Designers Against Theft - Declaring War on Thieves
Today I sent out a box to my group and other groups that I am a member of with a notecard. This is what my notecard said:
In second life there are many designers who work hard to create a range of skins, clothes hair and other products for people to enjoy. These designers are artists and work hard, sometimes for hours, days, weeks, months to develop the products that people all over the grid enjoy. One of the most discouraging and soul destroying things to happen to an artist is theft. To have someone steal your hard work and profit on it hurts. It makes us angry, it makes us cry, we are real people. We don’t want to stop creating in second life, we enjoy making things for you to enjoy but when people steal our hard work and sell it or give it away it undermines all of our time an effort. This is not about designers being greedy, it is about what is right and the right thing is for people to purchase the item from the designer who made it rather than the person who stole it.
We need YOU.
We need to promote awareness of our products so that you will know immediately that a skin you see in some obscure mall is not one you should purchase because it was made by another artist with whom you are more familiar. We need you as consumers to be vigilant and to know our products so that you can make the choice to purchase from the original creator rather than from a thief.
I have enclosed with this notecard a small selection of some of the skins at my shop. These skins are transfer. Please try them, wear them, look at them and then pass them on. Please pass these demo on to others and encourage them to do the same to promote awareness of my product. This is not the full range of my products but an artists skins have a certain style and I think that this small selection will better you help you to identify a genuine Adam n Eve skin. Adam n Eve skins are ONLY created and sold by SACHI VIXEN.
My PROMISE to you - If one of my skins is stolen and is offered for a lesser price, please do NOT buy it. Contact me and tell me where it is for sale by thieves and when I have verified that the skin is mine I will give it to you for free, you have no need to purchase from thieves, if you tell me about them, I will reward you with the item myself. This is the best way that I can think of to stop the thief in his tracks by making his product as worthless as he is trying to make mine. I will give it to you rather than let him profit from it.
Thank you for your time, for looking at my skins and for passing them on to others with a copy of this note. PLEASE REMEMBER TO PASS THE NOTE AND THE DEMO ON!
sachi VIxen
Adam n Eve
http://www.adam-n-eve.co.uk/
You can pick up my box with the note and transfer only Demo from the main foyer at Adam n Eve.
Please watch the 2 links here, they really say it all for us as designers.
ty sachi i too am willing to give items free to those who expose my items being sold elsewhere , there is indeed nothing so soul destroying after all the hard work.
Comment by swaffette Firefly - February 3, 2008 6:19 pm
[…] sachi Vixen has come up with a generous and intriguing way of addressing the problem in her latest post. I quote: My PROMISE to you - If one of my skins is stolen and is offered for a lesser price, please […]
Pingback by Concerning Piracy « Fashion Consolidated - February 3, 2008 7:11 pm
I commend you on your fight against content theft. Way to make waves and promote awareness.
Comment by Ryker Beck - February 4, 2008 7:10 pm
I agree with no ripoff of others works..may I add a plea for skin demo’s to be transferable please. While I am happy with the skin I use , many is the time I’ve seen something I thought would look good on a friend. And imagine the possibilities…skin parties, like tupperware parties. We all ask someone what they think of a demo skin,. It would be fantastic to share demos around when a bunch of us get together. Please pass this idea onto other skin makers.
Thanks,
Connie
Comment by Connie Sec - February 11, 2008 7:52 am
Connie there are a range of transfer skin demo at the store in the designer against theft box. We will see how this goes before deciding if we want to do it on a wider scale.
Comment by sachi Vixen - February 11, 2008 10:40 am
I am new to skin making, like brand fresh new i don’t even have a full line of makup yet, My question how would you be able to tell if somone has stolen your skin or anyone elses? From other retail shops that look similar? or do they blatenly steal your displays and everything else?
I don’t for one second doubt that it goes on. Problem being that second lifes clients open source, meaning a criminal programer you could write a client that coule at a click capture the 3 d rendering, texture and geomitry information from any item from a left click pie menu.
Has this been done, i have no clue but in order to see, any given thing in the game that data and imaging has to be sent to the client and as such can be captured by the client. with an open source client, LL opened the doors to such a thing and has no way to prevent such things even if it is a violation of the TOS and laws of countries.
Blizzard in a closed source client can deturmine if you are running exploits or game effecting programs localy effectivly annd efficantly policing against many illegal activities.
LL with open source has no such built in security. I do not doubt for a second the problem is huge, the solutions no small challange either.
Shakes her head. I know making skins is not easy task, 137 layers on my face textures alone and i am not even close to finishing my makups yet. Now i am wondering if i should bother trying or will they just get ripped before i even get started LOL
Comment by Jini H - February 13, 2008 11:03 pm
Way to go Sachi!
These useless (For a lack of a better word) individuals are really destroying SL. I’m still amazed that SL actually tolerates it, and worse is doing NOTHING to prevent it :((
I’ve spend months building a sculpted Porsche Carrera GT in SL (http://zamotors.blogspot.com), just released, and already I have seen certain individuals trying to copy it.
It’s simply disgusting, And I’m pretty sure its what will kill SL … when I say kill, I don’t mean die, I mean have the life taken out of it, as soon as a better platform comes along which looks after creators, SL will be a ghost down.
With the above in mind, this is worth following! Believe me!
… http://mwituni.com
Comment by IAm Zabelin - May 4, 2008 2:20 pm
I’m glad we’re all trying to take a stand against this theft problem.
There’s a bigger problem however, and none of you are even aware of it.
Your things, your Redgrave skins, your Minnu skins, your Armidi jackets, your sinistyle jackets,your Kin and armidi and tons of other hairs are all over Teen grid and theyre being given out as freebies.There are so many other designers i havent been able to reach yet, like Deviant kitties or ETD, to let them know that it’s FIVE times worse over there.
And it’s getting worse by the day.
If you want to see where all your hard work ends up, Look into Teen Second Life.
I’m starting a petition soon to shut down Teen grid. It’s a barren wasteland filled with your things, Girls selling ETD Hairs without remorse, girls selling Karamia skins and not even caring that it’s stolen, AKEYO Shoes going around fullmods for the taking, along with the Pornstar low tops.
It’s getting worse by the day over there.
I have a folder full of around 150 pictures showing the blatant theft going on over there and if you would like to see some, you can also IM me on SL, i’m usually on hunting for the rightful owners of the stolen things in all my snapshots.
Please help me take a stand against this.
Thanks.
Comment by Aikea Rieko - July 5, 2008 10:58 pm
That is why I gave up on trying to create for Second Life. I still occasionally do some toy, clothing or animation and give it away. But not with the zeal I used to have. I generally give away my creations, at least they have a better chance of keeping my name on them. Although, I’ve seen stolen copies of my free items. I guess so that someone else can claim they made it. Go figure.
Good luck with the fight, I’ve had enough.
Comment by Purrts Trumbo - September 10, 2008 4:32 pm