Question dealing with Full Perm Issues..

I own a couple of stores, and I also with help of my long standing partner also have some items I sell on slx.. The store has everything, my builds ..my partners builds and also items created by others that I bought full perms with exclusive rights to them. With the agreement I would never give away as full perms, or sell in business in a box type of deals. Easy enough to follow. I buy from a few creators like this and have for over two years.

The past couple of months these creators have established new rules. Some I disagree with so I no longer buy anything within these "new rules". Such as one being outrageous high minimum pricing. Example: I buy a gown for 4500ls full perms and her minimum price is 650 lindens. If I don't agree, I don't buy. Simple right? No its not.

Does the creator once I buy an item full perm and given exclusive items to sell in my store come back a year later with new rules for me to follow. Things I bought exclusive 2 years ago selling for what she feels is lower then it should be. Do I have to go along with her new rules that were not established a year or two years ago?

Another ruling about 6 months ago: Can not sell her items in Commission vendors to other people. Simple enough to me. I don't sell commission vendors to other people with her stuff for sale in them. But for 2 years I have sold her items ..transferable ..from vendors but not for resale. But now she claims its a new rule that I can not sell from any kind of vendor. Can she enforce this?

I am boggled here. She is now coming to my store checking out the items I am selling claiming she has rights to them..blah blah..and I can't sell it that low, or that way..when its always been. Do I have any rights or am I forced to deal with it her way or pull the items?

Imo, you are right to continue selling under the rules that existed when you bought the items, unless the rules at that time stated that they could be changed later and you agreed to comply with future changes. If no such proviso was in the rules, then the creator has no right to have you comply with later changes.

If I were in your position, and the creator became a nuisance over it, I'd simply ban and mute.

Sounds like a good time to drop that source of goods, and learn to make your own merchandise. But if you had a contract that had specific terms at the time you bought the rights to that merchandise, the creator should not usually make any alterations to that agreement after the sale, unless something radical was overlooked in the initial agreement.

I have only rarely created clothing items that someone else was to have exclusive resale rights on those items. Frankly, it's not usually a good idea. I'll only make stuff like that now if it is a market niche where I don't intend to have anything remotely similar for sale myself. Like custom-logo apparel for a Corporate or University client.

If the item does not sell well, the reseller gets screwed, having paid too much for the excluive rights to a non-selling item. If it sells fantasticly well, the creator gets screwed, having given away exclusive rights to a good income stream for a comparatively small one-time payment.

If the creator sells a similar or identical item themselves, and there is a huge price difference between their price and the reseller's, then whoever has the significantly higher price gets screwed. Why buy the Creator's L$800 ballgowns when Sally Reseller sells essentially the same thing for L$50?

You always have done whatever you wanted, respective of what is socially acceptable. Moreover, you have the habit of only telling a half story or half truth.

In light of this, perhaps there is more at play than just your side of the story. I can't imagine creators wasting their time with actions you describe -- but it's possible.

On the other hand, if what you describe is indeed the full of the situation, and you truly do wish to "do what is right", logic would dictate that a rules revision should apply to new and future arrangements, with a mutually acceptable resolution based on discussion regarding previous purchases.

In the end, you can do whatever you like as you do not form a RL binding agreement (or do you) with a contract. But it's always advantageous to keep up constructive relations with people you do depend on in some way.

Full permission is full permission (well, kind of). Usually with a full permission item comes some kind of license agreement, that says how you are allowed to resell. Never full perm, and often only as a part of a new item, are example conditions. Any new rules are invalid, as you never agreed to them when buying.

As soon as they offer you a new full permission item though, the new rules apply on that item. Items you purchased before the new rules: tough luck for the creator!

Your only other option is to go with every whim the creator might have. Up to you of course, but if I were you, I would clearly set my rules towards the creator. In every business relation, there are two parties that have to be pleased. You bending over for every whim, probably leaves only the creator pleased

Cute... and completely uncalled for.

Right: if there's no violation of the terms established at the time the items were purchased, and if there was no a priori agreement that those terms could later change unilaterally, then I don't see on what grounds they could ask to change the deal now. If it were me, I'd tell them that I'm open to renegotiating the deal, but that they will have to make it worth my while--meaning they should expect to bring something to the table or there's just nothing to talk about. That might be a huge pile of L$s, or just a new line of products for resale that I believed would be very profitable for me. In any case, it's just a business decision.

One caution: there is a chance that the affiliate vendor thing was a violation all along, depending on how the original deal was worded. The exclusivity is probably binding both ways: they can't let anybody else sell them, and you can't either--and that may include using an affiliate vendor. Difficult to guess, without seeing the original agreement.

I agree with Ceera that reselling others' creations is often problematic in many ways. But if one pays for the right to resell items, one might be expected to protect that investment.

Whenever i see "logic dictates....."

I tune out and think of how sexy Tuvok was on Star Trek Voyager.

you guys are all way too ethical for me. if i buy something full perms, i will resell it how i see fit and no creator will dictate to me otherwise.

so, probably wise i don't get involved in this sort of business line.

