Keller Teichmann

Firstly, on the basis of morals - just because someone doesn't care that someone stole something from them doesn't mean it isn't a bad thing. Secondly, because it hurts the competition - which as mentioned above, are usually honest working people who actually endeavour to create their own products. Thirdly, LL should care. The system they hyped up as being bulletproof isn't just failing to live up to that standard, it isn't even living at all. Things like what I saw this morning are what could get LL in hot water, and if that happens, all of us suffer, because some kid with a UE3 unpacker thought he could make a few quick bucks uploading models from Mass Effect (and Crysis, and Terminator, and so on).

I haven't really posted here before, so if this is the wrong forum, I'll shuffle it off elsewhere. I'm kind of appalled at how loosely mesh IP rules are being enforced. Throughout the beta we were constantly told about how strictly IP rights would be enforced, and how content rippers would be caught in their tracks and wouldn't be able to profit from the newfound ability to potentially upload content straight from videogames. Then I log in one morning, and find Tali from Mass Effect 3 standing in the sim, talking about where they apparently bought the avatar, only to realize it matched the model from ME3 perfectly. I look it up online, only to find the 'creator' sells dozens of models, all ripped from a variety of games - blatantly so, over a period of several months. I understand that LL follows DMCA, but that restricts the ability to police such things to solely the IP holder. It doesn't let the community as a whole police themselves, or otherwise discourage people from engaging in what's pretty blatant content theft. This fellow makes money (a lot of it apparently) just ripping and selling models straight from videogames - his only 'work' is to occasionally apply a shiny or color effect to the model and sell it for a few hundred L$ extra. It seriously damages the market, hinders legitimate content developers (who can honestly crank out models of that quality every... few hours for months on end?) , and it just looks plain bad after all these measures were supposedly put in place for mesh uploading. It also doesn't help having that sinking feeling knowing there's nothing one can really do about it, aside from notifying corporations and studios which often take weeks or months to do anything about it. Is there anything we as a community can do at all? (I didn't link the guy's 'studio' for a reason - I'd rather not give him free publicity, but you can probably find it rather easily)