It's supposed to be free damnit!!

The permissions system is a DRM, not a copyright waiver or redistribution license.

If you have something that is full permission, you have no inherent rights of infinite redistribution (you do have legal rights of ownership but those are still subject to copyright law) without explicit permission of the creator.

There's a big difference between putting something in the public domain and giving it away for free and you can't determine that from the permissions alone (in RL purchased audio CDs come "copy/transfer", noone would think that means you're allowed to redistribute them), you have to contact the creator.

Exactly!

Because right now I'm getting IM's from people saying - "Hey, I just saw your XYZ in-world and it says it's free. But for some strange reason I can't seem to take a copy. Can you pease send me one?"

So clearly, somebody has disabled the 'Allow anybody to copy'.

Welcome to Capitalism.

The freebie thing doesn't bother me so much....if I give something away....it's immediately forgotten. The point being...I gave it away. What really annoys me about SL is the no transfer on most items I've purchased. I understand 'no modify' because it preserves the integrity of the item.....preserves what the creator intended. Good idea. But....in the real world.....anything I own...purchased or otherwise acquired....I have the right to give away...sell... burn....bury... stash in the attic.... whatever. In SL...we are bound to certain items indefinitely. Hair & skin being the best example.... I've gone thru tons to find the right look.....and I have tons I don't use... It's very frustrating to me that they sit in my inventory collecting dust. I'd love to be able to help out some noob by handing them some cool hair or skin to get started. I honestly don't think it would compramise SL commerce......people are consumers, above all things....we constantly seek to obtain 'stuff'. SL has a slightly different slant on capitalism....but it is still the same animal.

Actually, it is a recognized feature of property ownership and transfer of same which is codified in case law (and statutory law) as things like the First Sale doctrine. No, it doesn't have to be true for objects in SL, but it can be.



This is true, though there is some amount of effort to make the properties of objects in SL mirror what you can do with many RL objects as well, with some extensions due to the nature of them being virtual. The point is that the more the rights mimic what people can do in the RL, the more people can understand what they can and can't do, because the actions are ( or should be) already familiar. Of course, LL can change it to their heart's content. They can just as easily remove permissions from the available pool as add them, based on what they perceive as the best way to balance the rights of producers with the rights of consumers, given the best model we have available to us (and perhaps some non-infringing extensions to it): the Real World(tm).



There's nothing stopping that now. If people want to give away for free what they purchased, they have copy/transfer rights, and they are not otherwise contractually bound not to distribute, they can. Most people who are end consumers of free items rarely are the ones selling them, as such, they won't have them rezzed anywhere.

The flip side of this, let's say someone found this neat sculpture for free, and put it up on his land. He doesn't want every one of his neighbors to all of a sudden put the exact same sculpture up on their land just because he did. If they find it on their own, that's fine, but he has no desire to become a distribution point (not talking about selling, just distributing) for the sculpture for his neighbors.

There's not even a precedent in RL copyright law which requires free redistribution as a condition of ownership.



I never said it shouldn't be allowed. I just said it was not technically feasible to enforce it to a degree where it would really matter all that much. Those who would sell it would still be able to sell it. Those who displayed it wouldn't be able to prevent others from taking copies, but that is a two-edged sword.

I know the freebie sellers can still try to sell the items regardless, but as you've said, it does prevent people that display the stuff from keeping it to themselves.

Wouldn't you like to see LL add a few lines of code to prevent people from disabling 'Allow anybody to copy'?. Or is there some reason that you feel the setting should be left open?.

No.

I don't mind leaving it turned on in my public properties, but I would really prefer that people don't shop in my home.

I am now making and distributing my own freebies, and I feel no need to impose myself on my "customers" in this way. Accepting a gift from me should not force people to act as my distributors.

It's hardly imposing.

Setting the 'Allow anybody to copy' permission doesn't force people to go around like Santa Claus and start climbing down chimneys.

I think putting a L$5000 price tag on something is probably a little more imposing

That's what I said a page ago. No one listened then either.

Oh, and you see the contents of a box before you make the transaction, so this would work just fine.

Objects in SL are intellectual property, like a song or a novel, so this does not apply.

They are still covered by Copyright law, which, in the instance of First Sale doctrine, is what was made into a statutory right o consumers in the 1976 Copyright Act.

Whether it applies or not in SL is up to the courts to decide. I would expect it would have some weight in any decision.

Misundertood what you mean't by the First Sale Doctrine - I'm assuming it's an American thing. I mis-read your original post as suggesting that the buyers of property DO have the right to re-sell it without limit or constraint, which I believe to not be the case in SL. It seems infact that we agree with each other then. The right to sell a single copy of intellectual property exists (i.e, a single copy of a book) - the right to reproduce intellectual property for sale does not exist (i.e. to copy a CD over and over again and sell the copies). I suggest then that selling a single No Copy object would be a right of consumers in SL, but to sell anything that is Copyable is not.

