Sex Gen Removed!

It will be there momentarily.

Good luck.

Received with many thanks!

No problem at all.

Although I'm jes one little store, I can tell you this: the goods I sell are my works. I generate my own textures and otherwise avoid using second hand content (unless licensed, and from trusted vendors -- some of my scripts, for example).

Mari

Perhaps it was a court order to remove all copies too. This sort of thing is only going to occur more often as more unverified disposable alts are let loose on the everexpanding grid, in many cases they probably can't get a lawsuit becaust the person is unreachable or unable to be found.
I have one of Stokers Vendors on my land and it seems ok, perhaps the OP should take sexgen out of the title as it is probably giving Stroker a big headache.

I am still seeing the sexgen items around the places I frequent and they are created by ec. so no idea.

The problem isn't with copybotters as long as they go after "popular" items, that's easy enough to spot and if someone knows it's a fake/copy and buys it anyway then I don't personally feel bad if it's removed.

The problem is with content creators that pass themselves off as legitimate but are no better than the more obvious kind of "content thieves" when it comes to selling someone else's work.

That skin seller wasn't an unverified disposable alt, would you argue that all those skins need to be purged because the creator was alledgedly dishonest? Where do you draw the line between enforcing the original creator's right and hurting people who had nothing to do with infringement but are the victim of it none the less?

The line must be drawn with the creator. You don't get to keep pirate videos that you bought innocently if you are found with them. If the creator says it's ok to leave the innocent victims with the goods, fine, but if not, they should be removed.

If Linden Labs wants to avoid liability for the illegal acts of Second Life users, it has to react swift and hard to remove illegal items from its database once its aware that they exist. To keep that safe haven as the innocent carrier, they really have no choice but to act first and explain later in these situations.

Ultimately, a high-profile instance of someone actually protecting intellectual property in Second Life is a great thing in Second Life. In the short term it does hurt the people who innocently used the objects without knowing they infringed on a copyright or trademark. (And theoretically they would have a damages claim against the person from whom they obtained the infringing objects, though any individual's damage is most likely way too small to actually pursue.) In the long term, this is something that bodes well for Second Life as the world created by its residents.

If someone on Ebay is caught selling stolen merchandise the people who bought that merchandise could have to return it. They may even get in trouble for receiving it.

This is why they say there are no victimless crimes. Even if the end user knew nothing about the nefarious means behind the item they can still suffer the consequences.

Stopping content theft does not just help the original creator of the item stolen, it also protects potential consumers that may suffer down the road.

Ok the key word here is "Eva Capalini"

Quite a bit of the MLP scripts inworld have her as a creator (she runs a full perm shop) in fact if you have the MLP2 scripts that Cole Lear updated, they too show Eva Capalini as the creator.

Now what i think happened is someone was selling a MLP object as a Sexgen, LL looked at the creator field on the scripts then zapped all the MLP scripts with her listed as the creator.

This really seems to be a gross overreaction on LL's part. Can you imagine what the people who have sold a ton of MLP stuff that happened to be uploaded by this person now have to do to keep their customers happy.... all because one person violated trademarks using some open source scripts?

The main thing that makes Second Life a fertile ground for fraud and rip-off artists is the easy anonymity of Second Life businesses. It's so hard to pursue people who rip-off a Second Life resident, that in most cases, one just lets it go.

In the short term, people with your question- How do I know of anything I buy isn't infringing?- should probably be more careful with their money. You just don't have a good way of knowing if you're buying legal goods or not.

For the long term, it's up to the merchants (with the help of Second Life tools provided by Linden Labs) to figure out ways to make consumers feel good that the things they are buying are not illegal, or that consumers otherwise won't get ripped off in a transaction. I think this includes merchants voluntarily giving up some of their anonymity, so a consumer can research a product before buying, have confidence in buying, and have some sort of assurance that the consumer does have a remedy if ripped off.

Let's hope that those who are afraid of buying illegal goods- or who have already been burned on it- turn that loss into something positive by pushing the SL economy to become more secure.

So let's make the balance:

* creator: wins - all infringing content is removed
* infringer: partial win - gets to keep all the money made from the infringement
* consumer: looses - out the money and out the product

It might just be me but that just looks like the wrong way to go about it.

If it was only a trademark violation, the objects could just have been renamed instead of removed, so removing them does seem rather harsh.

And I agree with Kitty - this is done at our peril, because with relatively few ways for a consumer to verify that an SL business is genuine, penalising the consumer heavily runs the risk of triggering adverse selection in the economy as a whole.

There is no need for us to give up some anonimity. Most genuine merchants (I think) have genuine personal details on file with LL, and they are available to a court order. If something is worth pursuing, then it's worth pursuing through a court. If it's not worth pursuing through a court, then giving up some contact details leaves merchants open in RL to headbangers.

