My Meditation Chair Being Sold

I was just informed that the meditation chair I designed is being sold by someone in SL. If you see the chair for sale currently being used in many places to play Tringo please look my name is there as designer, do not buy it. I will be happy to give you a copy as I have given to all who have asked.

This bothers me to no end that someone would do this. I tried to share with the Community and to have my design just taken is not right.

Just IM me in game and I will be happy to give it to you. I have contacted the person who is doing it and requested they stop selling the chair
Alliez Mysterio

Ouch That's exactly why I started making my free items no transfer...

I wonder why one would mind their freebie is being sold by others. If I make a thing and give it out I must assume someone will, at some point, sell it. If the item is worth money I would be happy it was being distributed. I would be glad someone was able to make a little extra cash selling it. No one really loses. The buyer is happy, they did hit the buy button, so they wanted the item. I am a believer of the idea a thing is more valuable to me if I paid for it. The seller wins because she/he makes some money that helps the wheels of SL's economy to spin. The seller will either sell the money on the market or spend it, either way, it advances the economy.

If it does bother you people wil sell it, there are two options I can think of.. one, copyright it and defend your rights in court... two, make it no transfer.

This was my answer as well. If someone wants to "give" one to their friend, they can rez it to be copied. Yeah it's not happy utopian free for all but it keeps me from getting fifty IMs a month from people faithfully reporting that my free items are being sold or from people who bought copies and want me to reimburse their money.

They want you to reimburse the money?

Good gawd...

Yes because they can see my name in the creator tag and have no idea who they actually bought it from by the time they realize that it was freely copyable in the first place.

In any case, setting them to nomod/copy/notrans solves the problem for me. nomod isn't ideal, but I'd rather make sized or tinted versions for the odd person who wants them. It generates many fewer IMs to me, and they're always very specific because they have a plan.

Kevin, some people don't mind having their free items sold but many people give freebies because they want to give a gift to the community. Maybe a good RL analogy would be if you grabbed a truck full of stuff from Toys For Tots and started selling it. That wasn't what those toys were for!

Also, the buyer is happy as you say, until they find out they just paid spent their hard earned money for a free item. It's like selling tickets to a free concert. The customer is pretty happy until they find out they never really had to pay ANYTHING. They eventually feel scammed.

But yes. The solution is to set freebies to no-transfer. Slow distribution is the only drawback since we only have so many parcels of land where we can set up freebie vendors.

Agreed. 100%.

There seems to be a common misconception among the populace that just because one creates an item, that they have full rights to control not only to set the price, but also what it is used for. That's just not the case, folks. Property rights dont allow the creator to control how their item is used unless the buyer agreed to it as a condition of purchasing. The creator's control of the item ends the moment money changes hands, and the item changes ownership

Let me give an example.

Suppose I bought a VCR (and yes I picked a VCR for a reason). The manufacturer may have intended it to be used for watching lawfully recorded videos. I may elect to put in it a bootleg tape. Or I may elect to use two together to make a copy of a tape. Then again, I might crack it open with a screwdriver, cross-wire it, and use it as a radio to talk with the martians in orbit. Or just sell it to someone else.

The point here is, is that unless otherwise explicitly stated as a condition of the sale, once ownership changes hands the owner can do as they please with it. It's their item, and therefore their property. How the owner elects to use it, even if that use is morally despicable or goes completely against the intentions of the creator, that's up to them. The creator does not have a say in it.

This is what's called fair-use. If you create items, expect people to assert their fair use rights, including the right to sell the item again. Don't presume they know your wishes on the item. If you do have a concern about the use of an item, then use the permissions system appropriately or explicitly communicate to the new owner the conditions contingent on buying/receiving the item.



- Newfie


(PS: The VCR example stems from r/l history - the MPAA tried to sue the original VCR manufacturers in the 70's to prevent then from being sold and used to make illegal copies. The court decision was that though illegal, the use of the VCR was controlled by the owner, not the manufacturer, and therefore the manufacturer was not responsible.)

