A few weeks ago, I showed you a blatant XStreet SL content thief, who was using the original stores’ names to sell her product. Since then, I’ve discovered that she is still at it – through her own inventory.
This isn’t the first time we’ve found a content thief selling from within their inventories. Tuesday morning, I was IM’d by a shopper at Redgrave who was being propositioned to purchase “transfer copies” of Redgrave pants and skins. Read on:
[6:05]Â Avatar: (Saved Tue Oct 06 08:59:52 2009) sorry, don’t know me, but though tyou might want to know there are two guys in redgrave mens selling copybot redgrave clothes to the customers via IM
[6:06]Â Tenshi Vielle: Are they still there?
[6:07]Â Avatar: yes
[6:07]Â Avatar: still here
[6:07]Â Avatar: the items come up with Emilia as creator, but with transfer & resell rights
[6:08]Â Tenshi Vielle: Thanks for the heads up
[6:09]Â Avatar: he is now iming me asking if I want skins or more
“Avatar” provided me with the chat log he had with the inventory reseller.
– Instant message logging enabled –
[5:23]Â Detective Ninetails: selling me redgrave jeans 450L dark blue ( same as retail price but transfer permission instead )
[5:23]Â Avatar: really, that’s cool, where at?
[5:23]Â Detective Ninetails: im right here
[5:23]Â Detective Ninetails: lol
[5:23]Â Detective Ninetails: well u just walked by
[5:23]Â Detective Ninetails: hehe
[5:23]Â Avatar: ah direct from you
[5:23]Â Detective Ninetails: yep yep
[5:24]Â Detective Ninetails: dean is my friend u can ask him if im legit
[5:24]Â Detective Ninetails: ( he owns redgrave with emilia )
[5:24]Â Avatar: so they are the same pants that redgrave has here, but are tansfer, so I can give to a friend?
[5:24]Â Detective Ninetails: i have his permission to sell the item off
[5:24]Â Detective Ninetails: yep
[5:24]Â Avatar: lol…is what I cam e here for
[5:24]Â Detective Ninetails: serious?
[5:24]Â Detective Ninetails: lol
[5:24]Â Avatar: yes, those, I think is the same let me check
[5:24]Â Detective Ninetails: normally its no transfer – but mine are before they changed the item
[5:25]Â Detective Ninetails: and moved here
[5:25]Â Avatar: oh no, are they going to discontinue them?
[5:25]Â Detective Ninetails: no no its just
[5:25]Â Detective Ninetails: all items in redgrave since the move
[5:25]Â Detective Ninetails: is no transfer
[5:25]Â Avatar: ah…ok, I see
[5:25]Â Avatar: so they;re the same pants?
[5:25]Â Detective Ninetails: yep yep
[5:25]Â Detective Ninetails: its upstairs
[5:25]Â Avatar: cool
[5:25]Â Avatar: ok, let me look
[5:26]Â Detective Ninetails: shall i just wear it
[5:26]Â Avatar: ok, cool. I wil buy them
[5:26]Â Detective Ninetails: hold on u havent seen em yet
[5:26]Â Detective Ninetails: lol
[5:27]Â Detective Ninetails: or have u
[5:27]Â Detective Ninetails: o.o
[5:27]Â Detective Ninetails: ah shit wait
[5:27]Â Detective Ninetails: i got the cargo ones too
[5:28]Â Detective Ninetails: for sale
[5:29]Â Avatar: ok, no prob
[5:29]Â Avatar: I have the pants, wanted to get a set for my firend
[5:29]Â Detective Ninetails: the cargo ones are no longer available at redgrave
[5:29]Â Detective Ninetails: so im selling em at 400L
[5:29]Â Detective Ninetails: ok sure ill box it up and send it to u to buy but i cant rez here
[5:29]Â Avatar: ok, I think I just want the dark pants
[5:29]Â Detective Ninetails: so ill tp
[5:30]Â Avatar: ok
[5:31]Â Avatar: ah, cool
[5:31]Â Avatar: damn sorry phone brb
[5:31]Â Detective Ninetails is Online
[5:31]Â Avatar: ok back
[5:32]Â Detective Ninetails: there we go
[5:32]Â Avatar: cool thanks, what esle do you have?
