Thursday, February 21, 2008

Making content theft useless in SecondLife

Everybody these days is talking about content theft. Everybody is at war. Rage will not solve it. People like some brazilian I met will not stop. He has a few days in SL and already a great avie so he is an alt ... He also sells over 20 ripped RAC skins in his mall space. He is asking for 1000L$ each. Rac sales them for 4000L$. No wonder some people will buy from him, is cheap.
However he risks selling them, after all its a stolen product.
I talked to him, he can sell me all the skins full perm for a price ... as everything has a price. The price for 24 full perm skins including the PSD files is L$80k. I must say, you need to invest in this.
I offer him a catalogue vendor with a split percent to put it in his mall space. He accepts and he started to win 50% from what he sells. And he sold quite a lot. He is quite pleased about our little business and he accepts the second vendor.
So now, the thief is selling legally a product that is not his product. He wins a cut and he is happy about it. He will try to rip my textures ? I dont think so ...

In all the wave created against the content theft in Second Life people are talking just about police, DMCA, punishment and so on...
Nobody offered a solution to the real problem. Does anybody know the real problem ? Well ... the problem is that "THIEFS" are normal people. Their problem is how to win money. They don't have Photoshop skills, they just know how to sell things. They need products to sell. The content creators are outraged because they creation is stolen. Why they are not offering their products to be resold with a split solution offered by Hippo Vend System. Some creators noticed this and started to sell like this. You heard of Wrong, I'm sure, SOREAL and Emporio Caproni also are having an affiliate program.
And you know what ? I didnt saw any Emporio Caproni skin ripped or any other product from the other two.
Could this be a solution ? Will anybody risk beeing exposed selling stolen skins when he can earn same money reselling them ? Or why should he buy stolen skins for such a big amount of money when he can earn without investing so much ?
Well, I'll try starting promoting this ideea by building a space on Bucuresti where creators and resellers can meet. And I'll try to get Minuu, Redgrave, Naughty and everyone else in this thing. They need to stop this not fighting, but offering a real alternative.
They will have the chance to offer affiliate programs in a space especially created for this. A space that will be advertised to all resellers and all "THIEVES"
I hope I'll start a revolution !