The unofficial new permissions system discussion thread...

Al,

I'm impressed with your grasp of copyright. I think you're dead on will your analysis.

In the interests of shifting the discussion to possible solutions to the mod-counterfit concern, let me begin by presenting a partial idea...

What we have now in the proposal is the following three options for builds:

1) Public Domain: m/c/t
2) Transfer only unmodifed: nm/c/t unwraps to m/c/nt
3) Copyright: nm/nc/t unwraps to m/c/nt

What if we changed this to:

1) Public Domain: m/c/t (same as before)

2) Transfer only unmodifed: nm/c/t unwraps to m/c/nt (same as before)

3) Copyright: nm/nc/t unwraps to partial-mod/copy/notrans, as specified by creator:
[ ] modify geometry
[ ] add/remove script assets from contents
[ ] add/remove non-script assets from contents
In addition to the above extra options specified by the creator, these attributes will always be modifyable once the wrapper is broken:
- name
- description
- color
- texture
- texture settings (scale, offset, transparency, shiny, bump, etc)
- flags: lock, physics, temporary on rez, phantom
- material type

And for those exclusive "collector" type of items:
4) Permanent Lease (permanently and completely nomod/nocopy/notrans).

Buyer agrees at the point of sale to a dialog which informs her that she is purchasing a permanent lease on the object, not ownership of the object.

The leased property can only be transferred by the standard SL purchasing mechanism, no vendors. The "Original", "Copy" and "Contents" options next to the for sale checkbox will be replaced with "Lease".

The property cannot be transferred by llGiveInventory(), and therefore cannot be dispensed from a vendor. This ensures the person sees the dialog before purchasing and understands that they are purchasing a lease of this item instead of the item itself.

The "Owner" text in the object properties should be replaced with "Leased by" for these objects.

This resolves the issues of Fair Use and First Sale since you do not own the property.

This is just a hastily put together revision to the proposal, I'll admit in advance it's probably not a 100% effective solution either. I'm just trying to get the ball rolling on ideas instead of shutting down the proposal completely.

Why should things like color and texture and flags be automatically modifyable? What if I don't want to share the texture information either?

And still the HUGE problem still exists with the "installer" business. You could now just copy a copyrighted object and place it wherever you want, and just keep you as the owner.

something that is not copyable should not HAVE to be made copyable.

If the creator does not wish the buyer to have the ability to modify the texture, she should lease the object under option #4 so that she can retain full control over the object.

Good point, however if the creator is that concerned about this problem, she can retain full control by choosing option #4

It doesn't have to be. If you want to forgo giving your customer the rights they deserve, don't sell them the object, sell them a lease of the object.

I'm liking Kex's direction. It seems to really make the whole "wrapper" thing work for both developer and customer.

:-/ It was an idea as a compromise between giving full modify rights to the end user and giving them no "fair use" rights at all.

By share texture information... do you mean the aspects like offset, rotation, scale, etc or the actual image of the texture itself? LL is planning to make textures harder to PrintScreen and steal if that's what you meant. If it's the other stuff... hmmmm.... maybe an option to conceal the original texture info would work?? Then when the end user wants to make changes, he/she clicks an "edit texture" button, and the fields revert to the default 1.0,1.0,0.0,0.0 state.

-Meiyo

Apologies for the crosspost, but more people are reading this thread than the blog...

I can see both sides of this issue. I've spent the last 14 years working in the animation industry, and have always been amazed at how willing people are to explain their tricks and techniques for achieving various effects. That altruistic attitude does create a faster rate of development in quality throughout the industry. From that standpoint I can understand the idea that allowing people to tinker with things can help drive growth in positive ways. People don't worry too much about food being taken out of their mouths because there's only an indirect disadvantage in that the faster the average quality in the market increases the more pressure and necessity there is to be in a perpetual state of advancement to stay competitive. This model doesn't apply in SL in the same way.

