Oh, the pain.

Why do so many people seem to misunderstand the nature of what Linden Labs is doing / trying to do?

I see a lot of griping about "Freebie resellers" - how it should be illegal/unethical/immoral/LL should do something about it. This translates to me as "ZOMG I entered into a social contract to let anybody do anything they want with an object, including reselling it, and now they're /doing/ that!" - I mean, maybe I am missing something and maybe Linden Labs changed the permissions system capabilities so that suddenly items that were set Copy-x-Transfer could suddenly have an arbitrary /price/ set on them that was /different/ from the original price, but I kinda doubt it. But how do thinking adults reconcile making and throwing into a free society a free item and then feeling that someone else is responsible for the regret they feel because other people took it as an opportunity?

In the real world, people resell 'freebies' all the time - from dumpster diving to research to barrels of oil - only in SL, most of the hard work of collecting and refining is automatable.

I don't like people who take freebies, put them in a /box/, set the /box/ for sale to make it look as if the contents are theirs - that's fraud, or bordering on fraud. Yet, People selling freebies on SLBoutique - that's what "Copy-x-Transfer" allows for. It is not LL's fault that the creator failed to understand the implications of the permissions they set. I don't think it's /ethical/, but it's not LL's business to second-guess and undo people's mistakes in the contracts they make with society (500,000 other people).

Another thing - why do so many people think that it should be Linden Labs' responsibility to "police" Second Life - especially the Mature non-private-sim areas? All they said they would do (and I am paraphrasing) is to TRY to police PG sims. That's /it/. I constantly see people discuss on the forums and in Second Life how there is a need for "Police" - WTF? I don't own a private sim. I spend all my time in publicly accessible areas on the main grid - the last time I was on a private island was Foo, which is publicly accessible, and the only /real/ Private Island I've been on was back in March.

I have always had the tools to AR griefers. I have never been without an avenue of recourse. I also know that I do not have an absolute right to exclude people who (through no fault of their own) offend me - from public! Don't like headless grim ageplay bloody furry goreans? Ask them politely to tone their behaviour down - don't /demand/, you don't own the road! Want to see an area absolutely free from the things that bother you but don't pick your pocket or break your arm? Buy your own land, set your own rules, make sure everyone visiting knows them and have fun enforcing them!

You know what /does/ offend me? People who believe that Second Life - and by extension Linden Labs - is all about encapsulating and selling back to them /and forcing on everyone else/ THEIR own morality/fantasy/vision. It smacks of fascism. It smacks of what's wrong in American Politics today. Second Life is not one huge society for you to conquer with your Third-Game political squabbling. Second Life is a framework in which people can do things and build their own societies. There's no King. There's no President. No Emperor Norton. There are many Celebrities, and influential personalities, and the people who are hard at work behind the scenes trying to build and maintain a virtual reality and make a reality living off it -

But Governor Linden isn't given Divine Providence by God, not any God, not your God, and what Linden Labs is aiming for is the ability to let them have Eminent Domain yet never have to exercise it unless US Law requires them to.

What they want is to give you tools and then be able to walk away and let you do your own thing, with a minimum of balancing effort.

Their job is not to be a standing army enforcing your deity's divine will, or lack thereof. It's not to enforce someone's arbitrary morality, to censor and be a parent. Linden Labs isn't your daddy, and shouldn't have to be. Second Life is a partnership between you and 500,000+ other ADULTS and Linden Labs, not a state, not a product, not a sanitised AOL/Television experience. You're eighteen - Your choices and preferences have consequences and no-one else is responsible for them except YOU.

Just implement a technical solution. Like a "Freebie" checkbox that once checked makes the item permanently free to copy and/or locks down the next owner permissions and/or sets the price to 0 permanently. People abusing the resale of freebies, right or wrong, only serves to kill the spirit/growth of more freebies being available as others are less willing to create these items.

