Selling copies of another person's work without permission should be considered theft

I have today had a row with two people who thought it was the right thing to sell copies of pose balls that they had bought from Craig Altman.

He is good enough to sell full mods copies of his individual anims, so that creators like me can use them in their creations. He charges 1000 which I think is a fair price for a well-made animation.

Unfortunately an increaing number of people think it is OK to go straight ahead and sell copies of the full mod anims, undercutting Craig, (they sell them for 200) and making absolutely no effort to add any value themselves.

I think there should be a principle in SL that you do not sell copies of another person's creations without their express permission. Even having a setting which distinguishes between freebies and sold items isn't going to protect creators like Craig, if unscrupulous people get ahold of them. Having an accepted rule that you don't sell copies of ANYTHING without the express permission of the creator, would overcome the problem or people selling freebies for inflated prices, giving away perms bugs copies of items for free, and selling underpriced copies of other people's work.

I think that as a community we should uphold this rule. And it should be possible to do something about people who don't respect it. It should NOT be necessary for Craig to take extraordinary measures in order to protect his animations.
Cali

They were sold as full mod for the express point of reselling. These people did with them what the intended sell was for. Regardless of whether they added them to furniture..

They were sold fully mod for reselling in other creations. I have talked to Craig, it was not his intention that people should go straight around the corner and sell them fully mod for 1/5th of the price he is charging.

He despairs of being able to control this, but it was definitely not his intention.
Cali

Then he should probably sell them on a more personal level. these people did exactly whan the sell was for in my eyes..you would be reselling these animations in anything you make. Thats why all the poseballs that my company is making are no copy.

Leaving copy open can lead to this situation, and he is the one who took that risk...KNOWINGLY took that risk.

I don't see what the issue is.

Maybe Craig should sell his anims for more money or for less money and different permissions.

Briana Dawson

I totally agree it is THEFT and there SHOULD be consequences... BUT if you read this thread /108/eb/93988/1.html you will see it will only lead to the thief abuse reporting you multiple times... =/

Callandris,

I suggest your friend sell his animations as full permissions to approved resellers. They can apply to be part of this resell group, and he can monitor their usage. If they violate the spirt of his resale option, then he can remove them from the group.

For everyone else, he can sell the same poses as mod/transfer or copy/mod no transfer for individual use.

This exact same problem has occurred in the past to Nytemyst Grace and that is how she ended up solving the problem.

He may even need to retire the previous animations and make it clear he will not support them if purchased by anyone other then an authorized reseller.

We are ALL stuck with this permission crap that LL refuses to touch with a 10 meter prim it appears. As much as we want to label them thieves, LL has made it clear, if you allow copy/mod/transfer.. that is what you intended and if they sell it at all, in the case of freebies, or less in the case of just making a fast buck at his expense, is just too bad for us.

I'm sure will get a new permission system when we get Havok2. /sarcasm

One needs to declare that reselling as is is not permitted, explicitly.

Really, though, one can't sell items mod copy transfer in SL. There's no protection against being ripped off, LL don't give a toss about it and aren't interested in content creator rights in that area. You either sell exclusively or get ripped off, simple as that - setting a Creative Commons licence for example will give you no protection whatsoever.

If I sold an item that can be copied and transferred, I'd fully expect people to dup it, lower the cost and sell it unchanged. How can this be a surprise?

http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=1026

This at least somewhat limits it. Next owner: Copy+Modify+Trans, Future owners: Modify+Trans would mean that anyone wishing to use the poseball in furniture would have to buy from the original creator.

You can - but at risk of sounding a lil apathetic - It won't help or solve the problem.
Locks are basically for honest people - as are agreements. The people who do this will because they can - and no amount of agreements - licenses - or public pressure will stop them.

They can so they will.

And there will be no help forthcoming by the powers that be.

I don't like it - but unfortunately I've found through a lot of past experience that that is how it is. To save a lot of aggrivation I'd say count the losses and try and come up with a better system of doing biz.

On the upside - good animators are always in demand. Or alternatively hook up with some people - or group of people that you can collaborate with - and work for a 'slice of the pie'.

There are a lot of advantages to this - myself and Ferran Brodsky do it quite often.. she can put out a good animation faster than I can and I can put out a good script faster than she can - we often work with each other for either a split profit or an agreement that the other helps with a future project gratis.

Unfortunately the permissions system as is implemented in SL is limited to the three options - mod, copy, transfer. That unfortunately means people can take full-mod stuff they have and sell it, or enhance/mod it, etc.

Is it against the wishes of the creator? That all depends on the creator, and if they took steps to say if they forbid the use of their object in a particular fashion. Is that stealing? Not in of itself. One one hand if a person doesn't want their stuff re-sold, then they could have elected to uncheck either the copy or transfer options. On the other hand, that also limits the ability to give out freebies.

Sorta puts the creator (and the yard saler/ehancer/etc) in a gray zone. Unfortunately the only option then is to go with the creator's verbal permission. If they decide to change their mind or flat out reneg on the deal, everybody gets screwed.

Personally I know that one all too well. In the meantime, LL would really do well to add at least a 'allow resell' permissions option.


- Newfie

Ty for posting =)) 1st off i would like to say that i am Miracle Brokken. i would have posted in my own name but it is not letting me log into the forums with it so i am using my gf's name with all permission granted being that we do live in the same house (rl).

