Sex Gen Removed!

Were the two main con artists involved Eva Capalini and Pascal Theriac?

I thought you wrote US$100 in one post, but now it's a few thousand US$ that a merchant would need to put up. But you're idea isn't going to happen. Not only would it require LL's involvement (not gonna happen), and that it would close the vast majority of stores instantly (they're not going to do that), but it would also require people who want to open stores to apply for the right to do so, and to deposit a large amount of money. So someone who wants to sell their artwork in a mall, for instance, simply isn't going to be able do it. That's not what SL is about, and it isn't going to happen.

Or you may be thinking that it's optional. That isn't going to happen either, because LL would need to be involved. They may be ok with accepting deposits for the right to display a 'verified' sign, but they are not going to get involved in something where they would need to spend significant time sorting problems out - who gets how much - hundreds or thousands of people - no way it's gonna happen.

I never said $100, that would be a ridiculously small amount and wouldn't even cover refunds for one single item, let alone a whole store.

You want to take people's money but you don't care about standing behind what you sell other than assurances that can't be verified in any way, you said that already.

It's funny how everyone wants the most draconian measures when it comes to infringement because livelyhoods are at stake, but when it comes to consumer protection it's all too much trouble and noone makes money all of a sudden .

What??? I've never said any such thing. You've been dreaming. I always stand behind what I sell - always!

I gave you reasons why your idea won't happen. I also agreed with Tegg when he put forward the same idea. It sounds like a good idea, but it would kill so much that exists, and prevent so much the might exist, that it could be a bad idea. If it were optional, it may be better, but is still won't happen, because LL isn't going to be so intricately, and time-consumingly, involved.

LL isn't going to command that you can't open a little shop unless you put a few thousand down first, because it would effectively prevent all new shops from starting up. I've given some reasons why it's not going to happen, and here's another... LL is not going to police the grid, dealing with shop start-ups that didn't get permission.

I'm afraid you're barking up the wrong tree.

North American consumer laws, under which SL operates for the most part, I guess, aren't the greatest to begin with. In Canada, we have legislation requiring that food items list ingredients in imperial and metric, in French and English, and with health info to help you estimate whether it will kill you by age 70 or 71, (with the result that so much is crammed on you can't read it without access to the Hubbard telescope), but, there is no requirement for actual dates telling you mundane details such as whether consuming it will see you off by nightfall. As with all other products, it really is still what the Romans said, "caveat emptor."

Consumer rights are a bit clearer in the UK: http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/cgi-bin/bglitem.cgi?file=badv073-1011.txt

If I were an animator or a skin creator, for instance, I'd consider banding together in some kind of loose association (though everyone is so fiercely independent in SL, it might be like herding wild cats) to create an "authentic" programme that resellers could use / advertise to their customers. Of course, low-life would try to fake that, too, just as you get emails purporting to be from your bank asking if you would kindly remind them of your account number and balance -- and again, it's caveat emptor, isn't it? Still, that doesn't mean something can't be done.

The other thread identifies another one. But as I recall, there were a number of other players in the particular sim that was shut down. (And I'm not sure that the MLP-SexGen-confusion-cum-ripped-off-anims problem originated there or with these accounts--it's been kicking around for ages. Maybe somebody knows more history about that.)

I know the $100US may not be enough but that depends on how many items get sold too before someone reports them and shuts it down, it's a risk to gamble the $100US down to open a store selling pirated material on whether you get away with it for a few days or a month. Perhaps it would be more like a $100US Customer insurance premium. Maybe it only can be less too, but it's basically a commitment to put your money where your mouth is that your business is genuine and above board. And if the fund starts losing money because LL isn't acting it's up to the members to encourage results and perhaps even post a reward to those finding stolen content of $100L or something, get those newer residents who want money working against piracy.
It's sad overall that a free economy is slowly being turned into copy of real life with these sort of debates because of the actions of a small number of lowdown snakes in the grass ruining it for everyone else and unfortunately there is no way to stop them doing it over and over again otherwise.
Perhaps there should be a group inworld set up for content policing that when someone finds a potential infringement they post it on the group and other members who may have more experience can confirm details then a large number of members can AR or drag a Lnden into the fray.

That's the price that's paid for a niche becoming mainstream, it's no different than killing off casinos and banks. At one point or another cozy and unregulated will have to make way for restrictions and regulations.

If consumer protection means killing off all the small stores, then so be it. It's no more or less harsh than demanding that LL remove infringing content from people who weren't involved with the act and bought something in good faith.

Neither even needs to happen, but quite a few creators seem to be too caught up to see that what they want to see happen doesn't hurt infringers at all but could potentially cause harm to their own (potential) customers.

Just on a general note without caring about *how*, wouldn't you prefer to know that all the animations, scripts, textures or whatever was made by someone else that you use in your own furniture was properly licensed? If something you sell suddenly becomes unrezzable/vanishes through no fault of your own, it's your reputation that takes the hit. Most people aren't going to be as informed or care who did what: the version and word of mouth will be "they bought something from you and it vanished because you stole something". Not that you did or even knew until it happened , but most people don't care about little distinctions like that. This could be isolated, but it's going eventually to become the norm since LL has been too lax about what it removes and what it lets linger around and at that point there will need to be a way to have peace of mind that what you bought is on the level.

