Now what do I do?

Now what do I do?

I have been making furniture for almost 5 years. Today, I recieved a box of full perm furniture that turns out to be all my furniture. All full perms..

I have worked hard to make textures for my furniture that were unique to my items and have had the Woodshed Furniture to sell my items.

Now, it's all for nothing. All the textures are out there for anyone to use full perms. Textures that I spent hours making. I have been so blessed in SL up until now. I have always tried to give back to SL where I could.

Right now I am still too stunned to do much.

Queef Solo, is now listed as the creator of all my furniture. The only things that was not copied were the scripts and animations.

I will try to do some damage control. I do believe though, that my time in SL is done.

Thank you for reading and I wish you all a very happy and successful SL.

Oh man, that's harsh.
Did you contact this loser?

I know that some people feel that it's a free-for-all in SL but they just don't GET the amount of time it takes to get things just right for your creations. And, even with the Beta grid, the texture uploads really do add up. To have someone just walk off with the results of your hard work and then pretend it's theirs is just awful.

It's because of this nonsense that I worry that the truly talented creators will just turn their attentions to less discouraging projects elsewhere.

One of my biggest fears relating to copybot wasn't the fact that some kid may try to sell my stuff, but that somebody may just enable full perms on a copied item and drop it into a sandbox. Free for all!.

Very demoralizing and not much that could be done about it. Or rather - not much that LL would choose to do about it.

It's because of things like this, and lesser things, that I hope that Stroker's lawsuit succeeds, and that it pushes LL into doing something about it for everyone.

I suggest that you continue to sell your stuff as normal - perhaps the effect of won't be as bad as you imagine. I also suggest that you pester LL to do something about it - you never know - they may be able to do something.

The box that is being distributed has other furniture in it also......but the bulk of the furniture in the box is mine.

No one is safe from this kind of thief, no one.

Linden Lab has banned the two people that I know of that are involved with this theft.

They responsed very quickly.

But who knows how many people have the box and will sell or give away all my hard work.

Right now.....I'm done, completely.

At this moment, the theives won.

Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.

Thank you all.....take care......

Please don't give up.

The thieves lack something you do not.

Talent.

Have you asked LL to delete all instances of the box from the system? It might help if they'll do it?

You have been a member since 2004. It would be a shame for the SL community to lose a positive contributor such as yourself because of some jerks.

Seconded! If your interest still existed before you received the box, don't let the thieves, and LL's failures, beat you.

RH -- very sad to hear that. Woodshed is wonderful - a couple of my very closest friends (OK, alts!) have bought furniture there. You have been very responsive to questions, as well.

Are the Rebel Hope products involved as well?

I too think you should continue to sell, and see how it goes. If you can get LL to act on the DMCA quickly, in all likelihood distribution of the freebie will be limited. If you would like any sort of petition to LL to be sent asking them to act quickly, I'm sure you can count on many of us in the Forum Cartel to help out with it.

Your store, and you, are an asset to the grid. I would be very, very sad to see it go.

Edit: I also meant to say, I doubt that most of your actual customers are the type who collect things from freebie boxes. Even when I receive them, they generally go unopened into the "Freebies to be sorted or deleted" folder. I come to your store to buy because I know your brand.
.

I'm really sorry this has happened to you. I had one item *ahem* heavily derived and 18 months later I'm still smarting. I can't even begin to imagine how you feel.

it's a thankless task but you need to document each item name and each texture uuid that has been ripped. Then file a DMCA with LL and make sure you specify you want them removed from world and from all avatar inventories where copies are stored. If you don't want to use your personal details then get a lawyer to file on your behalf.

Don't forget to lodge an AR too.

Oh NO!! LL should remove all items with the creator name you mentioned. File that DMCA, contact LL any and all departments. A search for that user name returned nothing BTW

Don't give up. Keep selling your product and relying on the good name you have built. Like Nika said, your customers aren't the type who are opening freebie boxes. The people who hit up the freebie huts or look for the "box of crap for 1L" won't be the ones spending money.

That sucks mate. My only comment. You could quit and give up now, or you could fight and try to get LL to do something more. I'm sure most of us would prefer that a talented designer such as yourself sticks around.

