Marketplace scam artists

[Beyond Sinister]

As many times as I run into it and become disgusted, I find that there is simply not much of anything I can do about fraudulent merchants on the marketplace. 
For YEARS, even since TEEN GRID has been open, people have been even stealing SCREEN CAPS from the sims and claiming it's sl! Oh. My. God.
I'm sure there's poor people out there who can't see the difference (I've played both rigorously) who've been scammed hard from these. 
I just found a whole store with nothing but "templates" advertised by sims 3 images. 
Can we start an archive of these or something?
Or, god forbid, make it reportable..? 
Isn't just claiming that you made something that you actually didn't already against the rules?

Pathetic.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

First, I will strongly state that the rights of Intellectual Property Owners should be respected by everyone and anyone that violates those right should be severely sanctioned.

That said, not all items made with templates are illegal.  There is nothing illegal in using a template if you have a license from the owner of the IP rights.

If you feel that content you see is illegal.  The best thing you can do is not buy it and report it to the creator so they can take steps to protect their IP rights.

As far as starting any kind of list, how would you know that the person doesn't have a valid license or to sell the items?  There are people that hold them from RL companies that allow them to sell their content in SL.  There is no way to know this short of checking with each IP rights owner. LL just doesn't have the staff for this.  Allowing anyone to add anyone else to a blacklist without LL verification would just open up the process to a lot of abuse.  Of course you are free to start such a list yourself on an outside website but people you list are also free to sue you for liable if what you allege is not true.

BTW posting a complaint about a specific merchant here and naming them or linking to their store is called name and shame and is against the community standards of this forum. You should remove your link or you can be banned for posting it.

[Madeline Blackbart]

I think the issue there pointing out is that the photos aren't from inworld but from the game the sims 3.  Which isn't very honest.

[Beyond Sinister]

That is exactly it. 
They may have the rights, and that's all fine and dandy, I am not saying that creating with a template is bad; however, misleading people with false images is. 
The sims 3 previews show nothing of what it will look like in sl, even if they did (which, I would be suprised) go through the bother of readjusting the sims 3 skins to fit the second life av uvs. 
I see others stolen from 3d character sites advertising skins also. My examples come only from passing them by, not seeking them out, I was only in one sublet of the marketplace and I ran into multiple accounts of these silly scam attempts. 
While I do not mean to point out one user, and I would remove the link if I could find an "edit" anywhere (I've seen other people edit posts and I can't find it for the life of me..), this is only one store of many that do the exact same thing, they may as well be anonymous.  

[Beyond Sinister]

And I should mention that, upon trying to report the content, the closest category I could find was labled "Someone is infringing on my copyrights", and upon selecting that option, you get a message saying that you can only report it if it's YOURS.  Nevermind that who knows how many other people are getting screwed over by this silly bs. 

[Amethyst Jetaime]

To edit your OP, click the Options tab at the top right of it for a menu that includes EDIT.

Under the DMCA law which applies here ONLY the person who owns the IP rights can report the violation.    As stated in my previous post, report this to the company that owns the rights to the Sims so they can take the necessary steps to have the content removed if it is illegal.

In the case of skins, any picture of a skin  should not be taken as how it will look on your avatar, because the underlying shape has a lot to do with how an avatar looks in a specific skin.  A skin can look entirely different on a shape that wasn't used to take the picture,  so even creators that make their skins from scratch can't guarantee your avatar will look the same as the picture unless they provide the shape too AND you wear it with the skin. 

As far as the pictures used for these skins, it is possible that if you had the skin you could create a shape to make it look very much like the picture.

I agree that merchants should not misrepresent their product. I also am in no way condoning what this merchant is doing IF they are using Sims 3 skins and pictures without a license.  If this is the case then I hope the IP rights owner files a DMCA notice and the creator is severely sanctioned and sued in RL court.

 

[Merry Calliope]

I don't see a really effective way for a third party to deal with this. However, if you want to do something I'd highly suggesting posting on the modthesims website forums. If the skins are by another creator and being used without consent they are liable to recognize the original creator and let him/her know about the infringement.

If the person advertising the skins on the marketplace is the original creator there isn't much to be done, alas. Like has already been mentioned, skins are always a risky buy since they rarely look very good on any shape aside from the one they were designed on. Hopefully most folks are savvy enough to look for a demo first.

[Maeve Balfour]

I've seen this kind of thing happening repeatedly on the Marketplace in the past six months or so, but in regards to MESH items. Or more specifically, FAKE mesh items - in that a fake store is put up, filled with "products" baiting customers with too-good-to-be-SL 3D rendered images stolen from various 3D brokerage sites that I am familiar with (being a reasonably competent mesh hobbyist, I can often easily recognise where these images are stolen from, or very quickly find them with a simple Google search).

I can spot these scam stores from a mile off, but sadly many residents cannot - and time and again I see unsuspecting customers being ripped off (judging by the scathing reviews I see them leave, IF I am quick enough to read them before the fake items are pulled and relisted). Often customers are ripped off to the tune of several thousand L$ for these fake items. (There was a store I spotted less than a day ago doing this - several angry reviews were left by stung customers in the few hours the items were listed for - and now the store has been cleaned out, ready to start again). Usually the fake items are avatar replacements, clothing items and vehicles from what I have seen to date.

