Selling mod/copy/trans content without license agreement

Incidentally, given that it seems not to be a universally-accepted idea that giving something full perms doesn't mean that you're entirely open to people ripping it off, I added something to my vendors that whispers "Please note that this full permissions item is not for resale" whenever you select that item. Even though there's a licence in the script as well and, well, it's just obvious.

Argent, how many times have you been to a store that sells cd's and thought hey these might be in the public domain, it must be okay to copy them and redistribute... The commercial setting ought to be a indicator that the goods for sale aren't in the public domain unless stated otherwise.

I agree here--and I thought Craig did that. However--people who buy the balls at a yard sale are not going to know that. They just see a copyable animation ball for 200L.

The problem with discussions like this, is we have a fraction of the 5% of SL residents who read the forums attempting to set ethical standards for the 95% of SL residents who don't. No matter how convincing the arguements are on either side of this issue, most people in SL are never going to hear them. The only thing those residents have to go on is the SL permisions system and any explicit licensing in the items.

You may think that anyone who resells a transferable item is a scumbag, but between the SL permission system, the documentation available to new players (which is, well... nothing), and the general level of understanding and knowledge about how copyrights work, you are pissing into the ocean...

I don't know if there is a solution to this issue that can be implemented at a player level.



X-Flight is a bad example; the only licensing was in the script itself, and X-Flight was usually didtributed as "Carbon Rod X" which contained two notecards that did not mention any restrictions.

Well, you know, even with that context (in a brick and morter store, not a 3d section of the Internet) every single CD in my collection includes warnings about things like "unauthorised broadcasting, public performance, copying, or re-recording" on the case, liner notes, and the CD itself.
Whether it ought to be or not, it clearly isn't, even when the commercial setting is a LOT more clear and obvious than in Second Life... or they wouldn't need to include copyright and license noise all over the product even in Real Life.

LOL! That's two good laughs you have given me in two days, Anshe. Firstly you call me shady and greedy, which still has me laughing, and then you manage to introduce Mother Teresa into your argument.

I am very sorry, your holiness.

However, even Mother Teresa couldn't count on her place in heaven. you can't just collect brownie points and be sure of getting there.
Cali

It's like X-Flight, I guess. The license needs to be *in the ball* as well as with a notecard shipped with the ball.

And... if the balls aren't supposed to be re-sold *as* balls the script should notecard the sitter with the license.

You know, Anshe's just like Rosa Parks.

Copyright law does cover this case. The permissions set on a object do not constitute a transfer of copyright, anymore than the ability to photocopy a book would make it public domain.

Copyright covers all intellectual property, including virtual art.

Using a texture in furniture to resell is "fair use", since that is the reason that one would buy a texture to being with, and because the seller has added substantial value. Reselling the texture itself is theft under copyright law.

There is really nothing vague about it.

Don't get me wrong, I've previously had nothing against you Anshe... but really, what you are doing here is simple. You are exploiting a weakness in the game mechanics for your personal profit. Profit which would otherwise be going to the content creator. Plain, Simple... and wrong.

Going by your own account, the agreement you reached with the content creator was not arrived at as a result of a calm and fair 'business'-like negotiation; you approached the subject by threatening him! - To paraphrase the IM you detailed above- "I purchased all your copiable merchandise and I'm going to sell it ridiculously cheaply". The point of your IM was NOT to make him aware of his potential mistake (surely you'd have returned the content for a refund). No, it was a calculated move to establish a dialog from a position of power and aggression such that you could leverage some kind of an agreement from him (what else could he do? - you had his content and the means to screw him with it).

Legal? - No sure. (Edited: because I'm not qualified to make this decision)
Ethical? - no.

Please don't hide behind the "should have a license" crap... have you EVER read a EULA? Do you really want ALL SL content to have a Microsoft style license agreement? And... there will always be someone who'll get legal on your arse and pick holes in any license not drawn-up by a corporate lawyer... Besides, the type of person who would need a license to know the difference between right and wrong is probably not the sort of person who would respect such a license anyway.

