Property Rights vs. Land Harassment and Coercion

Temporal, are your signs on the Mainland or on Private Islands?

If you are talking about Mainland land... then please don't bring privately held sims into this again.

There is no zoning on the Mainland, but I think it would help for there to be. Advertisers wouldn't create the same hard feelings that they do now, because land would be designated as ad land in advance. Right now you make money off of spoiling people's views. The whole point of your ad business is having people view it... how do you win if the very people the ads are facing are simply put out by your actions?

Oh that's right, by coercion after your signs harass them into buying the land from you... so then you can start all over.

Really you just don't like anything but the anarchy we have. This group may not have official permission, or even be obeying the ToS, but they sound like they are trying to establish some order.

The Lindens need to go ahead and allow some sort of rules over things. Temporal, maybe next time you might complain to your other ad people rather than here. You don't have a solution, other than we all agree 100% with you that you can buy land anywhere that spoils anyone's view, and your attitude is that they should have just bought it first. That's very selfish, in my opinion, and you have yet to offer any suggestions that take the overall community of all residents' needs into account.

Hello. I run a business, the results of which annoy the hell out of you all and which, in general, you are unable to do anything about. I would like to complain about the activities of a group which causes the products of my business to become less annoying.

In the course of this I will make reference to the ToS as if it is ultimate moral law, and tell you all how it is vitally important to the fabric of society that I continue to be able to make money by annoying you.

Wait. Why are you all so hostile?

So sorry that the OP is getting slammed. There is some property rights issue involved here, but it's hard to feel sympathy for someone who seems to have the goal of forcing people to buy land at inflated prices just to get a little peace and quiet.

I ran into a similiar situation back when I lived on the mainland with a neighbor (not an ad placer, just a jerk). Instead of paying the high price of buying his land to get rid of his junk, I just sold my land at a good profit to some landbot, and went to a nice estate. It seems that the mainland will forever be a place for people to grief their neighbors one way or another in order to game the system.

I don't see LL doing anything about this anytime soon. Face it, most of the mainland is a lost cause these days, and LL makes a lot of real $'s selling sims to refugees.

So what? None of those reasons have anything to do with land values. If it were true, then the serveral months I spend designing and building homes and furniture on my land should also increase the value of my land? No!

It takes about a minute to buy and setup a parcel, I only have 6 parcels in group, but as you may know, when you buy land for a group, you can deed it all in one step. Then, set the options and you are done.

You should absorb that cost of writing advertising scripts to something else, like your business, not the little parcel of land.

If we're lucky those horrible ad farms will die a natural death from costing more than the revenue they produce. People don't really just wander around the mainland so much anymore, so who is looking at these ads? I have a hard time believing the advertisers are getting any significant number of customers from them. Tell me if I'm wrong... I would be very surprised.

"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." -- John Wanamaker

Also, there are "zoning laws" in the CS regarding encroachment. Unfortunately for both sides of this debate, they aren't enforced any longer by the only people who can (LL). This makes the whole matter an academic exercise in ethics and the only ones who typically side with advertisers are advertisers and those they can buy. Perhaps the OP should make more campaign donations to Governor Linden.

I'm not being ironic when I say I'd happily vote for Philip for Resident Ombudsman. My still being in SL as a premium member is my vote that his vision made sense to me in the first place, two years ago. He probably would need an army of clones to do the work, though. SL can scale indefinitely if the software engineers can pull it off, but no human can. No one organization even can.

But open source, combined with an interoperability standard, could. The sooner the better.

First, that is BS and I'm pretty sure you know it. Look at all the land dealers out there. They're not marking up the land they sell by up to 10 times what they paid for it. What makes you so much more special? And, duh, the hundreds of hours you took to script your advertising system, hmm, shouldn't your advertising revenue be paying for that?

Second, neighboring residents aren't online searching for land every waking moment on the off chance an ad farm could potentially go up next to them. Many ad parcel splitters don't even put up for sale signs, so if neighbors aren't actively looking at the land search listings or turning their landscape funky colors by using the view land for sale tool, they don't even know it's for sale to buy it. I am pretty sure you've been around long enough to know that too. So don't try to snow people with crap arguments, please.

People are not going to be sympathetic to your plight if you annoy the crap out of them with ads and then try to justify extortion with excuses that are obviously crap to anyone who's bought and sold land.