I suspect these scams are often run by the same person, since the exact same bait and switch method is used over and over again, often with varying images lifted from the same sites. When LL close them down, I am pretty certain they just create another account and start again, rinse and repeat, ad infinitum.

Biggest giveaway clue (if their "items" are mesh related): They NEVER have the items listed as Mesh: 100% Mesh (located under the Permissions section on the right hand side of the product page). Instant reason for suspicion if the items are hugely pricey and supposedly full-perms. Genuine mesh uploaders are REQUIRED to have their RL payment details on file with LL (a means of identification) - of course, criminal scammers won't do this. Hence their LACK of ability to have the Mesh: 100% Mesh status on their products. No details on file, so they cannot upload mesh - so of course they CANNOT be selling these "fantastic" items they are faking. Usually, the AVs involved are only a week or so old (although the latest scammer has an AV about a month old - so they are possibly "ageing" them first now).
(NOTE: This doesn't apply to mesh prefab kit retexture/resellers, of course - they are simply reselling an existing mesh kit already uploaded to SL by another party. Also their items are usually decently priced as well).

I'm just posting this in a faint hope of saving some unfortunate resident being suckered by this scam method.

:matte-motes-angry:

[Drake1 Nightfire]

as to the images in question... how can you possibly tell on an image that it wasnt taken in SL?

[Madeline Blackbart]

---

Drake1 Nightfire wrote:

as to the images in question... how can you possibly tell on an image that it wasnt taken in SL?

---

The faces are smoother then sl's and if you'd played the Sims 3 a few times you'd recognize right away that's where they got the pics. Unless of course it's a full mesh avie but event hen that means they stole the mesh from sim3

[Drake1 Nightfire]

hmmm.. interesting... do you really think the Sims 3 team will do anything? I do believe Our new supreme leader is from that company.. coincidence? i think not.

[Beyond Sinister]

Madeline is exactly right. 
The most obvious giveaway I can see is the hair. Sims 3 hair meshes work much differently, they allow for a much smoother look with textures on flat surfaces arranged to give body (Best way I can put it, I am a beginner in 3d modeling). 

Secondly, the way that the meshes hold textures are entirely different in sims 3 vs. SL. A texture made for the body of a sim is simply laid out differently than the texture made for the sl av. There are many more facial slider options available in sims 3 than is available in second life, not to mention that the lighting effects and of course, the smoothing, are WAY different; it would be impossible to make an av exactly like a sim, not to sound hard headed; but I have loved both for years and years now, and I have tried-hard and have seen nothing close in all of aforementioned years.

Maeve, that was excellent. I think you're on to something, it really does all look the same.
I will be quoting you and posting your advice in my blog (As traffic-less as it is XP) in the same hopes. It's this kind of greedy behavior that is killing sl and I am RELIEVED to hear that I am not the only one who feels the smallest tug of an obligation here.

And to miss Amethyst, try as I might, that still doesn't let me edit it. 
Had to screen cap it to prove I'm not stupid. D:

[Madeline Blackbart]

I honestly don't know if they'll do anything. I'm thinking probably not since most bigger companies don't do they? I geuss it depends on if they see it as a threat....

Sims 3 has it's own huge modding community so they could be ported mods from one game to another and how would EA prove diffrent? It might be a mess for them to do so.

[Beyond Sinister]

Sadly, no, these are people thinking that they have found a loophole.

EA does not care what anyone does with custom content created by players. There is no protection provided for them, and it is content created by the players of the sims 3 that is being compremised. 

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This is a puzzle of policies. 

[Beyond Sinister]

I think I will end up taking the advice to post this information on the sims 3 modding sites, although I really do wish that this could be handled entirely by second life.. But I understand the dilemma. 

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Had you actually logged into the website when you attempted to edit your post?  Because that is the options that are given to anyone.  If you are logged in  you should get this:                                                              

 

BTW, to get a better shot you can zoom in by hitting ctrl plust the plus sign.  To zoom back out hit ctrl plus the minus sign.

[Miserlie]

I see it all the time, especially with hair and skins. But is it possible to make a house in the sims 3 and upload it to sl ? And it would be legal ? I create all my textures and etc. But i always wanted to try such a thing. And seems much easier. I've seen others create houses and upload them into the sims 3, but can it be vice versa?

[Beyond Sinister]

Oh, lord. I could have swore I was, lol. I double-tripple checked and everything.
Of course, now that you mention it, problem solved. Thank you for the side lesson

[LepreKhaun]

This all boils down to a fundamental flaw of the Market Place/Lindens. There are simply no safeguards in place for the buyer here. When someone is scammed on the MP, it is considered a resident-to-resident dispute and "we" have to work it out for ourselves (read: Suck it up!). But in the EBay/PayPal venue, disputes result in a stop payment until the dispute is resolved. Until we, as buyers, have that power- scammers will rule the present Market Place.