If people insist on draconian measures for content protection you need something else on the buyer's end to balance things out again, because in no way are they guilty of anything (obviously leaving those who know that what they're buying is a copy aside).

I think you just found a new market in SL for selling insurance policies .

Even a few thousand US$ wouldn't be enough in some cases, if what just happened happens in one of those cases. I sell hundreds of items every single day, and many other stores do too, and I take thousands of US$ out of SL every single month, as do others. Suppose it happens to one such store a few months down the road. The few thousand US$ deposit won't cover a fraction of each person's losses. It may not even cover people for small shops - it depends how long a shop has been trading and how much value has been sold.

As a statement of commitment it would be fine I suppose, but LL won't do it, except maybe on a voluntary basis, and maybe not even then, because it would mean they'd have to clean up after each 'episode'.

Yeah but this current case was allowwed to continue for near 2 years I think? The $100US may cover any profits made by the pirating person, they have to sell $28,000L worth of products before making anything at all.
Not many would do that much damage either I hope, now the guards are awake

I agree that a few thousand pounds worth of deposit is a bad idea, but I think this is misrepresenting things a bit. First, the biggest threat to small stores is large stores. Second, with no refund enforcement, small and new stores also are the ones who suffer because they don't have a trusted reputation, so consumers don't know that the items they buy from them aren't going to just go poof one day.

Nonetheless I think there are improvements that could be made. For example, a rule that you cannot recieve more than a certain amount of L$ from other players unless you have payment info on file. If you recieve more L$, it still goes into your account, but it is not accessible until you put in current payment info. As long as someone has payment info on file, LL can always pay refunds from them simply by driving their L$ balance as far negative as it needs to go and automatically buying them L$ to restore them, in the same way a movie rental store can charge a penalty fee.

Of even greater concern is that in this case, it seems that content that was NOT copied has been affected, so any automatic refund punishment would in this case have hit a large number of innocent furniture makers who happened to use a certain iteration of the MLP script.

Of course I'd prefer that. I'm not against doing something to protect end users - I'm just saying why, imo, LL won't adopt the idea put forward. I think there's more chance of it happening if it's on a voluntary basis, but even then, I don't think they'd want to get involved in the way that would be necessary should something happen.

Incidentally, it was Tegg who used "US$100" in a post. I was mixing you two up as you both put forward the same idea.

Just a guess, but couldn't doing away with L$ as a virtual currency help as well?

If micro-payments happen in US$ then there's no "virtual world" to hide behind any longer. Additionally, if every store owner has their RL details published (make it "voluntary" by all means) then there's the option to take anyone to a small claims court over all the other issues as well (non-delivery, private land scams, etc)?

Well, I've not been asking for Draconian measures for content protection - that might be because that I come from a country where you can't patent software (yet), you have legally enshrined rights to decompile software (with certain safeguards), to analyse software to determine its means of operation or to copy software for purposes of backup (rights which overrule any TOS or EULA), but where oddly it is technically illegal to convert a CD to an MP3 file (although no one is interested in enforcing that law). Part of the reason for that is, that I have seen too many examples particularly in software patents where trivial or blatantly obvious ideas have been attempted to be protected.

I don't like the DMCA -

a) that ISPs (and LL is, I think acting as an ISP within this context) have to act on the accusation of copyright theft, not on proof that theft has occured (although I can see a change in this might put too much burden on the copyright owner)
b) that ISPs have little discretion as to the action to take. LL has been criticised in taking down all of EC's items, not just the ones where an infringement had occured. However, depending on how the DMCA was filed, LL may have had no choice but to do that in order to comply. There have been plenty of cases where an entire website has been taken down due to a DMCA compaint stating that the website infringed copyright rather than identifying particular pages. If the DMCA complaint merely identified EC as comminting copyright offencese, LL may not have had much choice but to remove all items!

To come back to your first point - I don't believe that the content industry in SL is yet anywhere near mainstream enough to be able to survive regulation. There are far too many high risks (platform stability and uptime, transaction failures, updates breaking existing content, uncertainty as to future population growth etc.) and far too low returns (does anyone here, actually make a real profit as opposed to at best cover costs and make a little pocket money, i.e. make enough to be at least a major supplement to a real world salary if not a replacement?).

Indeed you only need to look at the lack of variety of third party content in places like There which do regulate content uploads to question where the virual content market in general is anywhere near mainstream.

Matthew

I wonder if that would work. My payment info is a credit card. I think I could turn any such 'unauthorised' payment around, couldn't I? Then it would be the credit card company who is the one to lose out. I wouldn't like that.

I'm not pointing fingers . It's just that some measures seem like a great idea (someone copied a texture I created, what's wrong with deleting it from the asset server?) but they really only end up hurting people who did nothing wrong rather than hurt/deter the infringer which is really what people are after (other than stopping further distribution obviously).

