So I've Been Copybotted!!

After selling stuff peacefully in world and online to a niche market for 6 years, I just discovered today that two of my products have been stolen via copybotting. The avatar named "Rchel Cadell", probably a disposable account, is selling copybotted items from different creators, including the two beds I'm selling (see my product ads).

Now I probably would never understand, how someone can steal an object and sell it for 20L full perm. I mean c'mon! Money is definitely not the motivation here, since how many do you need to sell to make it profitable? Just calculate and it's a joke. I have a feeling that this is a "hate" motivated action.

Could it be an alt of a competitor?

I bought both beds but only received the "Glam Punk" item. I checked it and the scripts for the animation, and the bedsheet, also the animations aren't included. So it's basically a textureless copy.

It kinda makes me sad that these copybotters just don't respect the hard work we put in our creations. If I think of how many weeks I spent creating the bed, especially the textures; installing the scripts and animation and the testing over and over again, until I was fully satisfied. Would any sane person really think an item like that would be for sale for 20Linden Dollars --> Full Perm?!

The more upsetting part here is also how Linden Lab deals with these cases. No person with little SL time and busy RL would take the effort of going through the DMCA process or to court for an item worth 3 USD. But anyone could easily recognize which is the copybotted or original item. Anyone really.

If you regularly monitor the new products section at SL Marketplace and set the filter to full perm, you will see that the marketplace is flooded everyday with copybotted items. I guess the creators just got tired of reporting the items, since they show up all over again.

Why can't Linden Lab set-up certain restrictions for merchants, like Payment Info on File or a certain identification. I mean people who take their business seriously and plan to cash out someday, already have legit accounts registered; otherwise it won't be possible to cash out right?!

I know it's meant to be that, everyone should have a fair chance to sell their creations inworld and online. But requiring identification or certain skills imho, would definitely clean up the marketplace a lot.

So buyer beware! Remember: If it sounds or looks too good to be true, then it is. NO ONE in their right mind would sell a very well crafted item for a very cheap price and full perm. Try it and find out.

Just try to do the following: Learn the tools; learn how to build things; work on your items for weeks or months; do the photo shoots and create the ads; set the permissions and check them over and over again; box up the items; upload them to SLM, then sell them for 20L full perm. Do you get it now? NO ONE in their right mind would do this. Not even a totally lonely, desperate, suicidal or unemployed person with a lot of time in their hands.

Also don't forget, that once you purchase stolen items, you are supporting this copybot behavior. One day those items will disappear from your inventory, once Linden Lab finally deletes them.

Let's just hope that those copybotters, who are obviously using copybot viewers, get their malware and viruses from those forbidden viewers. Karma can be a bitch I tell you.

Here are some hints for you on how to recognize copybotted items:

• They are mostly sold for a very cheap price, if you consider how complex and well crafted the item is.
• They are mostly sold with full permissions or sometimes copy/transfer/no mod.
• The avatar is mostly a new account with a random not-to-be-taken-seriously name.
• If the avatar is a bit older (either stolen or bought account), the profile is mostly blank or have only very little information, which says it's not an active avatar. Be prepared for lack of support in case any issues come up.
• The Marketplace store is not well taken care of (see logos, description etc.)
• The item images are just quick snapshots inworld with no care. Sometimes they even steal the original ad pictures and use them. If the ad is self made, it's mostly of poor quality or it just plain sucks. Now if anyone is so creative to build a very high quality item, that person mostly also knows how to work Gimp or Photoshop.
• There is almost no item description on the product page.
• If you check the other items in the person's listing, you will recognize at least one familiar item. Now if you find one copybotted item from the listing, expect all other items to be also copybotted versions.
• Most items sold do not have textures. Sometimes only textured with plywood.

There are of course criminals who steal and build up their business in a very well planned and well thought manner. Those cases mostly end up in court. Just google examples of many skin creator dramas and battles. Now those people who plan well and put a lot of effort in altering the stuff they steal, are the very dangerous ones. Because one day, they are all of a sudden recognized and accepted  as a legit "designer" in the SL community, until someone starts to sue them.

Just hope that it never happens to you. Don't be fooled and do your research or one day, all our favorite designers will just disappear from SL and all what's left will be ugly stuff and copies and knock-offs.

Keep It Simple

I'm mostly on exploration when I get the chance. Like trying to discover new talented designers before they get so over popular, that everybody starts wearing their stuff. It's not really easy to avoid getting one of those popular releases, cuz it's hard to resist the good stuff from well named designers.

I still try to resist though, especially when you see the same shoes and clothes etc. in the feeds, every time a new awesome release is out (don't you get tired of it?). Like for example the new boots from Maitreya. Those boots are just so amazing, but I still didn't buy them, cuz everybody seems to have them.

Anyways, I've discovered a few great designers lately and I will show you some of my discoveries in my later posts. For now, I thought of showing some men's fashion for a change and it's a hell lot of a challenge to get decent stuff for males really.

I've been searching for good clothing with reasonable prices for my male alt, cuz he's on a budget like I posted here. I don't spend more than 200 L$ for a single item so I try to find really cheap high quality items. Now if it's free, the better.

But why is it so hard to find cheap high quality stuff for men? I needed some simple cheap male poses for example, but I couldn't find any. And I'm not talking about those wacky freebie poses. I found a set at the SLM market for 10 L$ and thought I'd try them out, but I couldn't use any of the poses (you get what you pay for, mostly). So I ended up again, using the poses from my AO, which is very minimally loaded, so the poses I use for shots don't vary much.

Another thing I've noticed is finding a cool location to shoot fotos. I was using the Second Life destination guide and I'm sorry to say, but the first ten or something that I tried to go to just sucked. I mean those places are featured on the SL destination guide, c'mon now. So I gave up and just took a few quick shots at Luxembourg.

