Right of Use - Full Permissions Object

TAKEN OFF AN EARLIER THREAD FOR DEBATE ON THIS ISSUE


I purchased an item that is in reasonably high demand as a Second Life object, it is (how can I put it) likeable, and has an exact mirror in real life, and for the prurient minded among you it is not connected with sex!

Anyway to cut a long story short I purchased it as a full permission object for cents where the true retail value is in the thousands of Lindens. That includes all the scripts to power it. No separate licence agreement was attached to it but I accept the object was branded in another unique way. By the way no software bug was exploited to enable the purchase

Once I realised what I had I pondered, as it was legally mine it was fairly easy to remove the unique brand, redo it and launch into the XYZ business of selling it en mass.

But I do have a bit of a conscience. Even though I understand trade in real life and was very confident I was on sound ground I also accepted that the creator (not the vendor) would not be very content with the position if an unrestricted market developed. And although this object is rather valuable in Second Life terms, its commercial value in first life to me is more or less non-material to that of my main business.

I advised the creator, who actually got some fair compensation from the vendor (the vendor claims it was a mistake) and promised the creator I would never sell this object except for non profit charity fund raising.

So, I set it up as a "once off" object for charity, to benefit Relay For Life the American cancer society on an unrestricted full permission basis. I did not even collect the charity money for this object, as I am not a US subject and it would be difficult to pay them, I allowed another avatar to place a toll kiosk on my land to collect the money.

I would also comment that although it is a desirable object within Second Life it would also require some advanced re-engineering to further develop it to sell them en mass in separate varieties as a viable business.

Well to use an English expression I have never had so much of a 2 and 8 over it, the creator stuck to me like a limpet and the vendor got all huffy to put it mildly. It was almost as if you could hear cries of anguish and wailing and gnashing of virtual teeth over the electronic virtual either

It is still not totally settled now after several days although I have hope that the deal negotiated yesterday will be fully implemented to enable me to help the charity.

Sometimes some of you lot are too sensitive, like wailing banshees in the wind over every little thing

Kitty Barnett

SL's permissions do not supersede copyright.

In the absence of an explicit license or agreement between you and the copyright owner, you have no implied rights other than that granted by law, such as fair use (since you did purchase it).

Full permission does not mean public domain, unless I missed a paragraph in the TOS that states that the IP owner waives their rights as creator by having anything set as full permission.


Annabelle Vandeverre

Um, stealing for charity is still stealing. It sounds a bit like you took advantage of someone else's mistake there. Did they give you explicit permission to redistribute this item for fundraising?

I'm with Kitty on this one - full permissions does not mean public domain. Otherwise, people could argue that they are free to use everything on the Internet the way they like, ignoring copyright, just because they have the ability to download and distribute it.

Going back to intent of the creator/copyright holder - some of them made things to be redistributed to a wider audience, and it's hard to know the intent of the original creator after it's passed through so many hands. If we all had to be 100% sure before passing a full perms item along, no one would ever redistribute freebies.

In this case, it was easy enough to determine the intent of the creator and the vendor. It was a mistake on the vendor's part, and now the creator is angry it was redistributed.

My SL business is mostly for fun and an outlet for creativity, and I'm pleased that I can break even on my SL expenses with my business profits. But for some people, their SL business provides a significant portion of their living expenses in real life. They are sensitive to being wronged because it affects their livelihood.

My later comment

Interesting.

What you both seem to be saying is that I have the right of fair usage of the item as I did purchase it legally without exploit BUT should give some consideration to avoiding the destruction of the creators business. To be honest that pretty much mirrors my own views.

However I also mentioned that it may be possible to re-engineer the product so that it completely belongs to me with would include creator rights. The level of skill required would be beyond the ability of the average casual user of Second Life so one could argue that to distribute the item in isolation for non profit would not in itself cause issues as it would depend on the actions of the new purchaser.

Now here comes an interesting point.

a) If I distribute the item concerned without profit (fungible gain) in itself, together with a notecard indicating this item should not be sold on for such gain would that solve the issue

b) OR if I arrange for the item in question to be re-engineered to reflect my own brand does it then belong to me absolutely.

An example I can offer here is perhaps how spread sheets, word processors, and data bases work. They all use the same principles but the format is of course different.

So Lotus 123 vis-à-vis Excel AND/OR MS Word vis-à-vis Google Doc, AND/OR MS Access vis-à-vis any other databases is a clear example.

Views welcomed

Regards John

If I read your account correctly, the sale of the object with full permissions was a mistake. It was not an intentional action on the part of the creator and it was rectified as soon as he was made aware of the problem.

