Ethical/Unethical

No Jaja, that is not the point of the thread. please read my post again. I did inform the buyer of my wishes BEFORE the house was purchased and not after.

I intend to bow out of further comment on this thread.

No Scorpio you are not getting my point which is she bought and payed for a house that is copyable and is now her property and can do what she wants with it with out anyone telling her she cant. If you still owned the house you could tell her different but you dont she does.

Of course it is... I wasn't implying that your hair was as bad as The Donalds or that Jenny is a raging b*tch like Leona.

as a known desiner i usually bow to the perlissions rule, wich mean if i decide to sell a notransfer item, i have no problem if the buyer decide to rez more than one, since i cant prevent him to do so.

considering how SL work i usually consider this kind of verbal contracts as moot, why should somsone obey it if they can not to without consequences?

Ethic isnt a rule, there is a lot of things that are unethical and that are done anyway

A.) I rent homes. More than a few, from several builders. Six, including the one I live in, are from Scorpio.
B-) The conversation he had with me months ago about copy/mod is exactly the conversation he claims to have had on this issue. Word for word as best I can recall.
C-) Consistent with my understanding of our arrangement, I have paid Scorpio for each and ever standing house.
D-) Copy/Mod makes my life easier, simply because I suck at putting out houses and will screw up one or two getting it right.
E-) Will I continue to buy his houses? As long as my tenants like them.
F-) Will I pay for each one sucessfully set up? Yes. I sleep quite well at night, and wish to continue doing so, irrespective of the economic opportunity I have to take unfair advantage of a business arrangement I understand fully. Doing otherwise would cause me to lose sleep.

Obviously this is an ethics question as opposed to a *rights* question.......and ethics can't be enforced, sadly. The buyer was within her rights to do what she's done, albeit in total disregard for the builder's spoken wishes....not to mention his offer to discount for bulk purchase.

i personally have known scorp for a few years now, and he is not only one of the finest, most respectable, honest and fair people i know, but also an amazing builder who has been gracious enough to share his talent with the SL community (and at a very reasonable price, i might add..compared to some i've seen & purchased for more with much less quality). There will always be those who twist the guidelines, find the loopholes and stretch the facts to suit their needs and situations.

What this does prove however, is that for the behaviour of one, the *whole class must suffer*. Scorp, for what it's worth, i suggest you make your homes trans/no copy. There are several home builders i know of who have already changed to this, perhaps for the same issues you've come up against now. Sad state of affairs, but nonetheless...as i see it...a necessity.

I have to disagree 100% on this one and side with Jenny. For one, he will NOT come out and set up any home for free. I bought a house from Scorpio not too long ago. I will agree that his homes are some of the best I have seen, and I love the one I bought. I paid a hefty price for it. (compaired to many other houses out there with more detail and other things). Not only did I pay this price, but the house was not my idea of a prefab home. I had to put it together! Not that I am incapable of such a thing, but when I think "prefab", I think "Just rez, position, and drop". Now, to add to my surprise, I find a notecard in the folder which gives instructions on how to assemble the house, and included right before the instuctions-and I quote-"I will assemble your home on site for $500". I paid 4800L for this house which was not prefab (in my opinion) and then read that for an additional 500L I can have him come out and set it up!

As far as the misunderstanding with Scorpio and Jenny....

I say chalk it up as a learning experience. If you make something copyable and sell it, you better believe that it will be copied. Intent of copiability really is not considered, especially when every other builder of prefab homes does not mind if you make 1000 copies of the house, what matters is that it is not transferable, which prevents copies being sold or given away.

My suggestion is this:

1. Take a note of what another poster said here. Put 3 mod/no copy houses in a box, and sell it that way. You don't have to worry about that purchaser putting out 50 of your houses, and you don't feel ripped off.

2. There are other establishments that sell copiable items, as well as the same item as a non copy item. The copiable item has a higher price tacked onto it for the very same reason we are all posting here on this forum. The creator wants to get some kind of compensation for thier product being copied time and again.

Again it is just a suggestion, but it may help solve a problem or 2.

The software analogy...I'm not sure it's apt. Because the licensing agreements that come with software make it pretty clear that you do not really "own" the software, in the conventional sense. You're being allowed to use the technology.

