Search for Copybotted Items

How to Search for Copybotted Items

By Kayaker Magic

Some time ago, several people at Discovery Grid were asked to look around in the freebie region and see if they could find any copybotted items. I wrote this document to help others with this search. Unfortunately we found a LOT of the items were copybotted from SL. The admins at Discovery grid decided to just delete the whole region to avoid any copyright issues.

Think of this as a fun task, a detective mystery: Can you find the original creator of an item? So what tricks have people used to detect copybotted material? Here is a list of tricks I’ve learned. If you know another trick, let me know!

What to do:

If you find something that you think is copybotted and have identified the original creator, there are several things you could do next: You could report it to the original creator. (As a creator, I would prefer this.) You could quietly delete it from your inventory. You could report it to the grid admins to be removed from the system. Especially if you find it in a public place, send a trouble ticket to the grid admins with everything you have learned: The item name, position, region, original creator, a picture of the item, URL to a page showing the source, etc.

Triage:

Any item marked as for sale for $0 or “anyone can copy” deserves a little scrutiny. Is the item too good to be true? A nice looking mesh that has very low LI and is given away free? Check that one out. A build made out of 300 system prims? The latter is probably OK, check that one later.

Known Offenders:

There are some very prolific copybotters out there, if you see one of these names as the previous owner or especially as the creator of an item, then it is probably not authorized. If you have more names to add, please share them with the rest of us.

• Victor DeAngelo
• Wayda Dreamscene

Unfortunately, coppybotters can change their names at any time.

Suspect Origins:

Certain grids are known to be hotbeds of copybotting. If an item claims to be created by or previously owned by someone from one of these grids, you should be suspicious and try harder to find the true origin.

• Adachi
• AMV
• Aviworlds
• Genesis grid
• Grid Foundation
• Klamatto
• Tranquility
• Neverworld
• Sacrarium

Known Freebie Creators:

There are angels walking among us, people who give their creations away for the rest of us to enjoy. So if you see something from one of these people, you can relax:

• Arcadia Assylum aka Alley Assylum
• Linda Kellie

Generate a List of Search Terms:

Look at the item’s name, description, creator and previous owner. Often items will have a company name in the description. Check the texture maps on the surface of the item and look for company names and logos. Be creative, think up alternate names that might apply to the item. If there are words in a foreign language, try translating them to English and adding that to your list. Google can even guess the language for you at https://translate.google.com.

Places to Search:

Search for your terms on the SL and Kitely Marketplace. Add site:secondlife.com or site:kitely.com to the end of a Google search.

If you find it in the Kitely Market, it may be a legitimate copy. If you are searching for this item because you saw it being given away free, compare that to the price in the Market. Check to see if the permissions in the market match the permissions you see in-world. If the creator doesn't mach the owner of the Kitely store then it is probably copybotted.

Search the 3D model WEB sites: (Please tell me if you know others to add to this list.)

• 3dexport.com
• 3dmodelhaven.com
• cgtrader.com
• clara.io
• free3d.com
• turbosquid.com
• sketchfab.com

If you find the item on a 3D site, go to the item’s page and see if it really is free, has restrictions or is for sale.

Reverse Image Search:

Take a picture of the item and lets see if AI can help us find the creator. Check out https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/1325808 for help on doing this kind of search. I find that reverse image search works best if you block out or erase the background with an image editor. Leave only the item in the picture and save that to your hard drive.

1. Open Chrome, FireFox or Safari (other browsers may not support this).
2. Go to images.google.com.
3. Click on the camera icon.
4. Drag your image into the box for search by image.
5. Limit the search by adding site:secondlife.com or other sites

Google's AI may add words to your search if it guesses what it is. This might suggest other search terms to add to your text search. When reverse image search finds hits, follow the links to the closest matches. It may just find similar items, so use that as a starting point. For example, look for your item in other products by the same creator.