Copyrights, Wrongs, and the Provenance of Freebies

I've been working with freebies again for NCI (this time for an Orientation Island we are working on for a corporate client*) and this has brought the issue of the provenance of freebies to mind again. In an ideal world, we would never distribute a freebie that was not released as a freebie by its creator. However, in the Second Life virtual world, it's not nearly that easy. It's a non-trivial task to investigate the sources and rights associated with freebie items they wish to distribute.

SL tells limits us to the following metadata for content: copy/modify/transfer flags, creator name, and date of creation. All of these can be compromised, either maliciously, by SL system errors, or by creator errors. Examples include:

SL System Errors
* Items with "unknown" listed as the creator.
* Items where permissions have been corrupted allowing copy, mod, or transfer of an item intended for limited permissions.

Malicious Compromise
* Items that have been made with prim and/or texture information captured by copybot or glintercept type programs, where the listed creator is actually the copier.
* Items that the creator has trusted friends or business associates with a full-perms copy, and seen that trust betrayed, and the items released. (In my experience, this is the biggest source of illegitimate full-perm copies.)

Creator Error
* Items where the creator has made a permissions error and released something with more permissions than intended.
* Body parts where the creator has altered a newbie_template Linden item, instead of creating a new skin/eye/shape, thus the creator is listed as "newbie_template Linden".

A related issue is freebies made by creators who have left Second Life. Sometimes there is information in their profiles on the disposition of their creations, ranging from "I got screwed by my partner and left SL, I don't care what you do with my stuff" to "my creations are available at the following full perms stores." Often, however, there is no such information, or even simply a blanked-out profile.

Lastly we have creators who are legitimately selling boxes of their creations as full-permission business-in-a-box kits. (Based on my experience investigating the provenance of freebies for NCI, I'd say about 1/3 of the business-in-a-box kits fall into this category. Yeah--I was amazed, too.)

When I started in Second Life, things were much simpler. It was assumed that copy/transfer items were intended to be redistributed. Then came the first waves of freebie resellers, and permission errors started to accumulate, followed by item copying software, accumulation of asset server errors, etc. At this point, it's a real mess for someone who's trying to only distribute legitimate freebies.

Starting from an enormous pool of copy/transfer and copy/mod/transfer items out there, here is the procedure I now usually follow:

1) Does the item list a creator? If the creator is "unknown" or "newbie_template Linden", I can't go any further. If the item is already in wide distribution, I add it to the NCI freebies.

1) Does the item have materials that go with it indicating that the creator intended this as a freebie (such as a texture or notecard from that creator)? If so, no problem. I add it to the NCI freebies.

2) Is the item being given away as a freebie in the Creator's store? (or the creator mentions the items as a freebie in a profile/blog?) If so, I redistribute.

3) Is the creator selling the item with full-permissions in his or her store? If so, I contact the creator and ask if he or she minds if it is passed out as a freebie. If her or she responds in the negative, I don't use it. If he or she responds in the positive, I redistribute. If he or she does not respond, I take the full-perms resale and no response as implied permission, and redistribute.

4) If none of the above, I attempt to contact the creator for permission.

5) If the creator can be contacted, I follow his or her wishes.

6) If the creator can't be contacted because they have left the world, and has left information in their profile indicating they don't care what happens to their content, or have sold their content as full-perms, I redistribute.

7) If the creator is still in world, but will not respond to IMs, I try several times. My last IM will be in the form of "please IM me back if you _don't_ want these copy/transfer items redistributed". If I don't hear back--and the items are in wide distribution--I add them to the NCI freebies.

If at any point subsequent to putting an item out in the NCI freebie network, I am contacted by a creator who says they don't want it redistributed, the item is pulled.

What do you all think of my procedure? I know it is not perfect (the way things are set up now, I can't even be certain that the listed creator is really the creator), but I think it is about the best I can do to clear provenance on items, given the realities of Second Life.


*As part of its fundraising, NCI runs classes and creates content for clients, and uses the money earned to support its activities.

Have you also tried right clicking on objects and inspecting them? Sometimes that gives you a clue as to who the creator is even if the properties says unknown.

But as far as your procedures I'd say you put a lot more effort into it than I ever would. Haha. Don't ever hire me as a person to screen freebies.

it also gets complicated, as I found when you have items which are not copy but mod/trans

The original seller can raise a stink if you resell it to get rid of it, same can happen with copy/trans items

It's one reason to get in touch with them (and I now have a couple vendors whose products and partners I will not do business with)

That's a really good idea. I will try it next time I get an "unknown" in the creator field.



Yeah--I sometimes wonder if I am putting too much effort into it. There are hundreds of places with freebies that clearly don't.

They can, but they really have no grounds to. The "right of first sale" is on very firm legal ground, unless there is some sort of license that you signed up for--and even then, it's questionable whether just calling a transaction a "license" rather than a sale makes it so.

