Survey: do you think we have enough producers?

The need for the new permission system seems to be predicated on the idea that we need to encourage more innovation by allowing consumers to 'tinker'.

My point is that we currently already have a very significant population of innovative builders, and we need to focus on creating more consumers .. people who want to interact and use the things we build in interesting ways.

So I vote, that No, we don't need a new system to teach more 'builders' and 'producers'.

Perhaps better tutorials and documentation (LL .. buy the LSLWiki?) might be useful and more in world classes, but changing things to let people tinker seems to be fixing a problem that doesn't exist.

SL is predicated on the premise that EVERYONE can be a builder.

That's the flaw in your post IMHO

I say we have enough producers NOW, but the numbers are dwindling.

LL is misreading this as losses due to lack of innovation, when it's actually loss of confidence and stability within SL. We came to SL for the chance to create, and not risk having our work stolen, and the ability to actually protect our rights concerning our work.



However, not everyone can create everything. I don't know of anyone who wears clothing they made, uses scripts they wrote, and objects they built. And even if one person exists that does so, the majority of users ARE consumers. Even if they are builders too.

I think we have plenty of producers but too few marketers. At the risk of cross-posting, I'll put this out from another thread:

Actually I know a number of people who do this, or at the very least have a tight little community where they trade skills back and forth... barter yay!!

If LL wants to support the creative commons, then they DO need to overhaul the permissions system, but in ways that protect the creator's copyrights. Lots of innovative creators who used to freely share full mod objects stopped because of the either ignorant or dishonest behavior of a few.

Surreal

Adding to my previous thought. IMO what SL really needs are a few more ways to earn $L. Atm, if you don't have creative skills, then you have very few options... hence the explosion of malls and clubs I think.

I would like to see a permission option that would let someone resell my items with a markup. I could spend more time designing and less time doing business management.

Surreal
- who is damned sick of loading vendors, managing outlets, and trying to remember where I put all our stuff.

Somewhere in the script archives is a multi-person vending script. This could potentially be used, or improved, to permit a retailer to re-sell an original creator's goods without the producer losing creatorship rights. I think the idea of establishing wholesaler/retailer relationships is an obvious next step in the evolution of SL.

That's one of the ironies of SL: Finding a way to market your stuff can make or break your success more so than your actual skill at producing your product. One of the most effective ways to spread your product around, too, is to maintain multiple sales locations, which is a major pain in the butt.

I don't think that we need to focus on creating more "producers" or "consumers." I think we need to focus on allowing people who want to socialize and consume, to socialize and consume, and affording those who want to create the ability to learn the skills.

Unfortunately it doesn't work very well. My partner and I already use a nice profit-splitting script in our vendors. However, since I handle the vendors, she passes me full mod permissions on everything. She trusts me cause she knows where I sleep.

The multi-person script requires the same thing. So it's not really a viable option.

This option would also give mall owners some real incentive to do more than throw up a lag-erific build and then forget about it. Let me rake off 10% of all sales and I bet I could market a busy and exciting shopping spot and keep it hopping 24/7.

Surreal

This is true of the real world, too. I consider it to be an unfortunate aspect of the real world, and it'd be nice if SL did not resemble the real world in this way. If marketing were less of an issue, there might be more producers, because right now you need to be both a scripter/builder and a marketer/promoter.

Don't forget that land is coupled with this. Need a presence? You need land. Unfortunately this oligopoly market with non-transparent transactions is only causing less innovation, because of the artificial markups in place.

I tiered to zero, and if anyone wants to see what I make, I put it in the sandbox, of course, assuming that isn't changing too.

I'm just going to see what happens. Create new things? Sure, just don't expect me to pay the prices to display them.

I guess I am one of the exceptions. I wear what I make or have saved enough to buy from someone. I fly around in things either I made or one of a tightly knit group group of friends did. None of us can script so we use either the simple Linden flight script or one of Cubey's helo scripts - which, of course, we pay for each time. We built what we live in, play in and party in.