I think it would be a shrewd business decision to just drop this whole thing right now. If you want to go into the animation business buy all means, get Poser and get creative. Don't trawl SL looking for someone else's work to exploit.

This thread shoudln't be about "is this right" or "is this legal" about about "is this smart".

Under the Berne Convention, all work is born copyrighted. You don't have to do anything to retain the copyright, legally. Regardless, all real world commercial content has copyright notices and license terms and the whole nine yards all over it. Look at the colophon of a book, the liner notes of a CD, the box of a software product.

Doing less than asserting your rights and explicitly stating what rights you're granting with a product is not smart. That's the bottom line.

I think it all coems down to money. I mean.. all intellectual property aside- you really going to press a lawsuit over something worth 25 cents?

Also does she think she can make more selling content than her land business will lose from bad publicity. So far that answer looks like a yes.

Guess you'd be shocked to find out that if you applied the real copyright law and not one business monkey.

You assumption != law.

What your doing is what you can get away with.. its that simple.

While what you post sound dramatic and interesting and might be happily received by those who are bored and look for the drama story, it is totally rubbish.

In this case I gave the creator two choice:

1) Completely undo the transaction with him refund me and me not use his content at all
2) Have me sell the content under the terms that we then agreed on

Looking at your post I think people can easily understand how bad rumors emerge. You know nothing and just make something up.

There is also one moral component involve when you talk or write about other people.

It's not even reasonable to expect a refund on something sold with full permissions. You can't return it, it's copyable. They have no way of knowing if you deleted it from your inventory or not.
I really can't believe you imagined even for a minute that people are selling full permission items with the intention of you re-selling them as is. You've been around long enough to know better, sorry.

I'm not a lawyer, but I did learn Intellectual Property laws, both national and international, in college, and what Barbarra said is entirely true. It would be the copier's burden to prove that setting something full-perms constitutes a public and legally-binding statement of putting the thing in the public domain (ya rite that's like confusing freeware and open source software).

(As an aside, I consider, and some national courts agree with me here, that the only parts of license agreements that can be enforced by the judiciary system are the parts that GIVE additional rights in addition to what copyright law permits, not those that restrict any existing right. So basically, when you get something full-perm without a license agreement, then you better not try to sell it because nothing's covering your -legal- back)

I have removed a section of my posting because I have been told that my version of events was not correct. As I am always willing to admit when I have made a mistake, and I can't be sure that I am right, I am removing that section.
You have damaged your credibility far more by trying to justify your actions than I could ever have hoped to do in a little website. I should add that had you not started this thread, I would not have publicised what happened, as you had been good enough to withdraw your original threat to sell the balls at 10 dollars mod/copy/trans. Please, please accept that you were in the wrong to threaten the creator as you did, and give it up.

One would hope that someone in your position, who seems - perhaps not surprisingly - to get special consideration from LL, would try to provide a good model of behaviour to people in the game. This isn't it. Whether you truly believe that you were within your rights legally to do what you were doing, you must by now understand that this use wasn't the intention of the creator, and doesn't constitute fair use of his creations. Please stop trying to justify the unjustifiable.
Cali

Anshe, as you familiar with a little phrase we have in America, over what assuming does to a person?

Yeah.

Don't assume you know about how copyright law works, because apparently you don't.

You had no ethical justification. Period.

You had very questionable legal justification that would probably not have survived a real court challenge, if the court hadn't laughed a lawsuit over a couple USD out of court.

In short, you were wrong.

Trying to justify yourself only makes you look worse.

Give up now if you want to save any credibility.

I've seen this said by a few people. The problem with somebody like Anshe doing this is that Anshe has huge visibility, the ability to open stores all over the world and potentially make a large amount of money out of selling other people's works, even if she undercuts. This has the possibility to not only make her a lot of money (otherwise, why would she bother, Anshe's not into things for pennies) but also basically decimate the market of the original creator because the visibility she can give to her stores selling the goods far outweighs that of the original creator.

It's extremely concerning and I don't think we're talking about a couple of USD.

MadamG, I think there are some major misunderstanding/misperception with some people on this thread.

