The unofficial new permissions system discussion thread...

A little of the direct topic but I feel it is worth noting, does this excerpt from the TOS basically say "you can't claim copyright infringement against anyone who plays SL"?

I read that as protection against the ludicrous patent wars that are going on nowadays.

As in player creates a patent on 'A system that animates an avatar with non standard animations'

And then proceedes to claim royalties against anyone that in Second Life that makes any kind of anim attachment.

Patent and Copyright are different beasts.

Then again - I could be wrong. Would't be the first time if I was.

Siggy.

They can clone my geometry but they can't drop scripts into my objects and sniff my link messages and figure out A) how I do certain things, B) how to defeat rental systems, etc... In any case, the logic of "oh they can already do it so let's make it much easier still" is baffling to me. It's like saying that because a crook can hotwire a car, we should all just leave our doors unlocked so that they don't have to get a sore wrist smashing the window in.

Think about what the actual issue is here. Cory is saying that there is a need for people to be able to learn from others, and is talking about setting it up so that people can crack open an object they bought from someone else and do just about anything they please, specifically modifying the geometry and textures and presumably being able to put new scripts into it.

I think you are exactly 180 degrees from what is actually going on here. Authoritarian? Not really. I'm a vendor, not a policeman. You don't have to do business with me and I can't force you to do anything. Socialistic? I don't think so. In fact it is the opposite. It would be socialistic if LL prevented me from locking what I sell against modification &c., which is the whole point of this argument. Capitalistic? DEFINITELY. IP rights are at the core of capitalism. People are willing to create more if they have stronger protections for their hard work. I already spoke about the moral rights issue. If a creator wishes to make their works modifiable (and some do!) they are free to do so today. If they don't want to, they don't have to.

Point two identifies a weakness that allows people to examine the way scripts inside an object communicate with each other, much like training a protocol analyzer on a data stream to see what makes it tick. Point one speaks of duplicating geometry. How are these two things the same?

That's pretty non-sequiteur to what I said in the first place. My third point is that I don't want people to be able to dilute my reputation as a builder and scripter and so forth, which has zero to do with reverse-engineering.

Again, why make it easier? HELLO?!?!??!

Now who's spreading FUD? All I said there was that if people could make unlimited copies of something that I'd prefer only existed in single instances, I'd charge more for it. For furniture (lamps etc.) that can be used by anyone, this makes perfect sense.

Durr, what do you think? It's what this whole discussion is about, isn't it?

LL originally had only "locked" and "unlocked" as a permission set. When they moved to the 1.1 permission set, everything that was already locked, stayed locked. So the existing permissions were preserved. It would not be hard to show that LL has created a reasonable expectation in the minds of those of us who sell content that the permissions we place on the things we sell will persist, even into future revisions. You should take a business law course sometime.

I think having flags that say (for example) "Allow modify textures" would be pretty unambiguous.

Well of course! If you buy a texture from me, and you return it to me, why would it stay on all the surfaces you put it on? It would be like buying a CD, ripping it, and then taking it back.

That is a non-sequiteur. What I said was, "All in all, I am getting the idea that LL is advancing a concept that the community should have presumptive rights to tear apart something a content maker sold against that content maker's wishes. I don't like it. It is too socialistic." I stand by what I have said. And I am not talking about tying anyone's hands together or gouging out there eyes. I am saying that since I am the person who created the content, I expect to have some protection against unscrupulous people cracking it open and analyzing the communication that goes on between scripts, hacking it up in a way that may make me look bad as the original creator, etc. If a customer does not appreciate that the product is not modifiable, they don't have to buy it.

I probably could have stated that better. The original contention was that you are free to repaint your Honda. My response to that (on page 4) was that you didn't have carte blanche to do whatever you pleased, i.e. reading the boot PROM out of the ECU, reverse-compiling it, and posting the code on the Web. True, the new system would not make it quite as easy as setting a flag to make something copiable, but it WOULD make it easier to duplicate the geometry, examine script comm, etc.

DON'T BUY IT THEN

Not so. The current system doesn't allow us to do that AND prevent people from buying one copy and then selling unlimited copies. There isn't anything we can do about that, short of using Product Activation-like schemes. For someone like Chip who is selling textures, even that won't work. Hence, the changes I proposed: being able to have things copiable, AND having the ability to transfer them to someone else, provided that doing so deletes all copies in your inventory and in-world.

Yeah, let's encourage a bunch of content creators to either leave or act like Microsoft. IT'LL BE A BLAST, I SWEAR.