Most people just don't have the eye for aesthetic or simply don't have a good taste IMHO. You see lots of badly textured builds with visible seams not properly lined up. Most even didn't upgrade their builds yet to sculpties. I mean WTF?! There are so many amazing builds and landscaping available and they still stick to that simple box with slapped on textures.

I really hope this changes a lot when mesh becomes the standard later, but I even doubt that. As you can see, I still haven't found hair for my male alt, cuz I just don't want those "boyish" looking hairdos, cuz my male alt is suppose to be more mature looking, like around mid 30's or 40's; or those stiff hairstyles, which reminds me of wigs or toupets in RL. Luckily, the hairbase texturing on his skin is great. So I'll leave it like that, till I find one.

Sweater: ARAI
Pants: Artilleri
Sneakers: HOC (color change)
Glasses: Kumaki Glasses Style (free on SLM)
Location: Luxembourg
Poses: Oracul AO

You Get What You Pay For

Many residents just love the "free" ride, this means they hunt for free stuff and buy cheap items. I don't know if they are actually cheapskates or "tight-arses" (lmao about the term) in RL, perhaps many are, but some are also just getting freebies and cheap stuff only for their alts.

To be honest, if a guy I meet in RL turns out to be a cheapskate/scrooge/tight-arse, then that is a total turn-off to me (aside from lack of personal hygiene, bad taste and weird appearance). Now don't get me wrong - If someone is poor or doesn't earn much money, then it's understandable, if that person is always on a budget, but people who earn good money and just save it, but on the other side, always look for everything that is "free" no matter what it is, is a person who doesn't want to contribute to the economy -- thus a Scrooge.

For sure they MUST still buy daily necessities like food, toilette paper etc. but it's only because they have to. But I can bet my ass, that these people buy the cheapest ones they can get, so just they can save more money.

Anyways, back to SL. I thought of this new topic, to which I will always return to, every time I discover crap. So similar to WTF?!, this new topic is "You get what you pay for".

We all know about all sorts of resource kits being sold at XSL e.g. sculpted kits. Just like with every product, there are low and high quality ones and you can recognize them by the craftsmanship. The problem is, most resource kit users, just throw them out in the market and extremely devalue them, making them completely worthless. It's like throwing it out there for almost free, and on top of that, they also include their grandmother or insert any random valuable person or item here, as an extra.

I just wonder, why they buy resource kits that are so expensive and then just sell the item as it is, mostly the assembled sample from the creator, so they don't even make the effort of assembling it. Then they put it out there for almost free, destroying the value, thus shitting on other merchants, who might be using the same resource kit.

This is one reason why it takes too long for me to release anything, even if I partly use some of the resource kits, when it comes to anything including apparel, cuz I try to revise the items as much as possible. I know there will be people, perhaps blender users who would say: do it yourself! Learn how to sculpt! Yeah right.

Unlike many SL residents, I don't have the luxury of having too much time in my hands. I also have a RL that keeps me busy, so kits are very helpful. Imagine if everyone would do everything by themselves, then those resource kit sellers will be out of business. They sell tools for merchants to save time and focus on their creativity. So basically it's a service and you pay them for it.

Just like in RL, do you first prefer to go to school and finish a dressmaker, shoemaker, etc. course, then create your own clothes and shoes first. Or do you rather save time (well years for this matter) and go to the store and buy one instead? Or to be more blunt, would you rather take the effort of fucking yourself, if someone else can do that for you?

Of course "free" is great, but the truth is, nothing in life is for free. Period. You always pay a price in one way or another. Now if your time isn't worth anything to you, then do everything yourself.

Back to topic, I wonder what these product devaluers earn at the end, if they just throw them out in the market for little to almost no worth. I mean, do they even earn anything by using this method? There you can see, that they do not value hard work at all. Look at skins for example, they averagely cost 1000 L$. Why? Because they are so damn hard to create! It will also take you weeks, sometimes months to finish a decent looking skin. Now can you relate at all, if someone sells them for 299 L$ or even 99 L$? For a pack of 6 skins with different makeups, perhaps including the grandmother, first born baby etc.? Then either those are copybotted skins or ready made kits.

Ok enough of that, let me show you shots of two items I encountered. You might be familiar with this one, and when I saw the ads, I thought they were very well made. But then check out the shots, cuz they show the truth. Just so you know, my LOD factor is already at 5 and I got a decent graphic card. So it's not because of that. I also didn't edit the shots at all, cuz I'm too lazy right now.

These sandals come with a HUD, to tint your skin and change nail color. The skin tinter doesn't really work well, since the sculpted feet already has a baked tinted skin texture, which is difficult to match to your skin color. I'm not sure if there's a resizer, well maybe, but I didn't find it. They are also no mod, so you are basically fucked lol! BTW, I got these sandals for 10 L$ and it's not a promo or introductory price. (click on image to enlarge and see more details *shudder*)

Looks scary doesn't it? Like the skin of a dead corpse laying in the water for many hours. Shoes with sculpted feet are already creepy in their own way, cuz they remind me of amputated feet. But sloppy sculpt assembling like this example, makes it even more creepier.

Well you know what? You get what you pay for!

Now next example is not as bad as the first one. It's a fat pack with color change option, poses (freebie poses), annoying walk sound for 10 L$ (dunno if it's till on XSL). It's actually a very good sculpted work, but like usual, many just devalued them, by throwing them out as is, in the market for almost free.

Notice that the seller didn't even take the effort of choosing better attachment points for the parts, since it fucks up the boots, if you're using your AO as you can see in the shots. Luckily they're modifiable, so I adjusted them, to make them look better, but unfortunately they're still fucked up.

You get what you pay for!