I don't see any ambiguity in this situation. The sale of this object for any purpose is simply unethical. It may be "legal" in the sense that you didn't steal the object yourself, but you were quickly made aware of the creator's intent. Taking advantage of the mistake is an exploitative action, regardless of the purity of your motives.

This exact situation happened to me just last week. I purchased a relatively inexpensive furniture product on SLE. The ad was clearly marked Mod/No Copy/Transfer. When it was delivered, however, the object had full permissions. I could have filled my land with copies and sold them by the dozen for any price I chose.

But what I did was immediatley IM the creator and let him know what had happened. I then asked for a replacement with the correct permissions and I deleted the flawed copy.

No other option even occurred to me.

My head hurts.....

My opinion (for what its worth), if the copyright owner of an item allows you to distribute it you can do so, if later they change their mind then you must stop. (However, they can't get mad at you for the previously distributed items, because you had permission at that point)

Rengineering the item, well that depends, total new build of everything, do as you please, your the owner.

Basic modification of their item, your not in the clear.

G.

Both of those would still be a breach of copyright. In the first instance, it does not matter that you make no profit, you are distributing copies without consent. In the second instance, I doubt the changes you would be making would qualify it as a copyrightable derivative:


When you say "arrange for it to be re-engineered", presumably that would involve paying someone to do the coding work. Why not just ask someone to build you a similar system from scratch, and forget that you ever saw that code?

The code is quite advanced.

Having said that you do not forget what you both learn, study, and have an interest in from an educational viewpoint. More than 5 odd scripts, sound and 31 prims all working together

As I said its fairly unique in SL.

I the real world there is an anomaly, in my opinion, between buyer and seller.

If I buy a rusty old heap of junk of a card, for US$10,000, and it falls to pieces, I am told that I should have checked it etc, buying it without having it checkedd first, is a mistake, and I should have avoided that. 'Caveat Emptor' they cry, let the buyer beware. So, it is my own fault, my own loss.

However, if the Sales Manager of a Ferrari showroom mistakenly leaves a zero off, and puts US$10,000 as the price of a new Ferrari, instead of US$10,000, then goes for lunch, then in the meantime I come in and buy it for the asking price, from the junior left in charge, I can be sued or be charged with a criminal offence for taking advantage of someone else's genuine mistake (that is the law here in Britain, anyway). There is no Caveat Venditor, let the seller beware, so he suffers no loss, it is not his fault.

This is an anomaly.

There has been much talk on Copyright in SL of late, but everything written so far is opinion. Nothing has been tested in the courts. Whether the courts determine that sl is a 'game' in the legal sense or not, and whether the only rules in sl are those made by LL, and not by the law of the land, or not, are yet to be determined. Several rules in the TOS by LL are contrary to the law of Britain, for example.

Is harrassment and stalking in SL against national laws? Is stealing in SL against national laws? Is copyright infringement in SL against national laws? Where should the lines be drawn between national laws, and 'game' rules?

To the case in point. If an object is sold, for the asking price, and no deceit was employd in its procurement, then the purchaser has every right to employ all the permissions given with that onject. If the object is free to copy, then copy it he can, with no restrictions. All restrictions should be clearly made aware to the purchaser by the seller before any transaction takes place, otherwise they are not enforceable. Such exceptions are clearly in place at an establishment such as Bits and Bobs, where the seller clearly posts notices saying that although the pose balls are Copyable, there are situations under which he does not want that permission to be used.

Breach of Copyright applies when you copy someone else's creation, without the creator's permission, whether for gain or not. That is clearly not the case as expressed by the poster, as the creator (or his agent) had ticked the Copy permission box. If the creator feels he has suffered a loss, due to a mistake by the vendor, then his recourse is to the vendor, not the end user.

Rock

Reposted, with proper spelling, and less haste while eating my lunch sandwich

In the real world there is an anomaly, in my opinion, between buyer and seller.

If I buy a rusty old heap of junk of a car, for US$10,000, and it falls to pieces, I am told that I should have checked it etc, buying it without having it checked first, is a mistake, and I should have avoided that. 'Caveat Emptor' they cry, let the buyer beware. So, it is my own fault, my own loss.

However, if the Sales Manager of a Ferrari showroom mistakenly leaves a zero off, and puts US$10,000 as the price of a new Ferrari, instead of US$100,000, then goes for lunch, then in the meantime I come in and buy it for the asking price, from the junior left in charge, I can be sued or be charged with a criminal offence for taking advantage of someone else's genuine mistake (that is the law here in Britain, anyway). There is no Caveat Venditor, let the seller beware, so he suffers no loss, it is not his fault

I would say let this one be your guide.

