Someone copied my product...!

So, a while back I created an original (as far as I could tell) product called a "cutthroat lotto ball". The idea was to take a traditional lotto ball, and add a twist. The twist is that the last person to donate to the pot wins a fraction of the pot. The balls have sold pretty well, and I'm proud of them.

I recently saw one in a club, but then realized that it was someone else's ball... Someone took my EXACT concept, copied it themselves, and is marketing it. If it had an ounce of originality to it, I'd have no problems. But they just recreated my idea and work and are making money from it.

Understandably, I'm a little upset. Not very upset, but a little. I do realize that people probably rip off everyone's ideas all the time. But such a blatent copy just seems mean spirited. Is there anything I can do?

Here are the relevant links...

My stuff:
http://slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=68006
http://slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=68005

His stuff:
http://slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=87355
http://slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=87348

Thanks for any input you might have.

Adman

Oh come on, it's not like the notion of adding a little extra prize for lotto contributers is an earth-shattering idea. Even if the idea were a ripoff I'd say "sometimes life is tough, make a new product" but in this case I wouldn't even consider that a ripoff. It's not like the guy who invented lotteries is requiring you to pay him a licensing fee, and that's a much bigger idea than yours.

if you'd patented it, you'd have a case.

As it is, you have no recourse.

Are there any patents on any ideas that only exist in Second Life?

Simple truth is unless a design is copywrited or trademarked there is very little if anything you can do about it.

In the old days you could drum up alot of public support for your cause and Maybe a Linden would take notice (rare occurance even then) and ask the person to stop selling it. Said Linden however would also tell you they can't enforce it though. With things as they are now I would say this just isn't going to happen.

Also given the age of the other maker. TO the casual observer we have nothing except your word to prove your product came first. That is not being nasty just simple truth. It is entirely possible more than one person came up with and developed similar items independantly.

Great... thanks to all of you for your responses! I appreciate it.

I figured this kind of stuff happens all the time, and that there isn't really anything to be done about it. Makes sense. Just thought I'd throw it out there and see what people had to say.

I can't help but wonder if I released a version somewhere that had the source code visible...? Hmm...

Adman

Unfortunately, this is one of the big disadvantages of being a scripter Technically your products are the most secure from "hacking" in SL, but on the other hand, functionality is much more obvious and easier to reproduce.

Add extra options, configuration, effects, etc. and start sending out updates.

There ya go. Make yours a better product, and people will buy yours, not his.

Yeah, what Yumi said. You can prevent people from stealing your code (most of the time) but not your ideas, if they are good, it's only a matter of time. Make your product better and you will come out on top.

Thanks everyone! I guess I should feel complimented that my product was good enough to copy in the first place!

I've already lowered my price on slexchange to lower than his... Let the price-wars begin!

To be clear, there are no patents on ideas. An item must be a physical product or business process to be patentable. (For example, Amazon's one-click ordering is patented as a business process. The Pentium Processor is patented as a physical product).

It possibly would have been possible to patent the "last donator" concept in a lottery as a business process, but that ship has sailed now. Besides, I can't imagine doing all the research and paying the patent fees (and taking that time) to patent an item in SL that would only make a few dozen or hundred dollars at best anyway.

This is rediculous.

.....to the original poster: Is the original person that created the concept of "lotto" bitching at everyone else that has created their own lotto?

Would you have been satisfied if the 2nd to last donator got the money instead? Would you have been satisfied if it wasn't shaped like a circle?



My thoughts about everything in secondlife.... if someone else can look at your creation and create it themselves, there's nothing original in the first place. Ideas cannot have owners and be claimed

Disagreed.

No, obviously not.

Those are certainly valid thoughts. And trust me, I'm completely aware of the irony of complaining about someone copying my product, when I myself obviously didn't invent the concept of a lottery. I get it.

The basis of my complaint is that someone copied my concept, logic, and implementation 100%. As far as I can tell, they changed NOTHING. Just photocopyed my script and put it in their own object.

If they'd made some change, improvement, or whatever, I'd have no problem. How could I, since I did the same thing by copying the idea of a lotto ball, and then adding my own improvement?



Yes to the first, no to the second. I think it's reasonable to take someone else's work and add your own improvements to it. And since the vast majority of the product is the script and logic, just chaging the shape doesn't count as a significant enough change, in my opinion.