Here, when you sit down and think about what are ownership of things means, one gets easily confused. Do we really *own* our creations, or have the Lindens set up a system that functions *as if* we own them, most of the time? And in the absence of enforceable contracts, can licensing as such (or even verbal agreements) really mean anything?

Until we figure out a way to enforce contracts, this is going to be a problem.

Legal? Yes, as copying was enabled and it seems there was no written agreement on fair use.

Unethical? Yes, as it is obvious (or it would be obvious to me) that no builder would want someone to create unlimited copies of his/her creation in a for-profit enterprise.

Solution? First, see it as a business lesson and change the way you grant rights to your creations.

And what would be the problem to offer her money back with the understanding she loses her right of use. That to me would the only fair solution for both parties.

It may just be a tad *too* obvious to you, as your assumption is false. I've built quite a few designs myself, and have been more than fine with the idea the creation was being used in a for-profit enterprise.

Not all people in this world are motivated by profit.


- Newfie

Unethical? That really depends on the builder. I understood the potential for this when setting the permissions on my prefabs. Rather than try to fight it, I found it a nice selling point and excellent free advertisement.

Would I prefer a different set of permissions? Yes. Am I going to lose sleep over the current setup? No.

As a builder myself I agree with Juro that the best advertisment is when people see your work placed out and not in a box or vendor.

Think about this, this person who started this thread is giving the creator a ton of advertisement, how so you ask?

1.People rent these homes eventualy they might want to get their own land and need a house but they like the house they are renting so they go buy it from the creator
2. They have friends come over to their rental they say "wow nice house who made it?" and their friends go looking for the creator
3. The buyer's friends want to start renting homes to cover their tier fee's ask the buyer "where did you get these homes" then they go looking for the creator
4. Starts a thread in the forums saying the creator did them wrong some way, the creator post in thread their case, other people read the thread and go check out just how good the creators creation really are, thinks OMG these are perfect and buys!!

Excuse me but I don't understand this thread at all. When you sell something you can limit the number of copies the buyer can make? I have never heard of such a thing and as a former business owner we wouldn't have done that even if we knew how.

I don't want to get into the particular issue between you two because that is a matter for you to work out.

However, this raises some interesting issues.... and it does get complicated doesn't it? I sell my houses copy/mod (except for the inexpensive ones designed for 512 plots), and there are a lot of good reasons for that.

If I saw that someone had bought a prefab from me and then rezzed it on every plot owned by their friends -- i.e. not just for their own use on their own various plots -- I would be both pleased at the advertising and yet I admit that I would also be irked that they appeared to be trying to take advantage of the copy privileges. There is a certain onus on me, however, to make sure my customers understand my intentions for a particular product, whatever they might be.

Still, as far as I can see, the benefits of making something copy outweigh the risks of misunderstanding between the parties, or even the thankfully rare cases where one side deliberately violates the intentions of the other.

It comes down to communication between buyer and seller, and hopefully both parties want to engage in good faith.

Hope you don't mind my musings on the topic.

This is a more complex issue.

Since there are no real enforcable contracts in SL, the only working system for 'licensing' is the permission system. Jenny honoured that system (or, SL didn't allow her to not honour it).
That's easy.

The other thing: should a creator get more money for a house if it's used more than once by the buyer? Or if profit is being made with it? Does the creator lose revenue if that doesn't happen?

Personally I wouldn't be too happy if every object came with an EULA, a license that states what can the owner do with it. Like 'you may rez this house 2 times, but only for non-commercial use'.

Let's keep rights easy and understandable. That is not to say there's no room for some improvement. And the people that act 'not nice'?

Well, I think they're a minority and thus a non-issue. I think most houses (>90%?) are bought by private individuals, not rental places, so it's not ever worth the fuss.

and hopefully there is none, it would be an open door to great abuses, in SL the onyl contract that is enforced is the permission system, wich is perfectly usable , to me ths rant is about someone that sold a copy notransfer item and now think that if he did differently he could have racked more cash, well you choose, copyable or not copyable but not "copyable but not too much". I have customers that buy my stuffs to torn em in pieces, because they like adapting and transforming my stuffs, personally it amaze me, but the things are clear, they bought an item from me its their, they can do all they want with it.