If a skilled animator shares his techniques with me all I get from the exchange is knowledge. I do not suddenly have access to his scene files, his textures, and his keyframes. If I want to apply what I've gained from him it still requires a substantial effort on my part. I've gained knowledge, not the ability to directly copy. In fact if I sent my demo reel out with anything on it that is obviously derivative (contains stock models, default textures, or work I didn't actually do that I'm claiming was mine) I may very well find myself blacklisted and unable to find work. This kind of lazy and derivative work does nothing to drive the industry forward. It's a corrosive force and when it happens those formerly altruistic people will be happy to do what they can to see that you don't work again.

As a digital artist and animator I don't always retain the copyright to my work. The norm is to surrender it to the client unless I've specifically negotiated to retain it in the contract. But even then the client only has the right to use the final deliverable. They do not get the assets used to create the deliverable. I don't send them off a CD with the models and scene files. To do so would be like throwing money in the street and I am under no obligation to do it. If the client wants to end up with the assets, that has to also be specifically negotiated in the contract, and they will pay a very large premium for it. They do not have any inherant right to it. All they own any rights on are the finished work and they have no way to deconstruct it.

If I create a high quality skin or piece of clothing, someone who breaks the wrapper and gains access to the textures can gain nothing in the way of knowledge. They can't look at my textures and know the Photoshop tricks I used to create it. There is no benefit in terms of driving innovation. All that's happened is that person now has an opportunity to take that work, change it slightly, and sell it as if they created it themselves. They've learned nothing except that opportunites for dishonesty abound, and the possibility of repurcussion is very small. People come here to create content, not to spend 50% of their time chasing after potential copyright violations and having to constantly look over their shoulders.

There's a substantial difference between sharing knowledge in order to drive innovation and making it easy for people to avoid having to gain knowledge by giving them easy access to the fruits of other people's labor. If animation scene files, after a certain period of time elapsed, automatically uploaded themselves to a central repositiry where anyone could dissect then and pull out the models and textures, the industry would collapse. It would be flooded with lazy derivative works. There would be little reason to learn to model or texture. That time could instead be invested in searching the repository for things that could be taken from others instead of creating an original design. The perception of quality from the entire industry would lower due to the preponderance of low quality unorignal work flooding the marketplace.

I thoroughly understand the philosophical underpinnings of these proposed changes, but I don't believe they apply in as direct a way as LL would like to think. I can easily see them having the opposite effect and slowing the rate of innovation. I believe strongly that we should all be willing to share our knowledge and to help new creators. I'd rather compete on quality than on the hoarding of proprietary information, but I'd rather not have to compete against myself.

Well.. for the umpteenth time, I do think the partial mod idea is the way to go... and I haven't heard any reasons that would kill this idea that can't be worked around. I'm interested to hear what Cory's thoughts are on this.

My only concern is that I'm not sure that any no-mod item should be able to become full-mod... even for the CC case... pretty much because there's a security risk involved with situations like what Alondria mentioned a few pages ago.

My gut instinct is that if creators are given an option to make objects skinable or slightly modifiable in other ways without it becoming fully modifiable, the only objects that people make full mod anymore would be ones distributed as Public Domain. I could be seriously wrong here... I dunno.

Last thing... I still think maybe end users should be allowed to shrink or enlarge things to fit their need without allowing full modify permissions. Maybe the "modify geometry" option should be broken up into "modify individual prim geometry" and "scale entire object"?

-Meiyo

(P.S. - I think we should still make the idea of a wrapper time delay an option. There might be some people that think allowing users to change the color/texture right off the bat will damage advertising by recognition as objects are first being released into the world.)

Actually the #2 license is perfect for things like my Online Status Indicator. That is something I want to give away free and for everyone to use, but I don't want people to be redistributing versions that they tinkered with, under my name.

