It's worse then I thought

Princess, before you wear that halter top, you may want to shave your back.

Lol

I think a few people are missing a few key points here. And by key points, I mean legal issues.

1. Copyright is not transferred simply by handing someone a copy. The original artist/designer/author owns the copyright unless a documented transaction takes place licensing the work for use under the defined terms and conditions detailed in the transaction. In some cases, this means a "buy out", or full transfer of copyright.

Purchasing a work does *NOT* transfer copyright. When you purchase a work, you have been granted a license to use the work for the purposes defined during the transaction.

If a work is provided at no cost, that does *not* automatically grant you resale rights. The work is still protected under copyright law, and if you wish to resell it, you must obtain permission from the original artist/designer/author.

2. GNU/GPL Software is, actually, resellable... HOWEVER... the full source code must be made available to the purchasing party. You can't take a peice of GNU/GPL software and change the permissions so others cannot see the code, then sell it. If you don't know what GNU/GPL is... you should absolutely not be selling scripts or scripted items you got for free. You may very well be violating the law.

3. Content creators in SL own the intellectual property rights of their content. This means... others cannot resell, modify and resell, or make derivative works without the consent of the original artist/designer/author.

Be very careful selling freebies in SL. Chances are, you are violating the law.

Content creators need to rethink how they set their permissions, or at the very least provide the terms of use for their items before the product changes hands, and a copy with the product.

A suggestion...

When creating a freebie, it may very well be beneficial to make it "no modify", and when the new owner rezzes the item, it informs them that it is a free item. It informs them they should contact the creator if they paid money for it, so the creator can then choose what course of action to take.

Hmmm well I think selling things to newbies who have no money and don't know that the items are freebies is BS and rather slimy.

On the other hand, I think you if you release something into the wild with full perms, you've given up the right to say what someone can do with it. So if someone wants to be slimy, they can.

That depends on the reason for, and the terms of, the transaction.

Not everything with full permissions is legally available for resale.

eeeewwwwwwwwww!!!!!

True Capitalism is not about screwing people for cash, it's about giving value in return for value.

An analogy that more closely represents what's going on is "stealing candy from a baby". In this case, the freebie sellers are giving the baby old crap and taking the shiny new candy. The baby, being none the wiser is happy to munch on the crap for awhile...until they realize it tastes like crap. In the same way, a n00b will eventually realize they spent their limited funds on something the original creator intended to be free.

The problem with this in Second Life is that when the n00b realizes they haven't been given value for value, they have little to no recourse. In RL, a class action suit or a tipoff to the police, the SPA, or to RIAA will quickly take care of a pirated software or illegal MP3 vendor. This doesn't exist in SL, yet.

"3. Content creators in SL own the intellectual property rights of their content. This means... others cannot resell, modify and resell, or make derivative works without the consent of the original artist/designer/author."

Granting the next owner the right to copy and distribute/sell those copies, through setting copy/trans okay, IS granting copyright. Copyright...the right to make copies.

Musuko

Have you ever made anything? The moment you make something modifiable it leaves those windows open for the next person to change the text in them to say anything they want. If you make it no mod, you basically made it useless since most people make adjustments to things they buy like clothing, hair, houses, etc.



Not a single one. Although I see no relevence to the topic. The topic is freebie reselling, not camping chairs.


Arguing with you on this is clearly pointless as you seem incabable of understanding what it is we keep telling you over and over. Those "permissions" are merely the only tools we have as yet been given to work with, they are not an indication of intent.

Oh please lets not talk about legalities. You get the law mixxed up in this, and, as I've pointed out before, all these people selling knock-offs of things they saw on the web or who have photosourced the majority of their outfits and items or who have plastered a knock-off of a brand name on a product or who pipe MP3s into their club or myriad other illegalities are ALL going to be up a creek. Last thing we need in SL is the law. Besides which no one is talking about bringing lawyers in here to hunt down the person being frequently attacked in this thread for selling freebies. What a waste of everyone's time that would be.

Regardless of legalities, if you put something with full perms out there to be given away, you should understand that someone with the ethics of... well someone without ethics is going to try and probably succeed to sell that item to an unsuspecting newbie. That's the fact of the matter and you can rant about it till you are blue in the face and it won't change a damn thing.

