About contracts in second life.

[Nancy Deimatov]

Hey!

I'm a photographer on second life, and i take this job very serious cause its a way to earn an extra money on realife, and actually it helps me A LOT!

I have a studio, a store and such, but lately i'm being target of scammers that steals my pics from my gallery, or some clients that simply dont pay for their pics and mutes me. If i try to ask my money, they report me for harassing.. i really dont know what to do. I could get payment upfront, but wouldnt fix my stealing problem anyways.

Is there anything i can do about it? legaly? Like a copyright that is valid on SecondLife, or make my clients sign a contract, a VALID one, that i could use it against scammers?

 

ty! xoxo

[Darren Scorpio]

Not much you can do. LL will not get involved in resident to resident disputes, and to hire a RL lawyer is probably more trouble than it's worth. Your best course of action is to require a deposit of 40%-50% upfront, then never give them a texture to approve. Either TP them to you studio and show them the pictures on a prim or give them a no mod no copy texture to look at and tell them they will get the full perm copy once they are satisfied and pay the remaining balance.

[Curious Hazelnut]

Hi Nancy,

Unfortunately, image stealing inside SL is way to easy and pretty much impossible to prevent. There are many ways to do it (but I'm not going to explain any of them here). If you don't get paid by someone for content in SL, I believe you can file an abuse report against them for non-payment.

Real world contracts inside SL are going to be extremely difficult to enforce. First of all, you will have a lot of difficulty tracking down the SL account holder to file against in court. Even if you pull that off, you would have to claim in court based on a verbal contract (weak arguement and hard to prove). I doubt very much a court would take you seriously. Even if they did, the real world money you are talking about would probably not be worth the cost of filing in small claims court. Please feel free to talk to a lawyer, though (I'm certainly not one).

Your best bet, as you suggested, is to have payment (or at least partial payment) up front.

You can (at least theoretically) file a DMCA Takedown notice with Linden Lab but I think you would need to find the asset UUID of the stolen image (not the one you uploaded, but the one used by the thief). Of course, if you gave the image to the person and then that person didn't pay, it's the same UUID so you are out of luck unless you want your own copy lost to you as well as the one used by the other person.

[Amaranthim Talon]

Linden Lab will not interfere or mediate between Residents. If you have any sort of disagreement with another Resident, beyond something that is covered by griefing and A/R'ing, you have no recourse through the Lab. You probably would have RL law options but most of us wd not think it is a financially feasible option.

As for the images- perhaps you could watermark them? Good luck.

[Bree Giffen]

Wouldn't the verbal contract actually be in the SL chat logs? Maybe a chatlog from LL directly would be evidence enough. I agree though that the whole thing might not be worth the cost.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Your best protection is getting the money up front.  Using no mod no copy no transfer picture on a prim is not going to protect you.  Even if you never give it to them.  If they can see it, they can get a copy of it if they know how.

You could put a large proof watermark in the image itself and put it on a prim they view with you in your studio.  RL photographers often put proof marks on their proofs, so no one should object to this unless they have nefarious reasons. For added security if you wish to send it to the client, you could use a no mod no copy no transfer prim with a script to make it self destruct after a few minutes once rezzed. 

You can AR people but LL will do nothing about it no matter how much money is involved as it is considered a resident against resident dispute and the TOS clearly state LL has no liability in these situations.

You could insist on a RL contract, but most people will balk at that because it you have to use RL information.

The only copyright you can get to protect you is in RL.  Expensive to get and more expensive to enforce through the RL courts.

You can use a DMCA notice for stolen content as long as you can prove you created the picture.  If they file a counter notice LL gives them the content back and you have to take them to court.  However just being served a DMCA notice and having content deleted is enough to stop the casual thief an might be worth the try.

[Nova Convair]

A contract between 2 avatars, there is only a chatlog, the contract is not signed, the customer can be in another country.

I suggest to get payed in advance. If you send a texture before full payment, the permissions don't matter. If you see a texture the texture is on your computer. Nothing more so say here.
You can put a clearly visible watermark big and centered on the picture. The customer still can get an impression of the result.

For those customers who will cancel here - expect that many of them never had the intention to pay.