Essentially, what Cubey said on page one of this thread echoes my sentiments.

Currently, my sold-items structure is as follows:

Dwarven Base Avatar:
[X] Modify [X] Copy [X] Transfer
(Created as a moddable item to benefit the fantasy gaming community)

Free Triceratops Avatar:
[X] Modify [X] Copy [X] Transfer
(A freebie that didn't turn out as I intended so I made it free)

Quelmdragon Parts:
[X] Modify [X] Copy [ ] Transfer
(Allowing people to make matching ava parts for themselves)

All Other Avatars:
[ ] Modify [X] Copy [ ] Transfer
(My best works, I like them with the permissions they have now. If people want to add things like hats and such to them, I allow them to make copies of the ava so they can directory-sort them)

Misc. Items
[ ] Modify [ ] Copy [X] Transfer
(Mostly decorations and stuff. Transferable only.)

-------------------------------------------

Well, if people can resell my stuff in the future (heck, they already do now, I slipped ad accidentally left off a no-trans/no-copy on something I sold for a day and it leaked out, now it's spreading around... grr) then *if* I manage to keep the will to continue making things to sell.... they will not be nearly as impressive as they are now. I'll just keep them for myself and give them to really, /really/ trusted friends.

The triceratops ava won't be affected. I don't care if it gets pulled apart. I made it for that.

The dwarven avatar will stay. This is the one case where the wrapper works in favor of me.

Quelmdragon parts: They will vanish. I let them edit them for themselves, but if they want to sell them, they can learn to make their own instead.

All Other Avatars: They will vanish, save only for the "easy" ones like Captain Kangaroo, Scotty, and the like. Most prim based avas will most likely go extinct.

Misc Items: Byebye to them too. Actually, I rarely sell these as is. I've been pondering removing that particular vendor anyways. I would have put in the circling eagle and HAD THIS MORNING pondered making circling birds of more species, but this topic just shut down that brainwave.

Basically... I'll be pretty much out of business. I won't have a reason to make much. I certainly won't have a reason to keep paying for land. SL will become, to me, a graphical chatroom like Active Worlds, but without the reason to edit any more. May as well try out TSO...

End of line.

oh I get it now, you're a troll who wants to insult people, and this thread is just an excuse to do so.


Aah, that's right... it's actually my property, as LL has made sure of since last year... so technically I suppose I am entitled to just that...


The passage you quoted concerns patents. I think SL content falls mostly under copyright law. Some more discussion along those lines would be interesting.

My main complaint is the is a huge security risk. More and more objects are utilizing communication with off world hosts, either for communication, data storage, raw computational speed, etc. The last thing I need is some idiot to break one of my objects and decide to play with my communication API's, calling them on a .01 timer or something and flood my host to the point where they boot me off, not too mention the possibility of running up my bandwidth costs. Or heck, the posibility of them buying a product of mine, reverse engineering the API calls by sticking in link message snoopers, and then make a repeater within my object so that his new product line communicates with my object to then steal my processing time and bandwidth to drive his competing product. Heck no! I suspect I need to start wrtiing Anal-asset-protection v 1.0, which of course will require additional sim processor power just to prevent people from damaging my real world assets, because if LL wants this to happen, it will happen regardless of what the populous thinks (See version 1.2). Or perhaps just place a retainer on a lawyer. I say no, leave the permissions as is besides fixing some of the known bugs.

I'm still trying to catch up on everything that is going on in SL and as a content creator this is one topic that I really need to know more of. After browsing through the posts and reading the blog, I really hope that whatever system is implemented works better than the one we have now. The current system has many flaws, and from what I have gathered the newer one is a lot more complicated. Right now, even with all the proper permissions being set, it's quite buggy and it has made it possible for others to sell items that aren't theirs (they aren't the creators, even though they might claim to be) and for many people to sell items that were originally free (which has happened too many times already).

The items that I make have the "no mod" permission set (except the clothing) so as to make it more difficult for someone to find a way to be able to abuse of them. They are mostly set to "transfer/no copy/no mod" so that players can give them away as gifts if they desire. The problem with allowing an object to be copyable is that it allows for someone to drop a copy unto someone else's property without the person having bought said item. Clothes also have their own permission problems, since making them modifiable gives access to the texture which is used (when the person attempts to modify the article of clothing, they can stretch the texture, take an image capture by clicking the "print screen" key) and therefore being able to "make" a copy of the texture used (some simple editing in photoshop and there goes the creator's design). Even though it is possible to steal the texture, I still make the clothing "no transfer/copy/mod" and if someone wants to buy it for someone else, I will send the clothes to whoever they want to give it to. I also make some freebies (which are set to "no mod" as well) so that others can copy them and give them away, but in the description it says my name so as to make it known in case someone tries to pass it off as their creation.

