Are there any rules against selling Freebies?

So, I'm in Busy Ben, checking out plots there, since it was just announced that I was a lottery winner

There's 2 New Avies there, the older one (2-weeks?) was offering to sell the newer one (2-days?) a 'Black Streak Improved' bike. He did this by rezzing it on the ground and telling the other to get on.

I moved closer, the 'seller' said Hi and asked me if I was interested in buying a vehicle. I politely pointed out that the bike he was attempting to sell was a Freebie. He assured me it wasn't and that his 'freind' had given it to him (at least he didn't claim to have made it himself).

So the he says 'How about this one' and pulls out a 'Supercar', another freebie. Then the Rolls Royce Freebie. Still insisting they weren't freebies. To prove him wrong, I pulled the identical vehicles out of my extensive and soreley in need of a makeover inventory. I told him I was a seller and wasn't interested in his freebies.

He then spent the next 2-min harrassing the 2-day newbie to contact him in IM to talk. I just IM'd the 2-day and told him this guy is selling him freebies and sent him the Bike, Supercar and a few others, and told him to search for Yadni's and pick up as many boxes of freebies as he wants.


Did I act fairly? Should I have stepped on Newbie #1's attempt at free enterprise? Should I have given Newbie #2 free stuff and left him thinking he can accept any object from a stranger given to him in SL?

Since my own cars use a freebie script, and I just a hypocrite (I have asked the scripts author and he said it was OK to sell his script in my productions).


Notice how I cleverly worded this complaint about people selling freebies, to look like a question so I can post it here

I see this all the time, others selling freebies to the new ones to SL... I see this in the Welcome areas all the time, thats when I start giving all the New commers all the free cars and guns etc out of my 5K plus inventory list...

I have pissed of the ones trying to sell stuff that is free when I follow behind them and as he is asking who wants to buy his stuff the ones that act like they want it I just bombbard them with the free stuff cutting off the seller.

Selling freebies should be abuse reported as a violation of the TOS:

(Emphasis mine in the quote above)

Selling a freebie that you did not create is a violation of the copyright held by the content creator, and under this clause in the TOS, would be a clear violation of the TOS.

You acted very fairly. In addition, like ceera said, freebie reselling is a no-no and you can abuse-report the sellers.

No it's not.

coco

I am of the opinion that anyone can sell anything in their inventory that is transferable and able to be sold. I know many will disagree with me. But this is my opinion. i also wouldn't be the one to jump in to someone selling a freebee to someone else to warn the buyer. It's not my place.

Any creator that wants something to remain free can easily set their items to be non-transferable. If there's a need to give that freebee to someone, then tell them where to get it.

Charging for a freebee (in my view) is the finders fee and convenience fee. If the interested buyer wants it now, they can buy it... if the interested buyer wants it for free, they can find it.

There aren't any technical rules against selling freebies.

There are social rules against it, though; people selling things which are available to everyone freely are generally thought of as exploitative scum.

Ur a f'ing POS Un-ethical scammer that should never have been admitted into this game/Sim... >:

This is like the n'th game i've had to leave cause of idiots ruin it in some form... >:

A CLUE TO THE CLUELESS>>>IF YOU GOT IT FREE... GIVE IT AWAY FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHAT PART OF THAT CAN'T YOU UNDERSTSTAND????????????????

Problem is there are some very rich owners selling freebies to newbies.....They themselves are rich and still make newbies pay money. whats worse is they offer low cost loans etc..........selling freebie items has alway sbeen a problem.

A) I don't sell freebees. Actually there's been times I've given away things I've purchased.

B) When you speak like you do, you're not only losing the argument, but no one values your opinion stated anyway.

C) I don't mind if you leave because of my idiocy... however, I'm pretty sure soon LL will make you leave because of yours.

And So Now You Feel Justified To Sell Free Stuff???

You are the one that will be shunned...away from.

Your a board GRIEFER...You obviously had an agenda...

I don't see anyone making anyone buy anything. When a newbie buys anything (freebee or not) they want it. They want to pay that price for the item. Furthermore, the seller is spending time and effort (a waste of time in my opinion) trying to sell these items.
Every newbie has no more than a few hundred $L at most to start. They're gonna spend it on something.

It's not the end of the world that a newb buys a freebee. they'll soon find out things are for free. They'll also find ways to make that money back. I don't think the newb is unhappy for buying the item.

All I know is I'd never walk off an airplane in a foreign country and the first thing I'd do is buy a watch from a street peddler.... I don't really understand why others would.
... But hey, a week after I started I bought a relaxin rug for $40L .... and I have no problem with that.

I suggest you spend some more time in SL before you give yourself a bad name.
I don't have to say much of anything to you to defend myself... the people that read this board are intelligent.. I'm stating my opinion while you're attacking... I don't have to worry about my social status, I've already proven myself to be a valuable asset to the SL community.

Ok, there is one grey area...

If you take the trouble to box 100 GOOD freebies...you should be paid for the time...maybe $1L per...but that is circcumstantial...you could charge $10L and put the extra in a lottery...

People do it a lot to make yard sales look big...

But, its very unethical...considering the originators of the product...have no data to see how may times it was replicated...

BTW...FU...I dont want to hear it.

I have to actually agree here.. The option in permissions says "Transfer/Resell" for a reason. If I get an object for a low prce, and can manage to resell it for a higher price.. then that's called capitalism.

