A couple noob questions: Avatar interactions

I see in scanning threads that you can rent things, or at least land, in SL: Is that a particular transaction/interaction supported by the software? Or was it scripted and not part of the core engine?

And a similar question about loaning objects to other avatars: Is this supported in a way that the owner of the object is protected against theft of the object?

Thanks,
Mina

User-made scripts make rental systems possible. It's used mostly for land, as objects are kind of hard to keep track of (scripts don't run if they're in your inventory, so you could just put a rented item in your inventory and keep it indefinitely)



Nope. Once the object is in someone's possession, they don't have to give it back.

Other people will be able to answer the land thing better than I would, but as for "loaning" - you can specify that the person you give an item to can't copy it or transfer it, which stops them from selling it on, but as far as only allowing them to use it for a certain time, you'd have to incorporate that into a script within the item, so that it dies or goes non-functional after a certain point. And there is no way to script clothes, so you can't have time-limited clothes really.

If you create an object you can make as many copies of it as you like so never have to worry about getting it back. If you're lending someone a no-copy transfer item, well, you've got the same ways of getting it back as getting your lawnmower back from your neighbour. Except that you can't actually go and steal it from their inventory.

Thanks

I didn't realize the limitations on copy. That does the trick nicely.

Have a look at this thread over in the Building forum - there's a detailled explanation of all the permission settings and what they do