Question to clothes makers

I would like to know why other then it being their prerogative do clothes makers make clothes non-transfer. I just can't see the logic or helpfulness of such a thing. On gadgets I can understand being most copy and you leave some behind when used.

On the other hand I also see they make clothes that you can copy yet not transfer. What's the purpose of being able to copy a shirt yet not transfer it? Why would you want to copy a shirt or any other clothes you have, isn't one of a kind enough, what's the purpose of making more then one of a kind when you can't move it?

All this does is inconvenience shoppers in more ways then one. You can't buy for others and at times people have missed the no transfer sign only to get stuck with clothes they can't use if buying for the opposite sex.
Now you have to go through the time wasting process of contacting the shop owner to see if they would send said items for you. And we all know how some of these people act. Some have "No disturb" written in their profiles and don't want to be bothered.

Example: I won't name the shop but check this out. I saw where they were selling in the same box two pairs of sneakers. A his and hers pair which is fine but they were listed as non-transferable. No transfer??? How are you suppose to give the other person the other pair?
NO, this wasn't an error, they have been on sale for months now and the shop owner was notified way back then.

I asked one clothes maker why the no-transfer of his clothes. His response was, "I don't want to see my designs being sold in some yard sale for 1L."
I countered, once "his designs" were sold they were no longer his and therefore he had no say so whatsoever in that item any more. Plus, I don't think anyone can tell his designs from the guy down the block as all these clothes look either alike or are the same exact design.
Another maker answered, "Everyone does it so I do it". Just doesn't make sense.

If anything I feel clothes should all be modifiable and transferable and not necessarily copiable. You have the option to modify them the way you like and you can give them away as presents or to the needy.

Tell me why this is done and with a logical answer which makes sense and is useful to all involved.

The nice thing about copy-enabled clothes is that you can put copies in other directories to have easy to use outfits. Like, if you right-click on a folder you can instantly put on everything in that folder.

As for people being afraid a shopper will resell something they purchased from them, so what? That's such a bizarre thing to worry about. Hello, it's still only one copy of the item.

Well if you want to modify or copy a outfit but not buy a whole lot and keep orignal handy it would be threat to their business and efforts. Especially if they made it orginal
Truthfully there too many similar items from what I have seen and few orginals by different clothes makers.
When I make my own templates I most likely won't trade them at all just for that reason.
Yet I may sell customized linden templetes. I am not sure not there yet.

Lots of reasons for no transfer comes to mind. Me personally, I allow transfer but nothing else.

However, if an item is moddable, they can take your outfit, package it different, buy 60 outfits from you and mod them all just a bit, and sell them for a profit. I've sadly seen this happen. Especially on lighter color outfits, and white. You can use all the specs, shapes, etc. and add your own texture if you wanted and sell it.

Another reason is, that some allow mod and copy, so that you can make 50 copies of that outfit in your inventory and play around with it as much as you want without ever changing the original. I have a whole folder of backup hair, because I tend to change mine here and there for fun, but I always have the original.

Expensive clothes tend to be no-copy, but transfer OK. This allows you to sell your one copy of that tuxedo that you never wear to someone else, and get all or part of your investment back later, if you tire of the outfit. But by being no-copy, you can't resell MULTIPLE copies of the outfit, this competing with the original maker.

Cheap clothes tend to be copy OK, but no transfer. This allows you to use pieces of the outfit in as many outfit folders as you want for your personal use, but not to sell the item. For example, I have a lace bra and lace panties that I tend to wear under a lot of my outfits. Because it's copy OK, I can do that easily.

Clothes that are readily modifyable also tend to be copy OK, but no transfer. This allows you to mess with a COPY of an outfit, while retaining a 'backup copy' as the maker created it. Very handy if you screw something up. And by having the modifyable version be no-transfer, the original maker's reputation doesn't get trashed by having damaged or altered copies floating around. If you messed up your copy, you know you did it.

