My freebies are being sold without permission.

Please note 5.3 of the TOS:



Basically, by putting anything in world, you give permission for it to be used for all purposes within the Service, by anyone, thus I doubt real world lawsuits would get too far. Hence, Jamie's actions, assuming I am interpretting this correctly (which perhaps I am not - I am not particular fluent in legalise), are not illegal by LL's TOS or US or other country laws, since in effect, you granted permission the moment you upload or create anything. Actually, I really hope I am interpretting this incorrectly, since basically it would contradict any other licensing one might stipulate on their items.

Morally, that is very subjective. The value of the modifications to the freebies really is in the eye of the purchaser - perhaps it is worth L$100 to someone to have the colour changed. One also could argue that Jamie's price could include the "bringing to the consumer's attention" of the item, showing that such an item exists and in fact you can obtain one here. By the fact the consumer bought a freebie for a price indicates they were unaware of the free version of the product, thus this is a service. Of course people could argue that if someone knew that they could get a nearly identical item for free, they would choose that, but by that arguement, someone who sells a red shirt (they made) for L$200 is doing something unethical if they don't mention that someone else is selling a red shirt for L$100.

There is tools in game to prevent this. If you release something for free, turn off "transfer" to prevent it from being sold. Unless Jamie is indeed somehow manging to obtain items by breaking the permission system, the original creator should realize the full effect of what they are doing when they set their item's permissions.

I do have one question for you Jamie - if a freebie upon rez'ing tossed you a notecard with a license, say a non-commercial Creative Common license, would you respect it?

As they say, there's no such thing as bad press on the internet.

I believe it should be wrong to sell things ment to be given away for free.

Alondria: That's actually a misinterpretation of the TOS. The Lindens don't have the authority or the right to superceed one's basic rights, in this case copyrights. What the TOS is stating (and I've seen this come up several times in artist communities, such as Deviant Art and Cafepress) is that you're granting Linden Labs and users of Secondlife the right to use the work that you create. This means that you're giving LL the right to produce your work on their objects, on their servers. These are objects that you create. This also gives the users the right to use the stuff that you created, doesn't matter if you buy it or get it for free.

So it boils down to, you're giving LL and the SL users the right to use the products that you create (Such as putting your texture in SL's systems, or allowing a user to wear a t-shirt that they buy). It does NOT give them the right to take the products you create and sell it as their own. This is blatant copyright theft.

They do NOT have the right to take your stuff and run with it and use it for their own purposes.

If someone is reselling a single item (or a limited quantity) that they bought from another person, _that_ is acceptable. If you are selling copies of the exact same thing someone else made, you're infringing copyright.

Of course.

Also, a lot of you need help in your understanding of different economic systems. To this end, I've published a short primer on communism in my blog.

Check it.

http://sleconomyblog.blogspot.com/

5.3 is talking about patent rights. not copyrights.

It is complicated, though.

I think I can DMCA anything in SL that I think is a violation... unfortunately, I think LL can also cancel my accounts.

Do I want to complain about violation at the expense of losing my account?

Werd Nerd!

She'd prolly just copy it and resell it if you did anyway.

I hope your right, however I have to ponder some of this. You voluntarily give a license to your content to LL and the users of the system for use within the system, hence there is no copyright violation since you already granted a blanket license to use it within SL. Selling and buying objects are part of the system, thus you already granted permission for people to buy and sell your objects when up put them on the system. Now I do indeed see it a solid breech of copyright if you utilized someone else's content not in the system (SL) - and I would wager to say that would include SLE, since it is not part of LL's system.

Blaze:
While it does state "any and all patents", it also states "You also understand and agree that by submitting your Content to any area of the Service, you automatically grant (or you warrant that the owner of such Content has expressly granted) to Linden and to all other Participants a non-exclusive, worldwide, fully paid-up, transferable, irrevocable, royalty-free and perpetual License", and this License - assuming I am understanding this - would imply License in regards to Copyright or Trademarked rights also. Again, I hope I am wrong, but I suspect lawsuits about inworld copyright infringements of unique inworld objects would not get far. (unless the person who "orginally" made it had no rights in the first place - i.e. uploading a picture that you have no right to).

