28 July, 2010

we're one breath away from our judgment day

Back we go to the Ikaru Aichi ban.

As previously covered (here and here if you haven't read the previous ponderings), now she is saying that it wasn't her ex-boyfriend (who was not, as was reported in a hearsay fashion, responsible for going in under her account and doing anything), but the avatar--who may no longer even exist on the grid--who also lifted items from Hybrid Ansar (as well as other people, most recently mentioned, Roslin Petion, whose hand-painted and hand-detailed corset was ganked), the unfortunately-named poo Blackheart (btw, on that link? Half an hour ago there were items there. Now? They're all gone. That's very interesting, don't you think?).

Recover from that run-on sentence for a bit, it's okay. My head is not in the most grammatically correct space today. I'll wait.

Hybrid Ansar, btw? Has also been banned. What in the hell is going on?

[18:20] Aura Falta: what we have seen her do is as soon as she is contacted by iki or another creator, she seems to close shop immediiately and deletes that SL account
[18:20] Aura Falta: but then she pops up a few days to weeks later with a new name, avatar and store, and start putting the same shit out
[18:22] Aura Falta: the lesson we have all learned from this is to never ever contact the copybotter directly, as it gives them time to close up shop
[18:22] Aura Falta: and time to get your ass banned

Honestly? Everyone who reads this, listen to this one passage, if nothing else.

1. DO NOT contact the person in violation directly.
2. Contact Linden Labs, giving them full information in the AR on exactly where each prim containing the copyright infringing goods are found, in world, or exactly where the listings are on XStreet or SL Marketplace.
3. Two things are ESSENTIAL: Be POLITE, and be SPECIFIC. Attach examples if allowed. If contacted later, be POLITE, and be SPECIFIC. Send examples to the Linden who contacts you, if allowed, and you can still find them in world, or on XStreet.

I'm going to give Aichi some leeway on on this one, for the story-changing. For a) being forced to communicate through other people, which distorts things; b) being in an emotional and overwrought headspace, which distorts everything; and c) learning things day by day and announcing them too soon. Does that mean this is the end of the tale? Not likely, not until at least Ikaru herself knows who helped to ban her...and she may never find that out.

(Though I will add, that in light of how easy it seems to be to ban someone from the game, for petty personal reasons...the fact that Aichi banned Serenity Semple for doing nothing other than being a good hunter from her sims seems morbidly relevant. I'm so not saying Serenity had anything to do with this--she didn't. But there is that spark of kinship, here--Linden Labs doesn't seem to care, either, if they ban paying customers...)

Along those same lines, Azriel Demain has been banned from Second Life--by Linden Labs--for the next week. Why? Well, it's apparently due to the Julius suit--and not the one sold in-world, but the one sold on XStreet (as I recall, there was a black or silver version which seems to have been removed from listing; the original red, and the white, remain).

Why? Because of this line in the listing:
A stunning suit with a gothic flare. This was inspired by the 'grey suit' Gary Oldman wears in the 1992 movie Dracula.
Apparently "someone"--again, he doesn't know who, because one of the many peculiarities of DMCA filing is that anyone can just tell the Labs they're in violation; it is then up to the accused to prove their case (which includes putting down your real name and accurate contact information), not the other way around.

Here's what's getting me about all these cases. In a nutshell:

* Ikaru Aichi owns a sim.

* Hybrid Ansar owns a sim.

* Azriel Demain owns FOUR sims.

Lindens? Are you listening? If that doesn't make it plain, let me state it outright: at what point is the dividing line between "investigation of allegation" and "corporate profit"? Because it doesn't seem like you investigated any of these bans like you should have, and, beyond that, you already have a situation where your userbase is shocky and unsteady from their perception (perhaps in error, but emotions are not known for being rational) that Second Life as a whole is starting to fall apart.

And, just to hammer this point into the ground:

Why isn't Lunk Portal banned for copyright infringement? What about Butkins Sugarplum? How about Santana Zeplin? Or Webby Merlin? Or Magicka Moonites? Or brunhild Uriza? And then there's Guinevere Dagostino and Scooty Gearbox and SugarFree Delicioso and Dely Breen; why aren't they banned too?

I'm not even TRYING HARD, here. What about:

Amdir Exonar's "Return of the Jedi" outfit? Or Sorelli Productions' Sith armor? Or Lunk Portal's Stormtrooper voice HUD? Or Rogue Harsley's complete Ahsoka Tano avatar?