I recently purchased a freebie gun. A friend of mine was trying to raise money. He wanted $50 to be able to buy something in world. He showed me the gun. it was cool looking, worked, and was no mod (so I was usre he hadn't broken it). I knew it was a freebiee, or a cheapbie... so I searched my inventory for the filename. Nothing matched.

So, I bought it. His price was reasonable to me (given the situation), and I knew it was a freebie. I was paying to "have it" as oppossed to maybe finding it some day.

One of the products I am developing is a freebie dispenser.. a refrigerator. and you can bet that I will pre-stock the fridge with as many food freebies as it can hold. I will probably contact the originators of the freebies, as a courtesy.. to ask their blessing to include their freebies in my "combo pack"... but I don't feel totally obligated to do so. If the creator has left the freebie transfer/resellable.. then it's legally transfer/resellable.

The ethics of "selling" freebies.. to unsuspecting buyers.. well I think it's scummy. BUt is it illegal or a violation of the TOS? Frankly.. I'd rather someone was selling one of my freebies, than some Giger painting they swiped off the web and uploaded.

I would say tht the OP behaved exceedingly well in this case.

Based on the OP's description of the sellers actions however, I would think that this buffoon could certainly be reported for harrassment.

It certainly wouldn't hurt to report the person, even if they only end up getting one of the famous Linden "finger-waggings." Everything goes on the record and someone so unethical is bound to be involved in other nefarious schemes at some point. It would benefit the Lindens deciding that future case, to know that this person was also involved in selling freebies in the past if nothing else.

Gosh I miss the neg-rate!

Pardon me????????? As always your always talking at either of the issue point.....Come on hun pick one not both sides of the problem

there is not sence to this reply of yours as always..........

many many people are selling freebies and many just dont like it period........

Funny and ironic Usagi... I view your posts being the same way you think mine always are.

When I post, I'm rarely arguing, and I don't have to be on a 'side'
I have my opinions on certain matters and I post them.

Usagi, just reread my post, there's no two-sided swaying im doin in my thoughts.. its quite clear

My stance on this issue: It's fine by me for people to sell freebees. I don't really care. And I don't really get why other people care. It seems that the people upset by people selling freebees are not the creators of the items.. but rather just petty people that are bugged that someone else is making money in SL. It's such a tiny bit of change that everyone's arguing about. $20L $50L $100L.... it's cents. Who friggin cares

It would be, if you were giving up the item in the process, but you're not.

The option in permissions says "transfer/resell", but permissions only set what SL's engine will forbid/allow you to do. They aren't the same as the legal agreement between you and the creator. In RL, it's still illegal for you to come into my house and steal my stuff even if I don't lock my door or try to stop you. And the same applies here - if I hand you an item with full perms, and say "you may not give that to anyone else", then that's what goes, because legally it's still my IP, no matter what SL does or doesn't allow. And that's important - creators often have to do that if they're testing things or working together with other people on projects. Texture vendors have the same issue.



I think there's a good argument it's a copyright infringement. You have copy permission on the object, but nothing on the Properties page states that that's the entire agreement between you and the creator, and by denoting the item a "freebie" it could well be argued they've specificed that copies may not be made for sale purposes.

I mean no disrespect in this, but I see by your join date that you are new enough to SL to not know all the facts. Many of the free items floating throughout SL stem back to an era of few skilled residents and little content. Linden Lab sent out a call to Content Creators, begging them for stuff to be given away freely to new residents.

The agreement between LL and those Content Creators was simple. The CC's would get "free" advertising but, they had to hand over full-rights to the products they provided, agreeing never to put those donated items up for sale.

Yep, you heard me, they were asked not to re-sell those "freebies". So, your premise quoted above doesn't quite apply for most of the free content you see being re-sold by pond scum.

Violation of "copy rights" no. If you can copy you have that right.

Violation of "Copyright"... you often can't know. Is that texture illicitely scanned from a Copyrighted work? Is the original work in anyway officially copyrighted or not? Who knows. New buyers won't.

The touchy point for me is what is really being sold.

Someone that sells something they didn't make at full retail like prices, without the original creator's permission is SCAMMING people into thinking they're paying for the effort that went into creating the item.

A cheaper fee for gathering organizing and making available existing freebies is paying for the SERVICE, not the item.

Selling freebies, as far as I can tell is not against ToS or against the law . In most cases though it is quite unethical and scummy though.

Someone should set up a group, call it "Master Entrepreneur" and invite these scammers into that "prestigious" group so the rest of us will know them for the slime they are.

There are Creative Commons licenses allowing for use but not resale. It would be neat to get the equivalent here, so you could transfer but not for money directly.

There are two props mentioning this, 1388 and 966.

I also saw a prop suggesting commisions (1826), although this isn't one I'd vote for, myself.

Some of the colorized jeans for sale on slexchange are colorized freebies. Not sure if that constitutes unfair enrichment, but it pissed me off to have paid money for them.

This is a valid point, however, LL once again dooped those content creators. This is one of the early examples of LL's bait and switch tactics to fit their own needs.

If LL really cared about protecting the freebees, they would have put a checkbox in an objects menu that says "This Object is a Freebee and can never be sold"

But, I do get your point Tigress. However LL has changed the rules of SL countless times.

Also, since the CC handed over all rights, shouldn't LL be preventing the sale of the freebees, not the creator?