It's not obvious to me, at all. In fact there's lots of content on SL that's sold in a way that unlimited copies can be used: furniture, fixtures, vehicles, textures and animations and sounds. Others are sold no-copy. Sometimes there's an inexpensive no-copy version and a higher-priced copyable version for this very reason. Sometimes there's even a higher priced full-perm version, so you can use it in your own builds and sell it. I've bought and sold full-perm objects, and I've written and sold full-perm scripts explicitly so they COULD be used that way.

And for the L$4500 someone quoted, I'd damn well expect it'd be the "unlimited" version.

Sounds like the house creator sold the house as copiable but didnt really want the buyer to put out multiple copies. Seems to me the copy feature was intended to be used to replace the house in the event the house was deleted, broken etc.

Trouble is you cant control how someone uses your content once they buy it. Copy means copy, and the buyer did nothing wrong rezzing multiple copies.

If the creator wanted to limit the use of his copy permission, he could have included an extra copy of the house in inventory for the purchaser, or just provided a replacement guarantee that could be used by contacting him directly.

Gurgon Grumby has the best method I have seen in SL for replacing a no copy item if something goes wrong with it. Gurg makes this wonderful dog that comes with a license that enables automatic replacement of the dog when the original is deleted.

But, the bottom line is if you dont want your item to be copied for whatever reason, then dont make it copiable.

I own a beautiful prefab and it's copyable. It is great because I've screwed it up a number of times and I've pulled a fresh one out of inventory to replace it. I also have a couple of plots of land and considered putting a copy on one of the other plots, but my ethical inner voice said "Uhh, don't feel right about that..." It's a question of ethics. Just because you can copy it doesn't mean you should.

I once bought a bunch of trees from Fate Gardens. I bought multiple copies of each tree. I got a very nice IM and a refund for all but the first copy because the designer actually intended for the buyer to make multiple copies. There are all sorts of things in RL that you are able to copy for personal use, but not allowed to do so for profit. Too bad there's no way you can do that in SL.

If the "IP rights" we were "given" by Linden Lab were REAL, the creator's wishes would trump the permissions settings.

As it stands, the permissions suite are the "master". So, we really have no true IP rights, and I am inclined to believe that "We're giving you IP rights." was a just marketing strategy to retain current and attract new content creators.

You can't just graft IP rights onto an absolutely worthless permissions suite like the one we have.

LL REALLY needs to get their asses in gear on permissions. Thy've been saying they are "thinking of ways to better" the permissions for long enough now. It's time for action, not more procrastination and lip service. This is one of the biggest issues in SL, fix it LL, or it will eat you.

Hrm. I don't get this... why do you assume that you shouldn't rez multiple copies of any object without some explicit and obvious statement by the creator to the contrary? It's not hard to put a notice where it can't be missed stating the terms of the sale. For example, my scripts come with a comment in the vendor and with a comment AND a copy of the license in the script itself.

Given that LL presents their rights system as the default license, that's what I would assume would be the ONLY license unless the creator clearly and explicitly stated otherwise in the product itself.

*Pulls up a chair*
*grabs the popcorn*
*calls Kathy Griffin telling her to get her rear end in here, there's drama*

Jenny, what does the last bit of your forum icon say? Its driving me crazy..

It looks like..

"OH my monkey Lits"

In RL, prefabs are built in sections in a factory-like setting, but assembled on site. In SL, it's often possible to link everything neatly, but with a L$4800 house it's probably pretty complex and might not be possible.

Ty for all the input. As I've spoken with friends and other builders, I fear there was a miscommunication on both parts in this. With his comment I assumed (yep bad I know) he meant buying multiple houses, when he really meant rezzing. Now if I buy something that is copyable, I automatically think the creator intended multiple copies be put out. Prefabs are no different. I agree that if he didn't want it that way he could have EASILY packaged it differently. All items I make and give or sell are marked exactly how I want them treated. They are either copy/no trans or no copy/trans (all are modable). Builders in this game know exactly what it means to make something copyable, therefore I have no qualms rezzing multiple copies. As with the seller in question, I have slowly removing all copies, not as a courtesy to him, but because I don't want any of his items on my island. Anyone who reacts as he did, doesn't deserve my business.

and it says "you are soooo off my buddy list"