OK, I know this is completely off topic, but.....
Mulch, I just gotta say this - ewwwwwwwww

P.S. where do you find some of these images or do I really want to know?

<devil's advocate>
Probably by using a free (as in accessible) image from a website without it's creators approval of it use.
</devil's advocate>

But yeah, that is rather ill of a picture.

And such outrageous prices hes charging for that pictu...

Well, I did almost loose my dinner upon seeing it, and I figure I at least spent $6 for it.

Well did you lose it or didn't you? If you did, Mulch needs to compensate you... no wait. It happened on LL run message board - THEY should compensate you for your lost dinner

no profit, however, i should be lashed for stealing bandwidth

i guess i deserve that!

I am sorry for stealing pictures

anyone wanna buy any of them?

Alondria:

The Full sentence:



You're missing the "under any and all patent rights you may have or obtain with respect to your Content," from your analysis.

5.3 is meant to address patent rights and the desire on the behalf of Lindens to make sure that they (and others) can improve the world without going through the hassle of patent searches.

It's not relevant to copyright at all.

a random person IMed me this morning and asked if I owned Bergman's Bargains...I do not, but figured I should clarify here....see what you've done to the Bergman name Jamie (

Yes...


you know...because Scare tactics and strongarm threats are how a Free Market system REALLY works, and certainly not the reselling of purchased goods.

Stupidass.

meh.. youre out of ur mind.. now ur proclaiming urself a Capitalist Hero on your site.. pittyfull how u seem to interpet hijacking freebies as heroism and selling them afterwards as ticket for becomming an economic mastermind. sounds more like a lil kid with no respect for anyone whos got a diary and luvs to copy paste her lil homework for history class with a big nuff imagination to put it incomaprision with sl.

ok, i get why people are upset about this. i too think it's completely unethical and disgusting. but don't you realize you're doing exactly what she wants you to do. you're reading her blog more, you're looking at her items on slexchange, etc. stop playing into her games and ignore her & boycott her store. stop giving her free advertising.

Dirtface

Boycotting an item cause or retailer IS exactly how a free market works. I never ever threatened to strong arm anyone, I simply exorcised my free right to boycott an ethically wrong move on jamies part. Now blowing up her store that woulda been strong arming and wrong. However we dont do those kind of things. Please reread what I said and dont let the fact that there are mafia involved in the boycott make you unable to see it for what it is.

Ethics is a tricky area. I prefer to view things differently when at all possible.

From my own capitalist perspective, the issue here is Long Term vs Short Term profits. While I personally see some logic in taking freebies and reselling them to gain a short-term profit (assuming their permissions allow this sort of thing), I also see how this practice can adversely affect the larger market and thus damage potential long-term profit. Consequently, ethical arguments aside, I see a capitalist reason for avoiding this practice... especially in this new economic environment. To me it's the equivalent of chopping down the tree after the first fruit has ripened.

So I see two things here. The first is that people putting out freebies without proper limitations on permissions damage the market. Second, people taking advantage of those items are also damaging the market.

Just how I see it.

can you define this better? what do you recommend?

I've been planning to expand my freebie offerings in the gnubie store, but unethical exploits like this just put a sour taste in the mouth. I've been setting some things as copy/mod/no trans.

I don't think a notecard explaining that the IP is in the public domain but limited for free distribution only... would do anything... exploiters know that most people aren't going to prosecute.

Until a viable solution is reached, about all anyone can do is restrict permissions. Unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done about the items that are already out there... except IM the person selling and hoping they will be reasonable and remove said items. If they don't I'm not sure that filing abuse reports will do anything - but report them anyway, maybe it will...

I would personally love it if there was a no resale option while keeping transfer as an option. That way free items will stay free, barring any glitches of course . I would also like to see an option that would set a maximum price - I bought X from this store for $L100 and now I'd like to sell it in a yard sale. I would not be able to sell it for more than $L100. Seems like a good idea to me - and, yes, I realize there are potential problems with that too... but it's gotta beat the hell out of what we already have

Just what you're doing for some items, but do it for all of them. Make them "No Transfer". There's no reason a person can't make the trip out to your land or your designated distribution location(s) to retrieve a free item they've seen elsewhere. There's no cost to them in anything but time and effort.