Now what do I do?

Okay.

xu do se jbobau .i



The danger isn't that people will stop buying things. The danger is that they'll preferentially buy the stolen content!

That might seem weird.. but as I mentioned earlier, it's a documented phenomenon called adverse selection. Suppose there are three sellers, one selling an item for L$200, one for L$1000, and one for L$2000.

Here's the problem: if you can't tell which of those is the legitimate one, then rationally you would buy the L$200 one. After all, if you're risking losing your investment, better to take the smallest risk possible. Yes, it's more likely that the L$200 one would be stolen, but look at the possibilities:

1 - The L$200 one was real - you got the best deal.
2 - The L$1000 one was real - you will spend total L$1200 to have the real item (L$200 you lost buying the stolen one plus L$1000 for the real one you bought afterwards).
3 - The L$2000 one was real - you will spend total L$2200 to have the real item.

Compare these to the possibilities if you buy the L$2000 one right now:

1 - The L$200 one was real - you will spend total L$2200.
2 - The L$1000 one was real - you will spend total L$3000.
3 - The L$2000 one was real - you got the best deal.

So buying the L$200 is better than buying the L$2000 in 2/3 of cases, and the risk is much less!

Now, maybe it's "obvious" than the L$200 one would be stolen - but it isn't necessarily. Thieves do sometimes sell higher than the original creator's price - just look at freebie resale. They would certainly quickly start doing so if consumers adopted a general rule of buying the most expensive product to ensure legitimacy. Furthermore, if the infringement is with a copyright outside SL (eg, a texture from a game) then even the legitimate creator's item within SL risks removal, and there may be no way of telling in-world at all.

To prevent this happening, LL must either compensate innocent buyers of stolen content, or vet content before it is sold anywhere.

I don't think that would happen. Perhaps if they had a way to charge the offender (thief) in obvious cases like the one where someone copybotted entire shops and sold or handed it out - and use that to reimburse the 'customers.' But I still think...

In this case and other similar ones it's pretty obvious the stuff is stolen. Someone sells an entire store in a box out of their inventory and it's all top quality stuff...I mean come on? Someone gave a good example of buying a Rolex on a street corner cart (or maybe out of a raincoat?)

It could be optional but I still think it's bizarre and backward to pay someone for having (using) stolen content!



Maybe people could discuss practical ways all of this could happen.

I think LL did a great job nipping this one in the bud.

The trouble is, most instances of selling stolen content in SL are NOT as obvious as the RH Engel case you cite.

As Yumi pointed out, thieves can read and if they see enough people saying 'buy the expensive version because that will be the legitimate one', then certainly the thieves will put a high price on the item (and sell them one-by-one, rather than in a box).

In SL, you simply don't have the clues that RL provides. There's no equivalent of the street corner cart or flea market or too-low-priced EBay volume sellers of the latest hot movie release.

In SL, it's easy for merchants of stolen content to have a store or an XStreet page that's indistinguishable from those of the legitimate merchants.

I rarely speak publicly about the happenings, both good and bad, concerning my business, Ramos Designs. However, due to the recent event concerning the copybotting that took place over this past weekend I figured it was time to chime in. I am sure anyone who has been in my position of having their work stolen on a small or large scale can relate to how devastating it can be. This certainly isn’t the first time we have been through this type of ordeal. I am still unclear or cannot fully comprehend why anyone would want to or go to such lengths to ruin another person in Second Life or in real life, but sadly it happens. I am sure not the person behind this madness either doesn’t know or even care about the problems this type of act causes. But it does cause problems, in a big way. The only way to even make it in any career is to stay honest and work hard. Thieves will get caught eventually. If anyone decides to ever take a shortcut in sl or in rl, it will come back to bite them in the end. I am not going to give the person who is behind this the satisfaction of trying to justify some of the comments he has made towards me and other creators. It is not worth my time or your time to spend reading it. Those who know the sacrifice and hard work it takes to run any business will know the truth.