 

[Perrie Juran]

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Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

 

<snip>  The only copyright you can get to protect you is in RL.  Expensive to get....<snip>

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Maybe this varies by country?  I am an RL photographer.  My work is copyrighted.  I have no expenses in this.  The only thing I would need to be able to do is IF it went to court in a DCMA challenge is prove  that I took the original photo.  It would still be up to the other side to prove I had transferred license to them.

 

 

[Irene Muni]

A side note about LL Snapshots policies: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Snapshot_and_machinima_policy

[Nuhai Ling]

Who let all the newbies answer this! LOL! Just kidding... there are solutions to your questions but few people left around to teach the tips and tricks.

If you have a photo gallery set up to show your work, there are ways to keep people from taking screen shots and then making copies. First, put a watermark over your images. People understand why they are there while on public display and you can include a notecard or sign saying purchased images are clean. Second, do not display your images in "full bright" mode. This allows the true color to appear and makes it very easy for screen-shot copiers to steal the image. Third, sold images should be copy only, no mod or transfer. This does not prevent the purchaser from making a screen shot copy BUT if you find your images "made" by someone else you can file a very strong TOS  claim to Linden Lab. If a buyer wants a full-perm copy of an image expect it to be used all over and charge extra for it, usually 3-5 times the rate of a copy-only image.

Concerning contracts and content transfer, DO NOT TRUST ANYONE, even your best friend, wife, or playmate on the side. Rez a box, put the items - images, objects, notecards, etc. - in them, and place it for sale at the price agreed on. Have the buyer then come and purchase the box. This guarantees the transfer on both sides without the hassle.

Hope that helps make your Second Life financial empire dreams come true!

 

[Dilbert Dilweg]

Watermark all your proofs and they can see the watermarked proofs. when they pay, then they can have the full versions... Watermark the whole image then they cant mute you after they pay you for the real thing..

Watermark your gallery displays also.  

[solstyse]

If you plan to take the watermark advice, then go one step further. make tthe watermark soething fully unique to your store. Then, if your customers start seeing that watermark outside of your shop, there's a chance someone may decide to tell you.

[161488303349]

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Nuhai Ling wrote:

Rez a box, put the items - images, objects, notecards, etc. - in them, and place it for sale at the price agreed on. Have the buyer then come and purchase the box. This guarantees the transfer on both sides without the hassle.

 

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^^ that

do it for all custom work. not just photos

[Deja Letov]

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Nancy Deimatov wrote:

Hey!

I'm a photographer on second life, and i take this job very serious cause its a way to earn an extra money on realife, and actually it helps me A LOT!

I have a studio, a store and such, but lately i'm being target of scammers that steals my pics from my gallery, or some clients that simply dont pay for their pics and mutes me. If i try to ask my money, they report me for harassing.. i really dont know what to do. I could get payment upfront, but wouldnt fix my stealing problem anyways.

Is there anything i can do about it? legaly? Like a copyright that is valid on SecondLife, or make my clients sign a contract, a VALID one, that i could use it against scammers?

 

ty! xoxo

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I had a photography studio for several years in real life and I can tell you first...you don't need a contract of any kind to claim copyright over an image. Copyright is established when the photograph is created...you don't have to even legally file anything. Just because you are doing it in SL, doesn't make it any different. If someone uses your photo for a use you don't allow, guess what...copyright infringement. I run in circles with other photographers still and you wouldn't believe how protective they are with their "art". I used to be the same way, after all it is your livlihood. A friend of mine actually sued one of her clients because she scanned the 4x5 proofs she got, posted them online and made her own prints from them. This is essentially what your clients are doing. Sl won't get involved, but you most definitely have legal recourse if you want to...although, hiring a lawyer is expensive and unless you've suffered significant damages, it will cost you more than you could possibly make. I would do two things. 1. Get your fees 100% all up front. If people balk, then you can always offer a guarantee. 2. Never hand over the final texures until they are happy with the proofs. And your proofs should be watermarked (and I'm talking heavily water marked due to the nature of SL) and put them on your own prim...don't hand them files. You'll never stop stealing completely but just doing some basic things to protect yourself should cut it down at least a bit.