Another ban-this suggestion: Full perm reselling!

Hi guys!

Many want to ban camping because it is "not creative" and "leeching". Well.. there is one thing that is much, much worse: The "business in a box" pest AKA "full perm reselling".

I think everyone made this mistake at least once in their noobie days: Found a "great" shop with "nice" things (usually bling shoes and some prim skirts) for really cheap and bought them. Then when you try on your new L$70 flexi prim skirt thingie you notice that the graphics have a horribly low resolution and the seems don't line up... On the next day you see the same dress in a freebe shop for L$0. You feel like such an idiot.

After some time it dawns on you that there is a fully organized full perm "mafia" flooding the grid with low level freebie crap, selling them in full perm sets to shop owner who then resell them to stoopid noobies. It gets worse: I even saw real shops (those that sell their own creations) putting resell crap in their shelves. I stopped buying there.

After experiences like that I refrain from buying at unknown, small shops because you never know, "Joe's fashion boutique" und "Jane's hair corner" might just sell freebe crap.

Furll perm selling is a pest that has two bad impacts:

- Noobies are getting fooled for the purpose of making money
- New designers with unknown names and small amounts of products are being suspected of reselling
- Creativity should be the driving force in SL. Instead there are malls that sell ONLY resell stuff, nothing else. How creative is that...

So if camping is "non creative", "begging" and "leeching" I`d like how would you call businesses in a box? I`d say a scam. A camper doesn't trick anyone to buy stuff you get for free someplace else nor they take money from noobs. Reselling freebies works like a pyramid scheme. It will pay off only as long as there are enough noobies who don't know yet.

I'm not sure how to handle this. Maybe noone should be allowed to sell anything that was entirely created by someone else? Maybe there should be a flag "FREEBIE". Once an object has full perms it should stay like that and sell for L$1-5 as a maximum (like a GNU license). What do you think?

I think busybody social-engineering legislation is going to be the death of RL nations, why should we start doing it in SL?

I once had someone complain about my mall, that someone in it was reselling 'freebies'. I was very concerned and I asked some questions and realized that she was talking about someone who was selling their own creations. About 3 years ago, their animations got set to full perms via an SL bug and people started giving them away as freebies. Some even resold them. But those who are distributing the animations as 'freebies' are actually in the wrong on this one. I only point this out because if someone is selling their own items, they have every right to, whether or not they are available as freebies.

Of course that might not apply to the items you saw at 'real' shops.

I pretty much agree with that. Business in a Box offers have a very high probability of being a scam - freebies, stolen goods, stuff lost to permission bugs, and so on - but the answer is to educate people on the concept of "buyer beware.". Honestly I don't understand why people don't intuitively smell the stink of a scam wafting off these offers to begin with. If they're good legit products, why wouldn't the creator be selling them themselves? BIABs make no sense since even if they're legit there will be dozens of other people selling the exact same goods, all competing against the full perm freebies of the same stuff that will inevitably get out there as well. People need to stop and think before they spend their L$ on these things.

As Keiki mentioned, something can become a "freebie" by accident. Even things that were created to be sold as BIAB merchandise are not true freebies. They may be lower in quality (most, but not all) but it is through the error of failing to reset the permissions by the next seller that allows them to escape into the marketplace as "freebies" and ruins their value to any potential shop owner who wanted to legitamately profit from their sale.

I recently went freebie hunting, something I hadn't done in months, and couldn't belive how much the experience has changed! Many places traffic in only BIAB stuff and it is all neatly displayed in attractive, LARGE, shops. I think the BIAB thing is reaching its peak at the moment becasue, like the OP, most shoppers now equate BIAB stuff with low quality junk (and resellers as people they don't want to do buisness with) or as stuff they can get for free with a little hunting around.

While we are at it, can be ban banning stuff?

A lot of things became freebies over the years becuase of Asset server glitches , etc.

Their creators never intended them to become freebies.

Reselling Freebies -

This is one of those - dirty things about SL we dont tell the new people.

There should be an information packet given out about some things

Freebie resellers
Landbots
Scams

etc.

It would be the responsible thing to do. But I suspect that someone would find it a bad idea, might scare off new people.

Id rather the new people were warned. That way the only new people that left becuase of this information wouldnt be those who lost their money.

Ya know, I get sick of hearing this argument over and over and it always blames the sellers. People love to blame the seller instead of taking responsibility for their own actions and to add insult to injury -- the arrogance of some of these designers is unfathomable.

