Loni Arado - Passing on problems to endusers

Hello,

It would appear everything based on patterns made by Loni Arado has been deleted/blacklisted. I spoke to the conscierge livechat early this morning who promised that info and a fix would be posted on the blog shortly (obviously it hasnt yet).

We are running a shoe business and based many of our shoes on patterns bought from Loni Arado. Every pattern was obviously purchased in good faith - just as our buyers bought shoes in good faith. Today, we and they woke up to every single pair of shoes being non-rezzable. As such, the problem has ended up in the hands of ordinary secondlifers running businesses.

What do we do ? Refund the thousands of customers who bought shoes over the last half year - a period where the very same patterns didnt have any sense of dodgyness to them. Do we tell the customers "tough luck, linden labs have better things to do than worry about endusers and so do we"...Do we finally call it quits and close down and sell/abandon our sims....or?

The deletion of Loni Arados patterns etc isnt restricted to shoe patterns - alot of people will have found their clothing, buildings, furnitures etc has vanished up in the air as well.

Is this a press release or a question?
Sounds like your just going to have to wait for support to help you.

me thinks this is directly related to the sex gen thread.

in other words, stolen goods (purchased or otherwise) will no longer be supported in SL. 'bout damn time.

And it is going to be interesting to see what designers are effected.

Oh, and naming names like this can get you in hot water on the forum. You should edit out the name of the pattern seller in question.

If not.. IBTL

Surely most ordinary secondlifers running businesses make their own stuff? Or am I hopelessly out of touch here?

Ordinal, you must leave Caledan more often my friend.

Making your own stuff is so pre 2006. Buying business in a box items and the like are the now.

Your world, your chance to strike it rich.

heh.

Business in a box strikes me as weird

Basically a whole bunch of stuff thats probably stolen being sold by a bunch of people who didn't create or even steal it.

Of course the BIB seller probably sells the same stuff on an Alt .. competing with exactly the same merchandise all the franchisees sell.

I dont suppose anyone supports content theft and as such its a positive thing that Linden Labs is dealing with that side of it.

The problem arises when the real trouble and turmoil isnt brought upon the thief, but passed on to completely innocent secondlifers, whos just going about their business. In this case, one click in the linden labs office has ruined our business thoroughly - and I suspect many others...even though we have no stake in the case at all.

And, to the people with derogatory "business in a box" remarks. Obviously, making your own things is a must in running a business, ours included. The problem in this case is that in doing so external patterns is often a quite valuable asset in the creation. And specifically here for instance, even af single prim (out of perhabs 500 in a pair of shoes) added from such a pattern renders the whole creation "blacklisted".

They make their own items, but often use existing textures, and it's textures that are the problem in this thread.

I hope they are, but I'm disgusted with them that a law suit was requried before they dealt with the sexgen stuff.

So tell me people, it's considered 'weird' when as a clothes maker, you decide to buy a sculpt map to embellish an item of clothing with a little something? I make skirts and dresses for a living, so I'm not a sculptie artisit. Hence if I need a sculptie I go to someone who makes and sells their own sculpt maps for us content creators to use. I wasn't aware that was considered the same as selling business in a box items.

I doubt anyone does support content theft.

But a lot of people are so jaded over Linden Lab's glacial responses to DMCA notices and the total lack of any SL-only recourse that they have literally given up hope on the subject.

My apologies. The BIB comments were not directed at you. They were pointing out a big problem in SL that went with Ordinal's post.

But you do raise a question for me coupled with Phil's post:

When you say patterns, are you talking about the prims or the textures. IE. Did you buy a box of made shoes that you applied your own textures to or buy a box of textures you applied to your own made shoes?

This particular one was selling sculpt maps, it's not too different from the regular texture trade I guess :/

It isn't, and buying full perm textures isn't wrong either. Selling full perm textures that have been stolen is wrong, but none if it is business in a box.

The texture business would be pretty dead if that were the case

If someone sells sculpties they themselves design with the intent their customers will retexture, complete and then retail the final product - that really isn't business in a box.

See my post above.. BIB is not in relation to this, my bad for pointing out an urelated affair.

As for using clothes patterns (PSD files), Sculptie textures (Made by the original source and bought under their license agreements) I personaly support that. Not everyone can create all aspects of an item.. just like buying animations from someone like Nyterave or bits and bobs that are available for use in your own creations. This is very healthy to both the buyers and sellers in SL.

The problem is when there is a BIB full of Nyterave items (like the pose me series that has been ripped off from one end of SL to the other) and was not used as the original creator intended.

Thinking about it, wouldn't a lot of businesses be dead if everyone made their own stuff? I mean someone makes a bed, they will often get animations from someone else, or scripts from a scripter. Collaboration is pretty key to a lot of business in Second Life.

Spot on, sculpt maps are just textures. We bought some scultp maps from Loni Arado, and it would appear he didn't create them as he claimed he did. So now everything I made using those textures has simply vanished from the SL grid.

Once I'm out of Linden Dollars refunding the hundreds of other innocent folk who bought my creations using these sculpt maps, what then? Do I just shrug and say "too bad" like Linden Labs are doing? I *really* do not want to do that to my loyal customers.

Yes, exactly. Unfortunately the get rich quick mindset is "I got some cool full perm textures from Lauren Fox's place, now I will box them and sell them as-is on SLEX."

That is how people like the OP get ripped off in the end if there is ever a sweep. It stinks for the OP and the people who bought from them.

Good way to help clean up those messy inventories.

Thanks for clarifying what they were.

It's a tough problem. The customers aren't at fault, just as you weren't at fault, but the customers' deals are with you. A very tough problem - depending on how much you sold.