It forces people to turn their private property into your personal distribution center. To me, that is imposing.

http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p01_uk_copyright_law

in the uk.. what is determined copyright is specific..

certainly i would not want an original work of mine plundered and made available by someone, (who for whatever reason, was ignorant of copyright law.) If it was something i was concerned about, i would use whatever method i could, to bring the law into my defence and as my security. That does not stop me ignoring copyright law being broken, or making something freely available to anyone... it is my choice... its up to me.. which means.. its not up to you..

The originator has the decision. Copy and sell ? fine, but be sure you know who the property belongs too, and if you are sure you are not in conflict of copyright.

It might not be important .. or seem so.. until you are facing a copyright breaking judgement amounting to a LOT of money..

UK law says:


Restricted acts
It is an offence to perform any of the following acts without the consent of the owner:

Copy the work.

Rent, lend or issue copies of the work to the public.

Perform, broadcast or show the work in public.

Adapt the work.

The author of a work, or a director of a film may also have certain moral rights:

The right to be identified as the author.

Right to object to derogatory treatment.

Acts that are allowed
Fair dealing is a term used to describe acts which are permitted to a certain degree without infringing the work, these acts are:

Private and research study purposes.
Performance, copies or lending for educational purposes.
Criticism and news reporting.
Incidental inclusion.
Copies and lending by librarians.
Acts for the purposes of royal commissions, statutory enquiries, judicial proceedings and parliamentary purposes.
Recording of broadcasts for the purposes of listening to or viewing at a more convenient time, this is known as time shifting.
Producing a back up copy for personal use of a computer program.
Playing sound recording for a non profit making organisation, club or society.
(Profit making organisations and individuals should obtain a license from the Performing Rights Society.)
........................................................

You might try and defend your use by incidental inclusion.. but i would not like to have to defend myself on that basis, it would be easier not to use than use a work.

The chance could be.. you wont ever have to defend copyright ... as a user or creator.. but the law has no specific judgement until called upon.. the chance is yours.

Ive broken it.. im not innocent.. i dont pass a personal opinion here.. im no hero.

Do you mean that an object's creator would be able to decide if the "Allow anybody to copy" could be turned off or not, or that it would be impossible to create an object where the new owner can change the copy permission?

If you are wanting to add a new choice of permissions that an object can have , those who don't want to have the free, copiable objects on their land could solve that easily by not having them. They could instead acquire free objects whose copy permission they are allowed to disable.

To summarise; the status quo is that a creator can prevent someone copying an object but when they choose to allow copying they cannot compel the next owner to allow others to continue copying. You can give permission for future owners to copy or allow others to copy, but you cannot force them to.

That seems fair and just to me. Don't fix what ain't broke.

It doesn't force you to have free objects with permissions set in a way that you don't want. There is no imposition. The object creator makes an object and sets it's properties. If you like it you take a copy, if you don't like the way the permissions are set, you don't take a copy. Same as if someone make a free red ball - you like the red property, you take one, you don't like the red property, you don't take it. There is no force or imposition involved.

They're not being forced to use the free item.

They're encouraging the creator by using the item and allowing others to take a copy.

Setting permissions to restrict what people can do with your product I can understand, but I still can't agree with you that being able to set permissions to force others to let people copy it is fair. It isn't.

I suggest that the 'Allow anybody to copy' permission could be changed by the owner only if the 'Modify' permission was enabled. This is the way I assumed it always was. I was rather dumbfounded when I first realized that owners can freely change the 'Allow anybody to copy' permission.

I'm still not seeing the logic in the permission and nobody else in this thread seems to have given me a good explanation. Which is quite reassuring because it means I'm not quite as stupid as I first thought.

Put simply, by changing the "Allow anybody to copy" permission, the owner is not modifying the object, so your suggestion is not appropriate. You already have a Copy/No Copy option, which gives you the power to decide if someone can make something available to copy or not. This is good explanation people have been giving you since this thread began, and it is still a good explanation.

There is no force.

In this context, the word "force" means "mandate". Which is exactly what you are proposing.

I think we better take a few steps back and look at what I'm suggesting.

This is for the benefit of everybody. Nobody is really going to be losing out here. Well nobody except the freebie sellers. If you really feel that displaying a freebie in your garden is going to cause random people to come by looking for it, then you don't have to display it.


On a side note:

I'm beginning to wonder if I had started a thread about how mugging people was wrong, then there would be people posting about how mugging wasn't such a bad thing.

Conan: "Hey dude!, muggers need to eat too!"

I suppose this is the nature of a discussion forum and people feel compelled to put forward an opposing view.

Is it really so difficult for you to believe that some people here simply do not agree with you on this issue?

That's just silly.