Most clothing designers will happily sell you a "copy OK, but no transfer" version of an outfit that they normally sell as "No copy, Transfer OK", or will sell you a "No copy, Transfer OK" version of an outfit that they normally sell as "copy OK, but no transfer". Just try asking. Also, for giving a no-transfer item as a gift, you can often order through SL Exchange or SL Boutique, and the item will be delivered to the gift recipient instead of to you. Many higher-end clothing dealers also offer gift certificates, and one that I like sells you a voucher for the clothing item, which itself is transferrable, and the voucher can be cashed in for a non-transferrable set of clothes. (The voucher vanishes after it is used, and so can be used only once.)

This may be a shock to you, but some people DO play as both a male and a female variant of their single avatar. Ceera Murakami is almost always a girl. But I have a male shape and some male clothes as well, for times when being female is not desirable. (Such as if business requires me to enter a Gorean sim). Such sets are not intended to be split up, and given away in pieces. I did recently purchase one dress set that had five color variations of the same no-copy dress. If I wanted to, I could have kept one of those dresses, while giving the other four to four friends. But with those sneakers, which are quite likely that the customer will want to use in multiple outfits, they are most likely "copy OK, but no transfer".

If you buy a real tuxedo, you only have one copy of that tuxedo that you can resell. If you choose to sell it in your garage sale for 5 cents, that's your loss. But a tuxedo that allows the owner to copy it could be sold THOUSANDS of times. You could quite easily put the designer out of business, by undercutting their prices and devaluing their merchandise.

For the record, you can't make an item both "No Transfer" and "No Copy", but you can set them to be both "transfer OK" and "copy OK". No clothing designer would use a "transfer OK" and "copy OK" setting, unless it was for a freebie item like a free t-shirt, that they don't expect to sell for a profit.

Again, if you want to do that, buy items that are no-copy and transfer OK. You can then give your only copy of that item to anyone you wish. But if you modify it and screw it up, it's going to remain screwed up. And if you want to mix and match or use that pair of pants in multiple outfits, you're out of luck.

I agree with the lead op. I also think it's ridiculous to put a "no transfer" on clothes. I also don't see any harm with clothes that you can transfer as well as modify. They should all be like this. Maybe you want to wear the pants baggy or a bit tigher or you don't like such big cuffs. As for you being able to copy them, that's not really a necessity as much as being able to transfer and modify them.

As far as the two pair of sneakers for his /hers in the same box that were no transfer being solely directed at people who play a male and female that's a bit far fetched. That, I think would be a small percentage of people who do this and what are the chances of all of them buying this item?

Someone wrote, ".. if a item is mod, they can take your outfit, package it differently, buy 60 outfits from you, mod them just a bit and sell them for a profit". Ok, but so what? Just for arguments sake, let's say someone does buy 60 items from you. You just made a good profit on that one item on that one person. So, if they in turn pull in a profit for themselves, then good for them. Everyone wins.

In SWG I was, among other professions, a Master Architect. I would sell small houses for 5k which was way below the normal range of 10-12k per. There were people who would buy large quantities of them and would resell them for more. I didn't care since I was selling large quantities of them at a very fast pace and was making a profit as well. Although a smaller profit then if I had sold them at regular prices but since I was seling so many of them, in the long run I made a killing. So everyone won and everyone was happy.

Once you buy something from a shop owner, it's not yours any more, period, case closed. Regardless what they do with it is not your concern as it's been sold and you have nothing else to do with this. To say or think that even though it's been sold and since it's your design it entitles you to have some type of say-so is really dumb and ridiculous. You have the money which was paid for this item and in many cases, a lot more money then the item is really worth and you deserve, so be happy and don't worry about it.

Besides, no one knows you made it. It's not like people go around checking who made the pants, dress or underwears you're wearing. I think it has gone to the heads of many people who make clothes in sl that they're actual designers. C'mon now.

There was a thread awhile back where someone flat asked what permission people wanted in clothing. After a great deal of debate the consensus seemed to be Copy, no transfer was preferred.

I think alot of designers took their cue from that.

