Question about SL families & sharing.

I thought about putting this in texture area but not sure if it would be fit.
Do you have a family in SL?
What type of things do you share with your SL family other then friendship?
Do you share cost of land, modify permissions, building projects or knowledge?
I know sharing textures even though they are full permissions often are against
the creators or sellers policy but why can't they make bit more room for certain
exceptions?
What do you think about sharing textures for personal use within families if you're
Texture maker, Texture consumer,etc?
Why is it that small groups can't buy textures as a group in SL for personal, non business uses or even for group business build like projects in sl?

You would think that if you bought textures for a particular project, like building a sim .. you could share those freely between those building on that project.


As far as using the textures on things other than that project, only the original purchaser should do so.


Thats just my non-scientific/ common sense opinion on it though.

I just don't really get why certain things can't be used in one household group like prim objects.
It's not like if I buy a chair only I am only one who is able to sit on it.
I understand there is unscrupulously people who steal textures and resell them who don't feel bad about taking what they want.
It bugs me though that if I find something I want to use or put in the family texture viewer I share I am basically a texture criminal by some policies of Texture sellers that don't recognize family groups in SL that share permissions,etc.
So what about the honest people who just have group of friends and families in SL who share resources like land, viewers, pose balls and textures could they get into trouble if found in SL for sharing items and textures they spent money on?
I have been thinking about this because I am someday going to sell textures and I am trying to figure out way also to make a policy that recognizes families even families in SL share things that makes sense but won't hurt any business I am involved in.

Although it makes sense for texture sellers to be adamant about their policies, they must know that their texture is going to virally replicate after a certain time.

I doubt they can do much about people passing them around.

Id think their main concerns should be OTHER texture sellers trying to sell their original textures.

Possibly if you wrote to the creators of the textures and asked if it's ok for your family to use them too they'd say yes. Or they might tell you that getting paid by everyone who uses and enjoys their textures is an importnt source of income that they'd rather not forfeit.

I am constantly making new things.
I would assume any content maker or texture maker would be also be constantly making things.
I have done lot of exploring texture shops and its amazing how many of times I see the same textures in different shops.
I understand if so and so gives a texture to their partner and they give it so and so saying don't give this to any one but they do and that person gives it to someone else that could go viral and tons of L could be lost but that could also happen in other ways too.
Perhaps the family members could tip a texture artist if they found a texture in family viewer they really like as thank you gift?
Or perhaps most texture artist, except me don't think anyone would do that?
Would you tip a artist if they allowed your family to share a texture as long as it wasn't resold?
Or is there away to create a family texture viewer where if someone found something they could pay the texture artist through vendor with whatever they had to spare?

hmmm, interesting points.
Textures are simple to steal so that may be why you are getting a lot of resistance. On the other hand, I have seen tileable textures I like for L$50 or more. I then google for the name of the texture and find it on a free site. Copy, paste and L$10 later it is mine. It's amazing how much artwork you can find for sale knowing damn well that the artist is no selling it, the seller grabed it off of elfwood, deviant art or wherever and they are wanting L$100 - 500 or even more for it. I guess P.T. Barnum was right.

This whole capitalisim on crack system works both ways. If you bought it full perm then you can do with it as you like. Let the seller beware. Try going back to the person you bought the texture from, explain that you did not know you could not share this for a group project and ask for a refund since it does not fit your needs.

Yeah ... that's what I thought.

If you want to run your own texture store, try taking a look at istockphotos.com or some similar place that sells artwork. See that watermark over the photo? It amazes me that so many texture places sell L$50 straight from google textures with no protection at all. They even have nice large vendor boards where you can zoom in and snapshot away. Do yourself a favor and put a mostly transparent texture over your vendor boards.

And to do what you are wanting, you might consider selling group packs where you get 5 or 6 copies in a single box, each one set to no copy and transfer. Even if it only cost 1 linden more than the single, no one will pay the extra linden unless they are actually going to use it on a group project. But that is a lot of extra work and vendor boards to have up to cater to a small percentage of the customer base. You might as well just post a sing saying "Ask about our group project bundles" and just handle these on a case by case basis.