You can't be that stupid and run a company this long. But Lindens, you just might be that blind. What all of these people should work on finding out is, exactly who in Linden-land is responsible (currently, because the position likely, and recently, shifted hands) for bans and DMCA filings. My thinking is, either they don't know the limits of their job, or they don't have the manpower to do their job effectively.

So which is it, LL? Because something needs to be done.

[14:08] bigbossmoney Artful: you cant just keep my money
[14:08] bigbossmoney Artful: have you not read the sl


It's a point. You know, I try to keep up with the new periodicals, but some of them, they just slip my notice....My gods, that might need to be a new catchphrase.

Have you read the sl? You may want to! It could tell you things!

13 comments:

Serenity Semple said...

You know me, Emi, I can't not comment sometimes. XD With the whole Ikaru thing - who the heck knows what's going on. I've seen that blog post from 08, I've seen rumors flying off the bat, and recently was banned from her sim for a stupid reason anyway. That instance I feel like karma is a bitch.

For the Az situation, JEEZ - shocking as heck. I LOVE FallnAngel so much, I've tried to stay active in their events and just constantly go back there. I have no idea how much stuff I own from them but this stuff is getting freakin scary.

Recently I sent a notice to my suscribe-o for my small shop and said if anything is even close to copyrighted things, I'm taking it down. Which really sucks because I love cute lil cosplay stuff and junk like that. But heck if it means I'm gone - I'll toss it out the window while it's burning on fire.

Emilly Orr said...

Serenity,

Oh, I kind of figured. And I mentioned it partially because it was a stupid reason to ban someone.

Anyone can ban anyone else from their store parcel, their home parcel, their sim if they desire--fine. I'm still banned by that woman who ran the Love Bugg Haunted House that one year--because I apparently had the gall to say her Most Romantic Club in All of SL 4-EVAH I'd never heard of.

Thing is, I'm still not convinced we're hearing all of the story. LL will ban people, and it can be this quick and decisive--but to ban both of them for accusations of copybotting? When the other avatar in question first left the grid voluntarily, then--according to both Aichi and Ansar--hasn't been banned at all?

There's something else going on. Still.

Unknown said...

Hey there,

Just to clear a few things up;

Serenity Semple was banned from Bad Blood due to reports that she was disruptive and unfair at lucky chairs from several of my customers and the customers of other businesses who had dealt with her previously.

I have personally experienced this as well, however it was a result of complaints from several customers and store owners that resulted in her ban.

Thank you for your concern regarding my banned account.

As for "Something else is going on"... No, not that we can think of. We know for sure that Achara Lectar/Medussa Neutron/poo Blackheart is responsible for the termination of our accounts, even after I filed a DCMA against her.

Unbelievable or not, this is entirely down to Linden Labs.

Emilly Orr said...

Okay, that's different. From the timeline I had, in talking with Serenity, it was over the two hunts you held the weekend the Elspeth avatar set was released. And that--an incident where she wasn't cheating, as far as I know, and wasn't in violation of the hunt rules--seemed a very silly reason to get eternally estate-banned.

To the rest of it, I hadn't linked Medussa Neutron and poo Blackheart, and now there's a third name? WONderful. And of course the Lindens don't care to do the investigation necessary to unban you.

Are they at least letting you in under another name? Aura had mentioned something like that when I asked yesterday. (I've been worried that the Lindens are going to yank Bad Blood for non-payment; she assured me it's owned by a cooperative of accounts, not just you. So yay for that.)

Lilly said...

One thing its TRUE

LL makes an exhaustive investigation of the inventory after ban somebody,searching for copyboted items.
i know about that becouse one of my friends are a linden employe.

if LL banned you its for a REAL reason, not for fun.

and if all ikaru,s says its true why Poo Blackheart still in SL?

its easy to say "..... this girl are banned my from sl with false acusations"
Really do you think people gona believe that??

ADMIT your fault, be honest, stop crying , stop lie.

Emilly Orr said...

Lilly,

And while that's all well and good, think about it from the Linden's point of view. If Aichi is correct, then it went down this way:

* Aichi complains about Blackheart and files an AR.
* Blackheart files an AR in (retaliation?) return.
* Both ARs are processed; it could be that Blackheart's closed first.

In that case, Aichi's AR would have no standing, because she had already been banned. End of case.

Is this exactly what happened? Probably not. I don't know what happened; all I know is neither Aichi nor Ansar is back in to Second Life.

