Selling Free Items

Not sure I agree with the idea the freebies will always be of "lesser quality". Surely that's down the original creator.

I personally think if something is worth doing, it's worth doing well, and i'm not certain i could deliberately craft shoddy script if i tried.

Freebies often have less features than the full product and are given away as advertisers, tasters, try before you buy, etc.

That said, IMHO, reselling freebies for profit, without adding signifcant value and gaining the consent of the original creator is ethically dubious at best, if not completely morally wrong.

Setting a minimal price (1L$) to allow you :- to track sales, cover the cost of the texture you uploaded to put on the container of a collection or related freebies, etc. I don't see too much harm in that.

All in all advice to new and not so new citizens would be to stomp on the urge to impulse buy, and to check out the product/vendor as much as you can first. Same as in RL, shop around for the best bargin.

I didn't necessarily mean or even say that they are of bad quality. Usually they are older creations and/or less demanding products. I personally am in the process of putting out my older poses as freebies (no transfer). Not saying that I didn't spend oodles of time on them or did the best that I could. But I'm going to sell whatever cool new thing that I worked ages on. Same seems to go with a lot of clothing designers. The freebies will generally be the older and/or less detailed items in the store.

Obviously not saying this as a all around thing, some people do not do it this way. And those wonderful people should be congratulated and not be exploited by ripping people off. But its better for business that the best item (YOU CREATED) will not be in the freebie box but put out for sale.

As for free scripts. One example is that when pose balls first came out the scripts were not free. Most furniture didn't have animations on them and the ones that did were considered far above standard. They were the cool new "top" thing. It took a while for those scripts to be open source. Not saying these are of the lowest quality in any sense of the word.

I rarely say anything on the forums, but I really honestly have to come out and basicly agree to this in it's entirety. It's such a bitter, cynical statement, but it's the goddamned truth.

And it's intensified by the fact that when it comes to making a complete "product" from scratch, it really doesn't get much easier than in Second Life. If they don't feel like building something in SL, then god forbid they open up a copy of 3dsmax.

No kidding. lol
I agree.
And I just helped a "newbie" out who now see's the whole point of selling freebies as fun. As if its "fun" to see the other newbies fall for it.
I guess it gives some kids, seriousy I think its a kid, a feeling that they are someone special in the world?
Heck I dunno.
I find it sad that some see tricking others out of their money is ok.
Kinda shows what our world is made of.
And these scamer people actually get offended if others say its a disgrace. Hah.
As if we should care.
When not a single emotion is thought of when they scam someone.
Interseting logic thou.
Makes me angry that a person could even think that way.

Unless those people were just dropped on their head as a kid. Yeah that's probably it. Then I feel like saying "poor bastard"

Given how much stuff is sold through vendors, what good would this do?

Like X-Flight.

You also see people selling GPLed products without releasing the source. For a recent example, the Sony copy protection scheme that left a "rootkit" style cloaking component on your hard disk contained GPLed components. All you can do is track people down and take action against them.

The real problem in SL is that the Lindens won't take action against people who violate contracts in game. And that's a MUCH bigger problem than this particular instance.

What do you mean?

coco

It also doesn't save us from the tons of items that are out there will full rights that were never intended to be that way due to permissions issues.


How about some theft enforcement?

It's called "putting a notecard in it that informs people that it's not for sale for profit". Or... putting a comment in the description. Or calling it "Free whatever".

WITH a copyright notice.

That way someone can't sell it for any significant profit except by removing the copyright notice, and that's simply illegal.

That's actually a better feature than "no resale". A SL-supported "copyright" field as part of the object, that can only be changed by the creator. Ideally, you could let a later owner with Mod rights *add* to it (eg, "Cool Bike (c) 1996 Bob Harley - NOT FOR RESALE, Cool Bike Flamethrower Mod (c) 1997 Max Maniac".

Then have an option in the pie menu "view copyrights", that would let you see all the copyrights in the object or contents.

That way you could have your creative commons copyright or GPL or anything else burned in to the object, irrevocably. And someone putting a freebie in a sale box would have little chance of making sales.

Here I am, at a vendor selling "COOL BIKE". I pay the vendor L$100, the vendor llGiveInventory()s me the "COOL BIKE". What good does "no resale" do? The payment and the transfer are separate actions.

Apart from "it is not sold by itself, unmodified" what you have there is pretty close to the BSD license. Which has the advantage that it's been lawyer-tested and survived challenge by big companies. I suggest you have a look at it, it's the one I use for my own scripts (which you can get from my vendor in LostFurest dAlliez ).

Oh.

coco

X-Flight is not a good example. X-Flight was usually distributed as the script running the Carbon Rod X flight accelerator. Carbon Rod X came packaged with two notecards--neither of which mentioned any distribution restrictions, and was copy/mod/transfer enabled.

In such a situation, few people are going to dig down and look at the source code. I used Carbon Rod X for months; it never occurred to me to look at the code. We gave it out a New Citizens Incorporated until about a month or so ago. As far as I know, no one there thought to look at the source code until the creator posted about it on the forums.

I'm sure all the "It's cool to sell freebies" advocates have abandoned this thread... but I wanna get my rant on.

How to Sell Freebies in Real Life:

1) Go to your public library.
2) Check out a book for free.
3) Get a job at Kinko's.
4) Xerox the 'free' book... for 'free' (and get paid while doing it!)
5) Sell copies of the book at Kinko's and pocket the profit.

