BEWARE: Stolen Textures In Second Life!!!!!

Hiya, Merlyn.... I'm not sure whether this person is telling the truth about paying for the sources or not from an *anonymous* seller. But she has taken the ads down and is no longer selling the skins, including the ad she had posted in the forums....and yes, she has posted a few times in this thread, cristino listed (thanks ).

What is your webstite url?

Hi Cani ..
This really hasnt been resolved at all . Infact its almost worse .The way it looks to me is Raquel is off the hook ..after all she was unfairly accused and abused and has stood up and done the right things (ya Right! ) ..Now shes the do gooder ..{ill do whatever I can to help ! offer web space ..help designers ..}what BS .
she still has refused to give the persons name who supposedly sold her the textures wich is all we wanted in the first place ...so as a result this person could still be stealing and selling losts textures ,your textures , chips ,nams,nephs,starleys,mine ,stormas,munches and who ever the heck else they feel like robbing at the time .
In this whole scenario she somehow became the victim ..I abused her by demanding the name and putting a single prim in her shop that says "How original" or somthing to that effect .I harrassed her by standing in the street infront of her shops until she fully removed the textures all together . See she didnt take them down as she said ,,she blacked them out. She said she needed to talk to the mysterios person first . The seller . She didnt want to lose her investment(whatever she says she paid for the stolen textures). I said okay what did you pay ..ill give you whatever you paid ,i want to know who its is .Lost offered the same thing . No response from her except we were harrassing her by standing infront of her shop in the street .

I am not a forgiving person NO , and yes raquel Im probably every dirty name you called me when one of my closest friends is hurt and people I admire and respect are in jeapordy as well(wich would be every honest designer in this community). I can be a very not nice person . So threaten me , call me names do what you want ..but i will not let up until you truley have done the right thing . If you do not want to divulge the name here in public then I feel Lost atleast deserves to know who took it upon themselves to steal from him .

TY merlyn. Just looked at your site.

No news here, my previous post clearly included all these facts.

Assuming we cared about having a rational discussion let's get some perspective here. Where on a scale of 1 to 100 would you place "texture theft"? (1 being a minor annoyance and 100 being a world-changing catastrophic emotional meltdown.) Where would you place your bank being robbed? And where would you put your child being abducted, raped and murdered?

My numbers might be 8, 15 and say 30,000, respectively. Hey, maybe your priorities differ, but I'd say that your analogy maybe went just a tad too far? Did you really think we could have a rational discussion after you brought out (or expounded upon) such an extremely irrelevant point.


Let's review my post:

Yes, let's scold all of them. Using propaganda, mass hysteria and public sympathy for your personal tragedy to accomplish a goal, even if it is well-intended, is shameful, IMO.

That is what you mean by "rant"? If through your teary eyes you somehow managed to read "self-serving jerks" in my posts, then maybe I can understand.

Is it off-topic? Well you brought it up, but I'll stand by my position that using a single emotional anecdote as a basis for policy is thick-headed and just plain wrong. Look at the facts objectively and you'll be much better served at balancing priorities and not going overboard.

You just don't get it do you? And you call me thick-headed?

I don't think they are in any way equivalent. The whole point of my post was to illustrate human behavior, not to equivocate.

One poster was ripping into Lost because Lost didn't take action before something happened to him. My post was, again, simply to highlight the fact that this is how humans generally work, not to draw a comparison between abducted children, vehicular manslaughter and texture theft.

Most of the time, right, wrong, or otherwise, it takes something happening to someone to motivate them to become advocates. Whether that's advocating for a bubble-gum machine at the beach or to try and stop genocide is not the point. You can try to drag it off topic into an argument about my personal feelings by labeling me as teary-eyed or whatever other avuncular insults you can contrive, I won't bite anymore.

That's really all there is to it. If you can't understand that very simple point, then I just don't care. Continue resorting to ad hominem - talking about tears or whatever else makes you feel so superior, smug, and tough.

That is a pretty strong accusation about SLExchange, and it seems highly unlikely it was actually the source of the theft, I can't even see any way that it could be. If you had the skin on at all in world, and if you showed it to anyone at all, then it could be stolen at that point easily with available techniques. All someone had to do was come near you while you had on the skin to steal it. Did you show the skin to anyone, let anyone else try on a copy, etc, or even just have someone near you while wearing the skin?