Now, if you buy 60 no-copy items, and turn around and resell those 60 items at a slightly higher price, that profit is yours, fair and square. But buying an item ONCE only gives you the right to sell ONE copy of that item, provided it is transferrable. Once you sell it, you no longer have it. But if you buy 60 items, copy their items, and sell 6060 copies yourself? That is 6000 sales that the creator of the object did NOT receive any profits from. That is money you are STEALING FROM THEM. Period. And THAT is what most clothing makers in SL object to.

Nope. Dead wrong. Read the Terms of Service for Second Life. You may find it is a bit different than that other MMO that you sold stuff in. In SL, the creator of content does NOT relinquish their copyright rights because they make their items for sale in Second Life.

When you buy one copy of a paperback book, that does not give you the rights to publish and sell copies of it. When you buy one pair of Levis jeans, that does not give you the right to make cheap knock-off copies and sell them as original Levis. You own that one copy, nothing more, and nothing less.

People can only do that if you sell them a full-perms version of your object. The discussion here is about copy/no-trans of no-copy/trans. In the latter case you can resell your purchase but you only have one copy, whereas in the former you can make all the copies you want but can't resell it.


You misunderstand what copyright means. Just because you retain the copyright on your shirt (or whatever) doesn't mean it's wrong for someone to sell a used copy of your item. Looking at your own examples, yeah you aren't allowed to publish your own printing of the book. You are allowed to sell your copy of the book to a used bookstore. Similarly, no you're not allowed to manufacture a line of jeans and call them Levis. You are allowed to sell your pair of jeans to a vintage clothing store.

I'd perfer Mod OK, Copy OK and no transfer. I do some odd things with my avatar, and getting things to adjust the way I need them can be tricky. I'm not interested in running a yard sale of things I don't wear anymore, or giving friends clothing I don't like.

How in the world are you stealing from the original creator if you buy a number of items and resell them whenther you copy them or not? Because he's not getting any profit it means you're stealing from him? Are you serious? I can't believe I'm actually seeing this.

Regardless of what you may think, this does not constitue as stealing. Why didn't the creator do what this other person did then? This is ridiculous to say the least.

Once this person sells his wares no matter what it is and he gets his asking price, once sold, it's no longer his. And if you modify, copy or do what-have-you and you sell it for more that's none of the original creators business nor is he entitled to anything. He doesn't and shouldn't get squat.

So why sell items so people can copy them if thats the narrow way of thinking?

Anyway, the op wants to know what reasonable sense making explanation is there for making non-transfer items. Although, I understand what each has said, I fail to see any real good reasonable explanation on why no transfer on clothes is done.

The answer to your question is very simple. You make a clothing item NO TRANSFER so that you can allow the person who buys it to copy it. End of story.

Why would anyone want to copy an item of clothing? Maybe it makes no sense to you, but it makes a lot of sense to me. As a person with a few dozen different avatars (human, furry, and other), I like to set up "instant transformation" folders so that I can switch to a completely different avatar just by clicking on that folder or dragging it onto my avatar. I also happen to like having my new avatar (or the new look of my avatar -- I guess I'm using the word "avatar" in more than one way here, which is a bit confusing I know) appear fully clothed. This makes changing avatars in public just a little bit nicer. ^_^

Now, if all of my clothing is no-copy, then the outfit I place in my "instant drow" folder (for example) would be my only copy of that outfit -- and if I wanted to wear that outfit while in my NWS anthropomorphic unicorn avatar, I'd have to remember which of my many instant av folders I'd placed that outfit. Which would be a complete headache, trust me. So when I find an outfit that I really like that is set to COPY (and NO TRANSFER), I'm thrilled. I can place a copy of that outfit in one of my instant av folders and still keep the "main" copy in a place where I'd reasonably expect to find it... under clothing, maybe in a folder named "Pants Outfits" or whatever. (I do try to keep a reasonably organized clothing folder so I can find what I'm looking for). Heck, I can use that outfit for several of my instant av folders if I want.

People who don't change avatars frequently like I do might still want to set up complete outfit folders (as several people above have said). You might have a pair of jeans you like that go with several different tops -- with copiable items, you can set up a seperate folder for each ensemble and wear that full outfit instantly with the click of a button. Just because *you* don't want to do things that way, doesn't mean others don't very much enjoy the ability to do so.