Actually, I would argue that Philip Linden is de facto King. Or at least de facto enlightened despot.

Hail Philip!

Once upon a time, in a land far away and world long forgotten by most, Second Life was new, without much form, and basically void. Then a Voice from the heaven's called out begging the peoples of SL to help fill the void and create, create, create.

Linden Lab requested Creators to donate things that could be given to new users to get them on their feet. The idea being that Creator's could get their names out there by having their items put into the hands of new residents. The only stipulation to this was that those Creators had to agree to never sell the items they created for this project.

Do you see the irony now?

I believe that I do...... newer players who did not create these items are able to resell them whilst the creators are not.

Affirmative Action, so to speak.

That's deliciousness in a chocolate cream pie irony, right there.

The original creators agreed to never sell those items. So, because someone else is selling them, they get to get out of the agreement to never sell them? No. Contract is still in force. I would agree that the consequence of watching others profit by scamming off one's hard work is unintentional. Was it foreseeable? Is the contract amendable? Can Linden Labs do the right thing technically by keeping those items free, forever?

Yes (but not unless one thought about it very hard), not really, and maybe. Absent seeing the actual agreement, I'd say the intent and implied contract between LL and the content creators is that They supplied the content on behalf of LL and LL set it to be free of charge - since the content is now being charged for, LL didn't hold up their part of the bargain and the content creators ought to be released from the original contract - But I'm not a lawyer, and I don't have the original agreement, legal specifics, or details.

But it's this kind of /detail/ that really has been missing from the "Linden Labs is screwing Content Creators" gripes. Joe Random making something for free at Copy-x-Transfer who later regretted it - is different than Content Creators being solicited for content with specific distribution license that was later violated by Linden Labs (if, indeed, that is actually what happened.) due to their technical inability to enforce the terms of their license of the IP / contract with the creators.

What is this other platform people speak of and where can I download it.

I do remember this Tigress...I guess that is why a lot of people (me included) who have been in the game awhile are raising a brow to it.

But, just like other games I tested...things definitely changed and changed. Even though it makes things a bit hard to swallow, and you feel force-fed, it is the way these games have always gone.

This is the third-go-round I have tested for a game, so I am getting fairly used to the rules reversing on me/us.

well I assumed freebies were items of low quality that are there for the good of the noob community.. not for people to scam noobs out of the few linden they may have.

that said.. if an item is made and is transfer /no copy and bought at a fair price, its fair game for resale cheaper OR dearer than the original price.. someone wants to argue against that let them tick NO TRANSFER AND STFU. (IMO)

You know, Finning, I've not met you but I think you're an intelligent sort of person and worth discussing things with, in these twilight hours of the forums before their eventual demise. But really, I think you have a bit of a peculiar idea of what LL has claimed to do, and what people are actually asking. You say things like "it's not LL's business to second-guess" but that's not the issue - it *is* LL's business to first-guess and provide technical tools to enable people to control what happens to things they produce. I mean, that's the whole point of the permissions system, isn't it? And it is absolutely undeniable that the general opinion is against people being able to profit from freebie resale. There have been numerous proposals that would fix this, second-order owner permissions would be the best IMO (this is free to copy and transfer but once transferred it is not).

And "why do so many people think that it should be Linden Labs' responsibility to "police" Second Life"? Because they've set out rules of behaviour in the ToS which apply outside of PG sims. They've stated that they will police SL. They sometimes even do it, eventually. Now, when people complain about LL not enforcing things they've never said they'll enforce that's a different matter, but the majority of complaints aren't on that basis. If something as general as section 4.1 is a criterion then you'll expect people to challenge decisions based on that.

I beleive the DMCA may state differently. So technically if someone wanted to spend the resources they dont have to STFU.

yea go spend your resources then! waste of fucking time.. click no transfer if you dont want your shit resold.. DMCA ... ffs >.<

I would continue this debate but your language proves I am no match to your witts.

