modify exploit?

Hello folks,

I wanted to buy an avatar from someone and modify it to suit my own needs, but the artist making the avatar (full body suit) didn't want to enable modify since there was apparently an exploit, that if an item is modifyable, it can be exploited with a script to be fully copied/resold.

1) is this true?
2) if so, can this exploit please be fixed ASAP? (Please mr/mrs lindens?) It sort of makes customization enabling impossible, which would force anyone that wants a certain avatar into using the exact same that is for sale when the original creator wants to protect his or her work.

thanks in advance for your time,

MC

Any item that can have a script inserted into it could potentially be copied, yes. It's been this way since they introduced the ability to set primitive parameters via LSL - and yet use of prim copiers to do this has remained extremely low. You know why? Because only a very tiny proportion of Second Lifers are the kind of low life pond dwelling scum sucking mofo's who would do this!

So for your av seller to refuse to sell you modded items for this reason is a bit of a chicken-little-sky-is-falling-everyone-is-out-to-get-me attitude borne out of either ignorance or extreme paranoia.

No, they can't fix the exploit. It's not an exploit, it's a feature. A useful one with all sorts of legitimate purposes. To 'fix' it is to break hundreds of cool pieces of scripted content people have spent thousands of hours on.

You just can't penalise and punish everyone because 0.001% of people are assholes. Tell that to your avatar seller - or go to one who is better informed and more accomodating.

This is pretty much what my thoughts were too.

I understand the scripting feature is used in many ways. I wasn't aware of how it was done and I see now it's not an exploit, just aparently some people abusing a very good feature (I understand the uses of it).


**slightly off-topic below**
As it came down the avatar seller and I had a long discussion over it and it seems he's just extremely paranoid about his creation. I probably have to make a manual recreation with his work as a reference (that I bought in the end, just for that reason, after the discussion ended) since it boiled down to a "no" after 2 hours of being close to an agreement on making an exception. Obviously no trust in a fellow artist and assuming I'm that 0.001% of the SL population that's scum *chuckles* (as if those would take the time to actually go into a discussion like that?)

One the one side I understand being very protective of something that probably took many many hours to create. On the other side I don't understand the way he went about it. Ohwell. Means I'll have to spend my own bunch of hours to invent the wheel twice... A wheel that wouldn't go anywhere or be sold to anyone.

Well, the funny thing is, that modify or no modify, you can still copy it by the numbers anyway whether he likes it or not! So while he can stop someone putting a script in it and making an automatic copy, its not like he cant stop someone making an identical copy manually if they really, really wanted to.

All he seems to be doing is showing contempt and assuming the worst of all his customers. Frankly I wouldn't even buy a no-mod avatar, and neither would most others I know, so I think they're shooting themselves in the foot anyway

Not exactly sure there. While you're right on the ball about the fact "it's a feature, not an exploit," I do think there are ways to solve this problem.

One that comes to mind is the ability to specify whose scripts can be run within the object, similar to llRemoteLoadScriptPin. I would be all for such a solution, but I get the feeling it's pretty far off.

Is this up for feature voting? I'd put some points to it.

Votes added.