My Meditation Chair Being Sold

Now that is a valid point. RL copyrights do carry over into SL. For someone to take a RL design and make an exact duplicate of it on SL... well, to be honest, that gets in to criminal law. $250,000 fine. 5 years in prison.

Myself, I've been wondering how long it's going to be before a large movie studio catches wind of the fact that their films are being pirated/displayed on SL. That case law is already well established; computer service providers ARE responsible for content, no matter what TOS claims. If ever anything could have an injunction slapped on SL and shut it down overnight, that would be it. If I were Linden Labs, I would be so ON this that buzzards wouldn't find anything left to chew.

Just stating the obvious.

The pirated movies aren't on LL servers, they are on outside servers being viewed in SL. I don't think you can sue MS because someone is watching a priated movie in Windows Media Player. Well, you can't yet anyway.

Photosourcing is definitely a gray are. I don't deny it at all and it's been debated at length many times. Not being a lawyer I can't give any definitive answers, but when it comes to photosourcing clothes I don't think people have too much to worry about as long as they're changing things enough to get around design patents (since clothing designs can't be copyrighted, only textile patterns can be). The photos themselves are more a document of an item rather than an artistic work. Any copyright on the photo doesn't cover the item it documents. If you found a photograph of a building and used it to source textures for recreating the building in SL or another 3d medium it would be hard for the copyright holder of the photo to claim breach since they don't also own the copyright on the building, and all elements of composition in the photo are gone.

This is a false analogy. The empoloyer pays the employees thus compensating them for the work they do. Additionaly, the employee is, or has entered into a contractual agreement wtih the employee.

"Gain" has nothign to do with it.
Unlawful, unfair, or immoral gain is what was being discussed.

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Gonna pick on two argument flaws in this one.



In reality, our entire case law is based on insisting that people do what we deem morally correct.

Murder is illegal, stealing is illegal, kidnapping, rape, personal attack etc are all illegal because society deems them morally wrong. It is incorrectly stated that "You can't legislate morality". In reality, morality is legislated every day.



Uh, actually, it's not fine. That's what Patent and Copyright law is all about. It's so not OK that a person can go to prison for doing so.

I'm sure people will feel 100% safe with that rationalization until they find themselves up before a judge trying to explain how it is that they were a knowing assessory to copyright infringement.

I stated that this is already case law, and I point to the Napster trials. It is legally established that the content does not have to be on the server; all the server has to do is knowingly provide the link between content provider/abuser and content purchaser/abuser.

Erm - I'm appalled that you are comparing the release of free items with goods donated to a childrens charity.

Free items keep the creator's name on them - they are promotional - marketing tools. They are not selfless acts of charity for the poor, deserving newbs. Giving away freebies is good business sense.

Agreed...there are certain limitations on how far any interpretation can be pushed, including my own interpreations. But just so it's clear...

Patents != Copyright


Copyrights and Patents are two very distinct concepts, and both have very differing sets of criteria, laws, and rights, and responsibilities. In addition, the TOS only refers to Copyright, not patents, so for the sake of not further muddying what's already a very muddy topic, I'm requesting we all just stick to the copyrights discussion.


- Newfie

I think you are being too kind here Chip.

I would say that more than 90% of the time (not a hard statistic obviously), photosourcing is perfectly fine.

First the is the fact that (as you say), something like a dress design is not really copyrightable, so one could actaully recreate something right off the catwalk and probably not get arrested. This is (IMO) deifinitely immoral however, and a real low thing to do.

Secondly, if you are photosourcing old clothes of no particular design or made by a now unknown designer, it is very difficult to see how that could be "stealing" since its equivalent ot owning and operating an old clothes store.

Third, I dont know about anyone else, but I spend perhaps ten minutes finding the images and then several days of hard photoshop work to make the design. If that does not qualify as significant reworking or altering of an original, I dont know what does. That is the SL designers hard work there, not the original dress maker!