Here's the bottom line -- In a free market society, Virtual or Real, someone is always going to take advantage of the path of least resistance. If you think anything else other than that -- you are fooling yourself. Just because SL is has a virtual user driven economy does not make it Utopia 'where all is good.' There are real people behind those avatars and if you think that because someone names their AV 'Honesty' does not mean a hill of beans. Someone will take advantage of the system.......period.

Those of you who have sold full perms........touch s@*! - If you exposed yourself then its your own damn fault. I have heard the wails of the malcontent on how they trusted someone to 'do the right thing.' and 'they got screwed.' They shut their store down and we're 'forced' to go to WOW where there were 'honest' people hahahahahahaha!!!!!! Its a shame too, because this person was a really talented designer. My feeling is, unless you have done a ton of business with a 'client' or know the person in RL.........no one is to be trusted..........SO PROTECT YOURSELF and stop blaming the people who are out there reselling. You cannot stop the monster....be realistic.

IS THERE A VIABLE MEANS TO WHOLESALE IN SL? -- ABSOLUTELY - If you wanna know how...IM me in game...I will show you. I do this in SL and RL.

Do I resell BIAB -- ABSOLUTELY -- I sell biab to fund my own creations. I have dumped a ton of money into SL and I am going to augment my own growth anyway I can. And the funny thing is....I give away more free stuff everyday compared to what I sell. Especially when someone buys MY product -- they always get a freebie.

DO I CREATE CONTENT IN SL? ABSOLUTELY -- Most of the times I design my own. Sometimes I mod existing products and add to them to make a viable product. I have paid scripters and and builders and animators upwards to several hundred thousand Lindens to help me create my own products.

WILL I EVER STOP SELLING BIAB -- Probably not -- but these items will end end up being more of a giveaway item for people who purchase my products. Buy a pair of my shoes? Here's a nice outfit to go with it -- have a nice day.

If you supply a product somebody wants -- then you have just met the basic tenants of Supply and Demand. I will agree that there are a lot of scumbags out there. But sheeeeeesh give it a rest......PROTECT YOURSELF if you dont want to see your stuff in the Super Mega Enormous Monster Pack V 9.9

More often than not, that's simply not the case. Several times over the years there have been major bugs that caused items to lose their permissions. Many goods are outright stolen through the use of third party tools. And many naive buyers have no idea that they're being sold down the river by people who are severely ethically challenged. People like to toss around the phrase "free market society" as if that directly translates to "anything goes" as a way to justify things that are clearly unethical if not flat out illegal. I agree with you that people need to think before they buy (as I've already stated) but a large percentage of freebies and BIAB goods are stolen from people who did nothing wrong and who had absolutely no intention of having their goods distributed by anyone but themselves.

QFT

Chip I have no argument for you as I am not privy to a lot of goings on with SL in the early days. I am approaching a year inworld and have learned some valuable lessons. I do often play the devils advocate. And I do see a lot of stuff out there that is BLATANT resale of freebies. My argument is ultimately sides with designers. The fact of the matter is -- In a 'free market society' there are going to be scam artists and people who will take advantage of the system knowingly. My thoughts are simple: There is a model for wholesale/resale business in SL without giving away the store 'so to say.'

To me, anyone that sells intellectual property with full perms is absolutely crazy. The facts have been stated above. Do not fool yourselves people. If you sell full perms, you might as well just give them away as freebies. Selling full perms undervalues the hard work you have done and will ultimately lead to disappointment and your work being whored out all over SL. The bottom line is ---- protect yourself. There are plenty of fine people in SL that would be glad to help....such as Chip Midnight. And myself, although I may seem hypocritcal selling BIAB -- I am damn sure going to recoup my investment while I create my own content and try to learn from my own mistakes and the mistakes of others. I am glad to try and help those who do not know the system of business in SL and hate to see people ripped off.

Chip -- big fan. I look forward to getting my stuff on SLsmart.

Couldn't agree more. I think another way of stating it is don't put at risk what you're not prepared to lose. Hopefully some day we'll have more options to enable use to enter into partnerships more easily that don't require handing someone the keys to everything. There used to be a great store (can't recall the name now) that was all resale, but it was set up so that the store never had to own the goods they sold. It was all commission sales enabled through scripted pricetags. The creator had to set up their own boxes. Not being a scripter I don't know exactly how it worked, but it worked really well. That's still a perfectly viable way of allowing people to resell goods at a markup.

Wanted to add something ... Don't get me wrong. I love freebies. Without them noobies would be naked. Besides that they are a great advertisement strategy. Eventually I visited many of the designers I got freebies from and bought their stuff. But I think it is wrong to sell stuff that you got for free. There should be a special flag like a "creative commons" license: You can sell these products if you created them, but the next owner should be able to give them for free only (up to L$5 should be fine).

