Rebel Hope & RH Engle’s 3 Woodshed Sims Copied

Rebel Hope and RH Engle woke up today to find that their Woodshed sims, all three of them in their entirety, had been copied by an avatar named “Queef Solo” just yesterday.

The Woodshed sims were started in 2005 by Rebel and RH. All textures were made by RH himself. Aurorra Ashbourne, another Second Life avatar, has apparently obtained these copied pieces by Queef Solo and is passing them out to anyone and everyone they can find.

Rebel and RH are obviously distraught about this. Four years of their work is now absolutely down the tubes, passed out like freebie merchandise across the grid and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it. Rebel immediately called Linden Lab and got Charlene Linden on the phone, who began cleanup procedures, the quickest action I’ve ever heard of from Linden Lab in terms of content theft. Thus, kudos go out to Charlene.

In this case, with a profile-less avatar doing the copying and another avatar passing it out full perm to whomever they can find without benefiting, a DMCA is instantly useless, even more so than it has become. Rebel took her best and only course of action.

The trouble with content theft is that it’s becoming a when for content creators, not an if. When I spoke with Rebel, she said this was not the first time she had been copied – there have been at least two other major incidents, and several texture thefts, all in the past year with one incident in 2007. Content theft is at a frantic pace in Second Life.

The last time Rebel had to deal with a major theft was in 2007. Since that time, viewers like Meerkat, Emerald, and Cryolife have been developed… all which include features that would absolutely devastate anyone’s business if put in the wrong hands. As a community, we are still awaiting the release of Builderbot, which claims to have developed ways to prevent copying on this scale, but I am a skeptic of this claim.

Is there any point in building in Second Life any more? Linden Lab has used our creations to promote Second Life for years. Second Life would not look how it does today if not for the residents. Yes, the residents benefit if they choose to sell, but not everyone cashes out of Second Life. Many of them keep the money in-world.

Stroker’s lawsuit against Linden Lab for their lack of control on content theft will develop into a class action lawsuit. I spoke with Stroker’s lawyer from KamberEdelson LLC in the lawsuit, and he did give me some information about the possibility of other creators getting involved:

“You don’t need to do anything to get “in” on the lawsuit.  Basically, anyone who will eventually qualify as a” class member” will get in on it when the Court gives the OK.  Until then, there isn’t much you can do.  Kevin and Shannon are serving as the “class reps,” which means they will represent all parties in their respective positions.  They are not only suing for themselves, but for others like them, such as you, perhaps.  I hope that makes sense.

As for having your content recognized.  It’s too early to say exactly how that will work out for sure.  For trademarks, the likely answer is that you’ll need to have a trademark registered with the USPTO in order to be a class member.  For copyright-holders, it’s a little different.  It may work out that you won’t need to have your copyright registered with the copyright office, though that would certainly make you a stronger candidate.

It’s very early, so it’s impossible to know how things will work out in the end.  But for now, that’s the word.”

In other words, if you want to get involved — keep abreast of the situation and make sure you have some kind of legal claim (trademark, copyright, etc) on your store for a stronger case. I’ll announce on Shopping Cart Disco as soon as I hear from Stroker that other creators are in the clear to participate.

Yet another sad day for content creation in Second Life.