Texture Thieves and LL….Fair Warning and some Advice

Hello,

All that know me, know I keep away from drama as much as possible. I can just about get along with anyone. However, I think I need to say this in a public arena. I have read countless posts about texture theft ect. and these items being sold on the Teen Grid. We can’t go to the teen grid and sell our products and that’s fine, let teens create their own products and sell but when it comes to them “spoofing” our work, or anyone for that matter, that’s not creating that’s theft, fraud and whatever other tag you might want to put on it. I don’t care if a designer here has created 1 item or 1000. They put countless hours of work into it and spend 100’s if not 1000’s in software, tier fees ect. so there should be some protection from someone “spoofing”.

Now then, I don’t know if any of my designs are on the teen grid. If they are, I give fair warning now to ask they be removed asap. Why so DoC you might ask? I am fully aware of the DMCA. I have worked in RL for the Government for 19 years, I have more contacts then Kennedy. In that, I learned years ago when designing digital art to protect myself as much as possible. Textures ect are protected under the DMCA, however I go a step further. My textures/items are registered with the U.S. Copyright office. I have 100’s of items registered and yes this isn’t cheap to do but it will hold up in any court. I have an external hard drive with 170+ gig of design files on it starting from day 1. Every single item I have created is on there. I also have my files in progression as they are created. Meaning, when I create an outfit, the base top for example will be #1, by time I am finished it could be #30. So its all there and its no mistake that I created it. So if my work is being sold over there, it’s not going to be worth it for you, trust me.

I think anyone here would encourage others to design. Especially if you are a Teen!! You are so far ahead of the game when you are at that age learning how to do this you never know where it could take you if you enjoy doing it. Damn gang this industry is exploding, learn it if you like it, ask, read, practice. I know that’s hard to listen too when you might be 13-16….hell, I probably wouldn’t have myself but don’t thieve. A fast buck isn’t gonna get you anywhere other then trouble. I would rather read about you on the cover of a gamming magazine in the future then see you in a court room gang.

DoC

I agree with you. However, from my experiencs with the DMCA law, it only takes the other party submitting a counter statement and the stolen content is put right back up. LL has to do this in compliance with the DMCA law. Then to pursue your claim you must have your copyright enforced in a court of law and have a court order issued to LL to remove the content. If the culprits are in any country other than the U.S. (assuming that you are in the U.S.), you'll have a hard time.

I am sorry this happened to you. Something really needs to be done about this. Why is it that teens can come onto our grid, but we cannot go onto theirs? LL has NO WAY to verify that teens are not on our grid thanks to the new registration system.

One small thing:

AFAIK and IANAL, the DMCA doesn't protect anyone's content. The DMCA only says it's illegal to distribute methods for breaking copy protection. If someone is copying your textures, that's an infringement of plain old Copyright law, not the DMCA. The DMCA would only come into play if someone started selling something that helped others rip textures out of SL.