Second Hand Shops?

Totally but then this is what i get back:


bUt d00d, y0u4 n4me i3 0n it! j00 0\/\/3 m3! phe4r /\/\3!!

Ok that was a dramatic exaggeration but you get the point. Avoiding headaches is a valid reason to turn off transfers.

My sentiments exactly, every one that comes in contact with an Item created by an individual is a potential customer in the future.

Customer Service and Customer Relations are the largest key factors that induce reoccuring sales even if the sale was initially not your own. ..

Shadow

And mod permissions.

Sorry if i want a "monopoly" over what "I" make still wanting to allow people to make gifts to their friends and the like, and if "I don't want" people to lucrate over my own creativity and effort.
how cruel of me.

No you only turn off mod permissions if you are an asshole.




<3

I'm an asshole!

LOL however in that case I would say "Im sorry im not sure what language you are communicating in but at this point we have a minor communication barrior. Do you have a translator that can help us resolve this issue as currently I dont understand what your saying"

Then 9 time out of 10 they pull thier heads out of thier asses and I can talk to them intelegently. ...lol

Shadow

AImee, they pay a royalty to the artist for every copy they resell. I know what your getting at here and I know this arguement has been beat to death. Although this is a digital world, the goods we create are treated more like RL goods. Mainly because we DO have a way to stop copies from being produced.

Shadow is right though, all we could do, no matter what your stance on this issue, is use the permissions as suited to our beliefs/needs.

I never, ever EVER buy from iTunes. As far as I'm concerned, a company that does not have to pay for manufacturing, shipping, store rent (like in a mall), electricity, cash registers, store assistants etc has no place charging $0.99 per song.

That being said, I believe that the iTunes songs are sold as no-copy/no-mod/transfer, which means that you have one instance of the song, but may move it between devices. I suppose if you gave me $5.00, I could give you my $0.99 song.

If I'm wrong about the way iTunes downloads work, someone correct me.

THAT WAS MY POINT!!! ME!!! <-- AIMEE!



GERRRR when i get stressed I like to reflect on the love people have given me....

I will bite my tounge and shut down my computer and go home for the day now. I enjoyed this debate.

See Aimee, I DIDNT get it locked

Oh my frigging god, you get mushy on a girl ONE TIME and she never lets you hear the end of it.

Umm yes you can copy. But you log in to your iTunes player (install on your comptuer, or your ipod) and it checks to make sure the song is being played on an account that paid for it. So you can copy all you like but you cant play them unless you are installed under my account.

The seller has to take figure out how many copies of an item they must sell to break even on their investment of tools, time, and marketing. After that they make their profit.

Example...

% of cost for Poser +
% of cost to learn Poser +
time actually spent creating animation +
upload costs +
upload costs for any pictures for marketing +
time putting together boxes & pictures +
fees paid to sales outlets +
% of own tier if you sell out of your own land +
time spent updating vendors and visiting sales outlets to put out new product

No original item ever covers all of those costs. Selling copies is how you recover those costs and eventually make a profit - you hope.

I would like to see a permissions option where it is possible to set something so it can be resold, but with limitations on the price, and with a set amount to the creator. Like a reseller permission.

I have nothing against people giving away or reselling things they've bought from me... as an individual clearing out their inventory of things they no longer use. No problemo. I'd be a lot less thrilled about people buying my creations in bulk and marking them up. The sale of the item isn't the only thing I'm after... I want people coming to my shops to get my goods and see my other wares while they're there. I also want control over where my items are sold, how they're presented, and what price is charged. I don't want people out there bitter for paying way too much for something that has my name on it, not the name of the person who sold it to them. Reputations are gold. If anyone's going to cause mine to be tarnished it's going to be me.

If someone wants to run a second hand store I think that's pretty cool, but I'd prefer it work more like a pawn shop. Individuals with things they no longer want sell the items to the second hand store. The second hand store sells it for a slight markup but still below the price I sell it for new. Everyone is happy. If I find people routinely buying dozens of the same items I'd rather lose those sales and keep close control of my distribution.

