Partisian Agains't Yard Sale Queens to all Merchants, check your products for dupping

No telling how many peoples items they are reselling without permission. You merchants might want to check Yard Sale Queens to make sure they aren't dupping your products for resale and undercut.

Go to any yard sale on any given day and you'll find copied, altered freebies and other peoples stuff being sold for waaaaaaaaay higher than they go for. I can't imagine how many new people are getting ripped off

You can't duplicate an item that is sold "no transfer". So if you see (non-freebie) items from creators at a yard sale, they are used items--i.e., just what you would expect to find at a yard sale.

isn't this the definition of a yardsale?

A yard sale usually consists of one product used being resold for less, in this case it is one product being sold over and over for less with the orginators company name wihout permission. One of the Yard Sale owners also state, they have a right to resell anything they buy; obviously without permission. Seems the only recourse one may have is to seek litigation through council. I really don't think alot of merchants want to go there, nor does Linden Labs, but; Iam getting very edgy. And I don't think bad media will help any of us. Bascially it is Pirating and IAM GETTING VERY PISSED OFF!

How is it pirating if the maker did not set the permissions to no copy?

If Joe Avatar bought one of my transferable item, he can resell it at a yard sale if he wants so, and has no permission to ask for.

Once you buy something, it's yours, and you do anything you want with it, including reselling it. Any restriction on reselling imposed by the original seller is considered null by the Law, this is known as the First Sale Doctrine.

It doesn't apply to copies of the object, of course, but only to the one original object bought from the first seller.

I still have no idea what's going on here.

I make free to copy items full mods...mod/copy/transfer.

This does not mean I intend that someone should take my free to copy item and change the mods on it in order to make a fast buck selling it.

I think that Linden Labs should make the selling of multiple copies of ANYTHING without the creator's permission a bannable offence. Generally, people who are doing this without permission are selling free to copy items.

I have no objection to someone buying something from my shop and then reselling it for less or for more than they paid for it.

I have every objection to someone taking my freebie and selling it. I don't think that the people who do that are honourable.
Cali

Damn. You wait for ages for a thread to use a certain pic in, then two come along at once!

im really not understanding what your saying.. from reading this i assume that someone is buying multiple copies of one item then setting them out for sale for less then what they purchaced it for which i dont really see a big issue about it because the creator is making more of a profit then the reseller where in this case the reseller is at a loss of profit

is someone wants to buy say 5 of my couches at 450L a piece and then go and sell them for say 350L i wouldnt have a problem with that. hell even leave my company name on it cause if someone likes that couch chances are they will come see if there anything else they like..

now if someone make free copies of the original and selling them with no profit to the creator that might be cause for unhappiness

Some of the common complaints about yard sales are that they contain:

1) Items that were orginally freebies (or $1), given out by players and even Lindens, but are being resold for alot of L$ with little or no modification by other players. (this is probably the largest occuring offense)

2) Items that were orginally were no transfer or no copy (or had other restrictions) but full rights to them were obtained through a bug in SL and are being resold by someone (ie non-creator). (less common but still exist)

There are more examples but this probably covers alot of what Blake is complaining about. People will debate item #1 and some even say item #2 is valid but not as often. Blake isnt saying yard sales are illegal, he's pointing out that alot of the items sold in them are less than honorable/legal/etc.

Nods... I gave out freebie tattoos for New Year's (L$1 for tracking purposes). I've seen them there for L$10. Anyone who wants a rose tattoo can contact me in game and I'll give it to you for FREE, but no transfer. haha Aren't these the same people that had a yard sale before & it was just tons of freebies... or maybe I'm mixing them up with someone else.

I don't think even in the most loosely defined manner that "ages" could be considered five minutes.

At the risk of sounding stupid, I will add:

3) Items that were marked "For Sale" when the creator did not realise that "for sale" doesn't actually mean that you are setting the item for sale, but means the next person who owns it can re-sell it and keep the money. (at least I think that's how it works)

I have been here for a year almost and although I only recently started selling stuff, I was totally unaware of this ridiculous meaning of that permission.

I would bet thousands of others are as well.
Thus innumerable items being sold that the creator never intended to be sold.

items marked "for sale" are indeed "for sale". "for sale" is not however a permission. the permission you speak of is "transfer" which means the next owner can give/sell that item to someone else. if "transfer" is off, but "for sale" is on, the person who buys your thing still can't sell or give it away.

that said, i also have no idea what's going on here, and i suspect blake may have forgotten himself now that he's had a day to sleep on it. blake! come tell us what's happening!

