Really disappointed in a merchant

[Deja Letov]

I've purchased some textures from a merchant that up until now have always been happy with. I love that when I like a single texture, I can just buy one, since that seems to be most of what this merchant sells. But today I was looking for a texture for an Alice in Wonderland theme and found some great ones on their marketplace store. Before purchasing to be sure they were what I wanted I did a search in Google images for something related and saw many of this store's backgrounds available by an artist on Deviant Art. The creator of these textures even made note on her gallery page that she is aware that her textures are being sold in Second Life and it is without her permission and not within her TOS. She gives them away free to give back to the art community. Since she is aware of this, I am guessing she doesn't plan to pursue anything legal to have them taken down but as a merchant and creator in SL, I am absolutely disgusted by the sheer volume of stolen textures this person is selling. After finding these, I checked many of the other listings and OMG, I am shocked at it. Even more shocked that they are all still available and nobody has filed anything to have them taken down. How is this even possible to sell what apepars to be HUNDREDS of stolen textures and never be reported? If I had to guess, I'd say the entire store is ripped off.

 

[Princess Verwood]

It's funny you mention that because I had the same thing happen yesterday though this seller sold mostly packs of textures from the few I seen. As you, I wanted to google related items and found all the textures there. They seemed to be from different sites, but still I just shook my head and removed the item from my cart. I don't understand the thought process behind copying a texture to sell though anyone can upload a google texture. Maybe they just hope that buyers won't notice..

[Aurelia Lionheart]

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Princess Verwood wrote:

 Maybe they just hope that buyers won't notice..

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Or they count on the laziness of people to search for textures themselves.

[Deja Letov]

Well this store also has some VERY commercial textures as well that I found when doing this specific search. I never saw the commercial ones before because I've never searched for this particular theme from their store, but there are some obvious Tim Burton movie images in there. And I'm not naive to believe that nobody does copyright infringement, I'm sure many upload images via google images. I guess I'm just thrown on this one bcause it appears the entire store is ripped and clearly they are making a nice little profit off of them. I know what I've spent myself...and if I did it, I'm sure many others did too.

[Toysoldier Thor]

Likely her entire store is 100% stolen images but taking hi-rez images off deviant art and flikr is very easy and this merchant either doesnt know about copyrights or doesnt care.

As for your surprise that no one has issued DMCA takedowns on her... its likely that most artists are not aware she is doing this inside SL or in the case you mentioned, since she is offering her images for free to the community... other than frustrating that the SL Merchant is violating her expressed wishes... why would she go through all the hassle to take doen this merchant when she is not making any money herself?  Its just a big hassle with ZERO reward for her and most other D.A. artists if they were even aware of it. 

I am a DA/Flickr artist... maybe IM me her store... I would be interested in seeing if my art is in her store.

And likely this merchant will just start up with her images as another alt.  Its like tinkling in the ocean.

As a potential buyer of this merchant's listings... why dont you contact her and ask her if she is aware that she is selling textures in violation of the D.A. Artist's state copyright and why?  Show her the actual DA Artist's link and her store listing.  Would be interesting to hear her response.

[Deja Letov]

Ill send you a message with his/her store and ya I think when I get home from work tonight I will be shooting over a message. I'm glad I didn't buy, since the original artist is giving them away for free.

[Morgaine Christensen]

Since you have used this Merchant in the past, have you contacted the SL Merchant and brought up your concerns? I would ask ...maybe, there is a legitimate explanation...maybe not.

I believe you can file a complaint against the product(s) sold through MP.  I believe it is up to the original artist to file a DMCA. 

 

 

 

[Deja Letov]

No I just found out about it so I haven't had a chance. But Toy suggested above for me to send them a message but I can't do anything until I get home from work tonight.

[Chelsea Malibu]

One of the many reason I never use textures bought in world unless they come from 3D Concepts or TRU.  Even TRU has had some issues but at least they self police.

Best bet always is making your own. 

[Toysoldier Thor]

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Morgaine Christensen wrote:

Since you have used this Merchant in the past, have you contacted the SL Merchant and brought up your concerns? I would ask ...maybe, there is a legitimate explanation...maybe not.

I believe you can file a complaint against the product(s) sold through MP.  I believe it is up to the original artist to file a DMCA. 

 

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Yes, only the original artist holding the copyright to the image can file the DMCA. 