Certainly there are unscrupulous or 'new and clueless' texture store owners that sell a lot of publicly-available stuff. Most of them are people who have been ripped off by a "Business in a box" seller who knows full well that they are violating copyrights. Some are just in it to make a fast buck, and don't care if they get copyright lawyers sicced on them, because they are running the busienss as anonmous free alt anyway. Prosecute, and they just make another anonymous alt. Except in really bad cases of someone reselling whole collections at cut-rate prices, it costs more to prosecute in the civil courts than the loss of the texture is worth.

A good texture store, like TRU, tries very hard to always sell unique art that they create. And we have to constantly be creating fresh new material, to get repeat customers. Even setting aside the issue of people stealing textures, or releasing them as freebies, once you have bought "Set X", you never need to buy it again. But if that artist is always comig up with new material, you'll be back again and again.

Sharing textures is not OK in most cases, for two reasons. Untracability, and dilution.

If you purchase my "Tropical Building Set", the artist has a record of that sale, and so do you (if you file a copy of that transaction log), and you can both prove that you purchased a copy. But if you give copies of that set to your loving Partner, the artist has no way to track who paid for it, or to associate her with you. As far as the artist can tell, she stole them. UNLESS you contact the artist and ASK for permission to share the set with a specific, lmited group of people. I've done that before. For a small additional fee, I've sold duplicates of several texture bundles to people in the same SL household or building team. By selling them the copies, I have a record that they have a "Legitimate" set.

Dilution is what happens when people pass around a full-perms thing as if it was a freebie. For each person that you pass it to, that is one less sale that the artist could have made for that item, and one more chance that the one you give it to will in turn give it to others, until soon *everyone* has a copy, and it's in every freebie box... You've just destroyed the commercial value of that product. All those untracable copies have to be treated as stolen, but after a point, it becomes useless to prosecute. If one person steals a texture set, I can file a DMCA against that one person. But if 1000 people have copies that they got for free? I'll never find them all.

Unfortunately, locking permissions on a texture makes it virtually useless for other Builders. Try making a texture, set it no transfer for next owner, and give it to someone to use. They can use it to texture items all right, but the prim SHOUTS every time they do it, complaining they don't have the rights to do that! No commercial builder will put up with that. And of you make the texture no-copy, they can only use it to texture one prim, or one face of one prim, and then they lose it. Again, it loses all value for a commercial builder.

As we tend to make our own textures, we also enjoy being able to share these to a certain extent. Same with prims, scripts, etc. Most of us have mod rights on each others stuff, as well as being mappable to each other.

Mari

I don't have a family but am entertaining the idea of a building project with my sweetheart. I have the lion's share of textures, but I also respect copyright. I am a little torn about how to do this - I was thinking of a way to script it so that he can use my textures without obtaining an actual copy of them, but in my mind, I have to wonder what the difference is. I don't want for him to have to expend the thousands of L I already have just to get matching stuff.

u`ll be amazed how much stuff comes from other games like example halflife 1&2 with using the opengl intercept method

i share textures with 1-2 friends if they like a certain texture knowing very well it came from some place other then those so called texture creators as the texture is on sale by every one and they`re dog and available for free on the web or using a program to extract it from another game

there might be just a handfull of real texture artist and the rest are nothing more then scammers

also with those stupid texture packs, why spend $100 for 10-15 textures when u just want 1?
good chance they got it from some where else...

those so called tos`s hold as much ground as donating money to some random person and go to LL whining that you want it back, don`t sell full perm stuff then and make deals with content makers as ppl will bound to sell them on heh

you mentioned sharing viewers, not sure what you mean by that.

sharing of accounts is prohibited by SL, whether it is a friend, family or whatnot


as for textures and such, I say share them with friends and family, especially when working on the same project or for non commercial use

edited to add, I have made some of my own textures, completely from scratch for building, I have also gotten textures from free sources

would I consider selling the ones from free sources no
would I consider selling my own creations, no (they would quickly become free sources LOL)

so I use them in my builds for a unique touch

I was not referring to accounts I was referring to Texture Viewers.
I am still learning how to make textures, some stuff I do pretty well but still have
ways to go but I have been talking to the owner about whether or not I am ready to sell my textures at TRU.
I was reading her TOS about textures and thinking about textures and stuff.
I spend months and sometimes hours and hours trying to get a texture drawn right.
I do it because I love to do it.
I think SL would really suck without good textures or my ability to customize
my own textures in some way.
When I was new I didn't understand why anyone didn't want no transfer textures.
I an very sincere about my concern about the quality of textures in SL and those who truly spend the time to make
original and good textures because I know how incredibly difficult sometimes it is to do
certain types,etc but also torn too because when I find something really neat or make something I spent time I want to show my big Sisters in SL what I have found.