Actually, many of the scumbags have a decent idea of the amount of time required and are too lazy to put in the time, not to mention that most likely have little creative ability -- that and the fact that the bastards have no decent morals at all, is why they steal and lie.

I totally agree with Phil on this.

Even though it is likely a waste of time, I would go ahead with all of the various support tickets and such to attempt to have this person and their products removed from the grid. We know from past experience with the MLP stuff, that LL can remove all content with a specific name as creator.


I honestly do not think that LL realizes just how big a deal this is. And it will impact their ability to draw in RL businesses/organizations.

I too am outraged by this, and completely appreciate how you feel.

Something more had to be done, and because it wasn't done, it's now a matter for real courtrooms. Some are fighting it hard.

On a practical level, the copybotted stuff lacks one thing that your original stuff has: a distribution channel. Few, if any, will be able to find it. Unless the copybotter comes back as an alt and strikes again, and works very, very hard to spread it around. Possible but not likely.

I have seen this sort of thing before, where a pet designer accidentally had one of her best dogs get out "full perms."

It did not entirely ruin her business, because even though a number of people took a copy, none of them shared it very far, or went into business for themselves with it. That's not to say her business wasn't harmed, of course. It obviously was.

I am saddened to see that you might just leave... and while that is a completely valid response, the rest of the small businesses out there on the grid could benefit from your story and your voice, with regard to making things better.

Don't suppose this makes you much better, but I'm TPing to the Woodshed right now to buy something, not sure what yet, just whatever takes my eye, just as a gesture of support. Don't quit, your customers will not disappear, and if you go, it's only the theives who will be benefitting from your work.

I am really shocked. You make what I consider the finest furniture on the grid. I am a creator myself and when I visit your place I feel soo inferior, I have many of your pieces.

Please don't give up, you have a lot of talent we need in SL. As those that have copy botted your items have been banned, surely LL can delete all the copies from the asset servers?

Ignoring the fact that they are cheating and you should just go through the normal DCMA stuff to kick their arse for it.

You were doing well yesterday and now that box of furniture has suddenly prevented you from contimuing to sell and make new furniture?

They aren't getting raw materials any cheaper than you so you could lowers prices to compete against them if you feel they are a threat. Or offer features they can't to show a higher quality product. If you have a good name don't drop that to their level because they can never acheive what you can in quality, customisation and service, they have 0% skill, use that against them.

Unfortunately SL's economy is being destroyed by the openeness of the platform allowing anyone of any skill or morality to use an infinate number of free anoymous alts to run businesses.

Be sure to look at stuff in the outlying buildings as well!

Thank you all for your replies. Been in SL for 5 years yet I still don't know exactly how to work the "quote" thing........so I'll just type in a broad response.

DMCA: The person is banned now, so a DMCA might not be of much use, however, I will file one asap.

Does this include Rebel Hope's creations: Yes, Rebel makes all the lamps and accessories that we sell for each set of furniture. Her items were copied as well. Her clothing line and my jewelry are not included, just the items for the furniture store.

Leaving SL: Please excuse my comments on leaving or being done with SL. My frustration and angry are coming out right now. Rebel and I just need some time to figure out how to control any damage and how best to move on.

Rebel and I enjoy creating things. The fact that people enjoy what we make, keeps us creating. We have always tried our best to be helpful. I believe that the majority of content creators are very hard working people and as helpful as they can be too.

Thank you all for your support and as I said earlier, tomorrow may be a better day.

Take care all of you........and thank you again........

I agree that you are one of the finest creators in sl. as much as this hurts you to the core, please know that what is in that box is NOT the entire body of your work. you would continue to create new items that even surpass your own previous works and people will continue to seek out items with YOUR name on them and not someone else's because of an item in a freebie box.

please dont let this drive you away. just consider those pieces gone and do what you can to have LL take them off the grid. it in NO way diminishes what you have accomplished and the respect and admiration many of us have for your creations.

Keep the faith, you two. I *know* its disheartening, and I too hope for an end to all this copying. It hurts us all.

We know it's possible for LL to remove all the objects created by a given account from the database, so if you haven't already asked for that you might want to contact them about it.