I dont have a problem...not at all..I just enter abuse reports by the dozen every day...and you dont seem to understand that finding an ad parcel, that is not near another parcel you already own, that is not blocked by a griefer, that is reasonably priced and will not end up with you owning 15 identical billboards in the same sim, is a time consuming endeavor. For me to replace that parcel, in the same sim, or a different one, to provide the same type of coverage that I have contracted with my clients to provide, will take time. The reason that ad parcels are priced so high, by so many advertisers, is that they dont want to have to replace it. They are not trying to extort anything from anyone..they simply do not want to sell the land it took them so long to find, in many cases. Perhaps it would be better if all advertisers did not sell their land at all?

What none of you seem to understand..is how hypocritical the attitude towards advertisers is...when you examine it from a property rights standpoint.

Advertisers purchase land, to use in their business...their businesses are legal, and in no way conflict with the TOS, or with the community standards of SL....Just like any other business owner.

Advertisers place objects on their parcels, to facilitate the purpose of their business..making a profit...Just like any other business owner.

Advertisers pay tier on their land parcels....Just like any other business owner.

So, for purposes of land rights, advertisers are conducting entirely legal businesses...yet, if the business were a boutique...that was consistantly being griefed by it's competitors, or by a group, or by random griefers...none of you would advocate that it happen.

Yet with ad land, you seem to have no issues with demanding that the land owner do with his or her land, what YOU deem a proper usage...tell me, how often have you contacted the shop next door, or the home next to your land, and demanded that they change the placement of their house...or their trees...because they are ruining your view?...or insisted that they not build on their land at all, since it would ruin your view?...and, when they refused to NOT build on their own land to satisfy you...have you griefed them?

And...I do know quite a bit about real estate in sl...I buy and sell between a half and a full sim worth of real estate every day...and not in ad land...in full sized parcels...finding those are simple...you just do searches..i can buy 16000 meters and split it into 512's in ten minutes...to find ten ad parcels that are not right beside other ad parcels I already own, may take me two hours...so, please dont tell me that I dont have a very complete understanding of the dynamics of buying and selling land in Sl...I do it every day.

You must have had a off day then recently when you decided to erect your 70m high ads within 40m-ish of another ad parcel you own with the new parcel already partially blocked by other ads before you even bought it and it took you all of 1 minute's "hard work" to buy, set-up, set for sale and leave.

You "pride" yourself on having 300 ad plots in 100 sims.

Based solely on that tier usage, you pay 25 cents per sim in tier. Really not anything to brag about or demand rights for. Your counter about "oh so whoever pays the most should have the most rights?" is also invalid because every last *legitimate* land owner on that sim pays a high double or low triple digit multiple of what you pay. Even a 512m² vs a 1/2 sim owner only differ by a factor of 10.

But, as you point out, you're a land trader, so in reality you only end up paying 12 cents in tier for your ad plots per sim. Your "we pay tier too!" is as hollow and meaningless as the other straws you desperately cling to to defend your position.

Furthermore, half of the ad plots don't even advertise an SL business, they're webbanners for a company that doesn't even know SL exists. Your own ads don't even advertise the kind of businesses you claim need ads in order to survive and provide the community with "invaluable" services.

If they do not want to replace it, then why are they for sale? If they are not trying to extort, then why don't they set the price realistic, not $L750 per square metre? I know of 2 nearby "Mr L__'s Greater HK" 16sqm parcels both for sale for about $12K.

Or maybe, they only want to sell to other advertisers and those advertisers pay that price?

Oh, no, none of us understand you, we aren't smart enough to understand how things work in SL. If we were, we would all be running advertising businesses ourselves, right? Actually most folks I know avoid the businesses being advertised on those ad lots like the plague.

I never said that you didn't know anything about real estate in SL - I said that anyone who's bought and sold land can see right through your excuses. You seem to be assuming that people reading this thread are ignorant enough to believe why you're justified in overcharging them to get rid of the blight that you put practically in their backyard.

How is that abuse reporting working for you, anyway? I really am curious to know.

My tier costs vary between 600 and 900 US dollars a month...as for my own particular network, it ONLY advertises in world companies and products...perhaps you should take a look at the ads again...before you make baseless comments...

the abuse reporting is working just fine and dandy...thanks for asking...and again, real estate and advertising are apples and oranges...they both involve purchaseing land...beyond that, there is no real comparison...no real correlation.

because if advertisers dont put their parcels for sale...then you all complain that you cant get rid of the ads at all....well guess what...I am spending my time removing all of my ad parcels from sale today...now, there will be no option for anyone...thank you for all your input, fully half of you have complained that you think that advertisers are in this to extort inflated prices from others...so now, that motive cant be ascribed to my own company any longer,...now, they simply have to live with it.

I think if you placed your parcels for sale at a FAIR PRICE ($L12 - $L17 per sq. meter), there would not be a complaint. So you would only make a small profit, but it is a profit! Please redefine what it is when these 16 sq. metre parcels are on market for $12000!