Well they filed a copyright infringement argument while I was selling the item as used on SLX

And unless I get their written permission to use said copyright I can't sell it... so may donate it to someone that can use it and eat the 9k lindens the kit cost with the upgrade. But do know I'm going to be using his competitor's products and recommending them from now on

I think you're going far above and beyond the duty. I commend you.

Let me see if I understand this right. You had an item that was sold mod/transfer, and without any license restrictions? And the creator said you could not resell it? If I'm understanding this right, I'm baffled.

That's the other end of it. I wonder if I may be doing too much. Other people distributing freebies certainly aren't bothering with NCI's procedures.

Yep, because I listed it as a sex-gen base unit.

Which it is, but since I can't use the copyright name i can't sell it on SLX as a used product without the creator's written permission.

Was the unit made by Eros (i.e., Sex Gen)? If so, then SLX is way off base. While they are a private company and can enforce any silly rules they like for using their service, using a trademarked name to accurately describe a used item you are selling is perfectly okay.

Imagine if you were selling a used Ford F150 pickup in a newspaper classified section, and the newspaper told you that you could not mention the make or model of the pickup in the ad?

It seems that you have an analogous situation here.

Carl, you are doing the right thing. End of story. This is what makes you, and NCI, different.

Indeed, and it may seem petty but I just decided to stop doing any transactions with both parties. All the items I had up are removed from the listings.

Indeed, many don't bother to even try to make sure the items are meant to be distributed.

I'd make it a rule that if you can't confirm it... don't share it.

One of the things that draws me to NCI is the honesty and integrity that the whole organization carries. The popular opinion that I get from the people I meet rates the help and service they get from NCI over and above what they get from SL Mentors.

I, myself was a bit worried that the skin I was using could have been stolen since it came from full permissions texture files not yet built into an avatar skin. It took me some time to find the blog of the person who created them and also offered other combinations for free. Now that I know, I feel so much better about walking around in that skin... Especially considering how much of it I have showing.... (=_=) Heh....

As for your freebie management policy. I'm not sure I would care what other people do if I were you. Your practices are good. "Be the change you want to see in the world." (^_^)y

If they are *selling* it full-perm, odds are very good that some usage situation requires full perm, and it is sold on an "honor principle"; not that they intend it to be distributed freely. Bits & Bobs' full-perm animations or pretty much any texture shop would be a good example of that.
I guess this is so obvious that I don't have to mention it, considering how much care you take in what you select for redistribution, but it does puzzle me why you so explicitly describe a rule essentially stating "If they sell it themselves, I assume it was meant for free distribution unless I hear otherwise".

They also have signs and notecards indicating they are not meant for unrestricted resale but use in your own creations.

No--you are absolutely correct. I left out something obvious. The "selling full perm" rule only applies to stuff that's usage does NOT require full perm sales. Textures, Animations, and the like are excluded. I am in full agreement here having spend tens of thousands of L$ on full perm textures and animations myself.

I look for this when I check freebies, but left it out of the list I gave. I'm glad you caught that, as one of the reasons I wrote the list and asked for comments was to create a procedure that other people at NCI could follow.

I also need to add "look for signs or notecards indicating limited redisribution rights" to my list. Thanks.

Thank you Desmond. Though I would say that NCI is not alone in this. There are other places that distribute freebies in an equally conscientious manner: among them are the Free Dove, the Shelter, and Yadni's--and probably others I've forgotten. And then there is the Gnubie store, which features (mostly) exclusive freebies direct from the creators.

It's not petty. SexGen is being unreasonable. I've known people who were in the furniture resale business, selling SexGen items with transfer permissions who where harassed by SexGen. While it is true that SexGen has had their copyrights violated in the past (and has had to go to the courts to stop it) it is also true that they have overreacted to legitimate resales of their items.

Thank you Imnotgoing.



Are you using one of the Eloh Eliot skins? They are of excelent quality and the PSD files she distributes allow people to learn how skins are made by playing around with the different layers.

They can file all they want, but they're dead wrong, at least in the US. Consider a book: it's copyrighted, but we can buy it and sell it again. US law specifically permits this. Copyright laws do not extend that far! For more information, go to http://copyright.gov.

There is no such thing as a copyrighted name. Names are trademarked, and if the unit is indeed made by the trademark holder, then you're using it lawfully. A trademark prohibits you from using the name on a product that is not named as such by the trademark owner. It does NOT prohibit you from selling an item that has a trademarked name, or from using the trademarked name to legitimately describe the product.

SexGen should be censured for this kind of behavior. Glad I heard about it -- when I buy an L$10K item, I want to know that if it's sold xfer/no-copy, then it's my right to resell it if I don't like it. (Frankly, I'm not very impressed with the animations in mine; I rarely use it any more.) If they don't want me to resell it, then they can offer it copy/no-xfer.

Sorry to get so far off the track here!