Rebel Hope Theft: Blacklisted
Posted on 23. Sep, 2009 by Tenshi Vielle in Gossip, Wall of Shame
You may have to squint to read it, but that popup right there is what you’ll get when you try to rez the stolen Rebel Hope items – “That inventory item has been blacklisted.” It will never rez again, thanks to some quick Linden work. There were somewhere over 250 items stolen in this particular incident.
Rebel posted on the Official Second Life Forums:
Thank you to all of you who have been so supportive during all of this mess. I’ve never in my almost five years of being in SL seen such a blatant act of vengeance. This person called RH out and accused him of some things but RH and myself did not deserve this. I think of us as being very conscious about giving back where we can. We’ve learned that there are some people out there that have zero morals and will go up and beyond anything else to hurt someone that they “think” wronged them. Sometimes such an irrational thinking person honestly needs to get a grip and step away from the computer.
We sat down and took the last big theft we went through, but I’ll be damned if I let that happen again. We are honest content creators who pay our bills and abide by rules and TOS. We went through proper channels and did appropriate paperwork. We used our civic rights to file the appropriate documents with a Federal court of law to handle that situation. My company, Rebel Hope Designs, Inc. because a corporation, obtained the federal and state trademark and copyright tools to protect my work because SL is a real income for me. For this to happen seems like all was in vein.
Whoever did this has no brain, heart or morals. They were strictly out to inflict pain and to show their level of stupidity. For the few moments of thrill you got out of this you coward, I hope it was worth it.
LL did what was right and I give them very big kudos for making it right. Charlene Linden, Keira Linden and those behind the scenes that took care of this, we thank you. We hope that in the future this will be the case for others who this happens to. RH and I are not unique in this theft attempt, as we know there are others who have suffered loss as well. Let’s let this be an example of what should happen in each case of copy theft. Let’s hope that more copyright protection is taken on blatant use of copyright material. If you are selling obviously copyrighted material please consider who you may be harming by doing so.
For whatever reason this person did this intentionally and we hope to God this does not ever happen on this scale to anyone again. There were 104 items of ours in that box full perms. Between the other three creators there was probably close if not equal to that. Susan Ramos and Xtrojan were hit hard as well. We pulled together as a team and did whatever we had to in killing it as fast as we could, including staying up all night going to reseller locations to see if it was out and asking if they would please remove the content.
We won’t lay down to this and may be even a bigger target of this kind of crime now. This is NOT a game to those people here making things with the talent and skills they have to make money as any other job. We work just as any other person out there, ours just happens to be in Second Life. This platform may be a source of entertainment for you, and that is most excellent and what a cool thing to have for that. But I ask you to please not think of this as just a “game” and have respect for those who have created things for this “world” to enjoy. Things that we content creators put many many hours into making quality work for those who admire and respect it. Think about the “real life” people you are affecting and how would you feel if someone “stole” your income and took from your family. Also, think about how colorless SL would be without the beauty that the content creators give to SL.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. To us it’s close to our hearts and we so much appreciate the outward show of support, love and heartfelt sympathy for what happened. Thank you for taking the time to send the notecards and the blogs about it. I hope that we can return that respect to anyone who this happens to.
Much thanks,
RH Engel and Rebel Hope
MissKillian
Sep 23rd, 2009
Good Job Linden Lab.. am I first?!
Delora Starbrook
Sep 23rd, 2009
This is fantastic! Thank you LL for actually disabling content in-world this time instead of just looking the other way. Now lets see this start happening for the rest of the content creators, not just the big names.
Congratulations Rebel Hope and RH Engel, it looks like you're going to survive the mess!
lordgreggreg
Sep 23rd, 2009
They should have a auto matic system just like this to take care of any dmca reports, as they are legally required to do. This is very very good results.
I wish they had a better accountability for certain avatars so they dpnt just make an alt and do it again.. but one step at a time i supose. Once more and more poeople fore LL to do what they must.. necessity is the mother of invention.. they will come up with a better way.
Shimere Felisimo
Sep 23rd, 2009
In this case, Linden Labs acted absolutely correctly because the theft was blatant, malicious, and without ambiguity. But considering the amount of spurious dmca's filed, I'd hate to see an innocent content creator suffer through the mortification of having "that inventory has been blacklisted" come up on one of their legitimate designs.
lordgreggreg
Sep 23rd, 2009
Oy, thats true. But i think the dmca has stuff in it to hadle cases like that.. so there should also be a automatic way to get your stuff put back on the market.
But once again.. this seems to really depend on accountablity, else and army of alts could take down the grid through forced dmca stuff
Skinkie
Sep 24th, 2009
I'm thrilled for RH and Rebel, it's a great outcome.
However, I'd imagine there are a large number of creators, who've had numerous items stolen, who are out there asking "why didn't I get that response?". Is it that the technology to do this has only just become available, perhaps spurred on by Stoker's lawsuit? Is it because RH and Rebel are "oldbies" (no offence) and well known?
For me, the fact that we're all surprised by LL's response speaks volumes, and raises many questions.
Mainit
Sep 24th, 2009
OMG thats awesome.. YAAY FOR LL for responding and doing something..im really happy for Rebel and RH =D
im really happy LL took action and did the right thing.
i agree what rebel and RH said.. most of us SL isnt a game, and do make a living off SL.
Guest
Sep 24th, 2009
It's probably new, and also I'm guessing there is a long long waiting list, the people who so loudly complain about content theft are probably not being served yet because SL is a huge place and there may be others to take care of first… Maybe this has happened before but some people are just quiet and politely wait.
Anyways It's good to see someone get taken care of.
~H~
Sep 24th, 2009
Umm…no. It was taken care of so quickly because of the big names involved and because of the impending Stroker, Munch and etc suit.
Baily
Sep 24th, 2009
Excellent result
IsabeauReinard
Sep 26th, 2009
This is great. I'm happy for RH and Rebel. This is huge. It's nice that LL FINALLY acted quickly in a content theft situation. Now how about disabling all content by Dirty Dikes and the other popular hair rippers? How about getting rid of all those ripped Redgrave and Naughty skins? I mean, come on. They're finally getting off their asses now that they're being sued, but they really need to step it up and start disabling content they should have disabled months, if not years ago.
ReneeH
Sep 27th, 2009
In the two years I've been in SL, this is the first I've heard of the much threatened "blacklisted" option being exercised by LL. I'm so happy to see it. This is terrific news. Both because it spares RH from further damage as a result of this malicious act, but also because it will hopefully give those making a profit off stolen goods something to think about. If those goods really do start disappearing from people's inventories, they will finally have to answer for it. Kudos on a job well done LL, and to RH, who must have motivated them to act.
~MH~
Oct 11th, 2009
Blacklisting is a GREAT idea.. does this work on all things though?
Hair, skin, eyes, textures? An object, is easy to blacklist.
I hope that they come up with something similar for all else.
scd
Oct 11th, 2009
I think Blacklisting works on anything with a UUID – so… everything.