what?

[InterwebzSuperHero]

Howdy I was given some hair in the sandbox, and have be wearing it a few days now. Today someone came out and got very angry at me tell me hows my hair was CopyBot I don't understand. All I know is they said to inspect the hair had a tag that said something like <Truth> on it. When I inspected the hair the creator name show it was created by Synphony Vayandar I don't know what a CopyBot is and I don't know who truth is I just start SL and am told by someone that if I continue wearing the hair I might be banned by the owner of Second Life.

    I did a search on the search engine and found a bunch of drama going on, and I really could careless my question is how do I know if what I buy or get for free is legit. I live in a country where I don't make a lot of income so I buy what I can and use legit freebies.

         Yes this is a  new account I don't want to be griefed by these cheaters. Cheating in online games is just very **bleep**ing lame.

[Charolotte Caxton]

When I was new, two years ago, I received a lot of stuff that was copybotted. I did not know it at the time and I wore much of it all the time.

I did not get banned or anything, what happened was that some of my items were replaced by IP replacement placeholders.

That person that yelled at you, a brand new user, for wearing stolen hair was wrong to call you out on it, telling you about it is one thing, but treating you like you did something wrong is not.

CopyBot is when someone copies something illegally. Truth hair is a well known hair brand and most people know the name of the creator of Truth hair. 

If you find out something is a copybot item, you should report it and stop using it out of respect for the creator of the legit item. If you really like it, support them by purchasing a copy from them. Also, many good stores give out good quality gifts if you are a person low on cash.

[Ry0ta Exonar]

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience. Sounds like the hair you were given in the sandbox is an unauthorized copy of Truth hair, a popular hair store.

As to your question about how you know if what you buy or get for free is legit, read the following page. It may not be of much help, but better than nothing.

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Frequently_Asked_Questions_on_the_IP_Complaint_Process#What_steps_can_I_take_to_make_sure_I_don.E2.80.99t_inadvertently_have_content_that_may_be_infringing.3F

[solstyse]

Well, one way is the way that you learned. MOST people will inform you before they do anything to report you. I rarely accept things that people give out in sandboxes because copybotted items can be accidentally recieved by anyone. The good news is that usually, as long as you stop using the item immediately after you learn it's copybot, people usually understand.

Copybots actually cheat content creators, in multiple ways. Sometimes, the only one cheated is the person who created the items. But sometimes, that creator is using tools purchased by another creator that forbid "full permission" distrobutiion. Permissions are copy, modify, and transfer. This can be photoshop brushes, templates, or textures that were purchased by another secondlife resident. I personally use some of these tools, and when I do finally make something I'm proud enough to sell, I will be bound by the licence agreement that I must leave either copy or transfer unchecked. Ever wonder why so many freebies are "no transfer?" Even most people who make something "from scratch" will leave one of the two unchecked so that they can sell their items without their customers then copying and redistributing them for free.

There are ways to try to catch it yourself.

1. If an item is both high quality and ful permission, research it before you trust it.

2. Sandboxes are a risky place to accept free items. If someone wants to give you something there, it's wise to just ask them where you can get it from an actual vendor. If it costs money there, then there's a chance it's copybot.

3. Sometimes the viewer can give a clue who to hesitate from accepting items from. Linden Lab never lists a copybot capable viewer. So if you see someone using a viewer that is not in LL's third party directory, then you may want to spend some extra time looking into items you recieve from the person on that viewer. i say research because often copy bot viewers do more to hide details about the user. In other words, make less of a "fingerprint." Privacy fanatics who do not steal may find themselves attracted to that feature. If you use the firestorm viewer (which is listed by LL as one that you can download and feel safe about, but is a bit resource hungry) then you hit ctrl-p, click the firestorm tab, click the tags tab, and select "all viewers." As time goes on, you'll learn which ones to trust and which to be cautious of.

I'm sorry that none of these methods will actually tell you for sure if it was copybotted. I hope they did provide some help and insight though, and i hope that someone with more knowledge than I have will post here to elaborate, or to tell other methods. There are other things to look for when you inspect items. I just never learned because I only get my inventory items from people and sources I trust. And i got lucky enough to never trust the wrong person yet.