I find it more reprehesible that someone is taking advantage of newbs than I do any supposed copyright or trademark violation. There are damn few content creators in SL that are not guilty of a little of that themselves but no one minds if you steal from something outside of SL. But the moment two people photosource the same outfit and change it just slightly or the moment someone sells a freebie its all "the copyright law says this" and the "dmca says that". Screw that.

The crime here is those people being taken advantage of -- from people like the aforeunmentioned "business" owner to those selling freebies at yard sales to those selling slider bar clothing that any idiot can make themselves to those selling textures freely available on the web -- its no less of a con job than those idiots who sell bogus life insurance policies to the poor or $1 bibles for $50 to little ole ladies. You are taking money from someone who can ill afford to loose the money and you are doing so with items that are freely available.

If you want to help combat this sort of thing, bitching about it on a forum is a bad place to start. Few people here are new. I teach a newbie class and one of the things I go over in length is how people will try to rip off the new residents. I also have this written up in a notecard which I give to newbies when I meet them. You won't get people like that woman to stop doing what she's doing by ostracizing her on this forum -- her presence in this thread alone is proof enough of that. So combat the problem at the other end -- remove the customer base.

Sometimes so many of you piss me off. You don't start bitching about something until you see it affecting your bottom line. You don't really give a shit about the new folks -- you just don't want to loose money. But that's a whole different rant.

And, to digress slightly... to folks that think that permission bits = license to resell:

Say BOB grants CHUCK a "limited resale license" and mod/copy/trans versions of the things that CHUCK wants to use in his own products for resale.

The condition is that CHUCK is not allowed to release or sell MOD-able versions of BOB's creations.

Then CHUCK screws up. Oops, so sorry, my bad, didn't mean to let a mod/copy/trans out.

You now have the ability to resell BOB's intellectual property...

But no license/permission/consent from BOB to do so.


BOB's fault for trusting CHUCK? Yes.
CHUCK's fault for violating the usage license that came with the mod/copy/trans item? Yes.
Your fault for re-selling BOB's work without asking BOB? Yes.

Of course, we could just give up on any hope for using SL as a market place by allowing this to continue.

The result will be:

People like BOB won't trust anyone with any mod copies of ANY of his works anymore.

People like CHUCK will only sell stale old crap because people like BOB told them to go to hell.

And you. Well, you'll still be there selling the same old crap too because no one will be making anything new. How great, less competition.

Sorry, but if this is your idea of trying to foster capitalism... it sucks.

Well for one thing the people who made the items legaly have the right to sell it and others must ask before doing so.
I suppose this is why if you look on some candy bars in real life you will find a "Not for Resale" label.
I think I'm going to start putting that lable on all my freebie packages.

I don't think it gives people the license to resell. I think that it gives the ability to resell and that, regardless of what you do to curb it there are those who will resell given the ability. Know this. It is a fact. You cannot stop it. No more than the RIAA can stop the copying of MP3s. And they have way more muscle than you do.

What you can do is educate the consumer base. But that would require, y'know, work -- instead of just bitching on a message board.

"Have you ever made anything?"

*laughs uncontrolably*

Try looking up Tartarus Island, or Clever Kitty Creations (CKC). I've made and built plenty.

"I don't think it gives people the license to resell. I think that it gives the ability to resell"

It gives the ability and the licence...it's called PERMISSIONS. When you give permission, you grant a licence.

Musuko.

Ah, but bitching is work too!

I totally recognize the futility of trying to win this argument with Musuko, (or Jamie).

But I BELIEVE the practice of selling no-value-added freebies is wrong.

I'm actually glad that Musuko is arguing the point because I feel more compelled to research the issue more thoroughly... and in so doing, hopefully, I'll better understand why it bothers me so. Or, perhaps I'll uncover evidence that shows I'm completely off base.

Which, disappointingly, is turning out to be the case.

The best I can offer at this point in support of the illegality of freebie-selling is this, (granted I'm no lawyer and my sources or my understanding of them may be flawed):

Copyright need not be registered to be effective. Until death the author has copyright and with it the right of revocation... apparently even if they've made their work public domain.

So I can't tell them to what they're doing is illegal. But I can tell them to stop selling content I've created if I catch them. I've heard of cases where Linden Labs has helped enforce this... whether they will in the future or not, and under what conditions, who knows.