If it makes you scratch your head about the thing in the first place, then I think
you are better off pursuing something else entirely. If interaction with the
category has inspired you then try to do your own completely from scratch.

In the long run the trust and good will of the community is worth far more
than the few lindens you may make in the interim.

This one seems to go to the "If it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck, then it
probably is a duck" concept.

Are you sure? Do you have a reference? I've never heard of anything like this!

I know there have been some cases where webstores, in the UK, have had to honour low price sales that were the results of problems with their servers.

On the other hand the case the author describes isn't quite the same. In the above case it's the Sales Manager's fault for hiring a junior who does not know what he is doing, but in the case of goods sold on SL, nobody has any choice but to use the SL sales system and can't do anything about its flakiness..

Laws like this are more like guidelines in the UK. If a judge thinks the contract was blatantly taking the mirth, then he or she will rule accordingly. Words like "reasonable" show up a lot in many consumer/trade laws when you read them.

Very interesting dilemma John and as such, quite worthy of you to ask what popular opinion is.

First off, best to separate the issues I think.

Law
Ethics
Practical Consequences / Social Impact
Cost Benefit Analysis


Law - I'm no lawyer, so take with a grain of salt.

a. Copyright
Whomever created the item, the scripts and whatnot *has* copyright. Period. They created it; it is their work.

b. Licence of use granted
This is where it gets sticky. If someone truly offers a full permission item, that state implies no restrictions upon use. However, you were notified otherwise after the fact.

Does this matter? Indeed, a spectrum here - if you paid a great deal for the object and suddenly the creator changes their mind, that could be construed as 'bait and switch'. On the other hand, it sounds like an honest mistake was made, and full use Licence was never intended.

c. Digital Millenium Copyright Act
I'm not sure if this applies in the UK but certainly it applies to our service provider. Should the creator file a claim against you, I think something like the following happens: You are asked to remove the content or file a counterclaim; failing a counterclaim the Company well remove the original content from you. Possibly derivative works too if these can be readily identified.

My guess is that you and the content creator would be tied up in US courts for a while. Not that it would matter for long, because once a fully permissioned item gets out, well, it's not just one of you - it's thousands of you that will be at odds with the creator.


Ethics

I think that base ethical guidelines dictate that none of us should profit off someone else's mistake.

Easy to lose sight of on this new digital frontier - the streets are hard, many would take advantage in an eyeblink and not even care. You are a good man and thus I think you know the correct answer here, John.


Practical Consequences / Social Impact

In 2004 there was a glitch allowing many items to become freebies, much to the dismay of their creators. Our service provider could (or would) do little about it, and it ruined businesses left and right. As recently as summer 2006 there was a bug that made ALL scripts full permissions for just a bit there. Once discovered the hole was patched.

These events turned the populace strongly against 'freebie resellers' and their ilk, and of course you recall the reaction to CopyBot. Should you redistribute an accidentally full-permissioned item *and* do business with your real name, there will be little escaping the taint of having done so.

Most people will judge your character on all other dealings henceforth based on your actions today.

Even worse, just *asking* this question is risky - say someone starts selling a comparable item in the near future. People will suspect it is you doing it as an alt.

Best thing you can do (my opinion) is distance yourself as much as you can from this, which may actually raise people's opinions of you and help all your future dealings on the grid.


Cost Benefit Analysis

Please forgive my perhaps chilling tone to do an analysis here, but let's face it, it's part of the equation. What's to lose, what's to gain?

Say you made - say $L one Million - reselling the item over the forseeable future, charitable donations factoring in, whatever. I'd guess that would be by far the top top top end of what is possible in the forseeable future.

After exchange and all that we are talking 3628 USD here in say, a year's time. Maybe. Probably more like 1000 USD if you are lucky.

Balance that against: Your first life reputation on the grid, since you give your first life identity freely.

Being a finances person I'd say your reputation is probably worth easily a quarter million *real* USD to you - remember this will shade every deal you ever make, henceforth, for as long as people remember. This is based on you making 25,000 USD a year, on average, over the next ten years on the grid (you may do far far better).

So as opportunities go, I'd say this one just isn't worth it.

My personal opinions only, take or leave them as you wish and good luck with resolving it all.

If it was done by someone other than the original creator, a right to copy does not exist as the permission has come from someone who is not in a position to grant that permission.
If someone from microsoft sold you the windows code, you'd still find yourself facing a massive lawsuit if you tried to do anything with it.

