People Running with your Modifiable Objects

Doesn't mean its right; it's just been wrong for a very long time.

Logically we are dealing with three categories of people: honest people that wouldn't steal, dishonest people that would make every effort at stealing, and people that are honest because stealing is too much of a hassle. The last category includes the majority of people it unfortunately seems.

So... Locks don't protect you against the first as they wouldn't steal from you anyways. They don't protect from the second because they would just circumvent them. However, they would protect you from the third, who aren't going to the effort to get around them.

What was the point of this discussion.

We have a different outlook on human nature. I'll leave it at that.

I don't mind people running with modifiable objects, as long as they aren't scissors...

i made 8 diferent types of shoes for ladys and at hucci shoes 2 pairs are colour change but each shoe is different and all of mine are cheap modable and come with animated walks, i think its nice to give freedom, and not to charge for the same shoe in every color but thats just me i made it so people can have all my shoes and jewlery and make it fit and do as the please once its theres and transferable if they want to give as a gift, People are going to copy what you do no matter how it is because like the real world people always want to try or have a go, truth is, we offer a service at hucci's, we give info, I try to be as helpful as possible and i do what i can to make a person comfortable. when we sell hucci we sell a service as well as a product so if someone copys our things to make it look like a hucci product its just a copy, it dosent come with quality service and help, it dosent come with matching items and it dosent come with its hucci logo

I dont know truth is it happens and its almost unstopable i just hope that people can see the good from the bad

Briana, if someone has the time and desire to copy a 100-500 prim sculpture by clicking back and forth for each value on each prim, power to them. They certainly won't be copying it the easy way... via prim copying script. There's a big difference. We aren't stupid. We realize what is "possible." I also realize it'd be crazy to spoon feed the kind of people who do wish to steal the work of others.

And there's more to the whole "modify" thing than just having your hard work stolen too. With modify, someone can change what you made into something you wouldn't particularly be proud of, and if your prim is the last one selected when it's linked, you're the "creator" of said piece of crap.

While on that subject, if any of you see one of my horses somewhere with a huge horse penis being humped by one of Starax's horses with another huge horse penis, we did not create those. See the actual penis for it's creator if you're interested in the item.

Then we can listen to the complaints of those who want everything "transferable." The simple truth is you can't please everyone all the time, so just conduct your bussiness the way you see fit. I'd think that someone who is running a bussiness has considered all these things and made a decision they think is best.

I love a certain someone's shoes. They're super cute and spikey and oooh I'm in love with 'em.

I'd buy 'em- and probably pay twice what she sells them at - IF I could change their colors. Even if the shoes themselves were no modify but had a color-change script. It's not modify for copying that I am worried about - but I refuse to pay thousands of L$ in the end just to have a pair of shoes I can wear all the time no matter what I wear that aren't just BLACK.

This is very true. I used to have my clothing as No Copy with Transfer perms, until I was alerted by a kind resident, and complained to by an angry few of them, that someone was buying my items and reselling them for twice what they paid. (The downside of not being overpriced, I guess.) While that doesn't lose me any money really, it is highly annoying for someone to expect to be reimbursed by me because they were ripped off by someone else.

My decision, after a poll here in the forums regarding permission preferences, was to change my perms to No Transfer and just have people contact me for gift purchases. This allowed me to keep my prices low without so much worry about people being ripped off with my name associated to it.

It wasn't a thoughtless decision, so I don't assume other merchants just choose their perms willy nilly either.

Yes, that is a good idea too.... copiable and no transfer is how I sell all my avatars, so incase someone messes one up they always have a backup copy. I get complaints but I don't plan to change the perms... because you just can't please every single person. It is bad if someone buys one and decides they don't want it. They can't return it for a refund so I just have to decide if I'm going to refund them eventhough they get to keep the av and have their money back. Good bussiness would be to give the refund, but then after doing that enough and word gets around, will people start "complaining" just to get their money back and keep the av (that they actually like) too?

Well my point is just that people shouldn't just hastily make assumptions that it's all about money grubbing... Thought goes into the perms decisions. It quite pissed me off to read that those who sell the same item in different versions or colors rather than mod enabled are just trying to get the most money out of people. Yeah, that's what we're all just doing..

I pretty much encourage people to take whatever attachments I make and modify them as they want.

The problem really comes when you sell it. If you modify my object to make it something more to your tastes, that's spazzy, good for you. If you modify my object and sell it as your own, well that's pushing it.

So if you want to copy it and sell it, that's a problem for me.

I have made many things "inspired" from no mod objects... I would want to make a change here or there... but NO!!!!!!!!!!!! you people try to take away my right to fair use...

well fuck that... it is not hard to recreate something but with some changes if I *really* want it...

You people *still* make the sale because I have to buy a template, so what's the problem? I don't sell my custom versions... I am perfectly within my right to fair use.

Be flattered that you were inspiration for new creativity and move on, damn.

I have a problem with: Modestly modifying objects I created (or not at all) AND profiting from them (esp. if I gave it away or sold for a very low price like I used to do, when I sold some junk before..)

I don't have a problem with: Someone inspired by something I did "copying" it and making their own version (this is SL, not RIAA/MPAA copyright heaven.)

I think that's a half decent argument in favor of no-mod. At least if someone is "copying" something, they might not be putting an equal amount of work into it, but it'll be somewhat proportional to the amount of work you put in originally. Might not be 100% fair still, but if they're putting some level of work into it then it doesn't seem so annoying. This is opinion of course..

