Have you closed your store because of CopyBot?

I'm curious, and maybe it'll help me make my decision. Is anyone thinking about closing their shop because of the CopyBot fiasco, or have you already done so?

I am seriously considering closing my clothing sales business, and not bothering to sell any prim objects except as part of whole-sim building projects. What's the point, when LL will allow these thieves free reign?

The thieves can't duplicate my ability to create a whole sim for a customer, so Fox and Ground Construction Company will remain open.

Texture sales have always had to be full-perms, so this won't affect my work at TRU, selling textures.

Anything else? When the rent runs out on my mall locations, I am closing them down for good. Why should I supply all my dresses and other items as freebies?

I know at least one other content maker who will now close his store when his rent runs out.

Change the name of your game, LL. Rename it Felony Paradise, and welcome all the griefers and thieves. That's what you're aiming at anyway. Your honest customers are going to go away now, and good luck attracting any serious Corporate clients.

Please, content creators, don't close down your stores over this.

If you do, you give the thieves a high-horse to stand on for distributing the items, because "they aren't available anymore" and "since they're not selling them they're not losing any money".

There's already a client update on Wednesday which could at least slow them down..

At the present moment I am not considering closing either of my shops. I'm a builder and my main products are treehouses of one sort or another though I also do conventional prefabs as well. There is a high likelihood that my work will be cloned, but unless my sales fall to nil over the next month my stores will remain in place.

Ceera and other builders who do whole-sim projects are likely to be largely unaffected by wholesale use of the copybot. At the present time I am considering forming a bespoke sim construction group with a few other builders and texture artists I know as a possible plan to maintain a creative input into SL that will also generate an income to pay for our fun and play time in SL.

I do sincerely hope people are not closing up shops because of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. The actual damage to be done remains to be seen still, and may in fact turn out to be less than everyone fears.

This can't be the first time that everyone has had such fears, can it? In looking over the old forums I can easily see that this is an ongoing issue (different details, same fears) and that SL merchants have weathered the storm in the past. I feel pretty confident that this storm will also be survivable.

I also hope that this kind of thinking does not truly reflect the idea that's being thrown around so much in all of this hubbub that only greed drives creativity and content creation, and that without the prospect of money nobody will create anything interesting and SL will left as a dark and grim desert where nothing interesting exists.

I think it would be truly a horrible thing for merchants to be so damaged by such a thing, but it is pretty hard to deny that any SL business is inherently at risk, and not just because of CopyBot and it's kind.

This is an inherently unsecure platform, an inherently unsecure technology, and a largely experimental economy. To think that it's ever going to be possible to have real confidence in it's stability is optimistic in the extreme.


[Edit] PS: I just felt like I needed to state clearly and explicitly: I do hope that nobody ends up losing their business (or a significant number of sales) as a result of all of this.

I won't close my shop. But I won't spend much time on content creation anymore. Instead I'll run around looking for people who wear my products, to check for their names in my sales history. Of course, I'll do so while wearing a most simple avatar without any unique accessories.

Actually we're talking about expanding. Keeping the product line fresh and vibrant. Always trying to innovate our designs, improve our scripts. A new take on old ideas... etc. Warf Ventura (Porcupine 117, 141, 120) will be here for the long haul.

I'm certainly not closing my shops, but for some new stuff I'm building I'm going to make sure that unless the scripts in it are running it will be very difficult to make use of the objects. Unfortunately that also means that some schemes I was intending to use to minimize sim lag won't be possible.

My hope is that LL won't be changing the way scripts work to make it possible to copy them as well, but I must say I'm not sure now what LL's motivations really are with all this.

I would say it's greed coupled with inherent distrust. If you believe that most people aren't out to cheat you (which is actually the case) then none of this now in the present, past, or in the future matters a whole lot. A few dishonest people will take advantage, maybe, but the majority of us will keep doing what we've always been doing which is visit the stores and pay for something we want.

One good thing I would hope comes out of this is that people finally start selling things as mod enabled because the excuse that it makes copying any easier is no longer true, and in fact never has been in the past, but just like in the real world, another likely outcome is that content will get even more ridiculous restriction, making it even harder to actually get any use of what we all do pay for.

Thank you for pointing that out. Once again, I found myself succumbing to a tide of hysteria and forgetting my own experience (ie. far from everyone visiting my store being a scammer, I routinely have people turn down offers of refunds after I just communicate with them about their grievance.)

There's an element of irony in your post, Kitty. You believe that those who shut up shop would do so as a result of the negative traits you state, and yet your post in itself is a negative view on the motivations of their actions.