LL will not take any actions on suspectect copyright violations - no matter how obvious the violation - because there MIGHT be some legit agreement between this merchant and all the copyright owners she is selling copies of - as much as it sounds highly unlikely.  So really - unless the copyright owner comes forward with a complaint, nothing can nor will be done to shut down her store.  Anyone's complaint will be ignored. 

One would hope though that if a potential buyer approaches her - maybe she is completely naive in copyright and didnt realize she cant do this. 

I have a fellow SL photo artist who thought it was ok to Morph SL avatar faces to famous models / celeb images from google images.  When I told her that technically what she is doing is not legal, she was surprised and even angry at the copyright rules. I am shocked how many SL photo studio businesses are out there in-world selling morphs of avatar faces on rl celebs.  They are everywhere.

 

[Argus Collingwood]

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Deja Letov wrote:

No I just found out about it so I haven't had a chance. But Toy suggested above for me to send them a message but I can't do anything until I get home from work tonight.

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You can actually im/message them though their my.secondlife.com web profile. i/e. you can message me by going here https://my.secondlife.com/argus.collingwood  login and then pick im or message. Just backspace through my link and put their name in the url with a period between first and last name.

[Medhue Simoni]

A DMCA takedown can only be done by the copyright holder. You can have a million residents file complaints to LL and it means absolutely nothing. If the copyright holder doesn't care to file a DMCA then there is nothing that can be done. Personally, I would not IM the seller, as I'm sure they know exactly what they are doing. All you would be doing is possibly evoking a conversation that is not going to be very positive, nor result in any positive action. A common theme in Buddhism is that if an action can not produce a positive result, it is best to not say/do anything.

[Chelle Petlyakov]

I suggest if there are textures you bought in the past but then found them recently searching on google, post a negative review with a link to the textures.

[Morgaine Christensen]

Being a softy, idealistic, and willing to give everyone benefit of the doubt, I am hoping the person either simply is unaware  or they have some legitimate licensure we are unaware of.   

I think i all depends on what your conscience allows for doing the right thing. I think you can still file a complaint via A/R on MP if the person is claiming they are his/her work as false advertising.  However, whether LL will do anything from there is up to them. 

[Anaiya Arnold]

There's only one person who can get them taken down.  You could contact them and ask if they are just not interested in doing so, or if they have done so previously but this one has slipped back in.  They might be aware of the ongoing problem, and not prepared to hunt down culprits, but possibly willing to DMCA if someone brings a specific example to their attention.

Possibly they are sympathetic to people like yourself who have bought the textures unwittingly and just don't want to see the backlash against innocent "invested" by-standers who bought the textures from the IP violator, or maybe they just cannot be bothered with DMCAs, but it's also possible they do DMCA when they are aware of specific sellers, but just don't look for them anymore.  They might have had this problem as an ongoing issue for years and just got sick of putting too much effort into searching them out.

Anyway, letting them know about this specific seller cannot hurt.  Maybe you could ask them if you can obtain permission to upload the same exact textures and sell 10 of them for 1 linden each, then reduce the price to 0.  If the real creator/IP holder  just wants to give back for others to create, this might be acceptable to them, and will no doubt significantly hinder the violator's market.

I'd also like to know who this seller is (I appreciate that you cannot post the information here) as I'd rather  not buy their stuff, and if it's on any of my products already, I'd really like to know so I can delist and find alternative textures.

 

@ Princess: I guess it depends how much they are charging.  So long as they are not violating IP rights (which is a whole other kettle of fish and completely unacceptable), some texture sellers might assume there are people who would rather go to the marketplace and buy textures all ready and uploaded, than go to the trouble of finding them and uploading them themselves.  Because of the low US dollar value of lindens, considering minimum wage for an hour's work in the real world, it's not necessarily poor value to the end-buyer.  I do think that if no alteration has been made (or it's only a single scaling alteration) it would be polite and good faith to let buyer's know it's a sourced image.

I think sometimes people are tempted to believe that only stuff that requires skill is worthwhile paying for in SL, but it really depends how someone wants to spend their time and the comparative value they place on money.  In the real world, we routinely accept unskilled labour as something that it is legitimate to charge money for.   Most people can clean their own toilets for instance, but few people think it's outrageous for a house cleaning service to charge money to do it for them.

[Ann Otoole]

I would like to go analyze this store. Could you IM me with the name?

Thanks.

[Luci Koenkamp]

What a narrow minded way of judging creators. I can garantee you that my textures are original and not stoolen are copied.