Get Rid of No Tranfer Option

I would like to see some feedback on the idea of getting rid of the No Transfer option. Linden has been working hard to make SL as Realistic as possible, and frankly "No Transfer" just isnt realistic.

The reality is that once you buy something in real life, its yours. Its your property and if you want to give it to someone else, then thats your choice. I believe this should be true in SL. If I want to buy an AV for someone, or a Skin, or object or something. I should be able to buy it, and then give it to them

Whats the opinion? Im sure theres a lot of support to keep it, especially from the building community, but even with as little as I build myself, I would never consider telling someone they couldnt give it away if they had no more use for it.

I think No Copy and No Mod would be more than sufficient to ensure that only one purchased item will move through SL.

So, any suggestions for those of us who sell vehicles, who basically *need* to sell copiable items, as vehicles have a habit of disappearing? Or for any of the myriad of other situations where one would have to or prefer to sell copiable items?

Vehicles are my reason I would want to keep it. I have lost a lot of vehicles since I been here, but the ones I have that allow copy and no transfer I always have a back up and dont have to pay to replace it if I do happen to lose one somewhere.

No transfer is frustrating when buying something as a gift. Too many times I have bought something I intended to give to someone and got stuck with.

I'd like to have an extra option - a package-transfer option. This makes the item uncopiable but transferable until "opened" in inventory, then it simply becomes copy/no transfer.

I guess it depends upon what you're building, but I like it when a vendor sells something as copy/mod/no transfer. I'm able to retexture and customize it a little, and I'm protected from crashes by the copy permission. But the vendor needs to be protected as well, so they need the no transfer option.

The last vehicle that I bought as no copy got eaten by the sims. I didn't mind because it was cheap and it sucked. On the other hand, I like my Jillocopter, and if some jerk's land scripts separate me from it and/or send me home, or if a crummy sim crossing went bad... well, I'd be pretty bummed out.

I'm willing to take the inconvenience on gifting until a better option comes around.

There has to be a solution to this.

I personally find it very very annoying when I want to get someone something without them knowing ahead of time. Yeah sure, I can give them the money and say here, this is for that, but it doesnt have the same effect.

I also find it annoying when Im done with something that I dont want anymore, but someone else does, that I cant give it to them.

Maybe the lindens could create a new option, like say "BackUp" where you can make 1 copy for yourself.

Or maybe a "No TransCopy" Meaning you copy the item, but the copies become no transfer, and you can transfer the original, but you lose the original because it wont copy over.

I dunno. Brainstorm with me guys and gals

Neither is flying, teleporting, rezzing objects on the fly.

SL is not about realism.

Protect developers' rights and protect no transfer.

Absolutely positively categorically NO to this suggestion.

Even so called friends who I have given custom objects to have passed them on. Hell, in one case, I found one selling them.

And I sure as hell know I can't trust the rest.

Dont need to explain how & why but anything made clothes objects etc if transfer isnt on the perms its useless....you cant even texture some-ones elses object unless its got transfer on the perms


Loosing it isnt the problem..its replacing it with something more versatile

Nope - that's mod (modify) permissions.

Basically you can either have stuff with copy permissions, transfer permissions or both. An object with both basically becomes a freebie.

Some objects work best with copy and no transfer - vehicles have to be, and houses generally benefit.

Some items benefit from being transfer - I think all clothes fall into this category. No-one needs more than one copy of an outfit - putting them no transfer seems just to be designed to stop people giving them away to friends, or selling them at a yard sale.

Exactly that problem occured to me yesterday as I was preparing to go to a party and a friend needed some nice shoes going well with a new dress of hers. We did not have much time and I had some in my inventory. But, alas, nonTranferable. But as much as I would like it - to have all my intems transferable - the economic situation is a little bit more complicated than that; even for clothes.

Thats because the real world analogy isn't working perfectly. When I buy real clothes in RL, wear them for a while, and give them away to a second hand shop, I get much less, than I paid for them - simply because they are worn. In SL worn clothes are identical to new ones. So I could buy some (Transfer, noCopy), wear them for a while, give them to a friend, she wears them to a few occasions, too, gives them to another friend, and finally I get them back - good as new. Nice! ... but this possibility greatly reduces the revenue potential for the designer.

Therefore it is totally understandable to me, if a designer would
- either not like making clothes transferable
- or would sell transferable clothes at a substancially higher price

The same goes for other types of items. As Hiro mentioned first: RL analogies can be tricky in SL. There are much more differences (and much mor subtle ones than flying and teleporting) then we usually recognize ...

People often want an object to be copiable so that they can have more than one instance of it in their inventory. For example, with our avatars, we *suggest* that when you modify them (as they are sold with modify rights) that you modify a *copy*, so that you do not ruin the one you just bought if you make a mistake. Or, if you want to revert and start over again.

Modifiability has been one of the mainstays of our avatars, and we do -not- want everyone walking around in identical looking avs. Looking how you want is the point.

However, if we didn't have no transfer, there would be nothing stopping people from setting up shop with our stuff after buying one copy. That's one thing you can't do in RL: Rez a new copy of something. So, in a way, if we wanted this to be just like RL, -everything- would be 'no copy', -everything- would be 'mod', and -nothing- would be 'no transfer'.

While that'd be an interesting approach, we are still talking about a pastime here, where if you want to make shirts, you can't really hire an entire staff to, for example, 'upload and texture 1000 of them'.

In a way, if you buy an object in SL, I actually agree that you should be able to transfer ownership of it. But it should be just that : a transfer. You shouldn't be able to keep a copy in such a case.