How to Sell Freebies in Second Life:

1) Collect freebies.
2) Put freebies in a box with no or negligible value added.
3) Decieve players into thinking they're NOT freebies.
4) Sell the freebies to naive newbies and pocket the profit.

[sarcasm] It's more ethical in SL because it's easier! [/sarcasm]


This is how I see it:

Selling unauthorized copies of an artist's or author's freely available work is exploitation, plain and simple.

It is a violation of the author/artist and their creative work... twisting it to be a thing of profit to the reseller without the creator's consent.

It may count as plagiarism if the re-seller is passing the work off as their own creation.

It can even be viewed as theft if the reseller's profiteering comes at the expense of the creator... by depriving the creator of recognition, traffic, business, respect or other benefits they might otherwise have gleaned from the free content.

[argument1] What about Yadni? He's selling freebies! [/argument1]

No. He's not. Yadni makes it *VERY* clear that the L$1 is a
SERVICE FEE to him for the time, effort and cost he puts into
organizing and presenting the staggering quantity of freebies
at his junkyard. (and quite a value at that!)

If anything he should be lauded for his efforts! Newbies are
more likely to find freebies at his junkyard, before they get
suckered by some unethical scammer selling freebies at
regular retail rates.

[argument2] It's my right to sell something in my possession! [/argument2]

"Sell: To give up or surrender in exchange for a price or reward"
That means 'no-copy' items. Think of it in terms of trading away
your 'right to use' something in exchange for something else.
Now, whether it's right to buy up a bunch of no-copy items and
then sell them at a higher mark up? Um... create a new thread
for that.

I am, by the way, adding disclaimers to my 'from scratch'
free mod/copy/xfer scripts in the Particle Laboratory granting
permission to use them in items for sale... just to be clear.

I had always assumed that 'sample' or 'template' implied
a starting point from which to begin... and that the finished product
was the property of the player customizing the particle effect,
and the 'thing of value' being sold the particle effect they made,
regardless of what script it began from.

I've never had any problems with that.

Now if someone were charging others for mod copies of my templates...
or using my classroom methods and materials for profit without at
least some mention of me or the Particle Laboratory... that'd be a
slightly different matter. =)

Actually, a lot of people saw that disclaimer. It was no secret. The original culprit knew what they were doing, anyhow, such was the terms by which the script was originaly distributed.

Now hold on - I may have overlooked something, but i can't seem to find anyone accusing Justin of being your alt. Although, he does seem to show some obvious signs of being one.

For example: Justin's join date is later than yours. (small detail, but proves Bergman was here first.)
Justin has only 3 posts - which coincidentially, all are of this thread.
Justin's first post is also the date he joined. (again, small detail.)
Little work - correction, NO work has gone into Justin's public profile. (once more, a mundane detail, but helps prove the point.)
One would assume that Justin only joined to post - and since he only joined to post these 3 posts, one could also assume that:
a) Justin has been, or currently is, affiliated with Bergman.
b) Justin strongly believes in "Capitalism."

P.S. Many may argue that Communism is an excellent system. This does not mean you can apply Communism to people based on facts you just made up (assumptions, slander, or sheer stupidity.).

Also, I'm not American (I'm Canadian) - Are you implying that Americans are superior to all other groups? Because Hitler used to think somewhat along those lines - and we all know what happened to him.

Jamie, stop calling yourself a capitalist, you're a marxian.

Holy thread from the dead, Batman. This topic is older than yesterday's WSJ. And in the business I'm in... its either breaking news or garbage.

And that business would be......
selling freebies?

I think you hurt the parasites feelings Lucifer. Let's point and laugh.

(points and laughs)

sorry, but, as one SLer said to you, you made your own bed, now you gotta lie in it.

Shouldn't that be "someone else's bed you copied and sold"?



Lewis

Thats great and all you gonna target slexchange next too?

I know several ppl who are selling freebies want their names to so you can be mr. inspecter?

I figure if lindens are too busy collecting dough for SL to pay attention to their freebies being sold leave it alone.

I sell them too but the only difference is I have modified them to hit like motherfuckers instead of the stupid retarded bullets that are given out in sl. They have the ability to crash sims if shot too much.

I figure if they give them to me i own them and if they can be resold then im allowed to sell them.

I figure if the lindens really do not want them resold then they make them nontransferable.

Plus you seem to like to ruin business for professional modifyers like me.

Selling modified freebies is not selling freebies.

Selling sim-crashing (i.e. badly scripted) modified freebies means you are crap.

Yeah, I like to ruin business for "professional modifiers". I love it actually.

Last i heard, Mrs. Bergman was kicked off there for reposting items. (i think that's what they got her for... either that, or the blatant selling of freebies, plus failure to act on the numerous complaints of customers (myself included.) Either way, she's off it. She's probably headed to SLboutique, or one of those places.

You know what would be cool? if we could revoke the basic stipend (not bonuses), in exchange for funding whomever the hell is trying to shut down the freebie sellers. Killing 2 birds with one stone, if you ask me.

I've read Bergman's posts, all self-proclaimation, and "The linden's falling! The linden's falling! I must tell the residents! zOMFG!!!1111oneonelevenonehunddredelevendtytwelve0!"