I wouldn't accept your anology of toys for tots, here's why...

If I took toys they would not be there for the kids, in this case the item isn't taken away, but rather a copy is taken. So you might compare it with say... copying a toy you saw in a pile of toys for tots. Not taking a toy from a child.

In most cases a person will not see the item for free, because it costs tier to place prim on land. Even the junkyard charges something for freebies, and it's acceptable to most.

If you are driving down the road and see a laptop in the trash(remember, freebies with open permissions are like items found in the trash avaliable to all to do with as they see fit) and you sell it on ebay, are you breaking a moral code? I'm not.

Not everyone who releases free items insists they never be resold. So the very fact an item is free doesn't make it off limits for resale. Morally speaking, I wouldn't sell an item I received for free if the creator came to me and asked me not to distribute his/her item. That's me though.

When I was new I bought several freebies, many I still have and love. Sadly these items lost some value in my mind after I found they were freebies. The fact I spend some money buying $L from GOM or IGE wasn't an issue to me. I might have paid $L100 ($us0.37) for a freebie I enjoyed. It helped the SL economy, it wasn't a big deal to me.

My last point as to the value of a freebie. The fact an item can be found free in world doesn't mean it's easy to find. I have actually paid for a freebie that I knew was free, because I wanted it, and didn't feel like searching the world for days to find it. If it's even avaliable. Time is money, if someone can offer me a nice selection of freebies at a reasonable price, I'm thrilled. I would rather spend an hour working for money at my job than to spend my fun time looking for an item I want.

Disclaimer: This is just my opinion!

Yup - I've been asked for refunds on free hottubs up to 700L$ because the nimrod reselling it borked it trying to make sure noone could recopy it.

End of the day its why I don't make anything for free anymore. It's just not worth the hassle. Truth of the matter is that making anything free will eventually cause you more of a pain in the ass than anything else in SL... sorry for being a cynic, but that's the way it is.

Siggy.

I would ask them to find in their account the post that shows when they paid me $L700

In my experience, that just makes them file an AR against you. (Or claim to, at any rate.) Few let facts get in the way of a good totally misplaced self-righteous tirade, y'know?

I just tell them to fuck off... seeing its the seller that was telling them to go to me for refunds and technical support...

It's just easier not to make anything free. That was my solution, and it's worked well.

Well, given that the NO TRANSFER option is indeed available to freebee givers, it's not an issue I am passionate about. So I am comfortable agreeing to disagree

I don't leave freebies out to be copied. i usually just pass them to people as nomod/nocopy/notrans. This keeps down on that kind of thing.

And then people IM me saying they want one too.

Trying to profit off someone else's creation without their permission is just lame, no matter how you slice it. It's amazing to me what some people will try to justify. There are only two conditions under which it's acceptable to sell an item you didn't create... a) you have the express permission of the creator, or b) it's not copyable and you're selling it to someone second hand for less than you paid. Anything else makes you a scam artist or a freeloader.

Just so you all know, this was the first item I made over a year ago and I truly had no idea of what I was doing, as has been proven here

I sent an IM to the person selling the chair and explained to them how I felt and after a few notes back and forth I am happy to say she will not sell anymore of them. A special thank you to the person who told me that this was going on, I owe you ~

Alliez

Glad to hear it Alliez.

I agree Chip and "scam artist" certainly the word that comes to mind. If someone sells me somebody else's freebie, not only will they get an earful from me, but I will do what I can to notify the public about the true nature of the "service" this person is claiming to provide.

I have a special peice of code in some of my freebies that let's me know if someone has rezzed it and/or transferred it. If would nice if a script could tell if it has had a price tag set to it, then it could alert the creator or a specialized server.

Sorry, but I 100% disagree, for several reasons.

Reason #1: It's against Linden Labs policy. I've seen people get in trouble with the Lindens for doing so.