Ambyance.. I know and understand your frustration but your anger and demands is sadly only going to make you and Lost a target for other thieves...As I said before, be thankful she agreed not to sell them anymore... because in all reality she could continue to do so without any penalty...

Okay, you're just repeating yourself rather than addressing my points, which are, to state as curtly as possible:

1) you used an analogy that was totally over the top and in no way helpful
2) you grossly overreacted to my "rant"

If you care to respond thoughtfully and with something other than repeating yourself and stating obvious, uncontested truths.

Seriously, if your whole point was just "it takes something happening to someone to motivate them to become advocates" then why did you bother? Has anyone disputed that?

This is becoming increasingly heated--please don't let personal disputes clutter up this thread; it's unpleasant for the continued discussion of those interested. Such exchanges can appropriately be taken to private channels of communication, as explained in the forum Guidelines.

I keep searching for a word other than bullshit and it's not coming, so

Bullshit.

This person is either a thief or a receiver of stolen goods. She has already been exposed and humiliated in the forums, seriously damaging her reputation - regardless of the small percentage of forum readers.

Also, Linden Labs will act if you keep on them. People have been banned for stealing and selling skins. It's shameful that the burdan of getting just enforcement lands on the wronged party.

So basically im suppose to sit here and be afraid of what she could do . I have a really hard time with that .I know your right in alot of respects Sensual ,but on the other hand i just cant run scared either .

I just dont get how Linden Labs doesnt do more to support their creators , I know alot of people cry wolf and im sure that most of the time its false alarms but when there is solid founded proof I belive the penalty should be much harder . My god lost and I have paid linden labs over 5k this past year, no thats not much from one person per year but it would sure suck if all the major designers pulled out because they were unprotected .I highly doubt that the average person can pay 200 a month plus for a Sim or would want to unless they are making enough to cover that .

And okay fine she doesnt give the name up ....I cant make her obviousley, but Im sure not going to be nice. I don't have to forgive her .Its a smack in the face everytime she posts in this thread . Id have a much easier time forgiving her if it was actually her that stole the textures and she took responsibilty for doing it herself and making a mistake .
We all make mistakes . Or , if it was her friend , she posted and said ..this is what ive done , this is the result , rest assured this person understands and wont do it again . SOMTHING ...not ill offer web space and be a teacher or WETF she said .

I think its great that so many people are wanting to come up with white lists ,black lists etc . That so many people have ideas on how we can help protect each other. I do not think that this is the best place for it though .

Thankyou Surreal .BS is the perfect word .

Stupid arguing.

ALTs, ALTs and more ALTs. No matter what they do to water down the main point, texture theft is WRONG is SL.

It doesn't matter where it was sourced as long as it's legit or how talented you think the designer is or even how much they charge for it. It is their work and their time.

IT is CHEATING and THEFT.

....why isn't that enough?

It's not enough until the players of SL come up with a solution or recourse of action. Right now standing in the street outside a store of a "thief" stopped the selling of Lost's skin. Contacting LL works as well (sometimes). Some want more. That more keeps it from ever being enough.

Your points are straw men.

You are trying to ascribe motives I didn't have, so no, I am not going to address them, because thay have no bearing.

No one else became all apoplectic upon reading my point. Only you, and that tells me something, oh couple of months old SL expert.

You don't even understand that they aren't analogies, because I guess you just don't like me (you didn't jump all over Sensual, and her bank robbery argument WAS an analogy), want to argue, or both, you aren't going to quit trying to crawl inside my head and tell me what I was thinking. I will say one more time for those with poor comprehension - they were not analogies. Uh hello? You can let go of that straw now. Really, you can.

You need to get over yourself. I don't post here because I worry about "Groucho" thinking I may or may not have something thoughtful to say. I'll post what I want, when I want, and there isn't anything you can do about it, nor will you shame me into submission.

And with that, I have grown beyond weary of wise uncle "Groucho", self-appointed editor-in-chief of the forums, I don't need to bang my head trying to explain this to you anymore.

Good luck to the skinmakers who are trying to organize.

I didn't "jump all over" Sensual because her analogy was appropriate and sufficient to make the point, yours was outrageous and provocative (as has been evidenced here). How you consider her argument an analogy and yours not is frankly a puzzlement.

I'll respect Torley's commandment and let this be my final reply.