How would that advice work with building textures though? A lot of those need to be full perms to be of any use to the person buying them.

True, but it would still be possible to block these items from being *sold* on as individual items.

The whole business in a box thing seems to be growing worse IMO

Yesterday on the spur of the moment I visited a mall that showed up in the popular places. After walking around a bit I was depressed to find the same designs for sale in 5 or 6 different stores.

A day before when randomly exploring, I found the same thing. A majority of the stores I passed were selling BIB items. Some had not even bothered to make their own vendor pictures or update the item permissions (which were set to copy/transfer/mod).


For the life of me I can't work out how these people intend to make enough money to even cover the shop rent. As the other posters pointed out, because the items are not unique, pricing is a race to the bottom.

Since most experienced SL residents can recognize a BIB or freeby item, they won't buy. That leaves new people, who might part with their small amount of L$ on an item they could get for free. However if they find out that they paid say $25 or $50 for a free item, they will be much less inclined to shop in the future for fear of making the same mistake.

I was lucky. The first item I ever bought in SL was a unique, well made item that I still wear to this day. I was happy to pay the $L250 price.

All I can suggest is buyer beware and to ask around and talk to experienced residents. They can usually suggest some nice shops to visit that sell original work. If buying fun female clothing is in your plans you can always come vist my little shop. (Shameless plug). I design all of my items. It's a BIB free zone.

There is no current technology in SL to prevent this. Textures must be sold as full permission because the buyer is most often using them to create objects to pass along. The current implementation of permissions does not allow for this.

As a side note, one reason we are often stuck with nomod objects is due to texture thievery. Just try finding a modifiable vehicle in SL. They pretty much do not exist because any object that can be modified can have the textures stolen. THe same problem exists for scripts btw.

An additional permission level is needed where a texture or script can be restricted beyond the original purchaser..so that the purchaser can pass it along ONLY as a part of another object, and it cannot be extracted from that object by the end user. This is really the only viable way to protect texture and script developers.

maybe will help one more check box "freebie"
so once when u check that box like a creator it stay like that forever and the transfer options become disable ? or it can be transfer only if u put l$0

We've been begging for more options in the permission system since time immemorial. At one time LL was actively working on coming up with a new system, but their idea was to have permissions expire after a year at which point everything would become open source.

lol ^

I agree Starbuck. Perhaps another level of permission needs to be implemented to make all facets of things like textures and scripts accessible to OEM resellers. I have entered into two agreements myself with some 'one of a kind' deals that I need to protect as I have a vested interest in the products I am producing.

Reselling in a viable business to the SL community and economy if proper controls can be placed on the objects in question. Designers benefit from increased sales and brand name identity and resellers get the benefit by being able to offer more content in their stores while adding their own content at their own pace. With proper controls, the only one that loses out is the guy in it to make a quick buck.

I must admit though. Textures are one of the 'exceptions to the rule.' In regards to the DMCA, how does one enforce a cease and desist for two identical basket weaves or two similiar shades of red. For that matter, it does not stop the person who who goes to freetextures.com (sic) and dowloads all of their textures and stakes claim to them. I don't know enough about it, except for the video surveillance field, but perhaps a digital watermark can be implemented for textures? Someone else would have to expound on this notion as I know the theory and application(for my RL industry) rather than how it would apply in SL.

I'd like to see some kind of consumer guide thingy for SL denziens, to warn people about common scams. I've seen maybe one blog along those lines, but it hasn't been updated very often.

The thing about Businesses in Boxes is since they have to be sold with transfer perms, there's nothing stopping people from reselling the ENTIRE box for a lower price, in the hopes that they'll sell enough copies to make a profit. The two businesses I obtained were a box of dresses for L$250 and a box of furniture that came 'free' with a useless e-book. I don't plan on reselling anything out of it; I just kept the items for my own personal use.

(I'm very DIY in SL anyway--I only really spend money on things I can't easily do myself or get for free. Even if I haven't hiked up the learning curve high enough to create things that people would be willing to buy, it is fun to get a compliment on an outfit and be able to say "Thanks! I made it myself!"

I swear to FUCKING GOD that there is no place on this Earth that there isn't a scammer trying to FUCK IT UP for everyone that plays nice and normal...

Every single game was ruined by just this garbage...

It really isnt funny or games anymore...

I just want to beat the Fucking crap outta' any hacker idiots...

I WILL FIND YOU!

Leave it to LL to "fix" a problem by replacing it with something even worse.

Sorry, the Lindens ALREADY have a section in TOS that Covers this issue. It's the part that says LL will NOT get Involved in Trade Disputes between Players. you are on your own.

Angel.