Interesting. Thanks for your thoughts! I disagree that just because something is copy-able means it's unoriginal, but that's neither here nor there.

Look, I'm really not all that broken up about this. It was a little disheartening, but whatever. I'm essentially retired from Second Life anyways. I just wanted to gather some opinions (and I appreciate yours, even if you think I'm being rediculous!

Adman

That seems silly. You are saying that any object with a "take copy" button can't be original? Or are you thinking it's only an original idea if it's hard to code?

Eeep!

Ok.. please, please, please, don't just undercut.

Please?

Why? With clothing and builds, there's a lot of style variance between different creators, so people will tend to prefer one or the other, so competition is somewhat tempered. With scripts, people will have some basic set of functionality they want and will usually buy the best deal (or the best known deal) and tolerate most of its foibles, unless they're earth-shattering.

The problem is that in an environment with no costs, the result of an untempered price war is that the either a) the best known wins forever (as has happened in some markets - like scripted collars, as discussed elsewhere here ), or b) the price of the product falls to L$1.

Neither of these is really such a great outcome for scripting in general.. So please build up rather than undercutting if you can.

ideas are free

ideas are free, this one would be abit close for confort, but as already stated this lotto system is pre established, and nothing really new ... that being said i could have had the same idea and written the script totally different than yours, which puts it in its own right, yes we are using all the same functions, so there are limitations on how original a script could be but how those functions are executed is the patent part of all of this, and therefore if you can see the exact code you might have something


anyway you made a sphere and put a fairly common lotto idea in it, hovertext is limiting, and if you both used the same terms from offical sources they will pretty much look the same ... id chalk it up to experiance and move on to bigger better things

(btw im not "him"

Thank you for everyone's counterpoints to my post.

What I'm basically saying is that allllllllll of the basic inventions and creations in SL are so simple anyone can make em. There's no point trying to claim such basic goods as "I made it first, so no one else can"

Everyone has the ability to make things. It's free to make things, it's free to sell things. If I find something on the grid that I like and I know i can make it myself, I will.... I'm not gonna buy it. If people want to buy what I've made, then I'm gonna sell it.

There's no point trying to claim the "I made it first" in SL when there's no proof who made what first..... if the majority can make it.

i do this all the time for my personal use

ie rent-o-matic, phht i can make that and save a boatload, and inturn i learned what hell is and some more scripting .. and overall i feel i got better @ scripting for more complex things that I want to unleash er produce

Wellll... yes and no. Some things are far more complicated than others. When someone duplicates Starax's wand, please IM me, I was never able to get one, heh.

Yes, you can be the first. No, it's never certain with anything if someone else didn't do this a year ago and it's sitting in their inventory, but you can think of a design, make a unique texture, write code that hasn't been written before and it doesn't matter if it's copied all over the grid, the idea and the creativity was yours. They are copying you. Unfortunately, that is all you will have once you start selling it and people see it. But it's still nothing to sneeze at, anyone can copy, very few can originate.

It really sucks that some people have so little originality that they have to steal ideas from other creators.

I had the same thing happen to me with this skybox design that was announced in Sept:

Tropical Escape skybox
http://www.slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=120253

It is an almost identical copy of my Caribbean Island Skybox that I announced 6 months earlier.

How pathetic that she has to steal her ideas.

Use the competition to your advantage in marketing. Since you have copycats, you can now market your product as the original thing, the first of it's kind. Not some copycat scheme.

This is a market position your competition can't beat. Ever. This is basic branding tactics, positioning makes your product stand out.

And you have an unbeatable position, use it.
Market positions like best, cheapest, coolest, loudest, most popular, whatever, can always be taken by the competition. Your position as the first can't.

Lots of people are willing to pay a little more for the real thing. Using the "first ever"-position in your marketing can help you keep prices and sales up.

Adman... I checked out the ads, they are very similar, so much sympathy to you.

However, the free item says "IMPORTANT NOTE: The Gold version of the Cutthroat Lotto ball is free. However, there is a built-in 10% commission that goes to the owner. If you wish to avoid this commission, please check out the Platinum version of the Cutthroat Lotto Ball."

I'm SURE you meant "goes to the creator" since that's what the platinum version says. I think you may be inadvertantly misleading your buyers if so.

Holy moly... You're absolutely right. *smacks forehead*

Well, it's only been that way for, what, 6 months? Ha. Never got a single complaint about it, so I guess that's good.

Thanks for the heads up.

Adman