Question about reselling

Thanks Doctor.

Actually, you can. It's called intellectual property rights - they are automatic, they are long-lasting, and they are not signed away by sharing something with someone.

You cannot resell art that has been posted on the internet free of charge. The creator still holds rights over it. Even giving a digital copy to someone for their personal pleasure does not entitle them to resell it as your work, or even their own, or to incorporate it into a piece of their work unless the license you provide upon it's release specifically says otherwise.

Would you care to try again?

Some people distribute their IP all the time for free, in the real world.
(Nominal SL resident) Cory Doctorow, for example.

http://craphound.com/est/download.php

Can you resell the electronic version of his novel, as your own? Would you think of it?
No, and no.

Done.

I think that may be responsible for some of the different views on selling freebies: Some people view a chair in SL as a product being sold; a chair which may then be resold or given away.

Others view the chair as intellectual property which forever belongs to its creator.

As an analogy, consider an Andy Warhol painting. A person can't copy that painting, and sell it with their name on it, because they would be co-opting that person's creation. That would be theft of intellectual property.

But the owner of an Andy Warhold painting can sell it for what he bought it for, give it away, or (more likely) sell it for a great deal more than he paid for it, even if he were given it originally as a gift. That is not theft of intellectual property.

If you have the equivalent of a Second Life Andy Warhol painting in your possession (perhaps created by Andy Warthog), and you sell it, you are not committing any crime.

Second Life is even set up in such a way that the original creator's name should always be on the piece. (But isn't always, because it doesn't always work right.)

Second Life is also set up in such a way that you can easily prevent anyone ever selling your item at ALL; something that doesn't exist in the real world.

We also have the magical copy-for-nothing ability, which also doesn't exist in the real world.

Consequently, those who don't want their items resold need to check off the "no transfer" box.

And those who want their items resold or given away should check of the "no copy" box (lest the new owner go into business "manufacturing" and selling that item himself).

Those who want to give away an item, and give that item permissions to be copied and given away, and who also want to somehow prevent people from charging for the item, are shot out of luck.

An easy solution would be for LL to add another box: "Transfer for $0 only."

Barring that, the best thing to do is not check "transfer" on your freebies if you don't want them sold later.

Having said everything I've said thus far, let me also add that I don't believe in reselling freebies. People who do so knowingly are taking advantage of the situation and of others, in my opinion, and I consider that unethical.

On the other hand (though I don't consider this unethical), don't underestimate, either, the tidy bundle you can rack up even by packaging freebies and selling them for $1 a bundle.

coco

coco it is fine for real life properties but even paintings are usually authentified, you can't copy em, sure you could modify it but it would be a loss, virtual items , at least in my case are licensed to use only. They are not your property and i would encourage most creators to think the same.