Firstly, I, personally, always respect the rights of content creators. In addition, I try not to make people unhappy, so quite often even when they screw up I still help as good I can. Sometimes it is good thing to do to not insist on your rights when you see it cause somebody pain.

What I do is to license content from creators and resell. All such content I have obtained rights to and, in addition, I have talk to the creator and ensure that there was no mistake.

However, last night there was some major confusion. Because in one shop somebody sold copy/mod/transfer items for 1000 L$ per piece and explicitly advertise as "full permission". So I assume he sell the right to resell and buy. Later I contact him and tell him I plan resell this content for low price to the newbies, because I start to suspect that maybe it is something he did not think of. Then I learn he had certain expectation on how to resell his content that he did not make clear. I offer to undo the deal, but he suggest I can keep it but use higher price when selling.

From this I conclude it was one mistake that he did not make his terms clear in some license agreement. So I start this thread to avoid such problems.

Now, this is how I see it, but some people here seem disagree, I think that when you click "copy" and "transfer" and sell something you grant the buyer rights to "copy" and "transfer" to anyone he want, for free or for money. So people should add one license agreement in such case if they want restrict.

I think the major misunderstand in this thread is that some people confuse what I say is right with what I actually do or did. There are three different thing: a) what I think I have right to b) what I think somebody should consider the moral/immoral and what people should expect from others and c) what I actually do when I see somebody has the problem.

Yes, I think I would have had the right to sell anims I buy last night, charging 10 L$ per piece because I pay extra premium explicitly for copy/transfer right. I also think nobody should expect that this would not happen if he put full permission item for sale and not include any license agreement. But, no, I have not done this. As soon as I learned the creator was unhappy and obviously made one mistake by not making his intentions clear to the buyers I changed my plan. I think I was nice and I plan to be nice as often I can. But people should not rely on others to be nice. They should do their homework and make their terms clear upfront to the buyer. This is why I start this thread.

You seriously think they would license their product for $L1000 for the right to resell and buy their creation, when (and I can pretty much guess the creation) they are already successfully selling them themselves, so you can signicantly undercut their price?
I've never been in the anti-land baron camp, and have no issue with anyone being successful... and I can tell you honestly, this is not coming over well.

Firstly I would like to re-assert that I don’t have a problem with you personally. In fact, I admire the outstanding success you have achieved in SL, and I wish you every success in future (only not through selling other peoples content in competition with the creator). I am aware that there are many people in SL who are envious of your success and who seek to knock anything you do or say; I assure you that I am not one of those people.

Secondly, my comments were based on information taken directly from this thread, so to suggest that I know nothing, doesn’t make a great deal of sense.



When you started this thread, you effectively said: “This is what I plan on doing with other peoples content, I believe this is ethically, morally and legally sound – post your comments here”. To start such a thread is to invite judgements on your ethics.

By responding to your thread, I have indeed allowed people to question my moral standards. You, and everyone who reads this, has every right to pass judgement. By all means tell me if I am out of line.



An ethical way to go about this might be; having spotted this opportunity, you then approach the content creator, explaining your thoughts and plans. Then, with the expressed approval of the content creator, you would have gone about acquiring the content and distributing it with the full backing of the vendor. If they don't approve - you walk away.

Please correct me if I am wrong here, but as I understand it, you saw the opportunity, you purchased the content with full permissions; and only after you had the content in your possession did you attempt to IM the content creator. If this is indeed the order in which you did things, then it leaves your motivation open to question.

To be honest, I am not qualified to comment on the legality of your actions, so I have retracted my earlier assertion that your actions weren’t legal. I apologise, I over-stepped the mark on this.

Ethics and morality are the rules by which society exists. We all have our personal standards and as such, we are all qualified and entitled to make judgements on them. My opinion remains that on the evidence in this thread I would still question the ethics and morality of your actions.

If you all do not mind me asking, what WERE the terms under which the content was sold? Was this ever specified after the sale? Was it to be used a certain way such as in furniture or something?

Sorry if I overlooked that post LOL