Fianaly, a "dress" in SL is not a dress, it's a 3D creation with a texture. You are not selling a designer dress that a designer made, you are selling a dress "simulacra" that you made yourself, by observing and photographing the original.

Not stealing or copyright violation at all AFAICS.



Edit: This assumes the obvious which is that we are not talking about photosourcing a dress with a nike swoosh on it or a DKNY label or something. That is deifinitely trademark infringement at least, and I dont know why LL does not at least make regular statements to that effect. Nike crapola is for sale across SL and advertised in the forums even though it is totaly against the law.

Can you tell I hate Nike?

If sell anything I bought in SL or RL I am profiting off someone else's back without permission? No - I am allowed to - buyers have rights too.

In the Real World, this is called arbitrage and it happens all the time.

Someone buys something (for $L 0 in this case) and resells it at a higher price to someone that for some reason can't get the lower priced version. It is a way of correcting information asymmetries in the market.

(One of the interesting things about the SL economy is how much information asymmetry there is actually. That's what keeps prices so high on so many things... and part of it is the scarcity of resale/arbitrage markets)

This is not stealing, as the original is still available for free. It's merely making something available to people with a charge for the convenience of not searching for the free version.

Personally, I find it more morally uplifting to either give free copies or tell people where they can be found, in these instances. I wouldn't resell a free (or low cost) item at a profit, since reproduction cost is basically 0.

But not to do so is certainly no crime or sin.

Roberta I am not sure if this applies exactly to what you are saying but Chip mentioned examples where reselling is generally considered acceptable:

"b) it's not copyable and you're selling it to someone second hand for less than you paid. "

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I don't think anyone was dissing the concept of giving away freebies. I believe the discussion deals with SELLING freebies for unjust personal gain, which some consider to be theft. The analogy the user gave of taking toys off of a Toys-For-Tots truck I believe alluded to the callous act of intentional theft, and the illustration was used to drive home that point-- that theft is theft, regardless of the rationalization.

It is true that some people present a service at selling freebies. For example, folks who compile collections of freebies and sell them for $1-$10 aren't actually selling the freebies-- they're selling their work at compiling, boxing and marketing them. I have no qualms with that. But if I were to learn that someone just sold me a freebie item for L$100, that person will be on the receiving end of an abuse report.

I am very much against selling freebie items. But my decision is out of personal ethics (ie, it is wrong to profit from the work of others without compensation).

Since Linden Labs has declared it "illegal" to sell freebie items, that's that. The law is down. Anyone intentionally doing so deserves to lose SL privileges and even permanent banning from the system if they persist after warning.

I completely agree! I'm not sure if people realize how much hard work and technical skill is required to do photosourced clothing well. The technical challenges are 87% of the fun for me. Still though it wouldn't surprise me to one day get a cease and desist letter from a clothing manufacturer or designer and I would have no qualms about compying with it, though I'd certainly try and arrange to sell them my adaptations if they had plans to market in this medium. I would also never market under someone else's brand name here and I'd not touch things like Disney characters with a fifty foot pole.

Why do you have to wait until the C&D letter to cease doing it?

Thanks Aimee Yes, I have nothing at all against selling things second hand if it's just to clear out stuff you don't use anymore, and really you could sell it for any price, but personally I'd sell for less than I bought it.

OK I think this is my major issue when it comes to this practice. If the freebie reseller were to be forthright about the conditions of the sale, I think I would be ok with it. Example:

"This item is available for free by Aimee Weber, and was intended for free distribution by the creator. However if you would like to pay me a service fee, I can give you this item right here and now."

If selling freebies is morally acceptable as a service to save users the trouble of finding the item, I don't see why it can't be clearly stated as such. But I don't think most resellers want their customers to know they are buying "convenience". They want them to think they are buying THE ITEM. That's where I feel it is immoral.

Pardon but uh, in many circumstances, yes it is.