Perhaps a resolution could be similar to what was mentioned: the ability to make inventory instances, but they are all either tied to no transfer, or if you CAN transfer it, *all* instances get transferred.

Either way, unfortunately, from talks in the past, the permissions model will be going to more of a 'forced open source' situation than anything being talked about here. Some people call this 'breaking the content creator monopoly', (if you make something, is it wrong of you to have a 'monopoly' on the unique thing you made?) - but as I see it, it will likely end up just being a way where someone can slap a green cube on any given object, call it an 'innovation' and wholesale it as if it was their own.

Huh? People modify the stuff we sell all the time, and it's no transfer. What are you talking about? Yeah, if the object isn't yours, you can't modify it. (duh.) ... Even if it's transfer, you still can't modify it if it isn't yours.

If it is yours, and it has modify rights granted, you can .... modify it. Transfer has NOTHING to do with *texturing*.

So, yes, in fact, you do have to explain how and why.

And still give away the original? ... In that case you'd have people scouring the grid, for people who have an object they want, and offering them, say, half original price, to give them their "one permittable copy" if they haven't done so already.

And, am I supposed to support someone, (we warranty our stuff, assist with modifications, and provide updates.) as if they're a customer, if they scored a one-off from some dude for L$50? I don't think so.

Alot of my sales are for copyable items only. Also many vendor or rental system are copyable. Hairs & skins are many times copy only to offer the user to have multiple styles. By banning no transfer would then hurt the consumer for losing value, money, and fuctionality. It would almost eliminate all copyable items that are sold in the world.

The issue for me is that there is no distinction between resell and gift. When someone buys an animal or plant from me I allow them to copy it multiple times and also to modify it. This allows them to landscape easily using my plants.

Unless they have permission from me though, I don't want them to resell it - the issue here being that if it gets messed up and someone else sold it, I still have to support it. Or if a reseller rips someone off, I bear the brunt of the bad reputation for that happening because I'm listed as the creator.

The other issue is that if you do allow something to be given as a gift, how many times should that be allowed? In other words, if someone buys a car and gives a copy to X and X gives a copy to Y and Y gives a copy to Z, the creator of the car would have to make the price of the car cover that scenario. Which would make the price of the car for X very expensive.

I've wondered about the possibility of a script that would allow one person to buy the item and to allow for X number (defined by creator) of transfers as gifts. Once the total number of transfers of the item had been met, the script would warn the owner that transfering the item will result in the items demise.

Just a thought.

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This would completely kill my skin business. I let people get makeup and tattoos added to their skins. I give them new versions of the skin with their makeups so they can switch between them whenever they like. If transfer was mandatory they'd end up with a free skin to give away every time. We need MORE options, not less.

Believe me, Im not trying to hurt anyone. This form spawned from an annoyance at not being able to send people things that I get for them. however, I dont understand how no transfer protects developer rights.

I can sell my used car, I can sell my used software, I can sell anything I buy to someone else. It doesnt hurt the people who made them. Im not trying to argue, I honestly would like to understand your point of view.

I think that can be prevented by putting in a no-resell or something. Couldnt it?

Thats the way that I have seen it thus far, (without better explanation from someone) is that no-transfer is just a method of profitability. A way to ensure that the original owner gets maximum money.

Im honestly not sure. I dont do a whole lot a building myself, and what I am doing, im still working on improving. It just seems to me that there has to be a solution somwhere that would benefit both consumer and creator.

Er.... no. Please, just no.

I would like to see No Transfer broken down into "Resell" and "Gift" though, with both optional Y/N. And with an option of 'how many times'.

As an avatar creator, I wouldn't want to see the no-transfer option removed. But I can understand that people would want to give something as a gift. Perhaps when you go to pay for something, an "gift" option is available where you can type in (or select from your friends list) a name. You pay for it, and the gift is given to the friend.

Like I said before many of my items I sell have copy but no transfer permissions. For example one of my telporters that is $475 copyable version. But I do also sell a transfer version for $95 each. Many times people have big builds that require many teleporters. If someone needs more than 5 teleporters the consumer is saving money. The consumer wins! By eliminating no-transfer I would not be able to sell a copyable version and the consumer gets less of a value because obviously you can't have copy & transfer permsiions. Someone would then have the ability to sell my teleporters half the price with an unlimited supply. This is only one example, there are many products that the customer would lose VALUE.

The only way I see it could work if you could resell the copyable item that it would delete the other copies in your inventory. I can forsee that this would cause a inventory tracking nightmare. (Like we don't have one right now) What do you do with objects that are inside a the copyable objects? Do they all get automatically transfered or deleted? Or to put your head really in a spin what if the object in the copyable object is copyable too? Also what happens if you buy two of the copyable objects?

I never accused of doing so, deliberately.


Try buying things via SLBoutique and gifting them, or, as I do with my katanas' box set, some vendors sell coupons / gift certificates that can be redeemed from the vendor.


SL products are forms of software. Imagine making software so that you couldn't move it off your computer. That would mean no file-sharing, no pirating. Software developers could then sell products without having to deal with piracy.

No transfer is the same thing.


Used cars are also no-copy, like make items in SL. Of course, in RL, you don't need a copyable car because you can't just lag out somewhere and forget where you left your car, or have your car deleted from your "inventory" by accident or mis-keystroke.


You can also copy and distribute said software, which proves my point.


Not where the item is consumable (food, paper), or where restricted by law. (guns, liquor)

The bottom line is that objects in SL can really only be compared fullly to one thing in RL: software / data. Any other analogies will have critical flaws when drawing conclusions for SL objects.