Clothing Designs Stolen

A few years ago, I designed clothing for The Sims 2 and posted them for download on a website called "The Sims Resources". Since I became involved with Second Life, I had planned to convert my clothing designs to SL and possibly sell them in the game.

Today I was looking at some new member pictures on SLprofiles.com and found one in which someone was wearing a pair of punk pants I had designed for Sims 2! I wrote to ask the person where she bought the pants, and I'm awaiting her reply.

It's upsetting to see, considering the effort I put into the designs and my hopes of bringing them into SL to possibly earn some Lindens. I have no idea now how many of my other clothing designs have been stolen.

What can I do about this?

Well I`m definitely not surprised, a lot of things in SL are taken from an outside source and not originally created.

I`m really not sure what your best route is but though I don`t know you im really sorry.... I hope it all works out. When you get in contact with the creator s/he may end up taking it down.... Some will get defensive others are apologetic, it just depends. But because you created them there may be other actions you can take to prove your ownership and have the creator have take them down. ?

You are most likely going to get a nasty response. A lot more people then you would hope doesn't consider that sort of thing stealing or wrong. If you have proof, file a DCMA report and hope LL does something.

I have seen TONS of Sims 2 clothes in SL.

Yep.. me too. Even Maxis made stuff

I see this all the time too, even brand names like Gucci, Calvin Klein, ect. All over the place. So I guess lots of people get their stuff stolen.

I'm not familiar with "The Sims Resources", or if you still have your work posted there, but it seems like a highly risky way of sharing/selling your IP. You may want to delete all places that anybody can freely access your textures on the web, otherwise you'll be dealing with this same issue over and over again in SL. There are some people involved in SL content creation who have no clue about IP rights, or no care for following the laws when they know they can get away with it with impunity.

Unfortunately, it's probably not worth the trouble to take the matter to a court level. Your best bet is to either price the other person out of business, create superior quality items, or get their textures taken down through a successful DMCA counterclaim.

Modify, upload and start selling your textures as soon as you can. Once you have your stuff up for sale, make sure the other person who has allegedly copied and uploaded your work into SL knows about it. They may take their content down without a fight, or they might have the gaul to file a DMCA claim against you. Simply file a counterclaim against them in the later case. LL will take no other action beyond a counterclaim other than to provide a local court of law with neccessary information to contact all parties involved. You should have no fear of selling your IP in SL if what you have created is your original work.

As someone who started creating content orginally within the sims communities. I was never that good, I only made floors, walls and paintings from my orginal art and I never made clothing because its very very complecated to do sim clothing for sims. I have witness and seen too often and must say its sadly common for people to literally steal entire websites of other people's contents and promote them as their own sadly

I used to Commonly wear that Red Open shouldered Bodice and Floor length Gypsy Skirt in TSO. Has anyone seen it for Sale in SL? I'd Buy it in a second.

Angel.

I've been ripped off many times in SL. The best thing to do is confront the people doing it. Usually they are wicked embarrassed and take your work down.

I can think of two ways: make the best of a bad situation and figure out whether the store in question is actually making any decent sales. If it is then you can give permission to let them keep selling it, except you recreate the clothes under your name first and give them a percentage of the sales.

The advantage is that you don't start from scratch if they're already doing well, and have a bit of a boost, although it shouldn't stop from asking for compensation for past sales. The downside is that to a point it will legitimize the theft.

The other way is to simply file the DMCA, they can either accept it or file a counter-claim which isn't without risk on their part, but you'll have a record of defending your IP in case they just turn around and start over the very next day.