Yes I have a Family, though not 'children' or 'siblings'. I have a partner and two submissives, as well as a Mistress and two sisters in service.

We share love, trust, and passion on those rare occasions..err...anyway

I don't ask them to pay for tier or anything like that, simply to keep our Home safe. I pay for all of the land and decoration myself, simply because it's how I can provide for my Family. I've helped each of them with money problems at some point, and they've all helped me greatly with emotional issues.

My partner has mod permissions, but not my submissives. Its not a trust issue, just that if something is accidentally moved on our 10km of land.. it can suck big time lol. My submissives don't build so they understand my reasoning. My partner builds to some extent so it is safer.

If I have something any of them need and am able to give it, I do, without any hesitation whatsoever.

share as much as you want with who you want

ah now I understand heh
brain foggy today

yeah I say share them as much as you want

I have family here & to me, what's mine is theirs. If they want something I can give to them or share with them I will. If I can help them with anything RL or SL I will. They've gone above & beyond for me & i'd help them out without any regard to the creator, sorry but I have to be honest. For others, however, newp they don't get the same priveleges lol

But you do see that if you gave them something that was sold to you as an item not to be transferred you would be ripping off the texture maker who who needs to be paid by everyone who uses it?

I have just realized this recently myself. I share a texture viewer because I haven't been able to get one for my own self. I know what its like to struggle really hard to do something and not feel acknowledge....
The acknowledgment can come in someone buying something from you. It is like saying hey I really appreciate your effort.
I realize their is sometimes circumstances where this is just not possible this is why when I was using the texture viewer today afterwards I started to sincerely feel guilty about it like some how I was doing something wrong.

In my opinion, it is made not to be sold or widespread. SO giving it to family for convenience seems like it would be fine according to most creators. I could of course be dead wrong but.. just seems logical

just start your favorite 3d game and press F12, most of them get the textures in here that way so sharing textures is like stealing from a thief wich in the end is karma

having some of the major game developers go trough all the textures uploaded to the asset server and i can tell you some users will have their hands full with lawsuits of copyright violation from ripping Sierra/EA/etc textures and resell in sl

original textures wich you can distignuise(sp) from the other 1000 resell stores and i`d gladly reffer anyone to them but it`s to easy to rip the entire grid dry so doubt many are around wich sell their stuff in the open for every nub to get ahold of and resell

as a end note, full perm = full perm
that 10 users hold to the request does not compensate for the 1000 that don`t so why bother over L$10?

The seller might have gotten some textures from The Sims 2, free wallpaper sites, etc.
Another person who wants to use those textures can buy the Sims 2 and do the same thing.

The seller might have spent hundreds of hours making some textures from scratch.
Another person who wants those textures can get The Gimp or Photoshop etc. and figure out how to make their own from scratch.

Or they can buy the versions already for sale.

But if the seller stipulates that they are not to be shared by the buyer then a person who buys them and then shares them is breaking the agreement he or she entered into by buying them.

We'd all steal a loaf of bread to feed our starving children. But most of us would rather be honest than find excuses not to pay the asking price for something someone is trying to make a bit of profit on.

I know I try to do the right thing, be honest and respectful...but it is really hard sometimes especially when their are things you want to share like the family Texture Viewer.
Some textures it not always the easiest to make, even if you're creative.
If I could get away with only making my own all the time I would be whole lot richer but its not always possible.
Example I really don't want to spend 4000L on good skin just to get low paying dancing job I really rather figure out how to make it myself but it takes lot of know how, talent and patience to do a good skin texture.

I shouldn't be so self righteous. And I really wasn't judging other people's "morality" so much as nit picking their logic.

I don't know about anyone else, every has right to be way they want.
I know it bothers me that why I brought up the topic.
I know others do a lot of things here and else where but I realized personally after I was reading and sharing here I shouldn't share even my big Sisters texture viewer for any textures that this against the buyers agreement.
That's just me, it not a moral statement against anyone else.