I don't have content out there, but if I did, I would be more pissed off with the fact that there will be people out there passing off my stuff as their own than anything else, stuff that I had spent hours creating. I don't think that most people are out to cheat us, but you know it really doesn't need a majority; it only needs a few. For example, I wonder how many of those copybots were sold by that one person?

That being said, I really hope that people will not shut up shop, and instead ensure that any talentless bottom feeders get away with as little as possible. I really hope that people will see how things pan out before making any snap judgements. If your stuff is going to be copied, shutting up sho-p will not solve it, they can copy from items already out there.

Just saw this listed on SLX http://www.slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=146068&random=93524 Its supposed to be a "Simple CopyBot Defeater"

I was commenting on the perceived mentality of a lot of content creators/sellers and what apparantly motivates them.

Any irony would be in the fact that someone announcing that they're closing their store due to alleged rampant copying, would create a mad rush where people flock to their favourite store not to copy and steal, but to buy what won't be available to them anymore tomorrow.

If copying was indeed as widespread as the shouting of creators goes, there wouldn't be a single texture store left in SL, because all it would take is a single sale which then gets redistributed all across the grid.

I DO have content out there, and it's the principle that pisses me off, how are they (LL) going to allow such a thing, I HAVE closed shop, abandoned 8k of land and deleted my entire inventory, you can say I am over-reacting but thats ok...my principles are what matter to me. The fact that I have spent the past 1/2 a year educating myself on the variety of tools that interface with SL to create worthwhile content (and I know dozens of others that have contributed MUCH MORE than that) is what really gets to me, MONEY.... lets not even get into that, we all know what it is to have to pay for virtual goods when we NOW know that others are deceptively obtaining them for free! I know that theft cannot be avoided in what is considered a "free world" but my concern is, Where will this go, how long will it take, and to what degree is this copybot going to be exploited!

I for one will continue to wander the world plain and prim-less until a resolution is reached, Hopefully none of my items were affected (as I have a faint understanding of how this is done) and I for one am not going to continue to support such feeble attempts by LL to seem concerned, when something is done about copybot, is when I will open shop and I urge others to do the same in order to demonstrate the real effect this could ultimately lead to...ECONOMIC FAILURE!!!!


Those of you that are NOT Content Creators please take note:

Take the time to put yourself in the other persons shoes, if your not making anything worth stealing than don't go around promoting a catalyst suggesting that the copybot is not a big deal, hundreds if not thousands are at risk of losing plenty of money that I'd be sure to bet, no one will be quick to replace, you mentioned HOPE twice in your post and I've seen that word in other posts as well (this is in not directed towards anyone in particular, I am just expressing myself) Well I, as well as many others have LOST COMPLETE HOPE A VERY VERY LONG TIME AGO! So please reconsider your post bashing the poor content creators you feel are over-reacting.


PS- Its better to have loved and lost,

than to have been robbed altogether!

As the product listing states, it is a temporary measure The fact is, there is no long term hope for any solution that actually stops thieves. The very best you can *ever* hope for is to keep honest people honest and to implement punitive measures for the dishonest.

Yes, and my point was that the comment in itself contains and a strong element of irony.



That's irony? Perhaps you work from a different definition of the word? Also, I doubt that's a likely scenario.



Funnily enough, I don't see texture businesses thriving to the same extent prim clothing/hair, etc are. Do you?

Sorry to hear this Demolaus. If you haven't already cleared your trash, I do hope you consider restoring all items and giving it some time before making such a rash decision.

This is my real beef here. I know perfectly well that there is no way to make foolproof copy-protection for software, and the copy-protection arms race just harms consumers; it's the old "doesn't hurt the thieves, the only people getting hurt are the honest customers."

However, at the same time LL does not appear to be allies of content creators in terms of your correct prescription of implementing punitive measures and keeping honest people honest. The statements made on the blog post are pretty wishy-washy and mostly come across as them covering their own ass. Although I am guessing they are working madly behind the scenes to deal with this, their official response smacks of callowness, not concern.

Well it goes without saying, Second Life is a financial game, many come to it to use their skills to make Real Life money - end of story.

With that said, it goes without saying, there are merchants out there who sell their things at extreme prices just because they want to make more money... Heck a few of my friends are those kind of people. What would we call somebody who wants more of what they have? Sorry, but wanting more of what one has, would in my books be considered greed.

But, there are those out there who are not out to make Real Life money from a game. There are those who want to offer their content for the bare minimum just because they want to contribute to the community. Let's go for examples, LapGirl and UFOnly, those companies I don't consider greedy, they sell their products for next to nothing, while you have other companies (who I won't mention) that sell things much like the above stateds clothing, for a few hundred, or in one case I saw, 12,000 for a gown.

