Stolen items question

Thank you for paying some attention to this issue.

Personally, I've had the "You know, you wouldnt be sitting here feeling helpless over this particular issue if you were working a studio job instead" thought pattern way too often the last few months.

It would be nice to not think that anymore. Finding/fixing exploits and actually listening to the concerns of very actively contributing members of the world is a good step in that direction.

It is my hope LL can get some of this knot untangled. Best of luck with it.

PS-
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE lindens. if someone complains to you or files a report on an issue like those listed in this thread, do not tell them that they must have set the permissions improperly. Thats the most common response I've gotten when I asked (repeatedly, to different lindens) what can be done about this.
Dont insult us by assuming that it MUST be our mistake. It just makes a bitter feeling worse.

Boy Howdy!!!

I've about had it with the "Well you choose to do what you do, so you have no right to complain" kind of comments as well.

Yeah.
Same people who would complain to us about how we 'never have anything new out'.

yeah... its a sad fact.

but heres the scary part...not only am i hearing this from other people, i have caught myself thinking it as well.

thats creepy to me. ive never felt that way before, even in passing.
Its not like a lot of the content creators here dont have anything else they could be doing for a living...ive run up against that attitude several times, and its so frustrating.

as for myself, i made the decision to work in sl full time because i am very passionate about the world and it's possibilities. i also find that sl provides the platform for the most ideal expression of those aspects of art that i find the most enjoyable. how could one NOT fall in love with that combination, and want to contribute as much as they can to the development of the world?
i could pursue other avenues with my work, but this is what i chose.

so it stings a bit to see dedicated content creators have issues like this unnatended for so long, as i know that i am not the only one who has made these same decisions for these same reasons.

That said, i am greatly relieved to see some rsolution of some kind forthcoming on this. It restores a lot of flagging faith.

Thanks so much Neph, Mis, Cristiano, and all the other heavy content creators who are increasingly making SL a live/work loft

Aimee... WRT to policy about folks who are reselling stuff... can you suggest some sort of enforceable policy? What criterion could we use quickly and repeatedly to deal with the 'this person is selling something I made' charge? I'll think about it, but welcome thoughts from you guys.

P

Just today, after getting the new update, I logged in to find a few "New" clothing items in my inventory. After putting them on, I realized they were items I had made. Checking the properties, they were set to Share, and had Creator as Nobody. These clothing items were made after the bug with the last release.

But what if someone intentionally gives stuff away for reuse, and then reports the person that he gave the content to as having 'stolen' it? How will we know the difference? I agree that this is less likely to happen, but it seems like a potential problem. If we always let the creator prevail - effectively you can always stop someone from selling something you created... this might be a problem. Thoughts.

Also, Jonquille that is really weird... I've asked someone to take a look.

Like I said, be able to back it up.
OR-- in the case of clothing, if you've made such a deal and intend full permissions for the person you've struck the deal with, give them the textures.


It's more of a problem to have creators quit over 'nothing being done about it' than the few and far between of "they did SO say I could resell it"

well.. IMHO

With clothing, if you intend the person to give it away to reuse, give em textures, when its objects, scripts, or animations, YOU be the one to distribute it-- or like torrid suggested, UI in snapshot always works


**edit-- this sounded "mean" lol didn't mean it that way at all, just fyi

Although I realize this is SL and not real life, I would try to protect myself as a consumer and seller just as I would in the real world. If someone granted me permission to resell one of their creations, I would ask for a No Mod/No Transfer notecard granting me that permission, with the name of the item, created by the original creator.

(And thank you, Philip.)

Simple. If someone is selling an item with MY name as the creator, and I ask them to stop, they should stop. If they don't, a Linden should be able to step in, examine the item being sold to confirm that I am indeed the creator and remove it from sale. Users with numerous "cease and desist complaints" should be punished along the same lines as the current harassment policy. I wouldn't punish a noob if they didn't realize what they were doing was wrong, but after a couple of "knock-it-offs" by a Linden and a user should get the hint and start building their own items to sell.

