starting to feel like a theif

Can't be done. All you can do with a script is create a plywood copy: you have to re-texture it yourself. It's easier, less work, and more effective to use a bot to rip it. It's probably also easier to FIND a bot than a ripping script these days.

And now you've got a user with a bot *and* a grudge against you. Not a good combination.

yes, and forces them to go learn all the other techniques for doing that

would say it's a very small percentage of potential thieves it does stop, whereas you end up annoying a very large percentage of the people who actually support the store

I am seeing a rather scary correlation between this logic, and the logic used by the recording industry when they decided to combat piracy by locking down digital music with draconian DRM - and then stand in abject disbelief when piracy actually *skyrocketed* as a result of DRM.

I am seeing SL content creators beginning to go through the same crisis.

I make my rl living in sl, and almost all my products are no mod. Some flexi skirts, most simple prim attachments and all my glitch pants are mod on account of the widely varying avatar heights, but my shoes are no mod. They do have resize scripts, which can be deleted, and they are copy. I use the scripts for two main reasons. Firstly, the shoes are frequently complex builds and would quickly look dreadful if seperate prims were changed independently. The other reason is that if a shoe is heavily modded it ceases to really be my work, but still in world on inspect would be so declared. All my vendors display the permissions clearly and state resizeable, so I am not misleading my customers.

Why? Shoes, I can maybe see, but why make clothing layers no-mod?

Thank you Qie. It may well be that the person who posted about scripts still running when in the inventory either meant that, or had heard something and assumed that it's all scripts. I was imagining the effect if a person had multiple copies of those horrendous hair pieces in his/her inventory.

why would clothing layers need to be mod?

the only reason I can see is to make them tintable, which as most makers do their things in numerous colors would actually affect their other sales.

only other reason I can see is to affect the cut of them, which as SL makes a horrific mess of if you use the sliders, would actually be detrimental to anything but glitch pants

on the other hand, leaving them mod isn't really much of a risk that I'm aware of as far as theft is concerned as the little thumbnails of the layers aren't good enough to make a decent usable copy of anyway

the worst one EVER was a pair of boots made by a well known neko designer.

I rezzed them on the floor at home (I dunno why, I just did. I was messing about!) and it came up with a message saying that I was about to steal, and my name was logged and the creator messaged!

Then, I had an IM from the creator the next moment asking what I was doing with 'her' boots!

Unbelievable.

Surely if I buy a pair of boots I should be allowed to rezz them, wear them on my head, use them as a toilet, anything I like.

Needless to say I shan't be shopping with her again. I'd publicly shame her but that's probably a no-no, even if she did call me a thief.

Yes one of the free resizers is horrible. 0.5 milliseconds per attachment.

I started including resizer scripts because people want it. Still mod since "no mod" in no way stops anyone from ripping it off. Guess I need to include a copy without resizer scripts.

I.e.; learn how to size your stuff. Or in the future you will not be wearing it.

And further in the future you won't be wearing attachments at all when the LL devs take attachments away. Everyone will be required to look like a "linden". I.e.; look at what the senior linden devs look like. That is their opinion of their product.

I know a hair maker like that too, picked up one of her's from the recent hair fair ... shudders

I think my worst one like that is a maker of scripted furniture though, goes through all these script checks very loudly and very clearly telling you, and anyone who happens to be listening, that it's checking to make sure it's a legal product????

I mean, come on, putting script checks in there... fine ... having something that announces that it's stolen, fine... but why ohh why ohh why the need to tell you and anyone else around it thinks it's stolen already, and is been forced to make SURE it isn't??? why not just have those checks silent

Right about copying: anybody trying to use the standard viewer UI to copy avatar texture layers is working a lot harder than would any self-respecting thief.

I often add a subtle tint to modifiable clothes to better match other items. It would be a pretty lame bit of clothing that could really be acceptably recolored just by tinting the whole texture; generally, different color choices for moderate to high-quality clothing items are produced by changing colors on specific layers; just shifting the overall color balance messes up highlights and other details.

I bought wig (yes they are all wigs and we are all bald) from a designer that once tried that phone home script. The wig set included some little skulls in a separate attachment but I needed that attachment spot for something else so I dropped the 2 items out and merged them all along wondering if the wig was transmitting. Why didn't she just make a copy with the skulls attached?

Because you need to adjust length and looseness. Because you need to adjust the tint slightly to mix and match outfits. Tinting isn't a replacement for buying multiple colors, because tints apply to the whole outfit... adding more than a little isn't practical if the clothes weren't designed for tinting in the first place: it's not like RL where you can cut the buttons off and sew them on again after you dye a jumper! But I always keep the idea in mind when I buy clothes, how well they will go with my other outfits. If they don't go, I'm less likely to buy.