Blake, you really need to get over it. As long as they have full permissions they can do what they want. Don't be another Drama Queen in this game. Key word: Game!!!

Competition started making modifiable shapes and they seemed to be in demand and people liked the convenience of it, so; what I did was make some of my shapes Modify/Copy/No Transfer.

Bascially what the company Iam speaking of did was recopy my numbers apply it to a new shape and put my company name on the shape exactly as the original without consent and then put it up for sale for less stating, "In store 750L here only 250L" which is false; my shapes are 500L currently. They were no transfer therefore it had to be dupped and my company name put on it intentially, without permission. Because of this, I have had to revert to no modify/no copy/transfer again and go about adjusting customers height etc. upon request of which can be a bit hard being only one person at times.

What happened was the company that was dupping my creations were telling me that a Yard Sale company was reselling my shapes, then I found out it was them that sold them the shape. I had this issue with them in the past about reselling and using my company name without my consent. She was ratting on whom they sold it too.

This company also promised they would take my company name off the shape and they will slightly change the shape features, well; when I checked my shape, it was only Boxed within a box; but the box within their box was the box I had made in Photoshop and the shape inside with my name on it and settings.

A person owning a yard sale doesn't go in the garage and remake a product to exact specs and then mass produce with the orginators company name on it without permission, that is defined as Pirating; just like if someone makes an unauthorized recording on CD and mass produces it under the artists name and or record label without written consent.

Well thanks for the compliment of thinking iam so great, but; no thanks to deliberately trying to sabotage part of my livelyhood and income. I even tried the first time after learning through the grapvine they were doing this I offered to rent vendor space from them so they would still have my products to sell and it would be a mutual win win situation..they were not interested..I tried the nice approach and was only calmed by lies and deceit. They did not nor do they want a mutual agreement, only to resell others items without autorization or profit share under the orginators company name for less.

Without some kind of future enforcement or at least a simple request to people commiting these unethical actions, SL will end up a sea of yard sales and Pirated/Undercuts down to the level that will turn and has turned many merchants a frown upon Secondlife and a bad reflection of distrust not to mension bad word of mouth and publicity. People ask me all the time, "Can I modify the shape the way I like it or do I have to contact you to do it?" Then I have to explain the reason why I know longer offer the convenience.

Linden Labs I think does not care nor do they want to assume any responsibility unless they get a sea of Cease and Desist letters from law firms stacked on their desktops causing them to hire more staff producing more company expenses in enforcement from the people that are the victims, and one day a simple request may be ignored and the wrong person will be so discusted and pissed off it will lead to less freedoms we all realise currently in SL and more and more groups will become Mafia, not just for roleplay but; organised virtual crime. And some are turning to it with that intention because there is no real governing entity and they are either fed up and are taking action into their own hands or they simply are taking advantage of SL's no responsibility stance which will effect overall retention of honest businesses trying to make ends meet.

Lets just hope that some people that are victims look at this as only a game and not a real effect on their real livelyhood and don't have the motto: "Speak softly and carry a big stick" or "Im gonna make them an offer they can't refuse." If you want to swim with the fishes, hope you don't get eaten by a bigger fish.

I'll say it before you do...Welcome to the 1930's.

/start_soapbox

One problem, that's yet to ever change or otherwise be addressed, is that the Lindens apparently don't know the literal differences of the meanings of "give away" and "resell". The Lindens combine these totally separate concepts into one inclusive Permission.

Phrasal Verbs:
give away



re·sell
tr.v. re·sold, re·sell·ing, re·sells


Herein lays the problem. SELL != GIVE. Until the Lindens learn this, we'll always have headaches.

/end_soapbox

hehe, thanks for clearing things up blake. i was really confused at first about what exactly you were upset about :3 i hadn't considered shapes before. they're one of those things you really need to give mod perms on for them to be worth anything, but giving mod perms makes them easily copyable by looking at the slider numbers, and i can't think of any good way for them to handle that to prevent it. that said, there aren't many exclusive shape dealers out there. you're the only one i really know of by name, and i doubt your sales will notice much of a hit from this as there's just not much competition out there. i agree it was low of them to copy it in the first place, and even lower to use the name. glad you got to the bottom of it at least and they agreed to change theirs :3

If you set the permissions to NO TRANSFER, they can't resell it, PERIOD. Why are you bleating about this when it was your choice to allow this to happen...

