You are reading this because you are probably a victim of copyright violation - your copyrighted works may be being sold without your permission.
The word of Second Life is an online 3D virtual world with a very active art community. There are a huge number of virtual galleries there and an active, vibrant art community creating some cutting-edge, immersive 3D artwork. The many artists of Second LIfe value their community and want to make Second Life a safe, attractive place for new artist residents to explore and enjoy.
Like the World Wide Web, content theft and copyright violation is a problem in Second LIfe, where anyone can copy copyrighted images from your website and upload them into the world of Second LIfe to be displayed and even sold for profit. There are some unscrupulous individuals that want to profit from your hard work by reselling your copyrighted art illegally.
This web page will give you, the artist whose work may have been stolen, some pointers to information and steps you can follow to immediately stop this theft from continuing. Below is a list of artists, the name of the Second Life avatar who is selling your art to other Second Life residents, and the specific location of where the accused copyright violation is occuring. Since residents of Second Life do not have to reveal their real identities, it is sometimes difficult for an art buyer in Second Life to know for sure whether they are buying legitimate art or not, so in almost all cases, the buyers are completely unaware that they are buying stolen goods if they buy your work from a thief.
The good news is that in the vast majority of cases, the art in Second Life is being sold by legitimate artists or people with full permission to resell the copyrighted images in their galleries. However, any instance of copyright violation and art theft is simply unacceptable, and this page will show you exactly how to bring those art thieves to a screeching halt.
If you are an artist, I would encourage you to explore Second Life and see for yourself all the exciting things going on in the art community there - it's just amazing what's being created, and you too can be a part of it. For more info, see this article on Squidoo titled So You Want To Be a Second Life Artist!.
If you are on the list of known artists potentially being victimized in Second Life, here is what to do:
First, if you are fully aware of the fact that your art is being sold in Second Life and the avatar in question is either you or has your permission, I will immediately remove your name from my list of suspects. Please just let me know and it will be gone. Please send me email from the account listed on your artist website where the images were found so I can confirm it is really you.
Follow steps 1-7 in that document to file a DMCA. Here are some suggestions and help on how you might complete some of the steps:
Describe your art piece. Attach a link to the graphic on your website where the work was copied, if available. This is by far the best way to help Linden Labs identify the art in question.
Use the information provided in the "Location" and "Object names" columns of the Suspected Art Thieves spreadsheet to identify the item. For example if the Location is secondlife://JoeVille/12/23/34 and the Object names are "Mona Lisa, Lillies of the Field, Painting 3", you would state in your DMCA notice: "The allegedly infringing works are located at secondlife://JoeVille/12/23/34 and have the following object names: "Mona Lisa, Lillies of the Field, and Painting 3".
Use the information in the "alleged infringer" column of the Suspected Art Thieves spreadsheet [sorry, this has been removed] to identify the user that posted the alleged infringing content.
If you would like confirmation or a visual look at the alleged infringing work, please contact me and I'd be glad to help you install the Second Life client software on your PC so that you can go to the infringer's gallery yourself and see what is going on. I would highly recommend this - the best way to confirm that it's your art and that it's being sold without your permission is to go see it for yourself and contact the avatar selling it to confirm that you have not given them permission to resell your work. Note that since you cannot easily discover someone's real name in Second Life, it may very well be someone you know or that has permission to resell your work. However, your name will only appear on the spreadsheet above if there is insufficient evidence presented about ownership of copyright or copyright permission when questioned by me in Second Life. Since I have no proof positive one way or another, I will make every effort to contact you via public contact information that may be provided on your website to confirm that you have given permission for your art to be sold in Second Life by someone else.
Please note I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice by any means. Please contact a real lawyer for legal advice. This is provided as an aid to you to stop alleged art theft in Second Life. The only way to stop it is to confirm that the art theft is actually taking place, that you did not give permission to the avatar selling your art, and for you, the copyright holder, to file a DMCA with Linden Labs via the link above. I would be glad to give you personal advice and information such as the locations and object names provided in the spreadsheet above, but the rest is really up to you to help protect yourself, and the art community in Second Life.