Does anyone know who the original creator of this hair is, and who is the copybotter?

[AstralBody]

I am tired of unknowingly buying copybotted stuff off the marketplace, only to have it removed from my inventory with no reimbursement. So I noticed two differn't companies selling the same exact hair. Does anyone know who orignally created this hair, and if its even either of these two companies? I checked both of their in world stores, and they both have big shops.

 

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/HAIR-HAIR-Marc-Hair-Black-MEN-HAIR-MALE-HAIR-MENS-HAIR-LONG-HAIR-MENS-HAIR/1778397

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/EdelStore-women-hair-Fedra-black-girl-hair-real-hair-sweet-hair/2574560

[Drake1 Nightfire]

Go to Emo-tions.. they have hair very similar to that one and she makes all of hers from scratch.

if you prefer the MP

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/21429

[Theresa Tennyson]

It's possible they both started with the same full-permission hair bases from a third party. There are "wholesalers" who sell parts for clothing, houses, etc that are specifically meant for others to re-sell on a "retail" basis.

[EvaAlmighty]

i dont think they were copybotted perhaps they buy full perm items and resell, it is common especially those items that are outdated

[Griffin Ceawlin]

I agree that these are probably resellers who bought a business in a box. If you look at the stores, they both even use the same kind of pictures for their items.

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/MINT-Dylan-Hair-Majestic-Promo-Offer-MEN-HAIR-MALE-HAIR-MENS-HAIR-SHORT-HAIR-MENS-HAIR/1762207

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/FREE-Promo-EdelStore-woman-hair-Heidi-majestic/1006421

LOL. There's a third contender. Check this out: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/products/search?search[category_id]=&search[maturity_level]=G&search[keywords]=Dylan+Hair+Majestic

[Ceka Cianci]

ya i think those are affiliates that buy from the same creator..

that makes it really tricky for customers at times  when they see similar products..and easy for botters to blend into the market..

 

 

[Richie Kanto]

Yes content theft is a huge problem here in Second Life which sadly gets almost no attention from Linden Labs beyond doing what they feel they're legally required to do. Sometimes, it almost seems like they encourage content theft as a way to favor low priced content available to all. Content creators continue to put hours and hours into creating content for Second Life, only to see someone come around and copy it then sell it for pennies per unit (or even eventually to give it away for free). Customers continue to spend real money on items which just vanish at random while LL just shrugs and says "not our fault".

I wonder why LL doesn't decide it's time to remove the open source designation to the base software coding and put in place a subroutine to prevent other programs from copying virtual content on their grid, or how about an in world organization to "licence" product and much much faster ability to remove illegal copies? The sad thing is this problem doesn't even appear to be on LL's radar, yet it is probably the biggest reason good content creators leave.

[AstralBody]

Thanks for everyones input. I think I will just stay clear of this hair, unless someone knows for sure. I think the marketplace should have some type of screening in place though, for all the copied items. At the very least they should issue refunds at the copybotters expense. I must have lost atleast 500L due to this, and its getting quite frustrating.

[Arkady Arkright]

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Richie Kanto wrote:

...Content creators continue to put hours and hours into creating content for Second Life, only to see someone come around and copy it then sell it for pennies per unit (or even eventually to give it away for free). Customers continue to spend real money on items which just vanish at random while LL just shrugs and says "not our fault".

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They do what the DMCA law requires them to do, doing any more would open them up to lawsuits from all and sundry.

 

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I wonder why LL doesn't decide it's time to remove the open source designation to the base software coding and put in place a subroutine to prevent other programs from copying virtual content on their grid...

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The 'base software coding' (i.e. the server) never has been open source. And how do you propose that your 'subroutine' knows that the viewer doing the copying is what it purports to be ? Copybot viewers spoofing genuine ones have been around almost as long as SL - and it's the viewer code that's open source.

 

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...or how about an in world organization to "licence" product and much much faster ability to remove illegal copies? The sad thing is this problem doesn't even appear to be on LL's radar, yet it is probably the biggest reason good content creators leave.

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And just how long do you think it would be before your 'in world organisation' got it wrong and had the pants sued off them ?

[GothGirl Demonia]

I dunno but the problem with the Bot is this.