[5:32]Â Detective Ninetails: plz try it on and stuff
[5:32]Â Detective Ninetails: make sure its the one u wanted
[5:32]Â Avatar: no prob, I trust you
[5:32]Â Detective Ninetails: i got the cargo pants
[5:33]Â Detective Ninetails: which im selling hold on ill wear em
[5:33]Â Avatar: nah, not my style really, already seen
[5:33]Â Avatar: anything else?
[5:33]Â Detective Ninetails: erm
[5:33]Â Detective Ninetails: i got alot of skins
[5:33]Â Detective Ninetails: for sale
[5:33]Â Avatar: nice, belleza?
[5:33]Â Detective Ninetails: reduced from the original makers cos these ones are not eehm legal
[5:33]Â Detective Ninetails: abyss mainly
[5:33]Â Avatar: ah
[5:33]Â Detective Ninetails: some redgrave
[5:33]Â Avatar: ok
[5:33]Â Avatar: cool
[5:34]Â Detective Ninetails: alot of female skins
[5:34]Â Detective Ninetails: no belleza ones i think
[5:34]Â Avatar: ok, well gotta run, I will ask my female friends about the skins
[5:34]Â Avatar: thanks alog
[5:34]Â Avatar: *alot
[5:34]Â Detective Ninetails: np
[5:34]Â Detective Ninetails: oh thats ur box now btw just delete it
[5:34]Â Detective Ninetails: lol
[5:35]Â Detective Ninetails: if u need skins mailny let me know
[5:35]Â Detective Ninetails: cos i got alot
[5:35]Â Detective Ninetails: and i sell them cheaper than the vendors
[5:35]Â Detective Ninetails: with the option for either copy or transfer
[5:35]Â Avatar: cool thanks
[5:36]Â Detective Ninetails: np enjoy and thanks
[5:36]Â Detective Ninetails: the redgrave i sold u is perfectly legal btw
[5:36]Â Detective Ninetails: just the skins arent
[5:37]Â Avatar: ok, great
These two stood in Redgrave for about an hour, very quiet on the outside but, I’m assuming, in IMs soliciting sales of stolen content.
The question is… can it be stopped? With the number of times things can be ripped, re-ripped, and copied over, it’s entirely possible that the answer is “no”. However, it’s possible that via obtaining the UUID of the ripped item, Linden Lab can begin a process to blacklist copied content, like they did with Rebel Hope’s content.
LL needs a content theft team on their g-team. yes it is extra expense for them, but in order to retain the confidence the residents have in them from the good work Soft and Charlene have done (and others I am assuming behind the scenes).
There should be some mass banning/shunning of content thieves. Name the content theives so store owners and landowners can ban them from every shopping area, every store, every residential area, etc. Ban them from groups, clubs, things like that.
This does nothing but fill up your ban list fast. You want to ban a thief but you are banning an avatar. To ban a thief, you need to ban every alt he has plus every alt he might create after that. Then go after his friends and their alts… Even if you manage to do that – a copybotter usually is too cheap to even spend money at your store to buy the item, he would just rip it off of someone wearing it, which can be anywhere else besides your store.
Stopping them with ban lists? – Im-pos-si-ble
I wasn't thinking that would be a soloution to stopping people but it might be a way to start, at least getting something done.
I know there's talk of protests on Nov 5th and no texture uploads. But maybe what people should do is just walk away from Second life for the full 24 hours (SLT) of Nov 5. don't log on , don't visit any website associated with SL -even blogs like this one, no talking about SL. I don't know how complicated it is to restrict access to sims and shops (I'm not a land owner or shop owner) but maybe do that.
All I can think is that if there was something big like that maybe it would get linden Labs attention.
It needs to be unacceptable, as a community we should work together to make sure people know that this behaviour has consequences
with this kind of blatant in your face thievery there should be instant IP ban, period. otherwise they just create an alt and carry on, business as usual, with no way for us to fight back.
Ip ban does nothing, its very simple to get around it. one of my partner's friends has been ip banned lots for griefing. but he's still around.
That guy in the chatlog used to claim to be a Retired Detective in RL or something… (i had read his profile earlier this year). And just looked him up in SL and seems his AV doesnt exist anymore (i used a script to lookup their profile in-case they just hid it)…^^
Why isn't it standard practice to blacklist the UUIDs of copybotted content? I always through that was how it worked. It can't be *that* difficult, can it? I dunno I suppose I don't know what I am talking about, but it seems pretty self explanatory to me.