[Sassy Romano]

Viewer tags have been disabled by LL for several months now so you can't identify the viewer that anyone is using, not that that would have proven anything anyway, the viewer used to copy is one thing, the viewer used on a day to day basis to pass items out to others is another.

The problem is that if you don't know what's legal and what's not, you too can end up passing on "lots of good free <item>" just because someone gave it to you and you're helping someone else and that's what usually happens most.

The question of how to recognise stolen content?  Here are some pointers but to be clear, none of this is guaranteed, just clues:-

Is it good quality?  Does it look like someone would sell it instead of just make it freely available?

Inspect the item, right click, more, inspect (or whatever it is for your viewer).  You'll see a dialog similar to this one.  Here's some illegally copied boots by "Bax".  First off, this is easy because I know the name of the creator, I have the same boots but lets look at the clues.  Firstly, i've blurred the names as there doesn't need to be any finger pointing here, the account used to copy no longer exists anyway.

The creator name doesn't match the actual creator, ok if you actually know the proper creator name.

The permissions are full perm, not right for these boots.

The creation date and time for all the prims is all within a second or two which suggests a scripted import process, not something built over time prim by prim.  This is less reliable now though as a lot of complex external content is made outside of SL and imported so will appear like this.

Most crucially for me though, do you think these boots look good enough to sell?  Damn right, they're a very popular boot but when you inspect the "creator" name on this person, the profile is empty, no RL info, no SL info, no picks, no interests, totally empty.  A discardable avatar.  You should reasonably expect any merchant with half a clue to have all kinds of references in their profile that indicated that they made and sold content or even gave it away but some reference of some sort.

Having said this, even that's not ultra reliable as some accounts get hijacked so the profile will be complete but will still be missing references to any shop selling these.

Finally, even all of the above isn't foolproof.  Best copy I have seen is some shoes from a very well known creator and this was a permissions exploit because the creator was correct, the scripts were present and also had the correct creator name but the shoes were full perm and were current shoes still being sold in the proper shop.

As others have said, there's one thing being an innocent party but some shop owners eject/ban on sight of copied content whether you're the person copying or just someone who didn't known.  Whether you agree with that behaviour or not is up to you but they will.

It gets worse too, with more use of templates and full perm content, there's more and more identical content from different apparent creators, it only takes one person to breach their use licence and release this full perm and now you can't tell the copied content from one merchant using the same building component from anothers legit content!

I used to inform people by explaining the above, some were really appreciative, others were just abusive.  Similarly, I used to inform creators of those that I had seen.  Rarely did I get any form of response.  Now I won't bother.

Mostly though it's about being sensible, would you suspect something if someone in the street said "Here, I have these really good Rolex watches for FREE!"

 

[161488303349]

if anyone random drops stuff on you and they not the creator then is pretty much copybotted. even if the person dropping it on you doesnt know this

best to just delete it

+

new players can get heaps of legit freebies from the shops

[Czari Zenovka]

---

InterwebzSuperHero wrote:

 

I live in a country where I don't make a lot of income so I buy what I can and use legit freebies.

       

---

The other responders to your post are wonderful and great information; however, being brand new to SL, it may take a bit of time to fully digest all the info on what copybotting is, etc.  My best advice to you is:

1. NEVER EVER accept ANYTHING from someone you don't know, ESPECIALLY in sandboxes.

2. To get some free items to get you started...I think a store called Free Dove is still around.  Various creators in SL donate items so that a new avatar can start acquiring avatar items (hair, skin, eyes, clothes) that are legitimate.  There are some other "freebie" stores in SL that have been around a long time, Free Dove is just the one that popped into my mind.  Perhaps others will have some suggestions as well.

3. A fun way to get some really nice high-quality free items is to participate in hunts.  This serves several purposes: you get some nice items, you will find some great stores and often some amazing sims/builds, might meet some other hunters along the way who will become friends, and it's great fun.  To find out what hunts are in progress or coming up, check out  this site.

 

 

[Charolotte Caxton]

I second the hunts suggestion, it is a great way to see different places, meet different persons, learn how to use your controls, and get cool stuff. I avoid the hunts where you have to pay for the hunt item, most of them are free.

 

I would also suggest you do a Google search for Second Life under 30 days, many places offer free stuff to new avatars.