Transfer of Owner/Creator

Although I haven't currently got a use for this, I can see a time when I might, and I've already seen examples where such an ability would be extremely useful both for users and the in-world economy.

Basically, I'll use this example. You own a club but no longer wish to run it. You want to sell it as a going concern - it's been running a while, has good dwell levels etc. But what's the current option? Well, you take it all down and transfer it to the new owner who then has to rez it all. In addition, if you've had some items made by others, this may not be possible.

So, what if you could select objects already rezzed in-world and transfer ownership of those to the person who is buying the club from you? Or even, select a parcel and transfer ownership of all objects on that parcel that you own to the new owner.

As an extension to this, also for the resale of business, you may wish to transfer the creator as well. Why? Well, for the same reason. If you are selling a business that makes planes, for instance, you would need to transfer the creator tag to the new owner as well, so that they were treated as if they were the original creator.

Basically, as people build up businesses, it's only natural to feel that at some point people may want to sell those on, and why not? The provision of mass transfer of ownership or creatorship (?) of items for a business would seem to be a feature that would enable this to happen.

I don't agree with creator transfer, though an in-world owner transfer would be a nice idea. Currently on some stuff you can workaround by selling the original for 0$ (or you used to be able to, at least) - that changes the owner without dropping to inv.

I'm interested in why you don't agree with the creator transfer. If I want to sell a business, including all the objects that I've made to sell, the best way of transferring this is to transfer the creator tag. I'm not quite sure why you would have a problem with that - it's a conscious decision to do it, and in what way does that affect you enough to have a negative opinion on it being done? (I know that last part sounds antagonistic - but it's not meant that way, it's just the only way I could think of phrasing what I'm saying - in what way would it affect others).

You can't sell a business if the new owner cannot have creator permissions on the objects you sell - otherwise they cannot maintain and develop them. The only other option is to create copies with full permissions and transfer those to the new owner - but, seriously, what a pain if you had a lot to transfer as part of the business, and then having to go through the items and reset the permissions is asking for problems!

I assume you mean in addition to the somewhat obvious fact that they didn't actually create these things?

And to the best of my knowledge, there's no such thing as creator permissions, anyway.

Being able to transfer creator/owner settings at will opens the door for interesting types of griefing and character assassination.

Consider the analogy of selling a business in RL. The person who buys the business wasn't the person who originally made the products but in buying the business they are then the owners of the products and are able to expand, modify and alter them. There is no difference here at all.

And of course there are creator permissions - the creator can do anything to the item which means they have explicit permissions for the objects, scripts, etc. that they create.

And I don't understand your griefing or character assassination reasoning. If I want to sell my lighting business to somebody else in SL it's something that I would have to initiate (the transfer of creator to the new buyer), so quite how this could be open to griefing and character assassination is beyond me. Do you mean somebody could force me to sell? It's not like they can do any real harm to me if I don't, is it?

No, but I could ... hrm ... build orbiters around stage4, for instance, then transfer creatorship and ownership to you.

Sure, the Lindens would eventually figure out that I was actually responsible for it, but by then, half the members of SL would already be pissed at you, and you'd probably have a couple hundred PvP abuse reports filed against you.

Oh come on, you don't think that such a system would require acceptance by both the original creator and the person they are being transferred to? Blimey, that's a given, it's an absolute no-brainer.

It'd be easy to trick a newbie into transferring ownership to them. Just go up to them and say, here's a free slot machine to start a business. To get a copy, just transfer the creator to you. Then the object goes off launching people into space, or firebombing a selected target.

They'd never have a clue until it was too late.

You mean just as easy as giving them a malicious item and them rezzing it perhaps? Again, it's not really an argument against is it, as much simpler means of tricking newbies already exist.

Creatorship doesn't provide any extra permission rights. Though it probably should. Right now, it's possible to... Well, here's an example.

A makes Object
A sets it CMT-OK (Copy/Mod/Transfer-Okay)
A gives it to B
B sets it NO-CM/T-OK
B gives it to A

A is the creator but has no rights to modify or copy the object. It would solve a lot of problems if they COULD ignore the permissions if they were the creator. I can't think of any drawbacks.

