Violation or Not?

(Name) I have just found out that you have been taking items from my lucky chairs and SELLING them at (Name). I am not happy about this and will be reporting you unless you remove these items and DO NOT resell any of the items you get from my lucky chairs.

I give itmes away in my chairs for those that dont have the Lindens to buy items and its for their use only.... I am so upset that you have used my kindness to make money from me. I will be checking again within hours to make sure you have removed the items from sale.

Please remove the items as soon as you log on.

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The above notecard was sent to my wife today. The items in question are no copy but resell. My wife is selling off all her no copy junk from inventory. Now rather she bought these or got em in a lucky chair who knows as she has accumulated 50000 items over time and who can remember. Anyway, there is no note or copywrite notice for the items saying do not resell and if they didn't want them resold then why make them resellable?

My question is, is this a TOS violation?

Well you (if it's you who was being adressed by the message) are a crook indeed, but she also should set her lucky chair items notransfer.

No, it's not a TOS violation, by any stretch.

Have you tried to explain to this person the nature of what your wife is doing, in the same way you've explained it here? If so, and that remains unacceptable to this person, then if I were in your wife's shoes, I'd tell him to kindly go ___ himself. I'd do so very kindly mind you, with a tone of civility.

As far as I know, once you have a transferrable item, you can pretty much do what you want. It's highly unlikely that LL would step in on this -- it is not only a resident vs. resident dispute, but also of a fairly low magnitude.

If you give them with transfer rights, the new owner can sell them on. Unethical perhaps but which clause of the TOS do you think it violates? Most lucky chairs I've seen lately give out no transfer items, probably for this very reason.

EDIT: above is nonsense - I didn't read the last bit of the OP because the dotted line made it look like a sig. Apologies to the OP. My advice is really addressed to the owner of the lucky chair.

That's a little harsh. The items are no copy. The person selling them apparently isn't able to determine in each case which item was received from a lucky chair and which item was purchased. It's no different than selling something you've won in a raffle in the real world at a weekend yard sale.

That's kinda what I thought, thanks folks.


Kyrah:
If my wife did this on some regular basis, I'd agree with you. But this is not the case

I'm not an expert, but I don't think so. If an item is transfer, then the owner can do what they want with that item, including resell it at a yardsale or give it away.

Usually, if a creator didn't want an item passed around, or possibly resold, they would make it copy/no transfer.

I've heard of other cases where a creator didn't like the idea of someone reselling their individual tranferable items, but I don't believe it violates the TOS. As I said though, I'm not an expert on this.

*edit. Wow, did I take too long to type that response.

If an object has trans/no copy permissions,I see no reason why it would be unethical or make someone a crook to sell it when they no longer want or need it. People have yardsales in RL all the time. If you don't want people to give away or sell your stuff,don't make it trans.

There's no provision in the TOS that prohibits it.

It's not a copyright violation, because you are not making a copy. Making an unauthorized copy of the work is an essential element to a copyright violation. Without making a copy, you are not violating a copyright.

It's like selling a book. If you buy (or say win in a contest or something) a book from your local bookstore, you may turn around and sell it or give it away to whomever you choose. The book is protected by copyright, but that just means you can't copy it; you can dispose of the original book.

Wait, a person made the items in their lucky chair transferable and is pitching a fit because they find the items for sale? Umm... okay.

If you feel it's a moral qualm, I'd probably remove the items from sell, and then hand them back to the creator with the words, "Thank you for letting us know that these were from a lucky chair, since they were not marked as such and they were among other transferable items in our inventory. While we appreciate your past kindness, we're giving them back, because we no longer have a use for you products."

Yeah, I'm being an arse on that one, but geeze, there's better ways of handling this than going straight for the threats.

I agree and here is what my wife did:

"Even though this is in no way a TOS violation I am pulling your items off the shelf as a gesture of respect to your concern. In the future I would suggest changing your items to "No Resell" if you do not want them resold "

If it's trans, it's fair game. Plain and simple.

You give me a gift. I don't like or have any further need for said gift. I put it in my next garage sale.

If you come to my garage sale, it might be embarrasing.

I agree with another post .... She should send them all back to the person who owns the chair.

Bollocks!

She should offer to send them back for a refund, since she doesn't know if she bought them or got them from a chair.

Acceptable use license still applies, even if the medium of the content is copyable or transferable (or both).

If a publishing house throws a book release party and they hand out books that have a "Promotional copy - Not for resale" notice on them then you're prohibited from selling the book on despite the fact that there is nothing that would actually stop you from doing so, nor would it be a copyright violation to sell it on. A license always overrides whatever permission system is used (and laws in turn override both).

(There likely wasn't any explicit license on the lucky chair item so it doesn't apply to the OP, but just to point out that it doesn't take copyright infringement to be in violation)

I agree.

Just slow down a minute .....

What was the intent/purpose of the Lucky Chair? One of two things - it was either installed as an act of great altruism to give items away, or as a "honey trap" to entice people to the location, in the hope of either gaming the traffic systems or having avatars perhaps see something else in a store while waiting for their letter to come up and spending some money.

In the case of the former - sheer philanthropism - I don't see where the owner of the lucky chair can be complaining about if someone else is selling the items. They weren't a freebie box after all - the OP's wife had to sit around and wait for the right letter to come up. So it's not as though she's behaving as a "freebie reseller".

If the chair was there to up traffic numbers or entice people to purchase other items at the same location - then all I can see is that the chair owner is showing their true colours. They got the people onto their site, didn't they? They got people to hang around waiting for the right letter to come up, didn't they? They got their traffic numbers, didn't they? Maybe they even made their additional sales....

So, having used people to their own ends, the Lucky Chair owner is now up in arms because someone is daring not to just delete the stuff acquired in the Lucky Chair? My own messages ....

Mr/Ms Chair Owner ... advertising (in any form) costs, and if you didn't think it all through to the logical conclusion and realise that not everyone would want to keep your "prizes" all for themselves - more fool you. Give it up, you didn't cover yourself by making the items no transfer - your mistake. Don't compound matters by inferring theft ("Taking items" from your chair - interesting perspective).

Mrs Wife of OP .... put those items back on sale - they're yours to do with what you want!!

Incidentally - how many items are we talking about? lol - at what market value??????

Why would they give her a refund?
Why send em back?

All seems pointless to me.
She took them back to inventory and will probably give em away to a friend.
Case closed, everyones happy.

About 8 items all under like 50 i think.

Out of interest, were these items the original creations of the lucky chair owner, or were they Business in a Box items? There are far too many lucky chairs inworld containing the same old same old BiaB stuff, and I know of more than one resident who thinks because they bought a BiaB the stuff is rightfully theirs: that they own it. Buying a full-perm BiaB lets you set whatever permissions you want to, naturally, and it wouldn't surprise me to find a resident demanding that 'their' stuff be removed from sale (when in fact it's for sale all over the grid).

Just a possibility that I haven't yet seen anyone mention here.

To me... It sounds like a Macy's executive coming to my house and threatening to call the police because I'm having a yard sale. (>_<

They were original creations of the lucky chair owner.

The items are in her inventory, whether because she purchased them or they were given to her via any method/means and they are apparently transferable and therefore she should sell them if she wants to.

Though I would probably respond to the Lucky Chair owner that sent the note and tell them that:
1) They should set the permissions to No Transfer if they do not want people selling them
2) They maybe should have learned a bit more about the permission system before going into business (yes, I am a beatch that way).