A friend mentioned an idea to me in SL earlier today -- what if the geometry mod option were split to allow editing with either relative or absolute values? Not entirely sure if that would be safe, but it's worthy of discussion as well.

Interesting Seems a bit harsh for those of us who just want "notrans"? Knowing who is entitled to own your stuff has been invaluable in customer service/technical support/handing out upgrades/updates.

Would this not be solved by having a "Modified by: blah blah" field accompanying the creator and owner fields? I might be misunderstanding your point here.

Honestly, I'm having a hard time picturing how editing restricted to relative values would work. My thought with the Modify Geometry option is more a concern with allowing resizing while not allowing people to unlink an object for duplication purposes...

You still provide no solution for vehicle makers, Kex.

Many (most?) vehicle makers anymore are increasingly moving to copy / no mod / no trans. The reason for copy is simple: Quite frankly, its easier than having to replace vehicles every couple days for someone because a linden bug eats it. But I don't want my vehicles modifiable: Not only for the security reasons, mentioned many times, but because I A) don't want to have people come whining to me when they break something, demanding I fix it (This used to happen when I sold mod-able stuff), or, like someone else mentioned, I dont want some hideous modification of something to be attributed to me. The last one I could live with *if* Any modified object *clearly* showed it was modified, but... The first issue though, is still a very real one.

Ownership and notrans are mutually exclusive. You can't tell the owner of something that he can't sell it or give it away. That's back to the right of first sale concept again.

A way around this is to lease the item to the person instead of selling it to them -- then they do not have right of first sale, so it is fine to enforce notransfer upon them. By adding on #4, I'm suggesting that if you want to maintain complete control over your work, then you need to keep ownership of it, and lease it out instead of selling the work itself.

Easily solved. Change #4 so that the creator has an *option* to allow the person leasing to use multiple instances of their lease.

( ) Public Domain: m/c/t (same as before)

( ) Transfer only unmodifed: nm/c/t unwraps to m/c/nt (same as before)

( ) Copyright: nm/nc/t unwraps to partial-mod/copy/notrans, as specified by creator:
__[ ] modify geometry
__[ ] add/remove script assets from contents
__[ ] add/remove non-script assets from contents

( ) Permanent Lease (permanently nomod/nocopy/notrans or nomod/copy/notrans).
__[ ] allow copy

My suggestions under a system like what we're talking about here. Do a copyright permission (#3 on Kex's proposal). Inform buyers via a notecard or whatever that if the vehicle is not a gift for someone else, they should break the wrapper in order to be safe and have backup copies. Assume that all modified objects be clearly marked. And as I suggested while ago, we should have a revert button that can be used on objects with a broken wrapper that are modified that will return the objects colors/textures and such back to the "factory installed" ones.

-Meiyo

Good point, I didn't even think of that. Just don't check any of the three options under #3. The owner will then have a minimally modifyable vehicle which they can then make copies of, but cannot transfer.

And on top of that you no longer have people asking you for "gift versions"

-Meiyo

Since Cory has indicated that there will be some sort of "wrapper_broken" event, I intend to "sell" all of the items that I want to keep completely copyrighted (i.e. no copy or mod rights) in a vendor that does the following :

- Upon receipt of payment, give the purchaser a notecard indicating that if the wrapper is broken, the object will self-destruct via llDie()
- Issue a dialog, asking the purchaser if they accept these conditions
- If purchaser answers no, refund their money. If they answer yes, llGiveInventory() the item
- All objects will have the following script snippet

on_rez
{
    if ( llWrapperBroken() )
        llDie();
}

wrapper_broken
{
    llDie();
}

Part of the "charm" of my Tokin' Joints is that they are consumable (they llDie() after 15 minutes of fun), not copyable, and cheap-as-hell (L$5/joint). I kind of like being SL's first (and so far only) "dope dealer" in the sense that my customers have to keep coming back to me for more.

I hope like hell that LL doesn't break the "unique and/or uncopyable" paradigm of many objects. It will destroy many aspects of the SL economy.

