Where do I report stolen mesh (game files) from other games that are currently being sold?

[Someone75]

I found a "store" in the market place that is currently selling models from another game.

It is a obvious blatant rip from the game, from the mesh, to the animations, and it is currently being sold in the SL market place. This needs to be pulled fast before the company that owns these models get in contact with Sl.

Without smearing the name I wont say it here but I want to report this to a linden lab employee or administer of SL.

Where do I report this? If I get messaged by a linden administer I'll tell them the name and give them the links.

[Chosen Few]

On behalf of creators everywhere, thanks for being conscientious.  The best thing to do when you run across content that you believe to be infringing on someone else's IP is to contact the rightful owner, so they can deal with it as they see fit.  If it's a game company, their contact info will likely be on their website.  Shoot them a quick E-mail, with all the pertinent information, and they'll take it from there.

You mentioned you feel the content should be removed before the owner has had a chance to see it, and decide for themselves what to do about it.  I'm not sure why you might think that would be the proper course.  It's not up to anyone but the owner to decide what is and isn't allowable with their IP.

Contacting LL yourself won't serve any purpose.  Under the law, LL's role as a service provider is not to make judgments.  If and when they receive a properly filed takedown notice from the owner, they're obliged to remove the allegedly infringing content.  Likewise, if they then receive a counter-notice from the accused party, they're obliged to put the content back.  Either way, they don't take sides.  Staying neutral, and simply complying with proper notices, is how online service providers remain protected from liability, and not held responsible for the actions of users.

In the absence of a takedown notice, they can't and won't do anything.  They have no way of knowing who's got permission to do what, after all.  Until and unless an IP owner informs them of a problem, they have to assume there is no problem.

 

If it helps, imagine what would happen if they did take it upon themselves to try to play judge, jury, and police, in these matters.  I'll use myself as an example.  I've been hired many times over the years by well known media companies to create content in SL, based on their IP.   LL hasn't had any way of knowing I had permission in these cases.  It's not like I call them up and say, "Hey, CBS just asked me to do another Star Trek project," or something, every time I get a job.  I just do the work, and that's that.

Since they don't know I actually have permission, it would be easy for them to assume I don't.  If they proactively remove the content, they'd be going against the owner's wishes, disrupting my legitimate business, and costing everyone involved time and money.  That would be bad, bad, bad, on all fronts.

The only way to avoid those kinds of potential problems is just not to act until and unless the owner asks.

 

So, please do contact the owners of the IP you're talking about.  You can feel good, knowing you're doing exactly the right thing.  Only the owners have a right to decide whether or not the content should be taken down.  They deserve to know what's going on.

[Muka Release]

Yeah but some are obvious stolen meshs and right now if you sell stolen meshs either nobody will report you and you're good or someone reports you and you might have to remove it from your vendors and delete it... In the long run it's just going to be bad for sl if this is how stolen meshs are handled.

Second life should be more severe and motivate people to report obvious stolen content by making it easyer such as a report button on the marketplace and give rewards to people that go out of their way to find where it was stolen from and who to contact...

[Suki Hirano]

Learning how to become a snitch?

Guess what? Unless you're some official from the video game company, no one's gonna care, and not only they're not gonna care you're gonna make enemies by becoming a snitch. I've reported countless accounts of illegal reselling and no one gives a damn, not even SL creators whose content got copybotted or whatever. If no one cares why should you care? It's like those snobs I see everywhere saying "if you see my content being copybotted, it's your duty to report it". Why the f*ck should I? If you make a leak I gotta wipe you? Everyone's taking everything for granted these days, unless you give people an incentive to do things or at least give appreciation to people voluntarily doing things for you then no one is gonna give a damn.

Unless you're gonna have a heart attack or you're one of the designers of the video game, just drop it.

By the way it's perfectly fine to post a link to the marketplace store you're talking about. Posting a link to marketplace is by no means breaking any rules. O_o The only things for some reason you can't post are IMs.

[Fantasy Eternal]

I could point out at least three Marketplace stores that are OBVIOUSLY selling copybotted items. No one cares. Even though the offenders are blatant, Linden Labs doesn't care - unless the content creators complain. (In any event, LL is getting commission on the sales - regardless of whether the content is stolen or not.)

I have brought these examples to the attention of a few of the content creators and they don't seem to care either. Most of them just said it was too big of a hassle to have it removed and the people doing it would just open a new store and do it all over again. If THEY will not prevent people from stealing from them then what good do you think you can do?

Best advice - don't waste your time. 

[ChinRey]

6 minutes ago, Fantasy Eternal said:

I could point out at least three Marketplace stores that are OBVIOUSLY selling copybotted items.

You did notice that this is a five year old thread? There are even countless more recent discussions on the same topic here.