Copybotted Avatar From Second Life Discovered on OpenSim World

By Bixyl Shuftan

(with help from Nydia Tungsten)

With the collapse of InWorldz, there's been increased focus on the Opensim worlds lately. Most residents of Second Life have been okay with, if not happy about, other virtual worlds. But a few have expressed some caution. Among the worries the skeptics of the smaller OpenSim worlds have is that of copybotting. At least one content creator told me he would have nothing to do with InWorldz as he considered it a copybot haven. This was not true as InWorldz's staff and residents alike would take action against copiers. But what about other places? As often as someone's items up for sale in Second Life get copied and sold as someone else's, is this problem even worse in the smaller grids?

The problem came to light to me when my friend Nydia Tungsten came to me after a trip to the Tranquility OpenSim grid. There, she found a surprise. She showed me a picture of a mesh furry fox avatar being given out at a store that looked just like the recent Jomo mesh avatars which have been available in Second Life for some months. The display claimed they were copyrighted and from the Sacrarium Grid. Other pictures she handed me showed the mesh avatar at different angles. The name she gave me of the place was "Golden River Furry Paradise."

Nydia eventually ran into someone she was told to instant message, Jadore Dior. Jadore told Nydia the group had been in trouble before, saying "we had ban them 'cause we (got a) notice they were Grid copying." Nydia had hoped I could get on Tranquility to talk to her more. But unfortunately, that OpenSim world would be out of my reach. I would have only the information she gave me to work with.

The owner of Jomo was xiaoduo Abbot. I would contact him and let him know about the copybotting. He double checked with me to make sure this wasn't some place in Second Life. He then thanked me for the alert.

As it turns out, the Sacrarium Grid that the copybotters claimed to be from was the subject of a HyperGrid Business article in which the virtual world had taken action against both copybotters and ageplayers. Some of these people had been previously banned from other grids. "Bad actors hop between grids," the newsletter stated. So on the question of do OpenSim worlds try to protect content rights, the answer is yes. What happens next with these Jomo copybotters? Time will tell.

Pictures from Nydia Tungsten
Source: HyperGrid Business

Bixyl Shuftan