I do want to thank LL for addressing the issue and helping myself and the other creators affected by this. I agree that it should not be allowed to happen in the first place, but steps were taken to divert this from being a total disaster. I would also like to thank Rebel Hope and RH Engel for their support and assistance. I have a new respect for what support and friendship can accomplish. Without them, I don’t think xTrojan and I would have made it through this one. A couple of other stores were personally involved as well. I don’t want to mention names in case they do not want it publicized but thank you for doing what was needed to help. A lot of lessons were learned from this experience. The point to ramblings is this. Yes in this case we were able to find out quickly but in most cases we don’t. Only with support and awareness, can problems such as this be dealt with. xTrojan and I wish luck with all of your businesses out there and hang in there!

Just delete all stolen content, the courts will be ordering it anyway, when the cops find the tyres you bought at the local market were from a stolen car they don't let you keep them, while the poor owner walks to work everyday.

if people have such a problem over a US$5 item they should take it up with the theif they brought from.

It just gets better, I think it's too late now, our goose is cooked in the next few weeks as this viewer hits the market.

http://i34.tinypic.com/1h86kx.jpg

http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/general-sl-discussion/34420-countdown-starts-now.html

That's a blatantly illegal viewer, Tegg. I hope that whoever is responsible for it gets what they deserve. Let me know if there's any way I can help.

I haven't read the entire thread, but I just wanted to say that not all buyers are ignorant. When I was only about 2 or 3 weeks old in SL time, a stranger gave me some hair. This was beautiful hair. I recognized its quality. It had no perms, and even with what little I knew then, I knew that was suspicious. I don't think the guy who gave me the hair stole it, but he must have received it from someone. He doesn't speak English, so communicating with him about the hair would have been very difficult. He thought he was doing me a kind gesture.

I moved heaven and earth to find out where that hair came from, and it wasn't easy. I bought the hair and deleted the no-perm copy I had. I realize now that I should have made note of the stolen version's "creator," but I didn't, unfortunately. My point is simply that I made sure that the real creator of the hair had my money and that I had the real deal. So we're out here, even newbies like I was.

Compare: http://www.massively.com/2009/09/23/second-life-content-creator-reports-infringement-gets-suspended

Right, AK, and good for you.

There are times when it's easy to suspect. There are times when there's no bloody clue, even to experienced, sophisticated makers (not just end customers). And everything in between.

I don't think there are many useful generalizations to be made about how easy it is to recognize stolen content. Sure, we could make a good list of tip-off factors, but that's a separate issue.

The best solution is to remove it all quickly. When it can't be done quickly, more thought for the ramifications is necessary -- as SL learned when they tried to render all of Eva C's content inoperable, and huge numbers of perfectly legitimate content failed as a result.

It's not a simple problem and there are no simple solutions. But, when it's caught early, and the offending creator isn't very old, simply deleting all that creator's content should be the first approach considered, as it was in RH's case.

Well, it seems that LL fouled up there, if the account is correct. But I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

Hopefully it's just a foul-up by LL and has no grand implications.

If the account is correct, it suggests, at the very least, inconsistency.

Based on the suspension type, I suspect the crook who ripped him off filed a fraudulent "underage" AR.

Or possibly it suggests that LL hopes word will get around: 'if you bother LL about your content having been stolen, you will get SUSPENDED, so just...suck it up and don't bother them.'

I wouldn't be surprised.

But I WOULD be surprised if LL thought anyone would buy the idea that an underage AR, in these circumstances, could possibly be legitimate.

It strains credulity.



Seriously, LL badly needs to put into place controls against Revenge-Underage-ARs. Their credibility as a serious business enterprise is on the line.

All it takes is the two ARs showing up at two different desks.

Yeah. *sighs*

Has LL deleted the stolen items yet ?

Yes, the items made by whomever ripped RH off were deleted.

Good.

Excellent news, I can hear the the howls of protest from those who brought them now [plink] [pin drops]

Right, because evidently,

(a) it was caught quickly, and
(b) the avatar in question didn't have a long history, with other distributed content

When Eva C's content was deleted, there was quite a howl. Note that Eva C was not a copybot case; my guess is that most copybot cases will meet the requirements listed above, which is a good thing. Eva's wasn't even really a valid DMCA case, though I believe that tool was used -- it was either a license agreement or trademark violation.

Excellent! Good job LL.

/me nods.

It could have been spoofed anyway.