is rediculous... if it was newbs camping for money-that's one thing, but alts camping for absolutely nothing but to up traffic and lag...

that's funny ) he uses the same texture on almost everything he makes though. seriously

If it's an exact copy or a modification of an exact copy (ie, he has ripped your texture using third-party software or a client loophole), file a DMCA.

Camping isn't against the ToS, but as it's a private sim, try taking the issue up with the owner.

If someone is dead-set on camping and 'gaming the system' then there is little that can be done. You can complain, petition, and AR all you want...but I think in the long-run, we have to accept it as the drunk-uncle of advertising.

well camping is definitely not against the TOS/CS

As best I can tell it is actually encouraged by LL.

I remember reading a post on ppl camping to up traffic numbers when they were still paying ppl for having high traffic. At the time it was frowned upon by LL.

But, aren't you supposed to pay if you want more characters??

Hmm that's an interesting tool, does it show you what someone is looking at? or how exactly does it work?

I have many things I could suggest here but they'll get you (and me) AR'd

It displays crosshairs for each camera looking around. So if you're alone and a second set of crosshairs appears, you know somebody is having a nosey.

It shows a + symbol (cross) that shows where people are looking. It does not give any more information that just that some unspecified users is looking in a particular direction, but not which specific avatar the + corresponds to.

I've used it to look for people in a Sim (just one more method to see where someone might be located).

{wow, I really type slowly}

It seems to show what the avatar's eyes are looking at.

If I move the mouse cursor around, the avatar will try to look at the mouse cursor position and the crosshairs will be displayed there.

If I move the camera a long distance away from my avatar, the avatar will still try to look at where the mouse cursor is positioned and the crosshair will give away the position.

However, as long as I keep the mouse cursor inside the camara control window, the avatar will no longer try to look at the mouse cursor but revert to turning it's head and look at random things in it's immidiate vicinity and the crosshair will be displayed there.

So it seems that as long as you keep the mouse cursor inside the camera control window, the crosshair will not give away what you are doing with the camera

Strangely, the + symbol tells you where someone's "focus" is, but that may or may not be what their camera is actually looking at. Using the keyboard camera controls usually disconnects the two, so this is an imperfect detection tool at best.

{boy, I'm slow at typing too! }

That is correct.

I don't get this. If he supposedly has 6 plus alts why would they all leave when he comes in? Wouldn't it mean he then has more then one computers therefore he (the alts) wouldn't need to leave in order for him himself to come in?

He could be running 6 clients at once. I can run 3 at a time and still operate normally in each. But with 6 running he may not be able to move or take any actions. So when his main comes on to work or play, he kills the alts.

I figured this too, but I've run a virtual pc on my pc before... unfortunately it lags the computer and the internet so I've never done it on sl... but just to sit there for hours at a time with an anti-idle, I'm sure to him it's worth it

you dont need to run the SL client to log in all your alts to camp at your store...

there are many many 3rd party apps for this, that take up very little system resources

That's what I was thinking. Why run 6 instance of a resource hogging opengl application when there are tools available with a much smaller memory/cpu footprint.

I suppose he logs them all out before logging in so they aren't hogging his bandwidth or impacting on framerates during his personal SL time.