A long time ago someone had mentioned separating the transfer permission into 2 different ones: "resell" and "give away". Personally, I have never resold any of the items I have bought. I have bought some as gifts for my honey, but the ones that I have bought for myself are in a folder in my inventory. Has this option been considered? I would like to know how other players would feel about separating the transfer permission and if it's a viable suggestion.

I second this. Instead of discarding the current system and replacing it with a more complicated one which will come with it's new and interesting bugs, how about fixing the one we are using and maybe adding more features (like the "resell" and "give away" permissions to be separate)?

Damn, I hadn't even thought of that... I totally don't need a bunch of 313370 h4xx0r5 pounding on my e-mail gateway! @#$%@W$%@#$%

You know something? I bet I know someone else who hadn't thought of it either.

One wonders if LL permission thinking folk spend a lot of time actually building things with the tools that they have provided their users.

If they did, they would realise that the various limitations inherent in LSL create some very inherently dangerous things which they are making more available (they already are available) via the new permission systems.

You can already hack into linked objects already. I'm not going to post how, but if you do the research you'll realize how obvious and easy it already is.

please file a bug report

(longer version of this post on the blog http://secondlife.blogs.com/prompt)

OK, expect version 2 of the proposal this week. Feel free to continue providing feedback. I will endeavor to clarify the confusing parts and respond to the concerns. We'll likely do another town hall after that posting and see how much closer we are solutions that both creators and consumers will be happy with.

Biggest issues and concerns raised to date:
- some creators hate the wrapper idea
- much confusion about how/why CC would be applied
- confusion about legal reasons for having licenses match permissions
- desire to keep copy versus transfer tradeoff for creators
- desire to keep unique objects
- need to ensure that content transfers to new schema correctly

So, the good thing is that I think that workable solutions have been proposed for most of these ideas. I'm focused on attachment bugs on Monday and Tuesday but will try to have a new proposal up on Wednesday.

Actually, not true Kex. As soon as someone has the ability to get to the textures to save them to their hard drive, or take advantage of the printscreen loophole, they can do whatever they want with them, including imbed them in new skins and sell them. It's already happened to me, to Santana, and I'm sure to many others. I just want to be sure that these kinds of loopholes are closed. By far most people are honest, but I've already had enough experience with those that aren't to know that if there's a way to steal your work, some people will, and not just to have a look at your tenchiniques. That said, I agree with you about the natural fear response to change. I'd like to get more details as they become available, but I have faith in LL and I'm sure the proposal will evolve as more feedback comes in... but I also very much understand people's fear about allowing others to tinker with their work if it's not something they have a choice about. I'm no longer in panic mode, personally. I just want to end up having my textures more secure when all is said and done.

As has been posted elsewhere, anything that is rendered can be copied, it is just a matter of how savvy the user is. Nothing in the proposed plan prevents this. Instead, it encourages copying and tinkering in a way that can be detected.

Please note that this situation is no different than any other digital item, from DVDs to computer games. DRM can slow down copying but any situation where the recipient has both the data and the key to decript it can be compromised.

So, Chip, to answer your concern, we can block the simple options and the second proposal will put more choice back into the hands of creators. However, as Second Life creations become more and more valuable, people will have increased incentives to explore exotic ways to illegally copy content. In the real world, legal options and dispute resolution are used to handle these cases. In Second Life, I expect that dispute resolution will become an important tool in addressing these concerns, but that is another design discussion.

Pardon me, Cory, but if you implement a system that blocks copyright violations, then you don't need dispute resolution. By making it easier to "tinker" (i.e., steal someone's idea and sell it as your own), you're causing a whole host of problems without improving anyting at all.

Amen.

Okay, I must confess, I don't understand the value of a time-delayed wrapper (or a regular wrapper for that matter). As far as I understand, scripts that are closed will remain closed, yes? So we're really talking about textures, prims and clothes?

I've never wondered "how something works" in SL that didn't involve script, or a hack/bug. Can you provide an example of "knowledge moving into the system"? I'm having trouble thinking of any example of someone learning something that having an unwrapped specimen will teach.



