Art in second life: Nocopy-Modify-Transfer, and unique

Permissions settings for art in SL leaded to a interesting discussion with a friend, so why not share it here?

I finally decided to set my art work in SL Nocopy - Modify - Transfer. Each of my work is now either single (paintings) or limited series (photos).
When (IF) I sell a painting, I no more own it, and the only copy in SL is the property of its new owner:
- He can not copy it (as in real life) except using some kind of cheats (like in real life).
- He can modify it, (also as in real life)
- And at last he can resell or give it (also as in real life).

what you, artists, think about that?

I'd really suggest keeping a copy of it yourself. People will go sour quickly if their "one of a kind" turns out to be irreplacable when they rez it and the rez monster eats it.

that may simulate some real life issues: an artwork can be destroyed in a fire, stolen, destroyed by a jealous wife, and many other...
Art, even in SL, must no morebe "common". It must be precious, unique.

I agree with Kitty. Always keep an copy (I do so with all pictures I make). And yes, I mostly I give them away (yes "give", don't "sell" with limited permission. Unless it is an photoshot for an portfolio or something.

Digital art will have never the same "uniqueness" as lets say a painting made by Rembrandt.

Morwen.

You might really enjoy Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin.

It disagrees with your last statement, but it is about all these issues.

What I was trying to say is... well, here is an exemple:
When I put a painting in my gallery, I set it as in real life: Unique.
The no copy option is here because a painting is not easy to copy: a photocopier is not enough, and the "copy" function in SL is a photocopier.
Of course, anyone with (very) little skills can copy the painting, but it's not the point: it's not the original one with my name as the creator. If someone but a painting I'm happy because he loves it. If someone "steals" it, it means he loves it too: I'm also happy...

I'll take a snapshot of it.

What do you think about that?

I think it's the same when you take a picture in a musem: you don't have the real "thing"

What is the difference between an original digital painting and a copy of it?

The numbers are still the same.

Between a real painting and a picture of it, there is a huge difference...

Between a digital image and a good made copy of that digital image the difference can be close to none. The difference wil only exist "in someones mind", if you allow me to put it that way.

Morwen.

of course the difference is "in the mind", especially is SL when it's about copying an artwork.
For me it is a huge difference

If a piece is valuable in RL and is destroyed then it is generally covered by insurance. As there is no avenue to insure your virtual customers paintings in SL then you must keep a copy yourself in order to replace it if a customers copy suddenly vanishes from the inventory. However this could lead to fraud as a customer could claim that they lost a painting and ask for a relacment in order to scam you.

My paintings in SL are set as no-mod, no-copy, transfer only. However, when I sell a painting, I am selling a copy only. I reserve the right to sell multiple copies of that painting. Why? It's a reproduction. It's not the original work. The original work, when I sell that, it's gone, sure.

But then again, I reserve the rights to the image itself: I retain copyright on the image (and every painting I sell has a label on the back that specifies this) so even in RL after the original is out of my hands, I can still use that image if I want to. I can still sell and profit from the image, through other 'merchandising' or reproductions. For instance I had a very successful line of 'greeting cards', where most of them bore images of paintings that I'd alread sold.

I understand what you're saying about original art being unique, but personally, I don't really see that in SL. Particularily if you're using images of your RL art. If it was something created entirely within SL (prim sculpture etc) then that might be a different thing. But then again - with SL being what it is, I wouldn't make anything unique. Too many chances for stuff to be lost to server hiccups or glitches. Just because unique art can get destroyed and lost forever in RL doesn't mean that's a good thing.

Just my L$2.

-Atashi

So basically, this thread is about you advertising your paintings and trying to mind fuck everybody into thinking that each painting is unique?

If the goal is to simulate real-world, limited-print art, I'd recommend making it no-copy, no-modify, and transfer. In the real world, you can't just change the size of the new print you just bought.

That will create x number of unique pieces of art. It could also be unique if limited to just x number of people. For the latter, it could be copy, modify, no-transfer.

You can always allow options: Allow the buyer to choose the permission set. Or if it's no-modify, offer the choice of several different sizes or frames.

Presumably the 'provenance' of a piece of art in SL can be proved genuine by checking the creator. I wonder if unique items in SL which are still attributable to the original creator will ever be valuable!

Unless you've never taken the painting into your inventory, you can't really "sell the original" in SL. Once in the creator's inventory they automatically have copy permission which they can't deny to themselves, so every rezzed instance is technically a copy.

A friend was telling me the other day how someone, I think they are a regular poster on the forum but I forget the name, anyway they created a series of these limited addition roses. He managed to come accross 2 of them a while ago and set them for sale at L$25K each in his shop and they sold within a few weeks! He paid L$1000 for the pair origninally because he had heard they may have some value. So Based on this I would say that there is a market for limited edition objects. Not heard of any other limited items though but have considered make some.

Were they roses or tulips? There was a well-known forum experiment with limited edition tulips..

a rl auction house is much less likely to lose your painting in the basement after you've paid for it than sl is.

i'd recommend keeping a copy in your inventory, or at least don't destroy the textures you used to create it.

I'll follow the recommandation to keep a safe copy in my inventory so I can do the "insurance" job myself.

Artificial scarcity, watta concept.

The diamond people have done pretty well with the idea.

This topic always seems to get people on both sides wound up

To me, my art in world is nothing more than a print. It's NOT in any sense an original - some of them are digital (in which case there never was an original), the rest pictures of more solid RL pieces. So that's my first reason for selling copies.

The second is a response to the nature of SL and its residents. I'm sure most people own many, many more things in SL than in RL (I know my wardrobe is an example). It's much more of a transient, throw-away culture. People have one house one day and another the next, dress as a pirate today and a ninja tomorrow. I don't think 'value' is applied to things in the same way as it is in RL. Now, people will fork out for a one-off painting in SL, but I think mostly people are happy to spend several hundred (thousand?) dollars less for something that exists elsewhere in world. Combine that with, as someone mentioned, the way SL likes to eat things, and that's my second reason.

I sell my paintings transfer only. They used to be mod too, because I show them quite large in my gallery and not everyone has a huge wall, but I use a script now that allows people to scale their paintings proportionally without having modify rights (also avoiding people squishing my work out of scale). They're no copy because I think if you want one for your living room and one for your club, you can damn well buy two

So, I sell multiple copies of my work because I see them as 'prints', and I believe people purchase them with a similar attitude.

did you write the script? I'm very interested/