I am one of ther ppl who was selling the balls at the yardsale that Caliandris was talking about. I didnt see any harm to it being that most of the poseballs bought were from other yardsales and some perchased at full cost.
If all items are to be changed that u cannot resale at all then there would be the end of a few thing mainly yardsales. If u can not sale a item then basically u are wasting ur L$ weather they are copyable or not. If after a while u are tired of ur items what do we do? pass them on to a friend or fam member or have yardsales, especially if u have payed for it. I have been in this game shy of a year and me and my gf both been to plenty of yardsales and bought the copyable balls.

If there was an issue we should have recieved an IM or Notecard Personally, in which we did not see in game or email, to us instead of spamming and posting a sign right next to the balls that isnt on their lot. That to me is very rude. Yes i expect if i have one of my items that i made for sale has full rights will mostlikely be resold as the same weather the price is higher or lower. it wont be in my hands anymore so i would basically have no say in what they do with the items.

And yes i did IM Caliandris out of consern about the sign. if there was such a big issue, like i said instead of posting a sign, could have gotton in contact with us some other way and we would have just take the balls out then w/o hesitation.
As of now the balls have been picked up. and if u are saying its not ur job to see that we act in a moral way. well just posting in a forum and having the sign down at the yardsale sure seems like it.

So now i just have 1 question...
Does this means that the balls can get sold as long as it becomes no copy to the next ower?

So if you buy a non-DRMed CD, you think it's ok to make lots of copies of it and sell?

Someone else learned the hard way this does not work and now only has a list of approved vendors. Sorry, SL is full of liars and thieves and it only gets worse daily, with all the articles about coming here and getting rich. Expect more the same, the Lindens don't give a fuck.

I know, which is why I added the latter part.

I've gotten sick of the idea that the items I was selling for L$1, mod copy transfer, to help people learn to script, could and perhaps were being duplicated all around SL, so all of the ones that I care particularly about I've put up to a higher price and changed the permissions. Sorry n00bs, but right now I'm in a particularly bitter mood, and I'm sick of people selling rip-off shit across SL and having one purchase being more than I make in a day.

I think it was the store near my mainland plot selling Ama Omega's particle script, the Linden flight script etc for L$10 that did it. That vendor has probably made more money for the owner than I've ever made writing and building for myself.

If LL wants to have a system where it's assumed you're going to sell stuff to pay your tier, and isn't going to implement anything apart from "retain all rights or get ripped off" in terms of permissions despite having Larry Lessig and the other cool cats in, then fine. I'm not going to have people taking the piss out of me.

I'll wait until I can afford my own island before I start doing stuff for fun and giving it away again.

Sorry, I really am feeling quite bitter this evening.

Don't be sorry - I know EXACTLY how you feel. It aint fun - but it's a realization that a lot of folks come to.

I don't do instructional stuff anymore - hell I won't even do CUSTOM stuff anymore.

I hate it because I help out a lot of people, do a lot of example scripts, all for free, just to try to make SL a better place generally, and I enjoy it, I think it's worthwhile. But people take scripters for idiots. Oh, they'll do anything, just keep asking them until they crack. Well, I'm not an idiot. If you want to play Toy Capitalist, fine, let's play.

I'm sitting here paying my overpriced tier by myself, the tier that is actually priced on the expectation that if you have land, you'll be making money off it, and I'm not going to do that any more.

edit: that was really bitter, wasn't it?

No Jonas, they are sold with full permissions for the express point of reselling as PART of one's own creation. Craig makes this quiet clear on his notecards. Just because something is possible, doesn't make it right.
I hope this doesn't lead to Craig withdrawing/dramatically raising his prices, I love his animations, and I plan on getting a lot more when I knuckle down and start making more furniture when my current project is finished.
The permission system is woahfully inadequate. I don't know if you can, but re-selling in this manner should be AR-able, and should lead to harsh penalties straight off the bat. Permissions is at the heart of SL, and I get more cynical every time I read the release notes, see a bunch of new 'features', and still really important issues such as this are not addressed.

Unfortunately this will always happen. Or maybe we'll get new permissions with havok2..

Unfortunately when sl was smaller it was more of a tight-knit community, and we all had a common aim. Even then there were issues of people stealing, but it was on a much smaller scale. Now we have an influx of capitalists-manque ('theft is *good*!) and more people willing to act in a way which would be regarded as a crime in real. Everything in sl is being gamed, including permissions. The Lindens have made an effort to cut down on much of the gaming, but now is the time when they need to do something about the permissions system.

I agree that LL needs to get the perms system fixed, but I think the community could do more to protest at these things...and the best thing they could do is not to buy from someone who is selling copies of another's work.

Unfortunately it's like those polls about the tabloids...no one admits to reading the red top newspapers in the UK, and yet their circulation grows and grows.

I have taken some personal stick on this item, and have been accused of wanting to protect my own market for furniture. As I pointed out to the avatar in question, I have made little money in SL and have given away far more of MY content than I have ever sold. But I thought the comments were so funnily inappropriate, I have adopted them into my sig...
Cali

I've bought almost all of Craig's full perm animations, and use them strictly in my creations. Craig's animations are wonderful, and it's so easy to be able to go and purchase them for furniture building without having to go through custom scripting, animation, etc.

It's a shame that some people's lack of ethics in matters of resell cause everyone else to suffer. We in SL have lost a lot of great content from great builders, scripters, etc. because of these unethical behaviors.

yes this is a real shame, when i lcame in sl there was this RATE organisation , anybody know what it became?