To those who create free collections to give away

If you are going to give away free collections of items at your place, at least have the courtesy to check with the creator before giving it away. Many people have had their items stolen by exploits, and to just blindly give away stuff makes you complicit in that theft. The burden is on you to obtain the consent to give them away, no matter who gave them to you in the first place.

Today I had someone IM me to inform me that they saw a free collection that contained over 20 items of mine in it, all without my consent. This occurs about once every few weeks, and every time I follow up on it. Granted, it feels pointless most of the time, but Linden Lab won't assist in undoing any of the damage their permission flaws have caused, so I do what I can, one collection at a time, for myself and for other people's work I find in them. Last time around, it was a well known club owner who was actually not giving them away, she was selling them herself. It is sickening.

I am all for sharing items with people, I give away content constantly, along with a lot of L$. However, that is my choice to make. I am sure every other creator whose work is being given away in a similar manner without their consent would agree. This is just wrong, and needs to stop.

The pernicious aims of the pernicious content barons using the pernicious permissions system have too long strangled Second Life. It is always amusing to note the pernicious lust for money and power that causes these fears that others are exploiting your work.

(Damn. I have no idea how to fill another five hundred thousand words with mock vitriol and the word "pernicious." Pretend I did.)


Anyway, what's really troubling to me is that there's no means of tracking these exploits. I keep very accurate books in Excel and being able to compare sales against global ownership of an object would quickly reveal if something bad was taking place.

Making knock-offs of an object is one thing. Passing it around via a permissions bug is quite another.

As much as I can relate to the feeling of seeing my own stuff handed around (I create quite a bit of stuff myself), I cannot say I agree with this. If a person buys a copy of one of my items, then I consider it that they've bought not only the copy, but the right to keep/give/trash it as they please. The transfer of L$ from their account to mine is what gave them that right.

But, I've also on occasion created objects that were either one-of-a-kind or were special limited in their availability. In those cases I've set the object as no-transfer or no-copy. That's the exception rather than the rule though. If a customer is going to pay me for a copy, then if they want to give it away is up to them.


- Newfie

Newfie,

My items are not sold copyable. That is the point - they were stolen through an exploit, and then just freely handed out or sold. This is not about a second hand market - it's a first hand market of limitless copies.

Sorry this happened Cris!

Certainly an ongoing problem and one that seriously needs to be addressed in its various forms!

And also a reason I have not *given* anything out other than $L in about 8 months... To many "free that should not have been free" items being passed around.

It depends on what other options your customer has. If you sell something like an attachment or a vehicle that can be easily futzed by one thing or another, your customers will want to have multiple copies. It's obviously not in my best interests to sell with copy/trans permissions, since a cool product that's freely copyable and freely transferrable will quickly make its way around without my being compensated.

Of that, I can agree - those who use exploits (or other means) to copy one's creations without giving proper credit or obtaining permission should be hung up by their toenails. However, I merely disagree that the onus isn't on the receiver of the stolen goods to ask the creator if they may give it away.

Let me give an example. If I were to buy a stereo from a neighbour, I would have only their word that it was their property. Now if it came to pass that the cops found out that it was stolen, they could seize the stereo and I'd be out the money I paid for it. However, I wouldn't be held responsible for the theft, the person that did the thieving would.

I personally look at content sales in the same way. While I'd be mad as heck if someone copied my stuff, I wouldn't blame the person that bought a copy of the stolen version. If anything, I'd be quite grateful to them for telling me about it. They're an innocent third party, and in my eyes had no obligation at all to tell me. The person to blame would be the one making the illegitimate copies.

Having said that, I do agree that anyone who buys/bought/was given something that they suspect is stolen, it would be morally a good thing to check with the creator. Is far better to spend 30 seconds to confirm/invalidate the suspicion rather than just let one 'slide'.


- Newfie

Cris, if this is about the STD's that you gave me, I apologize for giving them away so freely.

Honestly though, a great way to let people know that this is not acceptable would be to post on a case by case basis in SLuniverse. You can open them up to public accountability, and the best part is they can publically defend themselves if they feel slighted. NAME THOSE NAMES!

I completely agree, Cristiano. I ran into similar situation recently at a garage sale where a bunch of my stuff was being sold for peanuts. Thankfully the seller removed the items, but insisted that he "buys things in bulk every day" and doesn't keep track of where, when, or who gets them from. He obviously felt the burden was *not* on him to check if he was selling stolen goods. Granted the items were not free as yours were, but they were so cheap they might as well have been.

This is hard for me to agree to. I do not believe I should have to check with the creater of an object to make sure they meant it to be free if it is clearly labeled "free" or is in a "free objects box".

Copyright is upto the mfg/creater to enforce and protect their image. I do not condone copying of items at all. If someone offered me an item I knew to be copied I would let the original creater know. I am only saying it is impossible to demand players to check everytime they get an item that is free or gives an item that is free.

Just my thought.

Not if you are going to box it up and resell it for a dollar on your land, you bear a level of personal responsibilty. People are selling Linden Clothes. Come on.

