Torianesia Markova

With the recent increase in the amount of mesh material on SL, there will be a lot of questions regarding copyright. But also there will be many questions arising focused on the area of defamation. I know from personal experience that it is very easy to get hot under the collar and fly off without verifying. I can think of an ad I saw once where they were advertising something they had built but were using items I had crafted as set dressing for their ad. I had the Abuse report open and ready to go until I calmed down and looked at the add for a third time. It is imperative that we step back from a situation and carefully check things over before we start flying accusations. There will be times when things look very similar, but they are not in fact the same. There are so very many variations of the same inspiration. I could pull up a hundred pictures of the Statue of Liberty and every last one of them would be original to the creator whether a photographer or artist. Remember that defamation is just as important to step back and understand as copyright. Either one can make our Second Life very difficult and should be avoided. Rules to live by: 1. Check, check and check again. And after you have finished checking, check three more times. 2. Remember that when it comes to building things for a 3D world, most artists take their inspiration from the real world. Bring up a search engine and see how many variations of 'your' work are out there. There are truly very few things in this world that are completely original. 3. Talk to the person first. If you can't catch them in IM's, try again later. We are all over the world and our times are all different. 4. Step back and remember that people who are long time builders are not likely to start stealing from others as they have a business to run too and they can't afford to damage that business. 5. BREATHE and if you truly feel the need to make an accusation. Do so privately through the proper channels. You may really believe you are right, but if you turn out to be wrong, you damage not just the person you defamed but yourself. 6. Most important - if you make a mistake and falsely accuse someone, do your best to help correct the damage that was done - it looks better for everyone involved. FYI: Cited from Wikipedia on May 13, 2012 Defamation—also called calumny, vilification, traducement, slander (for transitory statements), and libel (for written, broadcast, or otherwise published words)—is the communication of a statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business, product, group, government, or nation a negative image. This can be also any disparaging statement made by one person about another, which is communicated or published, whether true or false, depending on legal state. In Common Law it is usually a requirement that this claim be false and that the publication is communicated to someone other than the person defamed (the claimant).

Let's try not to make this about anything or anyone particular. If you believe that content has been stolen there are proper channels and ways to go about dealing with it. I, myself, have had items directly copybotted and have filed my reports with LL. While it does not publicly declare something to be a copybotted item, it does remove the item from in-world. There are proper channels to go through in situations such as these and we all need to remember how to deal with it. If you feel your work has been copied file a report with Lindens or a DCMA through civil means.