Someone also mentioned one of the other uses of copiable clothing -- if the item is colorable, you can make multiple copies set to the whatever colors you want. Then when you want that tank top in the exact shade of blue that matches a certain skirt, you won't have to edit yourself and try to match the color again... you'll already have a copy set to that color.

I have no plans to resell the stuff I buy or set up a yard sale or anything, so I MUCH prefer to get copiable/no transfer clothing items when I can.

The shoe thing makes sense to me too, depending on how the buyer did it. Let's say I make a pair of sneakers for ladies, and a matching pair for men. I can sell them seperately for 300L each (for example) or I could sell both in one box for 300L total, set to no transfer. That way, I only have one sale object to deal with, and anyone who buys it can use the pair appropriate for them, or use both if they happen to play both sides of the fence. If I wanted to sell a matching his and hers set, then of course I'd have to make them transferable, and I'd want to charge 600L (or a little less) for the box with both sets in it. But doing it the other way makes sense too, if your only objective is to sell one pair of shoes to one individual. Unlike in real life, it costs me, the merchant, nothing at all to toss both versions of the shoe into one box, and it simplifies things, and nobody says you have to make use of both pairs of shoes that you get.

And of course, having copiable shoes is useful for the same reasons listed above. ^_^

The deal with copy/no transfer vs no copy/transfer is simply the fact that when you take the transfer permission away, you automatically get copy. There's quite a bit of spin to make it sound like it's terribly useful, but it's really just a side effect of removing the transfer permission.

My personal opinion:

* no mod skins: no transfer for nothing other than to get more sales. Anyone who's been in SL for a while will have a collection of skins they once bought and never wear anymore, but you're stuck with them. You can't even give them to a newbie so that they'll look nicer.
* mod skins: I'm fine with these being copy and no transfer although a M/NC/T alternative would be nice to have too. It's not that much of an effort to change the sliders to fit an occasion on make-ups I rarely wear

* hair: no transfer because it's generally sold in packs and if you could transfer colours you don't use prices would have to go up to compensate. The fact that you can copy it benefits new residents because it can take a while before you're comfortable enough to make adjustments without messing it up
One benefit of copy that I personally have never used but that I know other people use is to retexture the hair

* complete outfits/dresses: don't really see why these should ever be no transfer. All the layers are made to match with the rest so reusing any of it would be very unlikely, especially when it's a costume
(Some stores specializing in wedding dresses seem to sell them no transfer so that they won't end up getting resold over and over since it's for the most part a "wear once" item. Can't say I really agree with that policy but I can at least understand why they do it)

* prim skirts: I'm split on those. A lot of times they do need adjusting/resizing to fit your shape and I know I'm often hesitant to mess with them too much because it's very easy to ruin them completely.
Ideally I'd like two copies, one M/C/NT and one M/NC/T. The fact that I'd have a copy left should I transfer the original shouldn't really cause any kind of problem since all the prim skirts I have come with a matching pants layer so without that they're really useless.

I won't touch on the rest because that's really about the whole debate about how you order your inventory. For me I personally categorize clothing much the same way I do it in real life. Shoes are under shoes, hair is under hair, jewelry is under accessories, and so on. Once I get tired of something I'll simply bury it a level deeper so nothing gets too cluttered up the same way I'll retire things out of my closet in RL when I find I no longer wear them.

I find that this works perfect for me and it seems to be what mostly everyone does because I have yet to meet anyone who does actually classify clothing into one folder with everything from hair to shoes. As long as you keep your inventory ordered and tidy anything you want is only a few clicks away and how I accessorize tends to depend more on my mood or favourite thing at the time rather than a desire to wear one outfit the same way.

All that said, I still buy no transfer clothes, but it's always far less of an impulse buy and then it has to be something I'll go really crazy over before I'll even try and talk myself into it.
The fact that it's impossible to get a refund for it (I've rarely even had to ask, but a big part of me likes knowing that it's at least a possibility) doesn't help tip the scales either.

From the seller's POV it seems many like no transfer because it means that if anything happened during the sale (or SL suffers another inventory disaster) they can simply give you another copy without worrying that you're out to scam them.