A lot of the prices of products are set at a greedy standard in my opinion, which is why we keep seeing these things appear to steal other peoples products. I can understand people don't like their content being stolen, but I feel, it is we, the creators who actually 'spawn' those who want to steal.

If there are those who want to steal, they -will- wether you, I or anyone likes it or not. Nothing is ever as secure as it should be. Consider the Bot as a virus, the anti-virus will appear eventually, but a new evolved virus will come quite simply because it's what people do, they like to cause some problems.

To those who are screaming about closing their shop - You've been running with the risk of your content being stolen since you started selling your things. it sounds to me you're a) jumping on the bandwagon, b) using it as advertisement as somebody else said in this post, or c) you just want to close it and are using this as an excuse

I think the bot is wrong, but it's nice to see the titans tremble, even if it is for a bit

Sorry but that's crap.

If someone is paying that price, that's thier own business. Who are you to dictate what's too expensive? If there's a market... why not?

And I'm glad you are happy to let every thief content at the risk of everyone to take down those *you* deem to be too expensive. You obviously don't even have a clue what goes into making an outfit, it takes hours of real work for good outfits.

And yes, we take a risk of it being stolen, however our risk was NOT EVER before at LL's acceptance and approval.

P.S. That's not unreasonable if you might look and see what it took to make it. If it comes with all kinds of attachments, varied styles and is highly detailed... that's ALOT of work.

One wedding pack for a highly detailed lace dress came with flexi veil, train, flowers, jewelry, shoes, hair, and a few different styles of the accessories... and it was transfer. Considering how many accessories you get and the time it took to create... easily worth 12kL when you think about how much all that cost separately and doesn't always match.

I have not closed shop.

Temporarily, though, I have removed my sculptures from my land holdings across the world. They will be replaced tonight, but they will all be unlinked into their individual prims.

Assumedly, the script copies prims and textures -- but a fat lot of good it'll do if they copy Gwiffy to discover that they got an inventory full of 300+ prims and no idea how to fit them all together to remake a Gwiffy from the mess.

As much as I hate to be seen as a human, I won't be wearing anything unique any more either.

Also, I am planning a massive price drop as of this weekend. More availability... and really, my stuff has been too expensive for some time. Was going to do this anyways as of Jan 1 2007, but I think this is a good time to push things forward.

I love that solution for the statues!

I sell textures, and will continue to do so, only because it is something I can do with comparatively small effort and which this exploit doesn't affect. Textures have to be sold full-perms to be of any use. We texture sellers DO have frequent problems with people who steal our work and resell it for their own profits. We file more DMCA takedown notices than you can imagine, and more often than not, the alt that was abusing the textures vanishes, to be replaced by a new one later on, doing the same stuff. Fortunately, there are enough honest people out there that the loss of sales on a few L$30 textures here or there isn't a crippling problem. It's closer to the losses a RL store has for shoplifting. Besides, a constant flow of new textures is needed to keep texture sales up. There are only just so many people who need a particular door or wall texture.

However, while only a builder can really make use of textures (stolen or otherwise), everyone can and does wear clothes! If this CopyBot software is allowed to remain on the grid, the clothing market will crumble entirely. It takes FAR more hours of hard work to create a stunning outfit than it does to make a texture bundle. I have to sell a lot of copies of a dress to even come close to making what my time and effort are worth there. CopyBot makes it far less likely that I will be able to make any sort of resonable return on my efforts. Even if none of MY items get copied, this malware will drive down the value of all clothes in SL, as free and cheap knock-offs, sold by alts that no one can trace, flood the market. Therefore, my clothing stores will close. They barely make enough to be worth it as it is.

Custom avatars (like furries) will also be heavily hit by this. How long will Luskwood or Jakkal's Werehouse stay in SL, when people start using CopyBot to steal their avatars? Why should they invest hundreds of hours designing avatars that some jerk can steal in a heartbeat? I had wanted to expand into making my own line of furry avatars. I'm not going to bother, now.

The one thing these thieves can't touch is my sim architect services. The creative effort and hard work to design, build and manage a sim is something they can never steal with software. They may be able to copy entire sim builds, but they will never duplicate what is still in my mind, for my next efforts. The private island price increases have severely curtailed my sim building contracts, but I hope in time they will rebound.

Assuming that SL survives this fiasco.

Incidentally, for me, my various business efforts are what make it possible for me to stay and play in SL. They cover my expenses, so I don't have to strain my already struggling RL budget with spending RL money to be here. I had hoped to eventually parlay my efforts here into a computer system that was good enough to really enjoy SL. Now I'll have to make do with someone else's cast-offs, because I certainly won't be making enough to buy that computer any time soon. I'll be lucky if i continue to break even.