As for scripts that don't fall into flight or household experience categories, surprisingly there are few, very few requirements for these things in my little part of SL. I don't NEED a watch, a location script or a land scanner script. I have yet to find a need for a script that I feel bereft without that isn't **currently** for sale somewhere.

Maybe I have limited experience in SL. Maybe not. I just am not a "material girl" I guess - and I have still had lots of fun in the limited time I have spent in world.

I think being able to sell object using the Finder would help market products. Just charge a high amount/object so it doesn't compete with malls.

A better Finder or a searchable web page devoted to selling objects/textures/scripts would be invaluable, and would not only boost the economy but encourage people to create and post their new creations.

At the risk of repeating myself...

My L$5...

I think copyright should be protected in SL. If somebody wants to make their creation "closed", then so be it. If they want to share it with everyone, then great. It should be up to the choice of the developer how their work will be shared, modified, copied, sold, etc. We need expansion to the CURRENT permissions sytem, not a replacement with an apparantly controversial replacement.

Just a side note, people are somehow complaining that they can't learn from other's work. What people should be turning to are the many educational opportunities in SL. The University of SL, The Learning Center, The Linden Run Classes, and other venues. There is plenty of resources and people willing to teach others. Don't ram freedom down our throats. Give us the freedom to share our contributions freely AND to make money off our contributsions to the world as we choose.

I know this doesn't affect me that much since I don't script, and I have read Cory's initial posts about the new permissions and still don't "get" it all... but... one thing I seem to have seen mentioned several times is that in the new permission system as it's currently proposed, there would still be an option to leave a script "closed" so no one else can view it; am I missing something or have I misinterpreted that (because it's all kind of confusing and the blog is hard to read, and I've been afraid to ask this question on the other big permission discussion thread)? And I do agree with you, Hank, that people should have the ability to protect their work from copying.


Yes, this would make things much easier. I would love to see an option when setting things out for sale to have a box to check to have it listed on a web site for sale (with thumbnail pic, price, location information) for a fee. I know this is a lot like what There does. I also know that it might encourage less "active" shopping in-world and more "passive" shopping on a web site. It would still make things easier for both merchants and customers.

Yes, I absolutely agree with Hank.

I think incremental steps are in order here. Have the end point in mind, but the system should be changed in an evolutionary way towards that goal so SL doesn't end up alienating everyone on a big bang change.

Small changes could go a very long way to fixing the current system and making everyone happy.

1. Make it so you can sell stuff only once (ie, so people can't resell when they buy something) .. or something similar that solves the problem of resell free/cheap items

2. Make it so you can keep scripts from getting transferred over to other objects.

If you are really worried about people learning how to 'innovate' then add more and better tools for people who teach classes, like a textboard that doesn't have to 'rez' in. Also, maybe seperate classes from the events list so they are better highlighted and given a seperate place of prestige.

I'll go along with Hank on this as well.

There are and have been many places/things that have been made available for people
to learn. In fact the 'innovation by opening permissions' route that is now being
speculated has already been tried in world.. An experiment that seems to have been
overlooked - much to my suprise, seeing how many at Linden Lab followed it's progress.

It's all very good on paper - but when put into practice Human Nature takes over and it fails abysmally. The dollar store in Davenport was founded with that exact thing in mind,
innovation and learning through sharing, and here's what happens - not speculation, real proven Second Life fact:

If you have open permissions for people to learn from the majority of people will simply inflate the price, close permissions and resell.

If you take away transfer on these items, the majority of people will mark up the price and resell on a 1-1 or place in a box/vendor, inflate the price and resell.

Irrespective of the RL or SL legalities of this - the end result is that the person who created the works realizes they are being taken advantage of and at the end of the day
stops making these works available. They go back to what they were doing before.
Be that creating commercial goods, or building for themselves.