If you made a deal the creator can't arbitrarily decide to change the terms of that deal.
If you have the exclusive rights to sell an item at any price then whatever price you sell it at has nothing to do with the creator. If you agreed a minimum price for an item then sell it at or above that price, if you didn't the creator needs to chalk it up to experience and be more careful in the future.

Don't you dare to call me ethical, in the several bot threads I earned my place in the non-ethical clique

But seriously, would you resell textures for example? They are sold full perm, and the license agreement says you can use them on your own builds but not resell them as they are. Reasonable enough in my opinion.
If you answer affirmative, you earn your place in the non-ethical clique. Hell you can be our leader

if a texture is not made with allowance for resale, then it will be no transfer anyway.

if i buy your product and you've made it full perm, then i will resell it if i want to a the price of my choice. textures? i guess if i made a build and used that texture, and you made the texture full perm - i would probably sell my product. i don't see how you can tell me not to when you made it full perms.

i would not just resell 'just' the texture, however .
am i missing something? is this a trick question?

Just as an example of one time where I did custom clothing for someone else's exclusive resale use: It was for a strip club owner who wanted a sexy outfit that his dancers could wear over their dance wear, when not actively dancing, or that customers could buy to support the club and show they were "part of the group" there. The club had a tropical island theme, so I made a cute sarong outfit with his club's logo on it, in several colors. Our agreement was that for a relatively high flat fee, he could give the item to his staff for free, AND could resell it as a branded item that club partons could buy (like buying a tshirt to support one's favorite restaurant or nightclub). I retained the right to sell a similar sarong, but with a different batik prints than his logo design. And we agreed that if he sold the outfits, his price on them would be similar to my price on the ones that had my batik patterns. We had this all worked out in advance of the sale, and both got a notecard spelling out the terms we had agreed to.

How it worked out? I don't think I ever saw one of his dancers or customers choosing to wear the new outfit. He offered it for sale for a while, but I don't recall seeing anyone else wear it either. (Then again, I didn't hang out at his club all that often). The club closed about 6 months later, leaving him with merchandise that had the logo of a club that no longer existed, and which he never, as far as I could tell, sold enough of to recoup his flat fee investment. The name of the club had ben subtle enough that he probably could still have resold it and/or given copies to his female friends (which I had no problem with, at that point). But as far as I know, he just wrote it off, along with the rest of what he had invested in that club. For my own part, I sold a few of the sarong collections, and several of my friends still wear them and are quite happy with them. But it never was a big seller in my own store, either.

Any clothing store that I know of that makes good sales, they are the ones who design their own stuff, have a wide selection of decent merchandise, and are always coming out with fresh new designs. Stores with a small selection that seldom changes don't seem to last long, or to be very popular.

Not at all a trick question. Just an example of a full perm item, that is not to be sold on it's own. Needs to be full perm to use it on stuff you want to sell, but the license agreement says you cannot sell it 'as it is'.
I was simply wondering what you would do, because of your 'ethical' remark. And I am happy you do what most do.

If you buy a texture that is set for full perms the only thing stopping you from reselling multiple copies would be your ethics.

I don't see any reason why you should be expected to follow rules that were not in effect at the time you bought the object.

It's an open question as to what she can enforce, at all, but she can't change the rules on you after the fact.

Does that include tracks you buy from Amazon or the iTunes store?

basically it comes down to law, which is, you can't change the terms of a contract after the fact, unless both parties agree. While the creator may now say, if you buy this product you can only resell with these stipulations, and you accept, that is a NEW contract. It would not change the terms of the contract under which you purchased any previous items.

i don't know what tracks are, but i'm guessing music. i don't buy music beyond CD's and DVD's music video collections, and i'm not sure how they would be full perms... that's not SL, that's RL.

There's no technical mechanism preventing you from ripping those CDs and redistributing the ripped tracks over the net, so they're just as "full perm" as anything "full perm" in SL.

And why does it matter whether it's RL or SL? It's all digital data.

You purchased them under agreement a, she shouldn't now be changing that to agreement b, unless she has some crazy clause in the original agreement that she can. These sort of agreements have to work both ways, what next? She says you can't sell them at all? I'd stick to the original agreement.

i think the difference is that in one instance you can end up in jail for doing it.

Ah, so ethics are based on whether you can go to jail for doing something?

Something I have heard before is that resources / objects could have a text property into which the creator can type a license if they want.

It's the same copyright law in either case, so you could in theory end up in jail either way. Although it would be difficult to make enough money in the SL case for the Dept. of Justice to want to waste time on a prosecution.

For criminal charges, the burden of proof is on the government, so you might actually get off with a fair use argument. For a civil case, though, once the copyright owner has proved that ownership and rights, you'd have a harder time proving fair use. I'm less certain about any contractual rights, but again, I think the copyright owner has the advantage.

IANAL applies. In fact, I'm going a bit further out on a limb with these comments than I usually do on legal issues, so I'm willing to be corrected. But you only have to read a few recent cases on copyright issues to see how strongly the law favors the copyright owner. Start with the recent Harry Potter Lexicon suit.