Stolen Goods

Opensim is often seen by many Second Life users as a "Den of Thieves". It is easy to understand why. Almost everything that you find in opensim either has been gifted, stolen or sold legally or illegally in a grid somewhere. There are legal market places such as the one at Kitely and a host of free objects, scripts, and oar files available at Outworldz.

For most new users they will search for free things on the https://opensimworld.com/ directory or they will follow teleports to places listed on the grid where they have their new avatar. Anyone who has spent time in Second Life will see many familiar products here. Avatars that cost a small fortune in dollars are all free and up for grabs. Furniture, homes and products that would cost you a lot of money elsewhere are freely available in Opensim. Travellers will frequently see signs "Do not buy anything in Opensim".

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this free market place are the freebie malls. We are all grateful to them and what they bring into Opensim. Many just collect lots of things they find around the various grids and place them in their own malls so there is a lot of duplication and repetition.

There are also malls that offer new content, fresh content, often obtained by copybots and imported into opensim and re packaged to offer to the community for free. These malls are fiercely possessive about their content. Content that they actually stole themselves. It can be quite amusing so see grids that offer these goods come up with terms and agreements that people should agree to about copying their offerings to other grids or malls.

A creator might take weeks to create a new body or bento head. They have a right to put conditions or terms on their own products. However, think about how hypocritical it is to complain that others have stolen things from your mall when you actually used a copybot to steal them in a matter of minutes. Whilst everyone appreciates the things that you bring to these worlds you have to realise that banning people or making closed grids to protect the content that you actually stole from Second Life is a tad hilarious to say the least.

I was recently contacted by someone who claimed I had stolen their dock and used it on my lands. Actually I had picked it up from a well known grid innocently because it was freely available to copy. I pointed this out and actually showed the person where I had obtained it. He ranted on for ages about theft and people taking his things. I asked him how he got it and he said he took it from Second Life with a copybot. Duh? Are you serious?

Welcome to the Wacky Wild West of Opensim.