[soapbox] Here's just an extra few thoughts for those that like to make the argument that content creators are greedy because they can make an item once and sell it forever. I'll take my most expensive item as an example. I sell a skin for $5000L, or about $20. The average skin takes me 15-30 hours to create. If I was using those same skills and doing the work for a real world client I would bill them between $2000-$6000 usd (an average per hour rate for a digital content creator is $150-$200/hr). In those terms I need to sell 20 of that skin at a minimum before I've been compensated for my time. SL might be a game world, and we may all be having good fun here, but don't for a second think that skillful content creation done in SL is somehow less valuable than that same work would be valued in Flesh Life(tm) simply because it exists inside a "game world." These items are composed of real hours put in by real people with real talents that could be just as readily applied elsewhere if their work isn't properly valued. No one should be made to feel guilty or accused of greed for wanting their time to be compensated in measure to its real world worth. An item has to sell a lot of copies before that time is recouped. It doesn't happen in one sale. [/soapbox]

Aimee, my point still stands, you said compare it to the digital market. Most digital files can not be resold because it is too easy to keep making duplicates. In second life, as long as NO COPY is checked, it is not so easy to make duplicates. It is obvious we can both sit here all day and run around in circle. I think we both have valid points to support our views on this subject.

I can also say lets compare this to people who make web templates. I can design a web page for a company. When they decide to sell thier business, they sell the website and all the graphics along with it.

See there are digital examples we can both reach for.


Goodbye for real now, I have pizza waiting for me at home.

Yes Beau...you aren't such a bad guy aft....uh.... PROUD SOX FAN?!?!?!



DIE HERETIC!!

You can add to this the cost of items you hired a creator to do and that you included in your package to make the quality higher. For instance (since i don't know how to use poser) i pay others to make poses and animations for me.

A second hand reseller doesn't sustain any of those costs, so he lucrates without making any effort or suffering a big percentage of those expenses. If in addition to this he undercuts the original seller, he effectively steals sales from him.

Chip, my comment was more about the resale of items. I agree with you 100%. A creator should price an item according to how much work, time and skill went into it. That is what free market is all about.

My point I was trying to make more is, after you sell that object, and its set to NO COPY/ TRANSFER. You are giving that person full permission to do what they want with that one individual copy.


OK REALLY FOR REAL NOW.

I completely agree with you there Beau. The only thing that prevents me from giving the practice a ringing no-holds-barred endorsement is permissions bugs. Someone who has a copyable and transferable item that wasn't intended by its creator to ever have those permissions should not feel justified in selling more than the one they bought or were given.

Shiryu,

Isn't it someone's right as a creator to market items that they believe will appeal to customers (at least in part) because of the items' potentially substantial resale value? Why is that business model any less legitimate than yours?

Aren't you effectively stealing sales from such a creator by denying the legitimacy of the resale market?

Simple, because i put creativity effort and time into it, while a reseller does not.



A reseller creates nothing.

Aha!

So we have an answer. There is a direct equivalent between items permissions in Second Life and sales of digital content in the Real World. In this case, iTunes downloads would be the equivalent of copy/ no-mod/ no-transfer permissions. And, in JUST such a way as some of us have been saying, Apple doesn't want their music resold, so they sell it in such a way that it is impractical to do so.

Similiarly, my copy of Grand Theft Auto on my PS2 could be thought of as no-copy/ no-modify/ transfer; which means that I can take it to a pawn shop or sell it to a friend.

Sticky issues, and ones relating to the debate like this one, would be the recent sales of Half-Life 2 on PC, which are sold supposedly with no-copy/ no-mod/ transfer rights, but whose use is directly linked to an online account with their service (Steam), and with a one-use subscription code in the package. Essentially, I buy a legitimate, used copy of HalfLife 2, but cannot use it because when I try to register with Steam, I am informed that my subscription code has already been used and is invalid.

No, what I meant was someone who chooses to design and market original products that he hopes to have appeal specifically for customers who wish to have an avenue for reselling them. Is this an inherently invalid business model for an original, creative, value-creating product maker?

This is an extremely abstract (and instrumental) concept, Find me someone that creates content hoping that customers will buy it from someone else instead than from him.
The only people that come to mind are creator of specific elements than other creators can use to make their products better (pose makers for instance), but here the case is extremely different because they explicitly state that their products have that purpose.