- Ace

I'm happy with this idea of lease. For my purposes, it's describes what I'm selling more accurately. "By buying this, you are entitling yourself to use an X, as well as all future updates and upgrades."

But I'd like to be able to express in the lease, "You can lease as many copies as you like, with no additional charge."

You posted something along the lines of "Change #4 so that the creator has an *option* to allow the person leasing to use multiple instances of their lease." I don't understand what you're proposing. Can you elaborate/restate?


Meiyo,

I've learned that it's important to provide services "no-configuration necessary". Anything that requires reading more than 1 line of text to use correctly isn't elegant enough.

As for the "gift version", I actually went to the trouble of making a "gift-able" version of my no-transfer items. But, like I mentioned earlier, it's important to make things easy to understand. In the end, I never released it, going back to the "contact me for gift versions" tag. It's not as convenient for me, but I think it's better for everyone else

I agree... however, if you're referring to the comment where I said "Inform buyers via a notecard or whatever that if the vehicle is not a gift for someone else, they should break the wrapper in order to be safe and have backup copies." it's kinda my hope that by the time this system comes about, the 'wrapper' idea and it's usage will be common knowledge enough where you can replace that statement with something simpler like "Make a copies of your plane first in case it gets lost". And that's nothing different from the way vehicles are handled now anyway.

-Meiyo

Yeah, I've been thinking that simply replacing "Sell" with "Lease for 99 years" is a nice way of side-stepping any fair use legal issues.

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> - Upon receipt of payment, give the purchaser a notecard indicating that if the wrapper is broken, the object will self-destruct via llDie()

Ace,

If Linden decides that they really do want to open things up, this could be prohibited by a new ToS.

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Wot I think is: the current permissions system and the proposed changes are both good. After playing with Warcraft III map design - which really arent locked down - I actually really liked the unlocked-down paradigm. I found it pretty hard to adapt to SL's locked-down paradigm, where you have to reinvent the wheel pretty often.

The issue for me is not whether the new or the old are better or not, but should sweeping changes like this be introduced into a production game? If this one should be, how can it be introduced painlessly?

Actually I'm looking further than the proposed permissions changes. Cory's stated aim is to encourage innovation, but... I think innovation in objects is already fantastic; you can find most builds you might wish for somewhere, and some look truly *awesome*. Actually, the bit where reinvention-of-the-wheel is most rife IMHO is scripting.

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Azelda

looks like this thread may not be "unofficial" anymore /120/71/25059/1.html

-Meiyo

(crosspost)

Thanks to everyone for the great -- and passionate -- feedback, both about using a blog for discussion and the permissions proposal. The most important realization is that trying to follow threads both on the blog and in the forums is wasting everyone's time, so permissions (and future design discussions) will move back into the forums where they belong. I'm going to continue using the blog (http://secondlife.blogs.com/prompt) to experiement with .plan style data, but the next version of the permissions design will go into the forums, probably on Wednesday.

Along with that, I've removed the permissions thread from the blog. The forum thread on permissions is better read, has all the critical pieces cross posted, and has far more useful comments. In addition, so many good points have been made about flaws in the design that it's a little silly to leave it up on the blog. Instead, look for a much improved design that incorporates your many, valid concerns in a few days.

OK, off to test attachment bug fixes.

Ack, Meiyo beat me to it!

Need a script tool like the gang mentioned earlier but for textures.

If the wrapper is broken on a Texture for clothing it goes boom.....and since it was bought with the understanding that they werent to circumvent the system "NO REFUND"

Im still reading and I do understand a lot of this but some that are defending this new system dont obviously see some of the down falls that are not posted here. Some have been on Cory's Blog but in the end I say Creators might as well get out the old KY Jelly and get prepaired.

At least this wont be like going from 1.0 to 1.2 and will be a smoother bend over this time.

Shadow