If you aren't a human, and you have to adjust the length and looseness of legs and sleeves and in some cases collars to fit around prim parts, not being able to affect the cut forces you to either discard part of the avatar or build your own prim extensions to clothes to use them... which is even more of a mess. The result is, well, no mod clothes are a no-sale for me.

Where's the benefit for the creator in making clothing layers no mod? It doesn't prevent theft, and people who are satisfied with tints aren't going to buy fatpacks in the first place. It just means people who can't use no-mod clothes aren't going to be your customers.

The problem is, it's killing ants with a sledgehammer. I hate resize scripts too...but there are an awful lot of scripts, both in my sim and on my person, that I want very much to keep.

A policy banning the use of resize scripts in items might be just as effective, and more precisely targeted.

hey, good answer argent, would never of thought of them having to be altered to for furrys and the like ... grins

to be fair, I did also say there wasn't much point for them NOT to be mod aswell ... hehehehehe

yes it is, and goodness knows I have enough scripted objects on my person myself, but I don't honestly think anything else will really stop them other than something drastic like say a no shop list with all the worst offenders on

I currently have in my inventory, an object with no perms whatsoever, the base object is no mod no copy, and the scripts inside are no transfer. Been no mod, I can't take the scripts out. This is just an example of how these scripts are used to defeat the lindens policy on copy or transfer.

now, and please someone correct me if I'm wrong here

as far as I'm aware, the reason that the lindens made it so it has to be one or the other was the fair use law. They wanted people to be able to control their creations so multiple copies didn't get out into the wild from one sale, but still give the buyer some protection aswell

My worst experience with this sort of thing is the sex bed engine I bought that had the Adjust Position menus disabled and no-mod Position and Menu notecards. This was an engine for gosh sake, how was I supposed to adjust the positions to match the bed that I made? The maker was unsympathetic when I asked him for modifiable cards. I won't say who it was, but I sure wanted to put a stick of DYNAMITE under his chair at that point.

Instead, I wrote a script that would read all the notecards in the bed and say their contents to open chat so I could copy their contents. He sort of forced me to do it, so I did not feel guilty AT ALL for doing that.

But still you couldn't adjust the positions. That system's perms were just stupid. In RL, it wasn't fit for the purpose for which it was sold, and the seller would be legally bound to refund the money on return of the item.

Fair use isn't a law, it's a principle. However, this was actually to support a different principle... the principle of first sale.

The idea is that everything in SL would either act like licensed media.... you could make copies of it but you couldn't give it away... or like physical objects... you can't copy it but you can give it away or sell it.

This was subverted when some game creator used a no-mod object as a gambling token and convinced LL that it was an "exploit" if people could remove the contents from no-mod objects. Linden Lab changed the rules so you couldn't "break" no mod objects.

When people complained, LL removed the note about "right of first sale" from Second Life's website.

hehehe.. I'm english and It is there (waits for someone to tell me I'm wrong here)

have heard it bantered around in the US often enough I assumed it was here too, my bad ... grins

They need to remove all of that information completely and replace it with a statement that says permissions are mechanical file system attributes that have no purpose other than programmatic control variables and have nothing to do with copyright or license and if someone has questions about what they are or are not licensed to do with something to ask the creator for a copy of the EULA for that content.

Actually, at that point I could adjust the positions because I was able to turn the Adjust Position menu items on in my new Menu notecard, and then save the positions to my own Positions notecard. (He uses the xPose scripts, not his own, so I knew how to do it once I got modifiable notecards.)

And I certainly agree that his perms were just stupid. I wanted the engine because I liked some of his animations (whose names are no-mod which is perfectly understandable.)

I'm glad that you got it sorted out, Cheree. I was stupid that you had to go to those lengths to do it though.

I've always thought that for some, the no-mod is an ego thing.

I went to a yard sale once, and there sat one of my room settings, completely modified to a hideous representation of something hardly recognizable and puke-worthy. And of course, your name is still on it.

Certainly made for a fair argument against allowing modify and/or transfer.

Precisely. This is very reminiscent of the old software gaming days. One had to endure a complex code finding and entry system to play a computer game which resulted in everyone buying the game and then acquiring a pirated version to play unimpeded.

I've been ranting a little bit in my blog over resizers for months -- even in my latest review of an Rfyre piece.

And don't get me started on no mod system trousers!