If you want a custom version, different color, slightly different design, etc., and so on--this is NOT A GOOD reason to ask for a mod permissions. Why? It's pretty easy to ASK a designer for a custom version, and most people, I would wager, would probably be happy to alter whatever you wanted if you just ASKED. Hell, you might even get a freebie or reduced rate for taking an interest if the person likes you. Isn't socializing one of the "main" things to do in SL? Why be anti-social just because you're buying something from someone? Not many people would consider it a bother IMO especially if you're buying something.

Besides I'm sure some scripters or builders, especially newer ones, might be begging for people to IM and meet them. (Pleeeeeeease IM me! lol j/k) Seems like a good way to meet players to me.

But seriously--I don't see the "need" for mod rights to be able to get custom items. There might be other good reasons, but I don't think that's one of them at all. Perhaps if someone is hard to catch online, but even that's a pretty lame reason I think. If someone is so anal/greedy that they'd want to charge more for a 60 second or whatever modification you're probably better off avoiding all contact with them anyway.

It's not really the act of modifying, it's the act of modifying AND reselling or profiting from it. At least that's what the original post was about. Modifying isn't so bad on it's own really...

I don't buy No Mod items if I can avoid it, which the exception of Skins. I don't need to contact a creator every single time I want to change something, alter a build, change a color scheme, shrink something, etc etc. That's ridiculous. I don't need someone else's permission to change my mind about something, and I don't need to wait for them to get around to doing it for me. If it's not Modifiable to suit my tastes and needs, I just won't buy it.

When a designer or artist makes something which is then put up for sale, it's being distributed the way he/she means for it to be seen. I am very glad this is second life.

Angry much? I have a simple solution for your frustrations. Don't buy no mod products.

If you're honest enough to not recreate the work of others for resale, then good for you. There are plenty of honest people in SL. That doesn't mean everyone should bend over backwards and do exactly what you wish for when it means being run over by the others who are not honest. You SAY you're honest and wouldn't do this or that... and so would every other person SAY the same.

You do the right thing though.... if you like something but want it made differently, if you don't wish to request a modification from the creator, then build your own or shop somewhere else. That's the thing you should be doing. You should only buy what you like. Then someday when you run a bussiness, you should also run it the way you like.

I find myself agreeing with Stormy on this one.

Inworld I've spent some time creating a line of giant robot avatars, which I provide as no-mod. Very quickly, I started getting requests from folks asking for custom coloration and things like that, which is fine; it only takes a few hours per request and as a result I have another variant which I can make available.

Am I okay with people copying my work for resale? Not really, no. I take pride in my hard work!

Let my creations be moddable? Sure-- unless I'm trying to market them to cover inworld expenses. The current perms suite is so simplistic that SL makes it pretty easy to rip off moddable objects. I work to be creative (and rather enjoy sculpting my quirky imaginings) & not fall into the seductive trap of recreating copyrighted stuff and as a result, I would be a bit fed up with someone duplicating my efforts. On the other hand, prims are cheap. Very cheap. Anyone with a little patience can slap together prims in a reasonable approximation of whatever you've modeled. This is even more true with the advent of powertools like Jeffrey Gomez's prim mirror (which I have not used but I imagine is pretty slick).

I find that the most value added comes from custom scripting, animation, texturing, and sound (most of the content BEYOND prims). As a result, my current project took a short afternoon to construct out of prims, but I'm spending weeks on scripting the brains of it, skinning it, adding synthetic voice response, and doing a bit of foley work to really really put the shine on it. The time devoted to this is partly a reflection of my only-middling scripting skillz, but hey, I'm having fun picking it up as I go.

I learned quickly from Enabran Templar that quality counts very much; as a result, I'm pouring tons of effort into the parts of the project that can't be easily duplicated.

I defy even Jeffrey to make a script or sound mirror. =D

So unless someone's gonna buy Poser, a quality synth-voice package, and teach themselves LSL, they're not gonna be able to steal my hard work very easily. And I'm okay with that. Until we have the flexibility to specify permissions with much higher granularity, it is nomod / copy / notrans or nomod / nocopy / trans *for the items I market*. It is also fun to provide well crafted, open-permissions freebies. That is at least as rewarding!

And that's fine.

I don't understand the rush (or need) to have things modified multiple times or rapidly but I guess that's a personal preference. I still think that simply asking for a change would resolve the majority of the need for a change for most people. I'm not really saying that no mod is the only way to go and anything else is stupid, I just like to defend the right of creators to choose no mod--without having to hear complaints from others about no mod stuff. But mainly above I'm defending the right of creators to not have their work completely ripped off without at least some level of effort required by the person redesigning/recreating. I think there's a "correct" balance somewhere in between total RIAA-style domination and the total lack of protection on someone's work. We're pretty close to the middle, I believe, but things definitely need some fine tuning.

That's right Bri. It's particularly egregious with shoes because of varying foot sizes. Some non mod primmy shoes end up looking like block clodhoppers because the creator is more concerned about profit than selling a quality item. Since we cannot try the shoes on before buying a display picture showing a perfectly fitting shoe is actually misleading.

Yes that is correct. A no mod permission does not prevent copying the prims.

Exactly, so might as well make em modable, well for some things anyhoo.

It doesn't tend to bother me if shoes etc are no mod, but I find no mod clothes a pain in the ass.