It doesn't work out fairly, I agree, but it IS the right way. It's what happens in RL, for the same reason.

Well if the products sold by the copier are full perm then just deleting the rezzed ones is a useless action. What would be good was if the transactions were reversable somehow, but I doubt that would ever be possible.
And what if the skin seller is a unverified disposable alt and they just keep creating new alts and selling new copies every week. Or the pirated copy is sold by hundreds of disposable alts bogging the DMCA system down.
Yes this is a pain because Iit's only going to get worse, maybe 15k of stuff on my accounts and who knows how much of it is legittimate untill you findout it woon't rez anymore? I guess we will find out more for LL when they announce something.

buyer beware. do you homework first. this is what happens when you buy stuff out of the back of a truck.

I agree, you don't have to give up anonimity.

The only thing that would inspire any confidence in me is an automatic refund policy: require that each seller has a substantial US$ balance with LL and if it turns out they sold anything infringing (whether they knew or not makes absolutely no difference) everyone who bought that item gets reimbursed.

The only way content creators are going to care about verifying if what they're selling is 100% legitimate is if it's going to them that pays the price.

How would you go about verifying that Minnu's skins aren't someone else's work?

How would you know that someone is using a sculpty texture they didn't make themselves? /327/43/265005/1.html

There is *no* way to check for infringement on the buyer's end.

But that's just the problem. On SL, the entry costs are so small that thieves don't need to run "off the back of a truck".

One time, I saw an item that had been stolen and was being resold. The legitimate store was a small build on the mainland with a simple store build. The thieves' store was on a private island with hundreds of other products.

Which one would look more legitimate to you?

The fact that one cannot open up an dispute by going to the merchant directly, and must start with a legal action against Linden Labs to pry the personal information from Linden Labs, greatly increases any cost of litigation you have right away. (And the more it costs, the less viable an alternative it is.) Not to mention the risk involved in the fact that this particular merchant may not have supplied true information at all for Linden Labs to give away in the first place.

And then once there has already been the expense and legal battle for the subpoena to Linden Labs, the possibility of settling things more cheaply through letters between attorneys, rather than full-blown litigation, is out the window.

And then, aside from information for litigation, personal information on the merchant just helps in evaluating the risk of making a purchase. For example with private estate land "sales," I like many people have been ripped off for a lot of money in such "sales" and are not inclined to do them again. Now, I know of a person in these forums, involved in private estate "sales," who talks about all the real world business experience he's had. I might actually be inclined then to have a little trust and buy virtual land from him- if there was any way I could actually verify that what he says in the forums is actually true. I don't; he's an anonymous stranger to me.

It may be that honest merchants have real indentifying information with Linden Labs. Problem is, I the consumer have no way of knowing which merchants do, and which merchants don't.

The easy anonymity looks to me like the easy cover for the rip-off artist.

Now, it may be possible that there are other ways to decrease the transactions risks, and provide remedies for consumers who are ripped off, that also allow the merchants to keep relative anonymity. I don't know what they are, but maybe there are ways.

Outside of Second Life, I am not in the position of doing business with anonymous entities.

For people who want to make signficant money in Second Life, having a real, verifiable identity would seem to be a tremenous advantage when it comes to getting money from consumers who are afraid of being ripped off, or otherwise disappointed in their prospective purchases.

Then I suggest that you don't buy anything, because there is no good reason for merchants to publically displose RL contact details, so it will rarely happen.

So a sign stating that the merchant will refund for any items that are bought and are subsequently be found to be stolen, or words to that effect, would satisfy you? If it were me, the very idea that some of the stuff may be stolen would put me right off from buying.

[added]
On re-reading, I think you meant that LL should operate the refunds from the merchant's account. That won't happen, so I guess you'll need to stop shopping.

So how would you know, in any given shop, that the stuff is not stolen?

I am sure that the things you make have nothing stolen in them, but how does a consumer - who has never heard of you, or read what you've written on this forum - know that?

With texture artist and most content LL has pretty much refused to do this for any other copy right infringement unless they were forced too.
Which pretty much means you need to the money for lawyers,etc to force LL to do this which majority of us I doubt have.
My only advise is don't use the name sexgen on your products and if you want to use sexgen only use the products from the official dealer.
Friend had sexgen bed in her inventory she got for 400L never used that poofed bit ago too.
I wonder if it had to do dealer she got it from lawsuit.
My advise is if you made it you got the animations in your hard drive and know how to do scripts redo it and don't name it sexgen.
If this really bothers you quit buying products by Stroker or double check who can officially sell his sexgen products..