Botters going Nuts - What can we do?

Hey there,

well, after the whole giant mess around Curio, we already know how damn hard it is for creators in SL to protect their own creations from less creative people who want to leech money...also known as copybotters, texture-rippers and so on. And now it looks as if things are picking up once again.

Since quite some time, there are viewers available which will allow anyone to copy any avatar, including their skin, clothes, textures, hair, eyes and probably everything else, within a few seconds. You say this cannot happen? Well, it happened RIGHT in front of my eyes. I was role-playing with a friend (well, actually we were about to) and I have a bad habit of camming around... a LOT. I was wondering why there was a noobie looking avatar not too far away, clearly they did not belong into that sim, but shrugged it off, turned around to talk to my bf, looked back at my screen, and suddenly my friend stood there, when I was pretty sure I had not moved my cam. ;) At first I was confused, but when I saw my buddy was still standing next to me, and still I had his avi on my camera, when it was about 80 yards away....well, go figure. That happened within maybe 10 seconds. Confronting the person they freely admitted that they thought it was completely okay using that viewer, not against TOS, avatars are for everyone, bla bla bla. I reported them to every simowner I knew and Mister Rulen resident is now on a lot of banlists.

Now, yesterday I looked at my Flickr and saw this:



Read the whole story here:

Sanya Bilavio's (Vive9) Flickr

It appears, that once again Marie2 Cisse and her gang of girls (likely her own alts or some other equally stupid people) managed to draw lots and lots of attention to herself and her...'store'. In this case, she copybotted Inna's complete shape, skin, custom make up and everything else, informed her about it and since then is bragging about how well it sells, of course after trying to 'bribe' her into giving her Lindens in order to prevent her from reselling a shape/make up etc. she never created herself.

A few comments from dear Marie2 Cisse  and 'friends' towards the creator of the items:

[2012/11/02 12:23] Second Life: Alexandriala has given you this body part:
Inna Bilavio shape
Do you want to keep it? "Mute" will block all future offers or messages from Alexandriala.
[2012/11/02 12:23] Alexandriala: Your shape has been copybotted.
[2012/11/02 12:23] Alexandriala: And will be sold.

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They try and bribe designers after they bot them as well ::

[2012/10/15 14:08] Gerusa Bastos (marie2.cisse): you lose your mind
[2012/10/15 14:08] Gerusa Bastos (marie2.cisse): creating skin
[2012/10/15 14:09] Gerusa Bastos (marie2.cisse): you think those skins will be on sale
[2012/10/15 14:09] Gerusa Bastos (marie2.cisse): for 1k or more
[2012/10/15 14:09] Gerusa Bastos (marie2.cisse): I can do it for 300L
[2012/10/15 14:09] Gerusa Bastos (marie2.cisse): Full fat pack
[2012/10/15 14:09] Gerusa Bastos (marie2.cisse): :)
[2012/10/15 14:09] Gerusa Bastos (marie2.cisse): Maliah skin will sell more with me than you
[14:10] Gerusa Bastos (marie2.cisse): 20k i am offering
[14:10] Gerusa Bastos (marie2.cisse): for don't distruing this skin

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[17:26] issela2: Poor gurl. Never more will be at Eila?
[17:26] issela2: HAHAHA
[17:26] issela2: Take care
[17:34] issela2: I've all your mesh stuff
[17:34] issela2: And I'm going to giving away this

Here she goes on bragging and already posting advertisements for 'her newest creations':

Marie2 Cisse's Flickr


and

Marie2 Cisse Flickr

Now, with Linden Labs forcing creators to go through lengthy and COSTLY legal processes, I wonder what we can do against such people? Not everyone can fork out the money to pay for such processes or even think about going to court, and not everyone will be able to fund money as Gala Phoenix and her team did with the ONE VOICE event. The process to actually get someone banned fro such things is absurd in Second Life, as sad as it is. Obviosu proof is not enough, you gotta file DMCAs, which can simply be countered...and so on. We all saw it happen with Gala.

So, what CAN we do? That is really the key-question. In my humble opinion, spreading the word about people like these, trying to convince people not to shop there, and that is why I am posting this.

However, quite frankly, the creators of Vive9 would likely do well with telling certain people, such as the dearest Lady Gericault, to shut the hell up, since people like her are NOT helping them by behaving like complete crazies in public. Argue with style, not like some raging rhino using capslock all over the place. O.o

Not too long ago, racist comments caused people to convince Linka Demina, founder of The Dressing Room, to not allow TIGirls to participate in the event due to obvious racist comments. View this here:
Linka Demina's Flickr

They somehow managed to worm they way out of that, though even if the comments were a joke, they were incredibly stupid. But people forgive. But personally, I am out of forgiveness. I am simply asking everyone I know, to ignore these people, to NOT buy their stolen stuff, to spread the word.

I would appreciate if people would actually do this.

The following people are involved with Marie2 Cisse or are her alts:

Marie2 Cisse, Alexandriala, Alemanha (sallygirlpaty aho), Miss Fedorova
and more than likely all the names in this picture, in which she accuses Götzsche Resident to be herself:

Other alts

Arica.