This illustrates why I think the guild concept is flawed. In this case, I think what would have happened would be that the alleged thief (the seller, not the creator) would have been banned from the guild which would be a serious blow to her business.

I think that would have been a miscarriage of justice. I still can't tell whether she is guilty of theft (or fraud), or had bad judgement, or just made an honest mistake. Actually, I can't even tell for sure that there was any theft to begin with.

A more open system allows consumers to make a more informed choice.

Just an opinion.

You will have to excuse me if this idea already exists; I have been gone for a few years and I've spent all my time back building statues...


I'm liking the idea of a SL BBB. That is probably better discussed in a different thread, but the concept can be pretty simple:

- Any business that wishes to, lists themselves with the SL BBB. They are given a unique serial number and a real world URL. e.g. http://www.SLbbb.com/company.php?slsn=sf874hfka98743gfk9q87gf
(not a real URL btw, not yet)

That URL is then used to verify the company and to see their standing in the community.

- The page for each registered business shows their store locations via SLURL's. There is also a listing of all compliments and complains with the company.

For any positive comment, there is no response allowed.

For each negative comment, limited to 512 characters, the business owner gets to make a single comment to answer the charge against them, also limited to 512 characters.

That's is, straight forward and simple.

Of course... somebody would have to build the website to control it and set it up so it's automated.

Groucho..she admitted that the texture was the same texture. Maybe not that she stole it but that it was losts texture,she admitted that she had seen losts skin prior to her obtaining these textures.This wouldnt have happened had she not purchased the textures at all but rather learned to make them herself . Do you honestly believe somone would make a full skin for somone else to sell ? This isnt somthing that you can make over night . This takes time patience and skill . That in itself would be a tip off to anyone that the texture most likley was stolen property . If she didnt know it was a stolen texture why would she change the face at all ? It was beautiful to start with . I really think anyone in this thread who believes that this person is innocent and unknowingly purchased stolen property needs to see the notecards before they come to her defense.

I think there are a lot of ifs in there and I don't think I've heard all sides of the story. There is certainly a bad taint to the whole thing which might keep a few consumers away, but I don't think I would have enough info to kick her out of my guild.

To answer some specific questions:

Yes, I do think someone would make a skin for someone else to sell. Outsourcing is going to become an increasingly important part of commerce in SL as it matures.

Sorry, but I thought the alleged copy looked better in the pictures that were posted, so I can understand why she changed the face.

Linden Labs with all their coding expertise should be able to figure out some way
to prevent texture theft to some extent, or make it easier for them to investigate.

I know you can register a watermark through a company and they will search the web looking for people who are illegally using your images. So perhaps they could create a tool, such as a photoshop plugin that would digitally imbed some type of information into the images.
People interested in protecting themselves could register via the website, get a code from LL that they enter into the plugin when first setting it up, and then run that LL created watermarketing plugin prior to uploading. We'd see nothing on our end, but LL could have a tool that could cull that info from the image if a case of theft came up.

I'm not sure if it's possible, but it has to be to some extent. When people were creating for the original "The Sims" people could register and get a "magic cookie" to help protect their content from being stolen.

Ok, back to the peanut gallery I go,

Sun

You thought that shit on the face was an improvement? For real?

Each to their own, I guess *shrugs*

I find it odd, that someone would sell a complete skin texture to someone else for them to resell... if you could make a skin like that, and put all that work into it... wouldn't you sell it yourself?

Wouldn't that have made you think... hmmm... why is this person selling me this?

Lost your skins are wicked, and people know your skins no matter who rips them off. My girl saw the copy posted, and knew straight away your skin had been pinched. They might be able to rip off your stuff, but they will never enjoy the reputation you have.

You need to read more of these post then. She openly admited it, what more is there to say? I understand her reason for not turning in the person she got the textures from if indeed she got them from someone else to the public because it would turn into a witch hunt. It is better this situation is handle through the parties involved and Linden Lab.

As far as kicking her out of a guild for stealing textures ummmm yeah in a heartbeat.
She admited what happen. Sounds like you are arguing just to argue or your facts just aren't straight, pick one I don't care.

No can do. The Kakadu streaming JPEG2000 library used in Second Life would mangle any watermarks beyond recognition. Textures are in the same boat as sounds, animations, avatar appearance, and soon objects. Things in Second Life that there is no way of completely protecting.