I'm not sure I could come up with something better . I do think a waiting period for a counterfile would be good though, especially if it means going after every instance in-world because I can see that being used as the ultimate griefing/grudge tool otherwise.

It wouldn't work I think which is why I suggested a deposit.

LL would charge you, you'd intiate a chargeback, LL would sue you for fraud, you'd counter that you didn't infringe so LL had no just cause to charge you as a result, LL can't show you infringed because it's not the copyright owner, so that would likely pend until the copyright owner can show you did indeed infringe, LL can now show that it was justified in charging you.

One big mess .

Perhaps the organizers of Ginko would volunteer to come back and administer the fund :}



To be fair, it was in a freebie package / or cheapo package, depending whether you paid 100 L for it or a friend passed it to you. I didn't become aware of it until January 2008. I suspect that the approach of many people who used it was, best not to ask too many questions. I asked questions, because I'm lazy I guess -- I'd rather do a bit of work now to avoid mucho stress later.

So, innocent? Perhaps, if you mean innocent in the sense of : "lacking in sophistication or worldliness." No doubt there may be have been a few in that category. Others, I suspect, took it as a windfall that came their way and decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

My understanding so far is that if you didn't use that package, you didn't have that iteration of the script.

Here's something else though that people seem to be keeping quiet about, perhaps hoping no one will mention it and they won't be noticed :}

There was a slight variation on that package. The animations are the same pirated ones, but the scripts in this variation show the creator as Miffy Fluffy (with 1 tch_passer script by Gryphon Brody.) This assembly was unaffected by the Linden Lab take down. I know several furniture places that still have this all in place in their furniture as of this afternoon, unaffected because the scripts didn't show Eva Capalini as creator.

And I, who have licenced over 300k in animations legally, etc, etc, have to try to compete with them, who get all their animations for free. So perhaps I'm biased against immediately feeling sympathetic towards them, I'll admit :}

Even that wouldn't work, except for very large losses. The last time I had any dealings with the (UK) small claims court, it cost £30 (US$60) to make a claim. You may get it back if you win, but there's no guarantee of winning, and for the small amounts of real money that we are talking about, it probably wouldn't be worth the risk or effort.

There's thousands of crazy people who always shout "I'll sue you", I'm counting on the fact that some of them are likely crazy enough to actually do it if the entry is low enough .

It only needs to act as a deterrent, and there's enough risk that someone will be peeved enough to actually bother. My guess would be that most "thieves" on SL are actually just opportunistic rather than actually criminal, not being anonymous could stop a whole lot already.

For private land sales specifically the amount involved can easily be a multiple of $60 (and of course assuming both parties actually live in the same country).

The main reason was that I'd guess that removing the L$ and paying with US$ would shift enforcement of anything away from LL since all RL laws would apply just like with anything else you purchase.

hehe

I think the best way is for Tegg to start up his insurance business

That would be tricky in the case of payments funded by credit cards, because such miniscule amounts might flag the card as potentially stolen. I've had it happen to me before, that a £1 verification fee for something has flagged my credit card and caused me no end of embarrassment when I tried to use it for other items. It's also led to my card being on a permanent 'at risk' watch, whereby every time I use it to buy more than three or four things in one session (Christmas shopping trip, anyone?) my card provider assumes the card's been nicked and the thief is charging as much to it as he can before the theft is discovered. I'm then left dealing with several phone calls to my card provider, going through every transaction to reassure them they're all mine, and then being unable to use my card for several days until it's been re-activated. All in all it's a lot of hassle.

Also, credit cards (and Paypal transactions funded by credit cards) will often (depending on your country of origin) convert the amount paid into local currency. I might buy Linden dollars in increments of US dollars, but my card is charged in UK Sterling. One US dollar is currently worth just over 51 pence, so those micro-payments would be even more micro for the UK user, and others with a favourable exchange rate against the US dollar.

I haven't finished reading this whole thread but wanted to bring up a method I use in case it's helpful to others. I will often inspect, via edit, an object and have a look at the creator of pose balls, scripts, animations etc. I've found a lot of ripped off content that way. Some creators honestly have no idea that they're buying ripped off animations, scripts, etc. But it certainly helps if you can be aware.

Although this won't work for textures (if not already posted, read here: http://www.massively.com/tag/eva-capalini/)

There's also the issue of boxed items. With many store owners renting their floorspace, prim limits are at an optimum, and they won't be able to have all their content rezzed out for inspection. They might have one item out, if it's fairly low-prim, but the majority of content is boxed in wall ads.

It's by no means a perfect a solution. If I buy from someone I don't really know by reputation, I actually take great pains to find their items in world (LOL -- right down to sending an IM to the creator asking if they can send me a LM to Item XYZ in world -- but not all creators will have time for me and I understand that).

But for big ticket items... it's worth looking into. And if they're big ticket items -- why are they selling at kiosks instead of having their own store somewhere where they can display their items.