Yeah, it may have been a mistake, initially, in Blake's case (in which case, the outright PIRACY of his work should be reported directly to LL for action against the thieves), but if you deliberately set permissions KNOWING that people can and will re-sell the item, this is exactly what you've agreed to.

No, it's not fair... Particularly when they are ripping off exact dupes...

However, please tell me just how much modification is "enough" to qualify as NOT requiring notification/payment to the original creator of an object?

F'rinstance: in one of the freebie boxes all newbies pick up all over the place, there was an office chair, black, kinda goofy-looking, Wookie-sized, 7 prims, with permissions set to full mod/copy/transfer. I've resized it (to human-size, rather than Wookie-sized), changed textures, unlinked the parts, repositioned and relinked the prims: NOW it looks like a real chair instead of a piece of loosely-connected junk. I've also made it in 9 variants (in such details as the fabric/leather of the seat, the wood/metal of the arms/base), which I plan on selling in a vendor in my shop/gallery. So I've put considerable work into the mods on the original "freebie" chair, probably more time tinkering with it than the original creator put into making it in the first place -- this is not a "fast buck" project.

I've left the original creator's name on MY VERSION of the freebie chair in my gallery (which I think is only fair), and if I sell alot of the things, I'll certainly send him/her/it a percentage, if he wants it, or provide him a copy of my improved version. However, if he/she/it or anyone else griefs me about it, I'll probably just delete the damn thing, re-create the 7 prims and put them together MY WAY with MY NAME in the CREATOR slot.

You see, some things can be protected -- if you make the effort to set your permissions to protect your work... Blake's skins are really _hard_ to tinker with in such a way that HE (and anyone that knows the quality of his work) cannot recognize it on sight. Others (like the freebie office chair which is now MY executive chair) are made of elemental prims that are like tinkertoys... someone else can take them apart, figure out how it was made, and do it all over again, with their name on it. There are only so many basic prim shapes, and that limits the number of ways you can design a chair seat connected with a chair base by a pedestal, after all.

I'm really proud of my new gallery/shop, which is entirely my own build (fits on a 512sm lot, has 3 rooms, 2 levels with a ramp to the 2nd, only 15 prims including a 3-prim planter/pool in front) -- and which I'm selling as a prefab shop/store shell (though, with modifications, it could also be used as a basic newbie house). However, I've set permissions as "mod/NO copy/NO transfer". If a buyer breaks their copy, I'll fix it up to 2 times -- if I can't fix it, I'll replace it ONCE. After that, they buy a new one, and pay full price for the new copy. I'm not spending all my free time fixing newbie mistakes, or customizing textures, nor do I intend to have copies of my build popping up all over SL without being paid for them (all of which I state clearly in the notecard I include in the box, with a warning about trying to tinker with it if they don't know what they're doing -- if every single freakin' buyer messes up their copy and expects me to fix it, I'll start selling them as NO MOD, too).

So you have to really be careful about permissions -- something I've learned from other incidents/mistakes like Blake's... which I believe was due to a momentary glitch in his business judgement induced by what I call "competition panic".

So basically, Blake, if I'm reading you right, ONE person (or ONE group of persons) did something really bad to you and sold it at a yard sale so now all yard sales are bad.

Have I got that right?

If a Yard Sale company sells someone elses products under their name and the original creator tells them not to, that yard sale company is showing misconduct. I don't know about all Yard Sale companies, however; the ones that are doing it are only breeding more that may do the same, like a chain letter.

As far as Marilyn Baily's comment about items being Transfer, I don't see anything wrong with if a person buys a product with transfer/no copy and then reselling it once if they do not want the product anymore..hense a real yard sale, they are giving up that product and not keeping it or dupping it over and over. My items are No Mod/No copy/Transfer, therefore they cannot sell it over and over. Yes I took a chance trying to help people, but; there are others that ruin it for us all, so; No Mod.

As far as the comment about it only being a couple shapes, it is like a chain letter, one letter/body becomes many for resale in this case. I won't make this mistake again. If other shapers don't mind the risk it's up to them. As far as not that much competition being around, that has changed. Since I opened my first shop in SL and being the first to have a shape store, many are trying it..it just so happens this one company doing this ludicrus action thinks iam the best, again thanks for the compliment; but no thanks to the sabotage.

I need your permission to sell something I own? If you have a legal agrement with me please show it with my signiture or hanko. Next you will tell me the "license" to use it had a limited duration! I have to keep rebuying it every so often like a GM car!

I buy one item and sell one item, usually at a loss. How does this hurt you?