Either I am destined to write about stolen stuff, and the universe is conspiring to help me, or stolen crap is becoming more and more common, or I'm just becoming more and more of a prim inspector type of avatar. Last night I saw two avatars wearing stolen goods, and I didn't even have to go and try to find them. I was working on the spa for the resort that I am building for Geko Stoop, and both of the counterfeit product wearing individuals came into my rez distance.
If you don't know how to inspect the prims worn by other avatars, then edit something that you can click on, such as a wall, or sidewalk, or plant. Make sure you check in your tools menu that you don't have "select only my objects" or "select only moveable objects." Just make sure none of the "select whatever" things are checked. Once you are in edit mode on something that isn't worn by another avatar, stay in edit mode, then LEFT click on the prim attachment of the avatar. I'm sure most of you brilliant SLIWT readers already know this, but a certain famous underwear designer actually asked me how to perform this procedure the other day, so I figured I might as well publish instructions on how to do this.
After reading one of my previous articles about how it seems like a lot of the content thieves come from Brazil, Geko Stoop had told me that whenever a certain Brazilian female comes to the resort, she gets spammed with the "Copybot Protection QUIT!" thing, like you get when you arrive at Redgrave. We both scratched our heads, wondering why anyone but the furniture designers or me would want or need copybot protection at the resort.
Last night, Geko's Club E-co had an "Operation Uplink" fundraiser, to raise money for troops in the Middle East to do their best E.T. impression, and phone home. I TP'd over to the club, stuffed the donation board with a few $L, then TP'd back to work. As soon as I rezzzed, I was getting spammed with the copybot thing.
I usually decrease my draw distance to about 96 meters when I am working, because I like to work fast and it reduces lag. On the mini-map, I could see two other dots besides mine on the sim. The only things on this sim are stuff that I have built, so I was wondering why someone had copybot protection. I saw two gas clouds on the edge of my draw distance, and alt-clicked on their butts.
The chick was the Brazilian chick that Geko had told me about, and the guy was a Brazilian wearing a counterfeit Aoharu jacket. I think his hair might also be a counterfeit of that "Mop Top" -looking wig from Abyss that was so popular a year or two ago. Another example of a content thief who doesn't bother to change the name or description of the stolen item. The chick didn't seem to be wearing anything counterfeit, but I wasn't happy about them standing around doing nothing but spamming me with copybot protection, while they were standing next to one of the houses that I sell for L$10k. I region banned them and went back to work.
A short time after I region banned the suspicious Brazilians, a female avatar approached me at my jobsite. She was NPI, and less than a year old. Some people have noticed that Sudi and I have recently ended our partnership (OK, so I was the one that ended it, but that's another story), so now I'm like a bleeding fish in a barrel full of sharks. This female avatart gave me the full on, "What are you doing, etc.?" treatment, and I made small talk with her while I checked out her junk. Most of her stuff was freebie give-aways (non-sculpted high heeled sandals, blurry shirt), but she was wearing fake Cake hair--you know, that one hair from Cake that every female in SL has worn at one time or another over the past 4 or 5 hundred years. I kept rezzing prims while she was chatting, and then she left on her own after a few minutes.