Re-selling freebies without asking for specific license to do so from the original creator is allowed, and certainly not illegal. It can be exploitive and disrespectful, and I clearly expect too much from people.

Of course, it's just as legal to compare opportunistic profiteering freebie sellers to disease ridden parasites, if done right.

--
I'm just an amateur trying to find ways to better express why I think it's wrong.

My whole problem with the avenue you (specifically Jopsy but also everyone else in this thread pretty much) are going down is that the people selling freebies aren't really hurting you. Ok so Siggy has gotten support requests from people who have bought his freebies from Jamie. And that can be annoying. But other than that, these people aren't really hurting you. You all are bringing in the bucks. Sales might be a little down but what the hell did you expect with DI and Dwell drying up? People have less money to spend. A LOT of people have less money to spend. Stipends go away yer sales are going to slump even more but the freebies being sold at yard sales and at Jamie's store aren't really hurting your sales. People have been selling freebies since there were freebies to sell and it didn't hurt you before. This just offends your sensibilities. I feel, in many ways, like you are the RIAA trying to hunt down 12 year olds. OK maybe not that bad -- maybe yer just Metallica and Sheryl Crow -- raking in the big bucks while screaming about how bad copying MP3s are while other artists have used the distribution of free MP3s to revitalize their careers.

When I was a newb I looked at who created the freebies I liked and I went to their shops and bought more of their stuff. Even now, like at the hair fair, I got free stuff from people who I had no idea created hair and clothes and they've received business from me as a result of me liking their freebies. So freebies can help you. But the people that sell these freebies -- they aren't hurting you. They are hurting the new folks who don't know the difference. This is what gets my goat. Well that and all of you being so friggin high and mighty about law and permissions and copyright and whatnot.

Most of you don't seem to care one whit about the people who are really getting hurt here. You just puff up your chests and make proclamations about how you are going to sic LL on Jamie or whoever it is that you've recently caught selling freebies. (Just as an aside: I think maybe they might know about Jamie -- this isn't a huge secret, y'know? I'm just saying that if they were going to do something they might have done it already because a thread bitching about her buisness only comes up about four or five times a week). Or you say for the twentieth time how this is why you don't make freebies anymore and that you used to care but now, after viewing the business practices of a few bad seeds, you don't care. Oh yeah that's useful.

Y'know if I was a content creator and someone was selling stuff I'd made available for free and it pissed me off as much as you say it pisses you off, I'd buy land near or next to that person's shop and put the stuff for free out with big signs saying how its free. I'd be as obnoxious as the ImpeachBushGuy. I'd have big assed signs that said don't buy these items when you can get them for free. I'd be hanging out at welcome areas and handing the stuff out and introducing myself. I'd get my friends to help. I mean shit.. this would be friggin war. I would spend real bucks and I would put that person out of business.

And its not like there's just one of you! I mean just from the posters alone if you guys organized you could do some good work here. You'd only have to do this once too. The story would stick around and people would be discouraged from doing this. But you don't do any of this. You come here and you bitch and moan and whine and talk about the dmca and copyright law like yer a lawyer and you know what yer talking about when you don't.

So what are you doing this for anyway? So you can impress each other and those of us watching from the sidelines about how much this all sucks? To beat up on Jamie when she posts? (Don't get me wrong Jamie -- I'm not rooting for ya here -- I think what you do is pretty nasty but I'm kind of tired of watching people bitch about you and wish they'd be more proactive). If this really bothers you all so much, why don't you get out there and do something about it? Free market and all, right? She's got the right to sell it maybe -- but you have the right to give it away before she can sell it.

ok /rant off. sorry. just tired of all the chest thumping. i dub thee all tarzan and am going to bed.

*sighs* looks like some good discussion going on, but I can't ever stay here reading long enough (w/o interruptions) to ever read an entire post from you lol

lol sorry i had no idea i was gonna go all prokofy on ya.

LMFAO

"Copyright need not be registered to be effective. Until death the author has copyright and with it the right of revocation... apparently even if they've made their work public domain."

This is true. Copyright is automatically granted at the moment something is created (ie, I take a photo, I own the copyright to it right away), although enforcing that copyright is a little easier with some prudence (timestamping photos, for instance, or mailing manuscripts to yourself in a sealed envelope to get it post dated).