I know there are fuzzy areas where a resellers may be wronged. Chosen and I discussed them at length in this thread. But the areas where CREATORS are being wronged with the current policy is anything but fuzzy. They are HUGE.

I also think regulatory action for these issues will only INITIALLY consume alot of Linden time...as so many players currenty take theft for granted as an SL-given right. But after a short period of enforcement I think word will spread, and users will implicity know "Hey, I guess I can't actually get away with making money by reselling Launa Fauna's hugger script for cheaper than she does". The number of complaints should dwindle. If someone wants to redistribute an ill begotten dress from my line of clothing, let them do it in fear. It won't stop it, but it will reduce our losses.

I can think of much more heavy handed, programatic methods allowing a creator to regain control of stolen items posessed by other users, but the cascade of punishment could hurt people that are not intentionally doing wrong, so these should be thought out and implemented more carefully than I can give you in an evening's forum post

And I would like to second Neph's comment. Lindens, you know you have priv issues. When we report them, don't try to shame us with "you didn't set your privs properly". That is a SURE fire way to drive us to other artistic endeavors. For completeness, toss that question in at the end of your bug investigation: "well I've checked everything and I really don't see anything wrong. This could be a bug but...well I hate to ask but...is it even remotely possible that you set the prims improperly on that sale item?" It's a fine point, but when we are in the middle of losing a chunk of our SL business, we are SO not in the mood for shame or jokes.

Thanks again for your serious interest in this matter. We all anxiously await whatever it is you come up with.

-aimee

I've never resold an item but I was under the impression that if you sell me an item that is "no copy"/"transfer" I am completely within my rights to resell that item as I wish.

I buy an outfit and wear it once. I decide I never want to wear it again. I have a yard sale and sell that outfit.

This is just a point of clarification, but do you have the right to stop me from having a yard sale of transferrable items that you created?

Honestly I am not sure who is being hurt if a creator stops a reseller from selling their goods. In the current SL model there really aren't heavy weight resellers (investing large amounts of time and effort marketing other people's products). Most resellers slap an item into a box and stick it in their store. If they are asked to stop, EVEN IF THEY HAD THE PERMISSION OF THE CREATOR, what was actually lost? A little bit of time to set up a box which would likely have been compensated for by the profits earned before the creator changed their mind and shut them down.

I am not saying a "creator always wins" scenario would be victimless. I am saying the current "reseller always wins" scenario we cope with today has ALOT more victims, and those victims are exactly the people creating content for your game.

But if you want to protect resellers from shifty creators, then encourage them to write a simple contract. It can be posted (without edits) in a forum or emailed to a Linden. This contract will be ignored except in the rare occasions where the previously permissive creator decides to revoke the freebee rights of a reseller. I seriously doubt this is an issue that will come up much.

-aimee
(joan of arc for creator rights!!!)

Under the current policy, yes you are allowed.

If Aimee ruled the world...ya you would still be allowed.

We are mostly concerned with those who COPY and redistribute in mass. You selling your hand-me-downs doesn't really hurt the creative market in SL and if anything I would encourage this.

-aimee

No.
You have to understand that permissions may have been released as a bug
Sorry, it still goes back to.. if you didn't make it, you have zero rights to make money off of another person's work.
I'm kind of sketchy on 'yard sales' since most 'yard sales' have to do with items people have found illegal ways of making 'no copy' copies of it...

but just so everyone's clear on *my* end, no one can sell my things but me, and one fishnet shirt that I gave to nevermore which they have the textures for


**edit** not accusing you of exploits, just found out from my husband how someone was doing this... that bug in particular has been fixed.

I posted about this, but then deleted it since i COMPLETLY misread it

My feelings on yard sales are not good, since I discovered a person 'reselling' my item, AND wearing it.. so yeah.. until there is zero possible way of people getting "no copy" copies, I'm sketchy on this.

A couple of concerns come to mind.

Lindens, please make the texture window in the Appearance window nonsizable. I'm tired of having to sell garments as no-mod to keep someone from stealing the texture. I know a bunch of prolific designers who have been stung by this feature... and a couple of losers who have exploited it.

Surreal