No, I do not believe selling anything I have been given ever. I only give to newbies also in the starter areas when i do give away clothes and most of those are no copy editions.

I am not trying to say selling something copied is a good thing... all I am saying is it is impossible to hold the responsiblity onto those giving the items away. I can see the point of selling unless it was sold as an original copy only... because they are do start to make a profit on copied resold item.

I disagree.


You: May I giveaway XYZ item for free that I know you sell in your store for money?
Creator:Fuck No



It's easy to ask. The response is why people don't ask. Its a punk coward cop out. I find it unacceptable. Everyone has their own level of ethics or morals, I don't expect everyone to be honest.

While your claim and concern is utterly valid, Crisitiano, you might want to consider Hanlon's Razor when thinking about these re-givers.

I imagine myself relatively new and/or relatively unaware of the historic permission errors and exploits. I find a bunch of stuff that is free to copy as seen through its current permissions. I think "cool, free stuff to give away" and not much further. I think it a fair assumption that an item which is copyable is intended to be so - we know that may not be the case, but many don't. Placing the burden on anyone giving away anything to seek permission from the creator (which may or may not be accurately reflected in the meta-data) is asking a little much. Especially given that the creator may have left the game or isn't actually the creator, etc. The problem is made even worse should I be given a fourth or fifth hand item.

As an extreme example, there are thousands of items in a well known, well regarded "junkyard". If the junkyard propietor were to seek affirmation from all the creators in his inventory, the junkyard would likely never exist. Note well, I'm not saying the proprietor is trafficing in ill-gotten goods, just that the verification would be impossible. I have a seagull AV given to me a year ago by someone; I don't know who made it or if it was intended as a freebie, nor have I ever thought to check even though I have given copies away. So I may be as guilty as the next guy.

Worse still, I can't even think of a technical means of solving this problem. You could probably query the asset server for all UUIDs created by me set for sale other than by me. This would be a huge task in itself, especially for a prolific creator such as you. Finding all UUIDs of mine in people's inventories that the might give away would yield so many false positives as to be useless.

The problem lies with the permission bugs in the first place, and were I in your shoes I'd just write it off rather than getting annoyed at a now insoluble problem. I reiterate, it isn't good, you've right to be irked, but tain't much one can do about it. Sigh.

I fully expect to be able to do anything with an item I buy. You have given up your right of ownership of that peticular item when I buy it. You are saying I have to call FORD when I want to give my 68 Mustang away? Or perhaps I need to get ahold of SEARS to make sure it is ok for me to give my old VCR to a neighbor.

Oh ya I see the logic in your views now....

Jesse,

It is one thing for you to receive a free item from someone that was not meant to be copied. It is quite another thing for you to then become a distributor of them. It is not unreasonable to expect that someone who is going to set up their business around giving away the stuff of other people could at least have the decency and courtesy to check with someone before doing so. It is about the distribution of it, not possesion. You get a free copy of something, fine. You start giving it away, or worse, selling it, it just continues the cycle of theft - ignorance to theft is not an excuse.

You are arguing about no copy items. The point of this entire thread is this. I sell items in my store that ARE NOT COPYABLE. Through an exploit, people have found ways to get around permissions. They then put the items in free collections or sell them - unlimited copies of them. It is not about you reselling your car - it is about you being able to copy the same car over and over that you did not make and then sell it over and over again or give it away, no matter what the wishes of the creator.

And I totally agree with you on that and respect it. I only give away stuff I bought if it is no copy and only the original also.

But it is impossible for me to know if the original creater did not mean for their items to be given away freely if it is copyable and transferable. I never even gave it a thought before... I figured, like the skins I have from Nora, that I could copy them BUT I can not transfer them.. to mee that means I can not resale/give awayit. Which I totaly respect and if I saw someone giving them away I would tell Nora. This goes true with items that I can not copy but can transfer. I am assuming that the creater has given me full permission to resale/give away the item.

If the item has open permissions I can only assume they allow me to do what I want.

That is a mistake - there have been severe permission bugs over the past year, well documented ones, that have affected a lot of creators.

See, now that I have been educated on the problems I will be much more aware of what I give away.. and what I get. I will be watchful of your name and let you know if I see either.

Christiano - can you please PM me or IM me IW the location of this shop, so I may check it out?

Juro,

I sent you a landmark. I spoke with the owner and they agreed to remove the items - there are a lot of free items available at this store, I was so pissed at the volume of mine that were there that I didn't spend much time looking beyond that but I will go back. Every time I have encountered this, the owner has cooperated, it just gets very tiring.

I stopped making things for sale because of all the exploits and flaws in the permission system, sim-crossing problems, and uncertainty about future changes to the scripting engine to address lag and sim crossing. I just make things for fun hoping that some day the holes will be closed and the system will stabilize.

That's great news, Cristiano! Most people that I've dealt with in instances like this are very gracious and just had no idea.

I agree with most of what Cristiano says, and it's why we need a Better Business Bureau to deal with complaints like this.

The culture of excessive freebies is part of the problem.