OMG I can't believe they are so damn blatant and doing it in the store, have they no fear of being caught
Ya know, I was lingering for a long while in a store vthe other day, I couldn't decide what I wanted to buy and it occured to me to hurry up an make a purchase, because I suddenly thought I might look like I was up to no good. So you know, this not only effect creators but consumers too.
Because they lie to people and say that they work there or own the shop and people dont know any better so they believe it.
And yea, this entire thing has me paranoid and i cant even enjoy any of the content i have because when i go out in public with it i think of the person who made it , like my AO, and feel bad because it can be stolen right off of me.
So I decided to do some research. I have spent most the evening TP'g around all the stores I could find offering full perm items, free or cheap hair etc. It is very hard for me as the average consumer to figure out what is legit and what is not. What I did find was the hair that was on xtreet and Tenshi did an article about. It is EVERWHERE, some are selling some are free.
The reseller shops were confusing to me, are they reselling on behalf of a creator (some of it is fullperm) or is it nicked, I couldn't be sure. It's quite confusing
I've also gone through my own inventory to see if anything I have could be stolen. Frankly this whole thing is ruining the SL experience for me. I don't want to wear anything stolen but then again, I don't know for sure that I don't have anything stolen, it sucks
This is how crazy it is: tonight, in a group chat I was in, a couple of obvious newbs were very freaked out by the thought that they might have something stolen – they wanted nothing to do with it. Good? Well, they had heard that Redgrave is copybotted, and thought Redgrave was the thief…so they were all ready to boycott Redgrave. They when someone explained that Redgrave was the victim, they were still worried about buying from there because they were convinced that if someone copybots something, the copybotted items get deleted from people's inventories – that is, the ORIGINAL items, not just the fakes. So they didn't want to buy from Redgrave because sooner of later, all the Redgrave items would be gone.
Well, wiser heads tried to set them straight. But it's really reaching the level of a panic, and that's the last thing content creators need in this bad economy. But what are we to do if the average consumer is really that ill-informed?
Just a side note – perhaps I am out of the loop… but didn't all redgrave clothing used to be sold as transferrable (no copy) – err – I thought it was still sold that way… just the skins and footwear were non transfer. So technically a person could resell pants or whatever and they might actually be legit, like if they bought the same item twice… etc, etc. Obviously the skins would not fit into this scenario.
They should give content creators more power to deal with unauthorized copied content. The creator should have access to listed UUIDs which are confirmed matches to their originally uploaded content, and have the option to disable those UUIDs through some kind of web interface. This will cut out the need for LL to get in the way of the process.
Also, high traffic stores – most of the traffic is from the campers who are hanging out selling the stolen content in IMs. You really think that Redgrave's high traffic count is due to genuine customers? Most of the traffic is from the content thieves plugging the ripped wares.
Nothing is going to change unless people start protesting outside LL's offices world wide. Nasty ugly press attracting demonstrations that make the world and congress realize there is trouble in paradise. But since LL is directly promoting the san fransisco style crowd's sl businesses then no chance of that happening. Smart move M.
As for the thieves only one thing will stop them.
Ann Otoole, SL's most notorious armchair activist… instead of criticizing us for not taking any action why don't you lead by example?
Redgrave used to sell its items no copy/transfer that transaction started off legitimately until the person their conversing with pursued for further goods – it could be easily baiting each other into a trap.
I have several times reported an individual who had stolen Laqroki hair, so has a friend of mine.
The AR was ignored, weeks went by and nothing.
The owner and the person who the owner of Laqroki stated to send all notecards to, both received copies of the screenshots but I assume in all this time weren't online.
Is it impossible as an individual to AR a person with copybotted stuff and get it through? I included screenshot in AR and all, so did my friend.
Last time I visited Redgrave, I also had some 'friendly' characters ask if I wanted to buy some 'special offer' deals.
Could someone suggest a step-by-step for things to say to people who are doing things like this so that you can have proper proof to send to LL in an AR? Like, make sure they say X or get them to ask you specifically Y, etc? It would be quite handy.