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Naughty Designs ripped off?
By Celebrity Trollop | May 30, 2006
Were you as intrigued by this ad for a new line of skins as I was? Raquel Montagne of La Femme posted another ad today for a blonde “base hair” skin named Soleil.
Take a careful look at the second photo. On the one side is Lost’s skin, and on the other side is the City Girl skin. The resemblance is more than a little disturbing — it’s nearly a pixel for pixel copy. Clearly the face has been changed — but the rest, right down to the base hair Lost has had on his skins for a long time, look identical.
On discovery of this news and the subsequent confrontation, Raquel removed the vendors from her stores and tells me that she didn’t sell any of the skins. She also says that she herself is the victim of a scam — the skin work was outsourced, she tells me, and she refuses to name the party responsible. She told me she wanted to “confront the person myself first.” Lost and business partner Ambyance Anubis have involved Linden Labs into this issue — and presumably an investigation and its results are forthcoming.
In the meantime, without knowing the true person responsible for this theft, content creators are left wondering what steps they can take to protect themselves and their intellectual property. Depending on the actual method of theft, there might not be a good technical solution to this problem. Just like in the real world, intellectual property theft is going to have to carry some kind of broader societal punishment. In a world as new as Second Life, I think we’re still trying to figure that part out.
Yep! Even a blind man could tell that lost’s skin textures got riped. Right away I told Lost I was there with Lost & Raquel I think we got most of it sorted out in the end she marked the for sale thing off. It’s a shame how one persons of hours and hours of work on something can be riped off :/
Posted by: Garbage Prototype on May 30th, 2006 at 11:04 pmGawd…skin copies now….sheesh. When does it ever end. And honestly, if you’re going to take someone’s skin…take someone who’s skin isn’t so original. Especially the hair base. I mean sheesh everyone knows that Lost did that.
Posted by: Elika on May 31st, 2006 at 12:13 amThey’re both photosourced skins… Couldn’t they have both used the same reference? These things always get tricky when photo reference is involved. :(
Posted by: Alaska Metro. on May 31st, 2006 at 2:56 amwow yea this post is crazy cuz this just happened to me recently, I let a “Friend” make my upperbody and lower body textures for one of my skins, because I stink at that stuff..haha but i made the face myself.. He said he’d give me full mod rights and let me sell it and let me keep all the money..and then I had someone IM me saying the upperbody and lower body were his textures and i checked it all out and they were! I was beyond PO’d to say the least..Mine didnt make it to Linden’s thank god..I felt sooo bad i took them off imediatly, needless to say i didnt sell one either, thank god..I really need to stop letting people give me textures for stuff…haha..specially hair now a days with all the hair texture theft going on, I wouldnt be surprised if some of my textures there were stolen too…Oh well I’ll look into it and if i find one like mine, I’ll take em off, I feel bad for the people that made them originally, I know how hard it is to make them! Keep up the good work guys!
Posted by: C on May 31st, 2006 at 8:37 amNo Elika. This is not a coincidence .Lost used several models for this skin .Things like mole placement,belly botton and shading cannot be duplicated exactly by a simple mistake or using the same resource.
Posted by: ambyance2 on May 31st, 2006 at 9:49 amAmbyance2, thanks for addressing that, but I didn’t really ask a question….my post is the one above that.
Posted by: Elika on May 31st, 2006 at 4:39 pmoops sry :)
Posted by: ambyance on May 31st, 2006 at 8:13 pmAmbyance, that was me who asked, heh. Thanks for replying, though! I just thought it may be the same reference as there are some sites where one can buy the rights to photos specifically for 3d skinning… I know Chip Midnight does that. But if it’s several references combined, obviously Lost’s are unique. I’m glad the person distributing the copies removed them.
I hope LL does something to start enforcing this issue, because as SL gets bigger it’s inevitable it’ll happen again. :( I don’t have much faith in human nature, virtual or not.
Posted by: Alaska Metro. on June 1st, 2006 at 2:05 pmI think the thing that sickens me the most about this, is that Linden Labs could stop the use of the third party programs that are being used to rip off these skins. I found myself suspended from Second Life for blocking access to a store that was selling ripped Naughty, Celestial and Nomine skins. The proprietor of the store has been suspended more than once from SL for selling ripped skins and yet every time his suspension is up he comes right back and starts all over again.
It’s obvious at least to myself that the skins are yes a rip off and that the person selling them was either the architect of the theft or had knowledge that the theft was taking place.
Posted by: Lucius on March 22nd, 2008 at 3:27 pm