Arbitrage does not apply to copyrighted property. If I write a book and give away copies of it, that does not automatically release my copyright unless I specifically state this item is public domain. If I state "You may copy this and give it away to others so long as you do not charge a fee", then another person can do so. But it has to be specifically stated, otherwise the copyright still holds. If I do not specifically state the item can be copied and given away, then free or no, they cannot. Right of distribution is inherent in copyright law. If someone copies and gives away my book without direct permission, he can still be held liable in a court of law.

In the case of a freebie item that is distributed with the COPY permission on, then that is taken as grant by the author to copy and give away that item, NOT to copy and SELL that item.

If someone decides to copy and SELL my free book, he will have a long time behind bars to examine the concept of copyright infringement vs arbitrage.

Because I don't feel that I'm doing anything amoral. I don't see it as any different than someone building a replica of the Sears Tower in SL.

That is nice but your opinion is subject to interpretation. If someone took the stolen ROAM code and spent 2 weeks figuring out how to create the web backend to work with the code and rewrote the code removing the bugs they could say they spent time doing "significant reworking or altering of an original". People would slam them to all hell. Yet, again with a faceless crime such as stealing images from BeBe or BabyPhat, Poser, etc and reworking them to all hell, it is okay because you spent a lot of time doing it? WTF? It takes a lot of time to hack, that doesn't mean that it is okay.


Again, there are a lot of murky ethics and morals floating around with people using whatever method is clever at the moment justify their actions.

No argument there. I try and go by the law as I undestand it. If it turns out that I'm breaking it then I would stop without argument. There are legal precedents covering hacking so it's not really a gray area at all.

Great point Dianne.

What do you think of the efforts of a store owner selling freebies? Is his/her marketing and sales abilities worthy of consideration for adding value, in the same way your taking an image and changing it into an SL wearable?

Your work is valid, and worthy of compensation. I would also suggest a retailer deserves some compensation for their efforts.

The retailer also must either rent or buy land for a store. They take a chance the item is even resellable, many freebies aren't worth the prim they were made of. The retailer might set out a 100 prim item, using nearly all their allowed limit to make this item avaliable. To me, the creator benefits because their item is being distributed with their name on it. If they sell other things people will look them up to buy more of their excellent products.

Chip,

I have to say your comments on the topic of photo sourcing have made the most sense, and seem fair and based in logic.

If I may give an example of commonly accepted SL copy/sell concept:


Linden Labs makes an archery bow. That bow contains full copy/mod permissions, including the scripts. It is obvious that selling that bow would be breach of LL rules.

However, a user takes those scripts and designs his own bow, a real beauty. He sells that bow, which uses freebie scripts.

It is obvious he is not selling the scripts. If people wanted a functioning bow, they could just pick up the freebie one all over SL. No, they are buying the specific design the builder himself created. The scripts are necessary to make that bow work, that is all. Basically, the copyright has been changed sufficiently to warrant remarketing. "Fair use". It is obvious if LL did not want that script copied/used/moded... they wouldn't have set such permissions. It is also easily foreseeable that others may set those scripts into an "Added Value" item and resell it at profit.

BUT... if someone released that bow as a copy/trans item, and someone else makes a copy of it and sells it at profit, you then have a clear-cut-and-dried case of copyright infringement. Copyright law DOES include the concept of using an item beyond the scope originally intended by the author (ie, distribution method and unjust profit).

That's the law folkses. Applies to SL just like it applies to RL.

The concept of selling "free" items is not necessarily wrong. If someone amasses a collection of free shoes (for example) from various outlets around SL why shouldn't they be compensated for the work involved? That one finds later that all of the items were orignially free has nothing to do with the matter. The only objectionable part of the issue is if the buyer did not know (or was too lazy to ask about) the provenance of the items being sold.

I think the objections stem from the perception that someone is taking advantage of the naive resident and not the act itself.