\o/

Well, except they have stated now that "We are not the police."

coco

Exactly. People have been asking for this as long as I've been in SL at least. The freebie issue has been created by a lack of these tools. It's not as simple as "don't check transfer", when your intention is for it to be distributable, but not sold. The permissions system isn't adequate, and people have been saying so for a long time.

Danger, Will Robinson!

Perhaps they need to change it to the 'apparently inconsistent and arbitrary stuff we decided to spank a random selection of people for blotter'.

I'm sorry, did someone say "spank"?

I agree - it ought to be their business to develop and deploy a useful set of permissions that enable people to control what happens to their creations without having to resort to US copyright laws until/unless extraordinary measures are used to circumvent the permissions system. I think that perhaps they ought to make this a central concern, in that yes, they're 'grounbreaking' this area, and it will build the framework. I'm also concerned from a technical side in that just a few more permissions fields added to every single object in the database is going to have some interesting / unforeseen / catastrophic consequences, both in the interaction in-world and to the backend (it will require an update to all the server code and load the bandwidth and asset servers more.) I'd like to see it. I think it's far more important than particle gleam effects. But it's big and fundamental and goes directly to storage, processing, development, and bandwidth costs.

Linden Labs has, I believe, stated that they will /try/ to police SL for egregious violations of Community Standards, ToS, and to comply with US Law - they also have as part of their Community Standards : Tolerance. It Ain't their job to be a social police force (the exception being PG areas, and I hate the notion of having them have to socially police PG areas anyway) - in Mature sims, their only role is to preserve and protect the Framework - the client, the permissions system, land statuses, server code, haxx0rs, etc. As I read section 4.1 - most of the things they're listing there are things they're required to prohibit/police because their lawyers said "US Law says you must." - for various reasons. There's also 1.2: "As a result, Linden Lab has very limited control, if any, over the quality, safety, morality, legality, truthfulness or accuracy of various aspects of the Service." They distance themselves from being a social police force as much as possible - which is terribly attractive to my way of thinking. Social police forces are just short of fascism, to the way I think. I do not need anyone telling me how I may and may not associate with other people, what I may and may not do in my own living/bed room, and society at large doesn't either.

I hear rumours (yes, rumours. Shoot me now, I am working on hearsay) that Linden Labs wants Common Carrier status (legally) - which makes them only responsible for transmitting data from point A to point B via their servers and the reliability and fitness of purpose of their underlying data mangling - that their role is entirely hands off for content. I saw the User Government experiments as a kind of test of that. Do I think they're ready for Common Carrier status? - No. But I'm not a lawyer. I just think that they have a ways to go, and I think that part of that is extracting themselves from being a social police force - which honestly, having any service provider be /able/ to be a social police force is unattractive to /me/. I see the Forums closing as partially the first step in that direction. I'd love for them to be Common Carrier material - it would, IMNSHO, rock the foundations of the world.

*GNAW*

As Ordinal and others stated here, and I have in-world as discussions on the topic, the Permissions system needs to be re-written to at least carry separate resell and transfer permissions. Permissions then need to be cascaded to prevent "boxing" of items. Take a look at your operating system's advanced security/permissions for any file and you'll see how woefully behind Linden Lab is in this area.

At the SLCC Cory's keynote hinted at changes to permissions in the form of new terminology. While examples beyond "rights to a specific person" weren't really given, we can only hope that a more comprehensive set of rules will be put into place.
Ultimately this issue is about software rights, whereas some people want to count in-world objects as analogous to real-world items. This is a policy Linden Lab needs to make, a let their residents know whether they are software developers using a tool with the ability to protect their work and control its use, or are just playing around in a fake world where nothing really matters.

Woo!

I would agree with all of this except the "what Linden Labs is aiming for is the ability to let them have Eminent Domain yet never have to exercise"

this is clearly not the case. They enforce their arbitrary-ness from everything including banning and forum deletion.