Fighting the SL Way - Copy & Resell For Free
Writing by Green Guy on Tuesday, 26 of February , 2008 at 11:14 pm
Content theft in Second Life on the rise
Don’t like someone? destroy their business
by Tenshi Vielle, fabulous fashionista
Resident content theft runs wild while Philip and Robin Linden have gone missing
Content theft has been absolutely rampant in Second Life lately. It’s like scabies - once you think it’s gone, a whole new bunch of the little jerks pop up.
First we had Nicky Ree’s dresses stolen by ADiva, shoes by Enkythings primjacked, then there were a bunch more smaller …ALLEGED… thefts - a Brasilian user ripped RaC, Redgrave, and a host of other skins, cackling the whole way that no one could stop him. Designers chased him around the grid in a desperate attempt to squash him down, protesting and contacting sim owners to get him shut down. The problem was, he moved around faster than the designers could count and tended to be hard to track.
The most recently publicized case of alleged content theft is Laynie Link vs. Lalinda Lovell — yes, THAT Lalinda Lovell - Laynie was trying to innocently raise money for autism research via “Autism Speaks” and Lalinda decided she didn’t like it. Of course, you all know the normal set of actions to take when you don’t like something in SL - you cuss the person out, ramble on endlessly, and then you find a way to get their creations and resell them for free at your own shop.
Both cases have resulted in some form of widespread panic across the Fashionista Blogosphere. Skinners from the first episode protested in homage to a 1960’s sit-in. “WE WILL NOT RELEASE NEW SKINS UNTIL THIS THIEF IS TAKEN CARE OF!” They screamed. I scoffed, pointed them towards the Lindens and DCMA’s and left it at that. Emelia Redgrave has yet to be seen since she quit SL after finding her few skins ripped and resold.
The problem is, the Lindens don’t know anything that’s going on - or pretend to not. I emailed Robin Linden two weeks ago asking her what the Lindens were doing to make thief takedown more efficient, and Robin replied with, “What content theft?”. Now, I can’t expect the Lindens to be up to date on everything, 24/7, so I emailed her back with the relevant information and plenty of reading material (along with Cliffnotes) - it’s been a week, no reply. Designers have also been looking for her at her normal Office Hours, but she hasn’t showed.
Most other Linden employees encourage AR’s (what is it now, 100 AR’s to get a person banned - and not even that gets enforced?) and/or state the Linden mantra, “That’s not my job.” Few Lindens are actually around to help any more. There’s a Linden assigned to Inventory Loss according to the SL Wiki, but no Lindens assigned to any aspect of content creation… but one Linden has been known to release the UUID of a skin to a resident who didn’t own the original texture. Yeah. Two words: Great employee.
Content creation was a hairy niche to enter in the first place, and now with theft abound and becoming easier to do, becoming a designer of anything in SL is much like Russian roulette. Sooner or later, someone gets the bullet.
Linden Lab should be providing better DCMA support and paying attention to ARs. Linden Lab should be communicating with its residents - and it’s not. Even Torley Linden has been turning a blind eye to this issue as far as I can see.
Where are we when Mr. Shinypants won’t even listen?
Dear Lindens:
WE NEED EFFECTIVE TOOLS TO DEFEND OURSELVES.
Sincerely and without much love at this point,
The Designers of Second Life.
Category: Main
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