Serious Question for Freelance Content Creators

Targeted towards scripters mostly, but this concept applies to builders as well, and basically any other form of content creation.

Hypothetical situation: I get contracted to write a script that does a specific set of functions for someone. We'll call this Person A. Some months later, someone else wants a script that has similar but not identical functionality. This would be Person B. Person A gets mad that a similar custom scripting job was done for Person B.

Now, personally, I find Person As stance to be irrational. Person A never asked that as part of the scripting job they never wanted me to ever script anything similar for anyone else, and if they had, I'd have told them to find another scripter. Even expecting such a thing from someone seems entirely ridiculous. The irrationality behind such a request is that if that were true then every custom scripter would have an ever increasing list of projects they were 'not allowed' to do (or anything similar to them) based on having done it at some time in the past for someone else.

This would be akin to a web programmer only ever making a shopping cart site for one person, a real estate site for one person, etc, and refusing all other shopping cart/real estate/whatever sites. They wouldn't have a business. This goes for any business, really. 'I'm sorry, I can't build you a house, I built one for the Johnson's last week.'

What do other freelance scripters/builders/whatever think of this?

I think a reasonable position is that any custom work, if requested and as a part of the sale agreement (including appropriate price markup), will not be sold as a general off-the-shelf item.

However, if a second customer requests an identical custom script, despite having never seen it on sale in your store, I see nothing wrong with making that sale.

Yeah.

As a more direct question: Would any freelance scripters/builders/whatever out there ever agree as part of a job that they'd never make anything like that for anyone else who asked for it?

I really think it depends on what it is... there are a couple of scripters that I actually trust and confide in to do scripting for me, and they have always sold them to me full rights and exclusive and they also refuse to make anything similar for other people... but it depends, the scripts they make exclusive are usually pretty in depth, its not like I am saying, make me a sit script and never use the sit function again... make sense?

I'd agree, but insist on a x1000 markup for the job. Ridiculous restrictions on my future economic activity deserve ridiculous markups.

A solution that I have seen in some RL contracts is to disallow any similar work for a set period (usually one or two years in RL contracts). However, the legality of these clauses varies a lot (they are commonly written into contracts in Japan, but legally unenforceable, other jurisdictions may vary).

It would make sense for something really unusual, I suppose. But if that's going to be the case, it needs to also be stated and agreed upon up front. Getting mad cause you never specified that as a condition is silly. If you want exclusive, say you want exclusive, and then the creator can decide to agree or back out.

Personally, I would tell "Person A" where to stick it.

Code reusability is the lifeblood of any scripter worth their salt. If they (Person A) did not hammer it out in the terms beforehand, tough.

Oh I certainly agree, for one you need to request it to be exclusive, for two, one should expect to pay alot more for exclusive rights....

EXACTLY. That's basically what I said to them. I'm not going to back myself into a ridiculous corner.

Not to mention they do themselves a disservice by pissing off the scripter. We can do bad things, after all.

Not that I would explicitly advise doing so.


And frankly, they don't get your return business, so... sucks to be them.

Naw, not worth the effort. If they're going to be petty, they can go be petty without me. I've got plenty of other things to do. Not getting asked to make trinkets for them periodically isn't going to break my heart.

Somebody offered to pay me L$4000 to build him a twin-engine prop plane. I figured how long it would take me to do all the textures and scripting and sound synthesis and so forth, multiplied it by what I think is a fair wage per hour (L$4,500), and arrived at a figure well over L$30,000.

I decided I'd just build it and sell it to the general public and he'd wind up paying way less for it. It wouldn't be uniquely his, of course, but who would pay that kind of dough? On top of that, I can make much more than that selling it to the public.

As I see it, custom jobs are tricky, unless you're willing to work really cheap and sacrifice what you can make selling the product to anyone who wants it. (Unless your customer is willing to pay tens of thousands of L$ to make it worth your while.)

The problem here is this: In RL the idea guy (person A) gives an original idea to the maker along with contracts that prevent the maker from running off to make his own....
In SL... basically, everyone has ideas, but not everyone can make their own ideas...
It really just comes down to honesty, integrity, and trust that the scripter, builder, etc won't run off with person A's idea.
This is basically the reason I have not hired someone to make something I cannot make.
Getting rich off of other people's ideas, it's just not cool. I'm not saying anyone's doing this, but if you didn't have the idea before person A gave it to you, you shouldnt go around selling their idea...

Add this to the main listen event in your brain:


if (llGetSubString(message,0,13)=="will you make"
{
llShout(0,"Bite my bum, please!!";
}




That'll be L$2000, thank you.

A lot depends on the context, and whose ideas were being scripted/built.