I've posted on this part to the blog, but to summarize here: 2 months is not enough.

This system encourages people to make 10 crappy things that might sell reasonably for a couple months. I think what SL lacks is things that are well executed, high in detail. I believe people who've spent the time to do things better than anyone else should be rewarded for thir effort.

Things that are easily created will already be duplicated by the community.

To add my voice - developers need the equivalent of "no mod / no transfer". If that means I need to self-destruct my stuff, then like Reitsuki, that's what I'll do. And I WILL make the "self destruct on wrapper broken" script fully copy/modable

But as for a completely different take on things ---

It struck me while reading the 13 pages of this thread, and then thinking back to Philip's posts about development and wanting more places that charge admission, that this whole permissions system change may be a way to encourage developers to not transfer items, and instead make stuff on their own land for people to pay admission to enjoy.

This would make perfect sense as to why the "wrapper" would be introduced and allowing the breaking of objects, and it makes sense in LL's business plan, namely - grow the geography of the Metaverse.

Thoughts?

They're attempting to alter the very fundamental social and economic structure after it's grown to be this large? I think that speaks for itself.

As far as "growing" the geography, such a plan will only create even MORE 'islands' of content, rather than promoting a community feel in which people build to better each other. The builders will become hording and jealous of their own work, not ever letting it out of their posession (which is what Hiro just said), lowering the overall quality of works within SL except within the few "pay to visit" areas. Then SL becomes a subscription service to both LL and the people within it, forcing people to pay money for quality on a per-use basis.

Yeah, I don't think any of us want that.

Okay, is noone concerned with my interior designer scenario?

As Cory said, if someone breaks the wrapper, tinkers with something, then makes a knockoff of it, there would be a record of them having broken the wrapper, and making and illegal copy.

However, my scenario involves the copying in a legal form.

Summary - I buy a complex and beautiful chair from someone for L$1,000. I then offer my services as a chair installer. I break the wrapper, and make myself 1,000s of copies (this would be legal. I then charge people L$100 to come and setup as many chairs as they want.

I never actually transfer the ownership of the item as I couldn't since the wrapper was broken. . .but what does that matter? The person can just leave my objects (chairs) on their property.

Legal copies. No Transferrin. No Knockoffs. Originator still goes out of business.

And, I get to charge a modest fee when the person wants me to come back and rearrange their livingroom/auditorium.

I go out and by one of every kind of awesome furniture in game. Suddenly, I'm the games most sought after interior designer.

THIS really concerns me, as someone wouldn't be breaking any rules as proposed.

Hiro, I had considered this as well. . .maybe LL thinks SL is becoming too much of a mall. Maybe they do want us to focus more on making games/entertainment on our properties.

I don't see why they have to eliminate one aspect of the game to encourage the other.

Oh, your concern is even more valid than others in this thread. However it speaks for itself, and is relatively easy to understand how it would be underhanded. You word it nicely, and no one feels the need to reiterate what you've said so succinctly.



If that's what they're trying to do, then maybe they should support the coders who were once trying to make games by providing them with LSL calls that have been repeatedly asked for over and over and over and over again?

Oneironaut,
Yes, your chair example is a good one. As I said, a new version will be heading up this week and creators will have some additional controls on the wrapper (in particular, control over if or when the wrapper can be broken). I haven't finished redoing the plan yet, but this change actually makes the new system very much like the old system, with some additions to allow creators more ways to share their work (if they want to).

Francis,
Agreed that many creators will want more than 3 months on the wrappers.

Not sure who said it, but another key point (though not specifically part of this plan) is to expand searches to make it easy to find content that has wrappers, CC content, &c.

Well, SL basically is a big mall / club right now. This would be an accurate statement.

Now Mole, while what you say carries weight, the bottom line is that for SL to become Metaverse, a lot of changes are going to be made, and it's going to be some big ones.

As for this particular one, I agree with Oneironaut. There ought to be an elegant, simple solution that both promotes more game development, and also allows vendors to keep copyright.

...

I know I'd consider building more if land and land tiers were cheaper. I don't think many people are willing to shell out $1000 down and $200/month for a very risky business HOPING that their game will be popular. The real way to give incentives to developers is to make it cheaper.

Idea?
Well, LL had chosen people to develop games in the past. That was a successful event, i think. Maybe similarly LL could give "tax breaks" to game developers who buy their own land? LL could accept proposals for game ventures, and on approval, grant reduced land fees.