BUT...

...copyright isn't FIXED. If I take a photograph, then give it to you and say "I am giving you exclusive complete copyright control over this photograph" I am transfering ownership to you as if you were now the creator, and if I made copies of the photo I would be breaking YOUR copyright over it.

Likewise, if I give you the photo and say "I am giving you non-exclusive complete copyright control over this photograph", I am giving you the right to make copies and do what you like with them, as if you were the creator, but I retain the same control over it.

The latter is EXACTLY what you are doing if you give someone a full-perms item in SL. You might not think that, but that's what you ARE doing by doing that. If you don't want to give people that permission (ie, you want to give "I am giving you non-exclusive imcomplete copyright control over this photograph, allowing you to copy it for your own personal use and distribute copies in an unaltered form in non-commercial applications", then give different permissions, or add a provisio and hope it's obeyed.

Musuko.

Ah, but I used to depend on the dwell generated by my 'free' classroom.

Then someone plagarized my class materials and used them to generate dwell that I might have gotten instead. (but they were just trying to be helpful! despite removing all references to the author)

I felt ripped off.... twice.

I knew it was inevitable, and some tactics I used to discourage it were effective for longer than I expected. It's still a huge disappointment when it happens.

And now? The major upgrade to my classroom is on hold until I can design a new 'borrower-deterrant' model for it. And in today's shrewder more grab-a-buck SecondLife... I'm not sure I've the talent for it.

It's hard to be charitable and sharing when I know whatever I do is just going to get re-packaged by someone with more free time to market it... and I won't even get a thank you as they turn a quick profit on my efforts.

I still hope that someday creators in SecondLife will have better ways to control the distribution of their works.

Until then, please don't pay too much mind to my disparaging comments towards those that endorse the distasteful practice of freebie selling... it's just a bunch of ineffective epithets from an embittered old elf.

Actually I got into aruguments with people demanding refunds from me for crap I never made - neg rates - bad press - and a lot of annoyance - and even some greif.




Au contraire - that what annoys me the most - the new players getting ripped off are who I care about and I don't declare I'll 'sic LL on them' most times I used to go in world and do shit about it - by myself - without 'help' from anyone.

I've done setting up next to folks - I've done raising awareness - I've done everything you've mentioned - and more - and probably stuff you never thought of - as well as things that have gotten me on the thin edge of the wedge and a close step off the cornfield



So when you rant it's good - and when someone else rants its bad?

eh. whatever.

It burns so... but I have yet to see anything that says you're wrong, from a legal standpoint. Copyright, Copyleft, Public Domain, Open Source... it's all so damned murky it's no wonder lawyers have such a bad rep.

In my case, adding acceptable-use provisios and praying is about the only recourse I have.

I do have 'free' content clearly marked as "okay for resale", they're simple templates for people to start with and that's their purpose.

But for the rest? God it's frustrating not being able to slap a permanent "NOT FOR REDISTRIBUTION/RESALE BY ANY MEANS" mark on viewable scripts, notecards, textures, all which are merely a screenshot or cut'n'paste away from transferable. If only to eliminate ignorance as another justification for unintended usage.

In any case... Thanks for poking back, despite everything, it was good arguing with you.

--
(but can I just say that... "Morally" I think its... oh shut up already.
Sigh. Okay.

So it seems the majority of us would say that selling freebies is naughty.

What about if somebody sells something at a higher price than they originally paid for it? Is that naughty?

What about if a creator continues to profit from something long after they've covered their costs and labour. Naughty?


Aren't you all going to be joining Bill Gates in a very long queue to hell?


Disclaimer: I've not covered my costs and labour on any of my items. I could go to heaven! (if I wanted to)

I think you sort of missed the point entirely. What stinks is that these products are easily available elsewhere, but freebie sellers put a $100 price tag on them, a new players buys them, not realizing they are in circulation for free.

Then they find it at Yadni's for 0$. That would leave a bad taste in my mouth as someone who is new to SL ...wouldn't it do the same for you?

Ahh well as Musuko so aptly said it "screw the newbies".

Edit to add: I'm involved with the GNUBie dollar store and I encourage people who decide to help out to set their stuff to no transfer for this reason. This goes against the original ideology of GNUBie to have full permissions on everything so that new players can tinker with them.