But while Blackheart is, and though she's back on XStreet, she still sounds like she's a ripper, or if not, then at least a poor marketer--nearly everything she sells will show up on a goth search, a steampunk search, a Lolita search, because "Gothic, Doll, Black,Dark lolita vampire antique steampunk" is in the title of every single one.

Now, all of her ads say hand-drawn textures; I don't know, so they could be. But there is doubt, on the entire situation, and I'm not entirely sure, at this point, anyone has clean hands in this--not Aichi, not Ansar, and certainly not Blackheart.

Hybrid Ansar said...

"LL makes an exhaustive investigation of the inventory after ban somebody,searching for copyboted items."

Ummmm yea that's not so true. This is Hybrid Ansar one of the chicks who got banned back in July...

GUESS WHAT?!?!?

Even though it took them about 6-7 months they sent me a nifty email saying how they were WRONG and my banning was LIFTED...sooooooo
put that in your "my friend works at LL and they are never wrong" pipe n smoke it. In the nicest way possible of course. :)

Sincerly,
Hybrid Ansar aka the unbanned woot

Emilly Orr said...

Not only that, but some of their mistakes are well known and externally documented. To wit:

A creator of both original designs and reproduction costume pieces was retailing both on the grid and on the Marketplace. No one knows whether this was someone filing a DMCA, or a Linden discovering the listing--but her "Marilyn" dress was deemed to be in violation of some obscure "you can't name things after girls" copyright law. So, she got a form letter on the matter from the Labs--but only after some random Linden staffer went in on her account, stripped out everything that came up on a search for "Marilyn"--including other makers' products, hair, skins, eyes, and the like--and deleted it.

Mistake? HUGE mistake. Did this maker ever get her non-personally created objects back? Oh, hell no. Did she receive an apology, even, from the Lindens?

Oh, hell no.

Hybrid Ansar said...

They never did return Ikaru's account to her and that sucks because what went down wasn't at all our fault. We were simply confronting a gal who not only botted Ikarus sculpts and textures but even ripped her build and used it on her own.
I guess we just confronted the wrong gal because she surely did cause a lot of trouble. In the end it wasn't worth it.
But yea, after 7 looooong months I finally got my email that was like "whoops your banning was done in error..our bad".

BTW, we are pretty sure the botter is back in game and back to her old tricks.

Emilly Orr said...

Oh, for the love of--

So, poo Blackheart, 'Medussa' Neutron, possibly Lilly whomever, at least one other name...and you're fairly sure she's back in? Any idea who's she's hiding behind this time?

Poo Blackheart said...

Hello, after all this time, and reading so many unfair things about me, just means "I'm still here," if I'm still in second life, after hundreds of tickets sent against me. yes I am Poo Blackheart,. just want to say, that after all the war that made me ikaru and her friends "the suck asses" I am alive, and my active account in SL. The question is why?, Simple, I have not stolen anything ever, Linden Labs has researched my account and my inventory, often due to complaints and never found anything illegal, that is why I have never been banned. IKAru and unlike her friends, who have been banned several times in SL, even with PRO account. Because they stole, and her inventory was full of stolen goods when Linden Labs research to them.

By this I mean only one thing "the time has given me the reason"

I'm still in SL, you can search my name, I'm active.

However, how many times have Linden Labs been banned ikaru and her sluts in a matter of a year?

The easy answer is many many times.

Poo Blackheart said...

AH I forgot, I do not hide behind another account, I'm not Medussa 'Neutron, Lilly whomever, or anything like that, I do not hide, because I have NEVER been banned,

Emilly Orr said...

Poo,

Okay, first of all, let me just stop there and let you read that first word again. You're going by the name poo Blackheart and you expect anyone to take you seriously?

But beyond that, here's the thing: you say you've had "hundreds" of tickets filed against you? Why? Also, Ikaru's allowed back in, and Hybrid's ban was also overturned. If they're the thieves you say, why did the Lindens let them return? And if Ikaru's inventory was full of "stolen goods", why didn't they just block her IP from accessing the grid? (I know the Lindens have done that in the past, and may do that in future, to prevent problematic access by certain avatars.)

Also, it took you two years to decide to get back to me on this? Yeah, burning issue for you, wasn't it?

I'm not taking anyone's side in this particular squabble, but call them sluts again and I'll delete your comments from now on. Grow up.

hide away, they say, 'cos we don't want your broken parts

Yeah, so...remember that thing I was recovering from? You know, last year ? Yeah. I did it again. So this is Em Faw Down Go Boom part ...