Even if the copy box was ticked by the creator, it does not imply the granting of a full license to do with as you wish. Books are sold in a readable, copyable state, but you do not purchase the right to copy them simply because they are copyable. DRM is not a requirement of copyright.
It can't even be guaranteed that the copy box was ticked by any real person with the amount of permissions bugs in SL.

Like you say though, it's all opinions until tested in court, but then it wouldn't necessarilly go that far. Linden could suspend any account at any time if there was even suspected copyright infringement. Best to avoid the issue completely by not copying someone elses work unless you have explicit permission to do so.

Here is what I am wondering. The vast majority of today's residents were not yet 'born' when these things happened. We do not know this world of which you speak, where today's freebie items were once valuable merchandise. The populace you refer to is now in the minority of active residents.

Many of the creators of the items we now consider freebies have left SL, from what I understand. Sometimes the creator name doesn't show up at all on the object. Many of us are pleased to have these items and have no idea whether or not the original creator intended for them to be modified and redistributed in this fashion.

1. Does that make passing freebies of unknown origin along to others a crime, even if not taking payment for them?
2. What if I spend a great deal of time rezzing and examining quality and prim counts of the objects I have collected, and I organize them into $1 boxes because I want to help new residents but also help offset my store overhead costs? (I am not taking in big profits here.)
3. Does that put me on the same level as someone who knowingly takes and modifies a full perms object that was accidentally set that way and making large profits from it?

No. They cannot put the genie back in the bottle - you can't change the terms of acquisition after the fact.

Because we are all reasonable adults who respect each other and value our own ethical standards more than money, and because we know that there are permissions bugs that take creators' work and set it to be fully mod-copy-trans without the creators' knowledge or desire, then it follows, of course, that when we find something obviously "bugged" we delete it after informing the seller.

You respect me, I respect you. It's a simple way to a wonderful world.

The code is not yours. In addition, the code was sold to you by mistake.

Science and mathematics belong to all. Having said that in the field of true theory the discoverer is entitled to credit.

Anyway I am pleased to say both the creator and I have reached an agreement, which suits my commercial charitable interests as well as protecting the creators’ interest.

In short the creator will provide me with a sales dispenser that will give this item at a greatly discounted price for a period of one month. The sales dispenser will be located on some virtual property I own in Dreamland next to Central Park, nice for footfall

The sales dispenser will pay the creator NOT me.

The creator will pay all proceeds collected from this dispenser over to Relay For Life the American cancer charity, and will confirm to me the amount paid via restricted non modified note card in one months time. Being a UK subject it is not easy for me to directly benefit a US charity, the creator is better placed than I to do so.

The product on grid will assist the creator’s brand by awareness but will not compromise the business, as they will be sold in the usual protected modes

The creator was also compensated directly by the vendor who stupidly sold me the product, trust me they should know better as they are no virgins -

I will study the scripts with interest but will not release them in world.

So, if anyone wants an advanced fully scripted dog together with kennels, food, and bed, come and see me in Dreamland. It truly is a limited offer for one month only and will cost $L1, 000 rather than the more usual $L3k to $L4k. WE hope to be up and running after this weekend

I believe this is a honourable compromise that suits all parties, be interested to hear further views. Hope the moderator does not object to this post as there is no personal profit involved and it may create a way forward for other such issues in the future that are accepted by the SL community

Oh do you?

Actually I think John is doing pretty darn well here.

How many people would rip off a full permissioned dog in an eyeblink, transfer it to an alt and sell the living daylights out of it for just raw cash? Tons of them. I suggest anyone in doubt ask Starax.

Give John some credit, folks.

- he acquired the original item lawfully
- he brought the issue before the community
- he's worked out a compromise with the creator / distributor
- he seeks to do right by charity.

It may not be the deal everyone would agree with but come on, this is like finding a wallet with 1000 USD in it on the street, giving back 999 USD and giving 1 USD to cancer patients.

The easy thing to do would have been mute, ignore, and sell sell sell under an alt. Instead he's opened himself up for criticism from all of you. I applaud his decency in this matter.

Yes, but you know we can't resist a good copyright debate in here

Personally, if it was clear to me that the item I bought was set accidentally to the wrong permissions I'd delete it, and ask for a replacement with the correct ones. In fact I've done that, even with gifts. "Did you mean to set this full perms?" "OMG no!" "I deleted it, don't panic."

Anything less is playing "gotcha" with someone else's error. I understand that kind of behaviour is popular amongst "business" types, though.