[Edited to add that if for any reason you would ever decide that you're abandoning your main for a new avie, you're out of luck because not only will you spend a whole lot of L$ buying things you paid for already, chances are high that what you had is simply no longer for sale]

Clothes sometimes are automatically non-transfer when you make them. To be honest, I make clothes and I don't even no how to make them transferable even if I wanted to!!

Also, we would have to charge crazy prices if our clothes were transfer, as we would only sell a fraction of what we currently sell, due to stuff being circulated by residents. Regarding copy but no transfer clothes - this has some use, say for example if you wanted to make set outfits using the same shirt for example, you would need multiple copies of the shirt in different folders in your inventory.

"I asked one clothes maker why the no-transfer of his clothes. His response was, "I don't want to see my designs being sold in some yard sale for 1L."
I countered, once "his designs" were sold they were no longer his and therefore he had no say so whatsoever in that item any more. Plus, I don't think anyone can tell his designs from the guy down the block as all these clothes look either alike or are the same exact design."

You're missing the point. If I sold you some shoes in RL, you can then sell them on if you want. That's fine. What isn't fine is for you to copy them and sell millions of copies of my shoes. That's what happens in SL; if something is on sale it is an infinite number of copies. Essentially, re-selling clothes in SL is the same as counterfeiting clothes in RL.

HELLLOOOOOO!!! No it isn't. If you buy something from me and I let it be transferred, in theory you can then sell it to every single resident in SL, thereby destroying my livelihood.


However, making it transfer but no-copy would be a good compromise. Then you can pass on clothes you buy from us if you want, but you lose it from your inventory just like in RL.

HELLLLLOOOO that's exactly what we are discussing, no-copy/trans or copy/no-trans. Nobody is saying we should be selling full-perms items in our stores.

I think this was mentioned upthread, but it bears repeating.

I, and I know many others who do the same, set my clothes to no-trans, and I prefer it when I buy clothes, because I like to set up different outfits, many using the same shirt or pants. It makes life a whole lot easier to have a copy of the item in a folder that I can throw on, rather than having to dig through countless folders to find each individual piece.

I'm not in the flea market business, I'm not in the second hand store business. It's not my problem if you want to give your friend a copy of the shirt you bought, or you made a bad purchase and want to give it away. I'm sorry, but it just isn't. My job is to sell shirts. That's it.
If you want your friend to have the same shirt as you, come to the store and spot them the cash to buy it. It's not in my best interest to make it so you can give away my product.

I think you and others are missing the argument.

Clothes that are modify and trans can be resold as someone's else's design at a crazy markup over your own prices because they are passing it off as their own. Most people want the ability to modify their clothing, as opposed to reselling it later. If I take Hoochie Coochie outfit and mod it up a bit, and box it up and sell it as my own with a 400L profit, that's stealing the creators original design, tweaking it a bit and passing it off as your own.

My friend made a mostly white outfit that someone bought a ton of, changed around colors and sold it as their own for a 200L profit on EACH outfit. You mean to tell me, that Nike wouldn't be ticked of Adidas bought 300 pairs of shoes, changed the color and sold them as their own, right next door at 10 bucks more? Hardly.

Or Pepsi wouldn't be ticked of Coke bought their product up, changed the label on the cans and then sold it as Coke for a dollar more, Pepsi wouldn't be ticked? Hardly.

We aren't talking about making items copy and trans, we are talking about trans a mod.

People overwhelming wanted the ability to mod items, and would trade off transfer ability to mod it.

There was an issue a few weeks ago, with a popular hair designer from SL. Her textures were ripped from no trans items she sold and this person continued on to make not only her hairstyles, but in the same texture she stole from when she bought a pack of no trans hair. She even used the same names of the hair color textures. That's certainly not right in any case, but it's the same vein of the argument. Just because you buy something, doesn't mean you should be able to do what you want with it.

There are a few vendors who do somthing I personally like. They have two versions of products available for sale. One is Transfer/No Copy, the other is Copy/No Transfer. That way you can decide which way you want to get the item. Believe it or not, sometimes I buy both! By being flexible, they just doubled their sales. I really wish more vendors took this approach.

