What did I do ?

At the time and date listed on the Thieves List, the (pictured) stolen items were used in-world without a valid licence.

Retail box Product inside box

 

Within seconds of using the stolen items the following warning is automatically sent.

This warning is repeated until you remove the stolen product. 

 

How was I caught ?

The detection of the stolen item is done by my private servers.  It is done independently of Linden Labs and their servers. The Quantum Theft Detection (QTD) is installed into all of our products.

  1. The Quantum Theft Detection (QTD) links up to our servers to obtain information required to activate the product. 
  2. Each request to our servers is validated against a list of licensed customers who have purchased though one of our Authorized Dealers
  3. When a request is made from an unlicensed product a theft is logged, an Instant Message is sent, and the offending owner's name is added to the public Thieves List.

There is No human involvement, No mistakes, No malice, and No deception. The list is automatically generated based on requests to our servers.

 

What do I do now ?

Option One File an Abuse Report against the person selling stolen products under the L$ Fraud category. (see example below)
Also report their name to Darling Brody so your name can be removed from the Thieves List.
This makes selling stolen items unprofitable because scammers are banned before they can withdraw the money from Second Life.
Option Two File an Abuse Report against the person giving the item as a gift.  (see example below)
Also report their name to Darling Brody so your name can be removed from the Thieves List.
There are many reasons to give away stolen items, the most obvious two being to curry favour, and to deliberately hurt the creator's income. 
These people are deliberately and knowingly distributing stolen items.

Option Three Buy a valid licence to use the stolen product. ( See Authorized Dealers List )
This option is provided for people who do not want to file a report against the person who gave/sold them the stolen product, and still wish to be removed from the list.
Option Four Do nothing and remain on the list at your own risk.
These people will have to deal with any consequences resulting from their choice to do nothing.
The Thieves List is public. Other people are free to use the information on it as they see fit.
All evil needs to prosper is for good people to do nothing.

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

No other method of being removed from the Thieves List will be considered. 

So don't ask, argue, threaten, or hold your breath.  I am completely inflexible when it comes to content theft.

 

Example Abuse Reports

Gifted to you

  • Category: Intellectual Property Infringement
  • Summary: Knowingly passing out products obtained via permission exploits.
  • Body: This person gave me a commercial product obtained via a permissions exploit.  I did not ask for this item. I have reason to believe it is being distributed to cause financial harm to the original creator.  The name of the item in my inventory was <name>

Sold to you

  • Category: Fraud
  • Summary: Obtaining a financial advantage by deception
  • Body: This person sold me a commercial product which they obtained via a permissions exploit.  I paid L$ xxx for the item on transaction number xxx-xxx-xxx.  The rightful creator of the item has detected my unauthorised access to their private servers and asked me to file a report against the person who sold me the stolen item.  I have been advised that the stolen item will not function without a valid licence from the original creator, and that the person selling it knew this.

 

 

Legality of the List

There is no such thing as Liable, Slander, or Defamation of an Avatar.  Avatars have no legal standing under the law.  They are not recognised as real people who can suffer damage to their reputations.  Furthermore, truth is a complete defence.  Making threats against us to call the police or Linden Labs over Liable, Slander, or Defamation of your Avatar is a fast way to be muted.

Second Life is a platform, much like an Xbox is a platform.  Products in Second Life are software to use on the platform, exactly like the software for an Xbox.  Using or Possessing unlicensed copies of software is piracy. Piracy is a criminal offence which robs real people of their real life income. 

These pages that form part of Quantum's Theft Detection (QTD) are provided to furnish you with your options to resolve the matter regarding the detected piracy of our products.

The purpose of Quantum Theft Detection (QTD) is to make the theft and distribution of our products unprofitable by encouraging those people caught with pirated copies of our products to report those who are distributing the stolen products. 

 

Related Blog Entries

Die Scammer Die - Introduction to the thieves list though the detection of the first scammer

Thieves are Angry - Thieves express their anger as they start to realize just how effectively the Quantum Theft Detection (QTD) works.

Scammers Feel The Pain - Scammers attempt to prevent me from shutting down a freebie site they use to warehouse stolen content.

Thieves List API Open to the Public - The public interface permitting people to use the Thieves List from inside Second Life to automatically ban thieves is opened to the public.