If I had a brilliant idea...say for an in world personal transporter, that rezzed on command, took me where I wanted, and then derezzed, looking like a victorian submarine, and commissioned a scripter to make it, paid him 10,000 lindens, and then found that he had taken my idea and sold it to another...I'd be fed up with the scripter, even if I hadn't specified exclusivity.

If I asked for a script to get me from A to B and the scripter came up with both idea AND script, I'd be OK with it being sold on to anyone else, unless exclusivity was agreed.

The building equivalent, is that if I was asked to build a special house from photographs, and then someone asked me to build the same house, I wouldn't do that without reference to the original client, even if they didn't expressly ask for exclusivity.

If they just asked for a house, didn't specify or pay for exclusive rights, and I came up with the ideas, I would feel free to reuse them.

It's difficult to say what I would do in your case without more information about whose idea it was, how original the idea is, and how much you were paid.
Cali

Well, it's just like RL fashion coutre, I think (which I don't think I spelled correctly): that is, if a Hollywood star wants a customized dress to wear to the Oscars, and wants to be sure that she's the exclusive sole owner of that dress, she knows that she's going to pay an outrageous amount of money to ensure that. This is the entire point of being a creator of virtual goods, after all - that after putting in all that hard work to make the first object, an infinite additional number can be sold without any additional manufacturing fees. If someone wants to take away your ability to do that, they should be prepared to compensate you for all the lost revenue. That's the whole point of exclusivity, after all.

Now, what I think is a much better alternative in a place like SL is to rent temporary exclusivity - to pay just a little extra, for example, for being the exclusive owner of that item for the first month or two (or three or six) of its existence. Once I've got everything up and running, for example, and am starting to make money in-game, this is what I'm planning on doing as well - to commission certain designers to make me new outfits, for example, and then pay them extra so that they don't sell it to the general public until a month after I've been wearing it. In a virtual world, where SO much extra revenue is lost through exclusivity, I think this is a much better way to think of the subject.

I think it all comes down to the terms agreed upon beforehand. If the buyer did not specify exclusivity then it is their tough luck.

It's not a matter of 'going around selling their idea.' It's a matter of 'someone else requested a similar script.' I entirely agree that if someone hires you do to a custom project and you turn around and stick it on a shelf in your store that you're way out of bounds, but if someone else independently requests the same functionality I see no reason not to do it.

I think if person B asks you for an idea to be made, and you've previously made something similar, and you want to save time and create from person A's idea.. then yeah, free open market. Not only did a seperate individual come to you, it's also modified, and an update of your creation.

In the old days they'd have the architect blinded so s/he would never be able to create anything more beautiful. Thankfully the clients have less power now.

I too must chime in with it being agreed upon beforehand. Many scripters are working at a rediculously low rate when you think about it, and when it comes to custom work you're getting a helluva deal. If, say, you wanted an object that talks to an offworld database, no matter how trivial, with an offworld administration page, you're dealing with real world skills that should be paid at real world rates ($25USD/hr minimum). However, if anyone tried to charge that in game, they would be passed on immediately. To mitigate that loss, I request that I retain rights to the code such that I can reuse it later if I need.

Now, if someone requests exclusivity, I will oblige, if they're willing to pay at least US minimum wage.

I've always worked on the assumption that the onus is on both the creator and the buyer to specify details of the work for hire. It is part of the creator's job to determine cost and provide the buyer with price for A) open use or B) exclusive. But the buyer also bears the same responsiblilty for telling the creator whether they want exclusivity or not because the price should clearly reflect the this choice. If you want exclusive, be prepared to pay for it.

I could never ask for exclusivity for poses and scripts. Because frankly I can't afford that kind of exclusivity items. At least when I allow the person to re-sell the item, I can get them at a more reasonable price. In the end the script/pose are only part of the product I need, it's not the entire package. ^_^

At the same time, when customers ask for custom gowns, I normally don't do customs unless I am allowed to sell them to other folks as well.

For any issues of exclusivity, I normally have this hammered out in the beginning. ^_^

Just wait until Microsoft comes out with a way to poke sharp objects through a computer monitor.

Our sighted days, they are numbered!

as mainly a designer of fashions I have had many people come to me and ask me to do custom work. What i do is tell them up front i will make there item for them if i have the time and it will be sold in my shop if i choose to do so. if they insist on exclusivity i then do the rough math on what i believe the item will bring in if sold in my store how long it will take me to make the complexity of the item and then i give them a price. witch is usually in the 10-15 k range. 99 times out of a 100 the person insisting on exclusivity changes there mind very quickly and agrees upon the usual 200 400 lindens that i would charge as a normal retail.