I have seen a person in world who has been around since 2009 I was part of their group, and I found that a few of my members were botting a bunch of crap, I brought this to the attention of this person who was an owner they simply didn't care, but now rumor is they have changed and actually care now. Funny thing is that they are still members of these big RP alliances in Second Life and claim they are of such because they have no choice, and the CopyBot users are still members of this group. * I Left all the groups years ago, and they even tried to hide these groups from their profile, but I have my ways of tracking cats, they can't hide from me.*

1. The problem is that some people dont give a crap about botted content, they know its ripped still wear it, and the owners who own, or rent sims from real estate companies but are griefers and then ban people who know they are botting to keep them from reporting it.

2. The Second Problem is that the CopyBot is like a gun, its only a TOOL which can be used for backing up content which is a great thing, but people misuse the tool to rip other peoples content and thats the bad thing when you start seeing all this cloned content going around.

3.The witch hunting, I agree that reporting Botters is a good thing, but some people are dumb enough to believe a griefer and cause even more drama nad grief all around aka they send out notices with no proof accusing X person of being an alt of someone when they can't prove it simply because the person claims to be an alt of that person or something.

Then you have the system like CDS, and Red Zone which claim to stop CopyBot, it can stop an idiot using a bot who has 0 experience but the fact is these systems do more harm than good, I even have confessions from some of these people proving that such systems are abused.

* They do more harm becuase now until CDS, and Red Zone are gone I avoid all sims in SL unless I know 100% for certain it doesn't have spyware on them, in other words all developers loose money because I wont stop by their sims or purchase their products if I know they are using spyware there to track me without my consent.*

4. Linden Lab does care about piracy,  and I have had way over 3000 stolen items in the past packed into boxes asked for removal, got lots of DMCA's filed and a lot of it was removed by Linden Lab, the problem however is the ability to export everything to your hard disk drive, and the ability to reupload it a million times from hundreds of griefer accounts. Imagine piracy as 5 people copybot the same product 5 different copies, the person who created the content finds out and files a DMCA that one copy is removed but 4 more are still floating around. * I no longer have any of this as it was all removed because LL asked me to delete it and knew about it which the goal was to get a lot of it removed from SL a lot of content was blacklisted not all before I Junked it, but it was good seeing this.*

But now CopyBot isn't the only problem, I see people illegally, and without consent uploading items from TurboSquid, and other games. I am a big RPG player and I was searching on google for new RPG releases and bam I see something named after a game on the market place, I am sure being used without consent, but I can't file a DMCA because I do not have consent, and I would have to check with the game company if consent was given, fact is maybe it wasn't but maybe they just don't care either way there isn't anything I can do about it other than asking the company and sending them a link to the content and ask them if they like file a DMCA.

Problem is people can easily use False payment information, and Information/IP address, it is very simple to do and very simple to upload mesh stolen from an alternate account so you don't get banned on your main account, and don't tell me its not possible to hange your Hard Disk serial, and MAC address becuase that is super easy to get around a hardware ban.

So generally LL does care, and they do remove content, but again it is like Piracy on real world content if you have ever been to a torrent site for example you would know that some games are released and cracked before they are even released. For example Mass Effect 3, and all steam games are easily pirated, even Red Faction Aramageddon which sucked btw was cracked and decoded without even needing to install steam 2 days before release. * They claimed their software would be hard to pirate they were wrong... Lets not forget Mass Effect 3 as well how easy it was to play 24 hours before release of the game on steam.

Fact is Digital Downloads are easily pirated/cracked, which is why QHud for example has a Database to log legit users so basically its not possible for someone to just pass around a pirated version, well they can but they would get their name flagged... Its just too bad you can't do that with hair for example.

If you keep buying stolen stuff, then keep to the well known developers, and avoid those Shopping Malls in Second Life for example the big Skybox malls that charge people for rent as that is often the places you will find ripped content is Mall stalls because its easy for them to sell and cash out before they get banned, and if they get banned they don't loose land or a lot of money. * I am not saying that all Malls are full of stolen content, but I am saying that often a lot of RP sims do not fully monitor the renters close enough and it does get sold/passed around, not saying either that all people selling items in a mall are selling illegal content, because Malls are where I used to shop, although most of the stuff I bought was actually legit from developers using malls to advertise their main store.*

Even then it is sometimes still buy stolen content, but if you stick to the well known people you probabily won't find as much blacklisted. Piracy can hurt the people just starting a business or something, but again thats why they need to get their name out there as a developer so that people know they are legit and then they won't have a problem.

[Ly Jie]

I never bought anything from the marketplace that was then removed. You must have a knack.