Reason #2: Copyright law states that intellectual property includes distribution rights, and making an item "free" does not automatically make it public domain. The example regarding the VCR isn't exactly applicable here; discussion of apples and oranges. More applicable would be the writing of a book. If I write a book, I can decide to give copies of it to a friend. This does NOT authorize the friend to sell that book.

People who sell freebie items are wrong on two counts:

1) They are trying to gain unjust profit from the work of others
2) They are trying to take advantage of newbies or of those who don't know it's a freebie item.

If I buy an item from someone for whatever L$ and then later find out it's a widely-distributed freebie, I first of all go to that person and say, "hey bub". If they had forgotten it was a freebie or themselves had unknowingly bought it, then I give 'em a break. If they cop an attitude, I call a Linden and report it... because it's against game policy.

I've also seen Lindens refuse to get involved, because it deal with a single item that the new owner had every right to do with as they please.




Unfortunately this is one of those gray areas that is still pending a proper and clear resolution as to interpretation. The foundation of your logic is that the creation is always considered intellectual property. Even though we're in an electronic reality here, I disagree that anything made in SL is automatically intellectual property. If I were to create a chair in RL out of wood, it is not intellectual property. Using that line of reasoning, then a chair made of prims can no more be intellectual property to me. The only difference between the two is the medium from which it is formed.

However, putting that muddy question aside...price doesn't dictate the terms of use. It merely dictates the terms of transfer of ownership. Unless it's been agreed to otherwise, once the new owner has the item, it is theirs to use as they wish.




Do not confuse the physical binding of papers 'book' with the words written within 'book'. They may not be allowed to distribute copies (as that's copyright infringement), but the single physical book they can use as they wish - which can include selling/giving it away.




Agreed 100%. Only thing is, just because they acting wrongly/unjustly does not automatically they are using it illegally. That's part of fair-use rights - the right to use not only in the way an item was designed, but also in whatever way the new owner chooses, providing it doesn't break any laws.




That's where the phrase 'buyer beware' comes from. I'd also be miffed as heck if I bought an item and then found out it was free somewhere else. However, if the creator didn't want that to happen, then they need to make that clear *before* giving it to others. If it doesn't get explicitly said ahead of time, then you can't assume they know your intentions. If an object is given as copy or transfer, and there was no notecard/script stating terms of use, then the new owner has - rightly or wrongly - the right to do with is as much as the system allows them to do.


- Newfie

1. It's not against LL rules tosell freebies. No where in the TOS or community standrds does it say you can't sell freebies. It's a moral issue. No one should demand everyone follow their morals.

2. For it to be a copyright violation there must be a copyright. If the creator gets a copyright he/she has the right to protect their rights.


As for the moral points...

1. People gain from other's work all the time. Employers gain from the work of employees. People sell things found in the trash or anywhere else items are found free. It might go against your morals, but it's only an opinion.

2. As I stated earlier, the value of an item is relative.... If I can buy a freebie for $L100 that I want and need it's better than searching the world for hours. I can afford the 40 cents. I make enough real money in an hour to cover tons and tons of these items, so please, stop demanding people not make these items avaliable because it rubs your morals wrong. We are adults. We can decide what to buy without the moral police watching over us. If you do get ripped off it's a learning curve, and part of real life.


If you call a Linden and complain you bought a freebie, they will tell you to read the part of the Community Standards that says:

"Buyer Beware
Linden Lab does not exercise editorial control over the content of Second Life, and will make no specific efforts to review the textures, objects, sounds or other content created within Second Life. Additionally, Linden Lab does not certify or endorse the operation of in-world games, vending machines, or retail locations; refunds must be requested from the owners of these objects. "

Copyright is automatically granted on the items you create. Actually filing with the copyright office makes it easier to prove ownership of the copyright, but just because it has not been filed does not mean that copyright does not exist.

Alliez,

I will keep my eye out.

Sincerly,

Far Absolute

I may be wrong, but I disagree a copyright is granted before an application for a copyright is filed.

If you have info that makes your point I'd love to see it. If you are right, then the creators of these freebies can simply file a complaint with LL to have their creations removed from the inventory of the offender.