Why does this happen? Because like it or not - when you ask folks why they do this a good portion of the time you will be told 'It's only a game - get over it!'. No matter how you view Second Life and what it is - there are a lot of people that, when it comes to 'working the system', and as far as semi-legal matters are concerned, will act like this is a game, and without any in-game repucussions will act within the letter of the TOS and the code.

Right-Wrong? I'm only posting the facts as I've witnessed them - it being my experiment (and a failed one in my eyes).

The conclusion I came to (and several of the other contributers) :

In the post GOM/IGE world of Second Life, the drive of the game shifted subtly from creativity to making money for a good many people. The majority of people don't wan't help building/scripting to innovate - they want help building/scripting to make money.
This is not a bad thing - it is simply a motivation.. but given that, it is much easier to simply resell something available than it is to learn from it. And that is where Human Nature kicks in.

Personally - I'm going to reread all the information (yet again) and ask questions to see if I'm actually reading this right - but at the moment it reads like it will actually fuel the current situation rather than help remedy it - only now it now longer just effects 'freebie makers'... may now impact everyone.

In summary - and this is all just my opinion so take it as you will:

Innovation in Second Life comes from a rather small percentage of the population who create and explore because of a love of what they do - a love greater than the Linden Dollars it may generate.. To promote innovation, these are the types of people you should be nurturing/protecting/ possibly even rewarding. Innovating is not easy, and if there is no point to it - then less people will bother with it.

If Second Life continues to only pander to the 'race for the dollar' you will have a lot of users with a lot of 'lowest common denominator' content. Originality simply won't be profitable.

Siggy.

The entire point of marketing is to get people to know that your product exists, and is "better" than other similar products. If marketing weren't around, you wouldn't know 90% of the things for sale in the real world

Marketing has its place, as long as it's not overblown (like any Coke/Pepsi ad in the last 20 years).

LF

Aha, here's the info I thought I'd seen on the owner of a script being able to make it unreadable by purchasers from Cory Linden's Blog:

Unfortunately, I think Cory suggests replacing strong copyright with creative commons. To do this would be an err in judgement and which is what everyone is strongly rebelling against. Fortunately, this is also out for feedback and I think Cory is rapidly getting the feedback he wanted and it's pretty much a resounding no.

Creative Commons itself requires the strength of strong copyright even to function. So does GPL.

I think the discussion is going to change very soon in making the new permission system and addendum to what already exists and not a replacement of.

I think I need to re-read *everything* about the proposed permission changes again. This is confusing.

Ok. Lemme give you MY short version of this propsal. It's as I understand it, and could be completely wrong.

They're proposing that any object not set to pure nomod/nocopy/notrans should be able to be modified by the end user, and as a result, copied, prim for prim. This would not affect textures. This would not affect scripts. But it's bad enough as it is.

EDIT: Re reading the description of full copyright, I think even that is wrong. It says ANY object, any prim, anywhere, no matter the permissions set on it, can suddenly become modifyable if the end user choose to, and therefore copyable and resellable by the nature of the 'modify' flag.

Actually here is how it reads:



This is the most restrictive permission. And here is the main point being argued:



This is the so-called "tinkering". So no matter what I want as a creator, the buyer may open up the object, inspect every detail (excluding the scripts), modify it and even make copies of it (that are no-transfer).

Why is this a problem? People will be able to quickly make exact duplicates of items. LL argues that it will promote innovation through inspection. LL also says that this is a basic right buyers should already have.

Others argue that LL has taken their belief that virtual objects are real too far. They are blurring the line between digital art and physical objects which are subject to two separate laws.

I don't think scripts can be opened under the new system. However, doing clever things with prims should be protected as well.

They think because it's impossible to break open scripts (there are hacks available that can help you reverse engineer scripts, btw) then they shouldn't fall under this new system.

Cory's idea is that super savvy people can 'tinker' anyways. But what Cory is ignoring (willfully or not) that supper savvy people don't need to tinker, or if they do, it's usually probably a good idea cause they have something worthwhile to add to the community and they're not just copying blindingly.