This is a pretty bizarre scenario as presented. Adidas would have little to gain (oh boy, they made 3000 whole dollars, and only at the cost of cannibalizing their own business) and a lot to lose.

Now to make your hypothetical situation a little more plausible and applicable, it's not Adidias in the first case or Coke in the second, but rather some local peddler attempting to make a buck. In this case, yeah I suppose they'd be a little cheesed off in the highly unlikely event that they even noticed.

Still, this kind of thing happens a lot and for these companies their time is much better spent working on their own product (development, marketing, etc.) than chasing down hustlers. I've never seen either of those specific examples, but I actually see this all the time with DVDs. People buy a bunch of DVDs cheaply, and then attempt to resell them with a little spread in the subway station. Nobody really cares; someone purchasing from a guy in the subway knows that they're dealing with a shady operation, and most people will go to a reputable store to buy the legitimate DVD.

Just earlier this week I IM'ed a designer asking her if it was at all possible to get a gift version of some halloween costumes she was selling. She asked if I was buying them for someone else, or just wanted the option to transfer and I told her it was the latter.

I ended up buying three costumes, respectively priced $1000, $350 and $350. A pair of shoes at $275 and a matching skin (which did stay no transfer, but I don't have much of a problem with skins being no transfer as long as they're mod) for $675. None of which I would have bought if she hadn't been willing to give me a transferable copy of the costumes.

If she'd asked me for a surcharge for going through the trouble of changing the permission I would have been more than happy to pay that as well because I do understand that it's a pain and it does require attention because if only one item ends up c/t instead of nc/t it would be disastrous.

In short you do loose out simply by being unwilling to make a small gesture towards your customers. She got L$ 2650 worth in a single sale when I would have spent nothing if she hadn't understood that I place more value on transfer than I do on copy, on top of which I am now willing to make a personal exception and continue to shop there even if it means she won' t change permissions on every single little thing I like in her store just because of that one positive customer experience. Although it doesn't have any montery value, there's the additional benefit that her excellent service impressed me so much I let a bunch of people know and will suggest it as a good store if anyone asks me where to go for clothes.

Some designers do go and above and beyond. The most stunning of which was when Ginny refunded me on a $650 dress I bought but found just didn't look at all like the advertised picture without even asking me for the dress back, telling me to instead just delete it. Could I have clapped my hands and sold the dress I still had second hand and ultimately come out at a profit? Sure, I could have and Ginny would have been out one sale. Instead it's one of the little things that made Dazzle my all-time favourite store and in total across time I ended up buying over 30 of her designs.
Now I'm certainly not advocating that you need to refund without asking for the purchased copy back, it's only common sense, but what made is so exceptional that it sticks by me months later is the fact that she was willing to actually treat a customer as a decent human being instead of the eager to scam you out of a few L$ by ripping you off attitude that is so prevalent among designers in SL and certainly has come to light in this thread and many others like it in the past.

You can continue to fool yourself, wringing your hands that selling things no transfer means you'll rake in more sales, but your own unwillingness to meet a customer's - far from unreasonable - request is actually hurting your own sales.

You are talking about a completely seperate thing!

I thought it was obvious that I was talking about a general way to do business, not on an individual request basis. The fact that you had to request for transferrable items shows that the person you are talking about has the same policy.

If you are going to make an argument, and then insult me and try to demean me, try starting with something that is on the same page, rather than way off the mark.

Nowhere did I say I wouldn't honour special requests. Not once.

However, as a general rule, it ISN'T in my best interest to let other people sell my products or give them away, straight from the vendor. It just isn't.




First off, why the hostility? "Wringing [my] hands"? Did I do something to deserve this sort of talk?
Second, where did I say that it would "rake in more sales"? What I said was that making it no transfer makes it harder for people to rip me off and I stated a preference as a customer and why I had that preference.
Please read the posts, rather than what you'd like them to say.



I do like the idea of having two vendors, one for no trans, one for no copy, but there are instances where that's just not feasible, such as rented spaces with prim limits.

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