Ethics

I was browsing around for textures as I always to and was surprised to happen upon a store..selling textures i know are free on the net. Kept looking and found more that were free in game..

while i do understand it takes time to and money to own land, build store, and set up a vendor... is this ethical? Shrugs...

Ethics is a subjective term. Would I sell others' textures? Nope. Would others? Yep.

Is it against ToS? Nope. Is it violation of copyright? Yep.

Sadly, though, a DMCA takedown notice is required to be filed by the copyright holder to get those textures removed.

People sell textures that are free on the net, but it is not actually cost-free for them to collect and sell those textures. It costs money to upload them into the game. It also costs money to maintain a place where you can sell them. And it takes time and effort to search them down off the net, bundle them, and present them for sale.

What would be unethical would be: Taking free Linden textures and selling them; taking other people's textures and selling them as your own; or taking other people's free or dollar textures and selling them as your own.

coco

P.S. If you are referring to textures that actually aren't supposed to be FREE on the net, then that's another story; see Lordfly's response.

To me, yes, it is unethical. What Lordfly said is my opinion as well.

Ethics in the modern world? That is just an urban legend.

Creators of original, from-scratch (or at least, heavily "remixed" from derivatives) textures in SL are, on the whole, rare. I'd like to see more of them tho.

I'm with LF on this. If you didn't create it, or do not have permission to sell others work, it's not ethical.

Well some textures do coe with commercial use permissions, esepcailly those purchased on on various sites. Free textures are meant for free distribution, but you could argue unless the right is specifically reserved, you aren't violating copyright.

Yes it might be better to credit the original author in some fashion. As far as people charging for textures they downloaded for free-I think the effort spent in gathering the testures and building the store justifies the cost. If you don't want to pay, you are free to find the texture sites themselves and download them.

In all hoesty much of what I see in terms of textures, clothing and skins, is just repackaged from commerically available sources on other websites.

in addition to that, i have also seen people selling uploading other people's artwork and selling them on s.l without permission from the artist. i know this isn't ethical, is there anything in the TOS that prohibits this?

The most relevant section from the TOS:

5.1 Participant Conduct. In addition to abiding at all times by the Community Standards, you agree that you shall not: (i) take any action or upload, post, e-mail or otherwise transmit Content that infringes or violates any third party rights; (ii) impersonate any person or entity, including, but not limited to, a Linden employee, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity; (iii) take any action or upload, post, e-mail or otherwise transmit Content that violates any law or regulation;...

Selling textures without at the very least crediting the original artist is unethical.

Selling textures without crediting the original artist and then complaining that others are giving away the textures for free is even worse but that's another story.

It seems that it's acceptable in our society to throw ethics out of the window when it comes to making money ...

profits before prophets

Selling textures in SL that are downloaded from the internet i think is wrong indeed, haviong to build a shop and collecting and uploading them isn't justifying making profit from it, in no way.

On the other hand if you use a free to use free downloaded or bought texture in something you have built with your own hands in SL, it's okay to sell that I think, but only with the creator's permission.

Selling or even displaying other's people's artwork, unless with permission, is a worse crime.
A lot of artists earn their living with the work they sell in the internet and prints of those works. 's not a lot of money an artist brings in that way and just selling their work without their permission or knowledge is simply breadtheft.
Not only is it unethical, it also makes artists stop working alltogether on the works that you so much like and are selling off.
(or they're just gone underground and making even better art... and simply not showing you)

Displaying a favorite artist's work in your house in SL and not giving it away or selling it, but just for private use, I have no personal problems with as long as the atrit is credited somewhere. THo ethical I think opne should even ask permission for that.


Basically people are misunderstanding copyright while it's not hard to get.
If one makes something from scratch that something is copyrighted to the maker no matter if he signs it or not or goes to an oficcial bureau to have it officially copyrighted to them. (makes it easier to prove by law tho)

If you see the little (c) in the circle sybol anywhere it's not even ok to take the image from the net and save it onto your HD for personal use.
If you *don't* see the copyright symbol it DOES NOT MEAN IT"S NOT COPYRIGHTED.

In all cases: if you want to use ANYTHING you have not made from scratch yourself you have to ask permission.

As an artist myself I would go mental if I catch anyone selling or even using my works witout asking.
On the other hand, anyone coming up to me and asking me if they could use my work, I'd gladly give permission... (and for a small fee in case profit is to be made of course... foxes have to eat too)

I have a question about this:

You have permission from the creator to sell textures on SL... how much is fair price to sell them for? You paid $10L to upload, spent x amount of time finding textures, getting permission, downloading to harddrive, uploading to SL, changing permissions (we all know most textures really SHOULD have full permissions), organizing into categories, putting into vendor. I know not everyone does this, but we'll pretend. What's a fair price to charge for textures?