I build and design houses, and, I do not inflate my prices on homes to pay for land tier. And, if I ever sell my land, I would not inflate price for time spending designs, builds, custom scripts, etc, as you claim you do for costs of advertisments. Truthfully, how complicated a for sale advertisment script compaired to a sliding door script that works at any rotation, has locks, group control and looks pretty? How complicated a picture for something of a sale compared to alignment of textures on multi-prim object?

Do not blame and quote me for your actions, you must have known the wolves attack you for such an original first post!

I do not definition of wolves meant, but it is understandable.

Temporal, the thing you never did was propose any solution for the problem that ad banners create for people... Ad people have problems with the residents of SL when they ruin a nice view needlessly just to put up nasty spinning signs.

And your answer to that is just to quote the ToS and CS... that's not a nice way to deal with people.

If you want support, maybe you should give it. I suggested zoning and limiting the amount of ad spots in a sim. What have you suggested? That we just let you and other advertisings run around littering SL with these ads?

That doesn't help anyone. And that is what we should be trying to do always, even if you want to help yourself, you should still be a good neighbor.

Go here:

Gabara 58,217. 16sq metres for sale for only $L9545 in the middle of beautiful sim well decorated, not blocked by any prims this land parcel.

This is prime example.

It's amazing that the OP keeps coming back for more. It's obvious his position is not too popular.

Here in the USA we used to have a problem with billboards along highways until we matured and realized some sort of zoning was required to prevent us from ruining the beauty of this land. We still have them in limited quantities, and subject to censorship of (hate to use this word) objectionable content.

Of course, these are legitimate attempts to influence consumer habits. I am not so sure that is the reason behind the SL ad farms. From what I have seen in this thread, it would appear to me to be extortion instead.

Thank God I live off the mainland. Never going back except to visit. Good luck to all those trying to clean up this mess.

As to the OP, I don't care what he thinks of me, and I am surprised that he is so thin skinned. If your actions are going to cause such obvious negative emotions in your neighbors, you need to accept that you are not going to be loved. That is the choice you have made for yourself. Live with it, you are not going to change any opinions or gain allies in your defense against the guerilla war waged against your ad farms.

That is your lonely struggle to bear.

All I can say is that ad farmers who try to sell their land for ridiculously high prices compared to market value simply for the notion that people can buy them out to get rid of their garbage ads floating in the air is called EXTORTION.

These ad farmers are the very reason everyone has sky boxes because no one wants to look at the devastation that these people are creating by dividing up land to 16m plots and having one ad after another floating in the air till it vanishes into the clouds. All it is is SPAM and it's ruining the game for the people who don't want to see that crap. Get a real job and do something worthwhile in game instead of trying to turn over a quick buck.

I've had to move from sim to sim several times over the last year to get away from people like you who have these floating ads, regardless if they're spinning and flashing or not. This problem has only gotten worse over the last year, and it's not going to get better. Unfortunately LL refuses to get their hands dirty and step in to resolve these matters, so people are forced to take the law into their own hands, and that is wasting prims to build walls to block the offending parcels where the floating ads are kept.

Don't whine that people are building walls around your parcels when you are the one who forced them to do it to block your crappy ads in the first place.

E

how much more complicated than lining up textures?...way more complicated...since my ad system is client/server based, with multiple communication methodologies, click counting, self healing in the event of a sim crash..so...yeah, it is a lot more complicated than lining up some textures...

Loved?...no, I have no need to be "loved"...I do however just wish to be able to conduct my business, with the same expectation that every other businessperson in sl should have. The right to conduct a business without being griefed. And were I thin skinned, I hardly would have wasted my time with the hypocrites I seem to have run into here.

that would be entirely fair to price an ad parcel at L$12-17/meter...but when I have invested L$700-1000 in that parcel, because it is strategically located...I am certainly not going to sell it under my cost...typically, when I pay 750 for a parcel, I will put it up for 1000, when I pay 300, I will put it up for 400...I had three tonight that I sold for 295 each, because I had paid 225 for them...not all of us are trying to get rich off of parcel sales...

now...I am going back to take the rest of mine off the market...if someone wishes to purchase one, to remove a billboard, they will have to contact me...

ok...in what way did anyone "force" someone to grief advertisers?...in what way was someone "forced" to committ the illegal act of griefing, by someone else carrying on a legitimate business?

That is like saying that if you open up a grocery store in real life, and they dont like where you opened it up...that you are "forcing" someone to rob you...or burn it down...get real.

perhaps if any of you used even a small degree of logic in your arguments...but what I have seen from each and every one of you, is the advocation of illegal acts, to grief legitimate businesses...