The only reason, as things stand, to allow the transfer of creatorship is to change the "branding" of a product. Say for instance, that you've been making left-handed-widgets for fun and profit. But now, for some reason, your name is mud in the eyes of the SL world, so you make a new alt and transfer creatorship of the left-handed-widgets to him.

It also may stop people from screaming (unfounded) bloody murder in the forums when they find player B selling objects created by player A... Never bothering to stop to ask either A or B about their business relationship.

As it is, only the root prim of a link is checked for the creator name, so you can spoof the casual observer. But since that IS against the ToS, make sure you include a signed "permission slip" inside the object.

A better solution might be allowing a group to be the "creator"...

I disagree that the creator gets no extra permissions. In order to transfer the object assets of a business you would have to go through all your objects and set all permissions on the objects and scripts etc. in their inventory. When transferred to the new owner of the business, they would then need to set them all back again. It is currently an extremely complex process that would be frought with errors. Changing the creator eliminates this as, as far as SL is then concerned, they are the creator full stop so can edit the object etc. without any permissions having to be changed.

I also disagree that the only reason to transfer creator as things stand is for the example you state. Selling your business in SL, selling your building etc. is something that stands now (especially buildings, this has been done a couple of times, but the process is not satisfactory). So there are very legitimate reasons for doing it.

I do, however, agree that attaching another prim would change the creator, but are you really going to want to go around adding prims to objects when you've brought the assets of a business?

Finally, you are correct on the fact that the initial creator cannot do things with an object when returned - that is just plain silly to be honest.

I see where you are going with this. It's all the "Next Owner" permissions. You want to suspend them for one transfer, then re-instate them on the other side.

This would be a GREAT feature to have, and would make joint projects much easier.

To that end, I'm all for the transfer of ownership IF that doesn't break some basic design principle that LL plans to hold to. If so, then another way to do the same permissions transfer without changing the creator's name would be good.

Either way, a clean interface would need to be implemented to do it...

This sort of dovetails with, not a feature, but an interface clean-up that I've been wanting to see. There are a number of places where we can pick a list of avatars. Land access rights, group invitations, etc. Each place seems to be re-creating the wheel, as it were.

There needs to be a standardized UI element that lets you create a list of players. Then such lists could be used in many places. "For Sale To" for example.

But the way it ties into this thread is that you could add lists to the permissions settings. Imagine being able to set permissions specificly for different people. This doesn't duplicate what you want, Moof, but it's similar.

What sort of interface do you think would work to transfer ownership, both of objects given (inventory to avatar drag) and objects taken in situ (buildings)?

Inventory to Avatar might be as simple as holding down a modifier key and both players answering a confirmation dialog box, but all the modifier keys may all be spoken for.

The only thing I can think of for building transfers is a second field in the permissions below "Sell To" called "Relinquish To", or something like that, with a name field.

Actually you've expressed it a lot better than me and come up with a better solution due to the knock-on effect it would also have for joint/group projects. You're right, a simple an ability to transfer with full permissions is ideal and maybe actually a simpler thing to implement.

In terms of interface it's difficult to say, there could just be a relinquish button on the Properties box, a relinquish button on the edit window near the permissions setting and maybe even one on the folder menus in your inventory so you could do whole folders at once. These would take you through to a screen where you could select the person with a search (better error control here, rather than just dropping on an AV or something, as this is something you don't want to give to the wrong person). Lots of confirmations would be good, otherwise people may grant to the wrong person and great hilarity ensue

Your list idea is interesting, of avatars with permissions you've granted. Again, this would be a powerful feature, and not something you'd do lightly. So, would these be blanket permissions, e.g. I've granted you full modify/copy/transfer on anything I have in-world, or would you want to be able to do it on a more limited basis? Personally, I would want to limit it to certain things pertaining to projects we were working on, for instance, which instantly makes the interface more complex. I'd love to have such a feature but it gets pretty complex when you think about it. What if two people were trying to edit a script in an object at the same time, we'd need some sort of locking mechanism. People basically editing the same object at the same time, or maybe this code already exists in SL and I've just not come across it - I'm not actually sure now I think about it. In which case it would be easier to implement, obviously.

My, I do ramble...