Bad Business
by prokofy on 16/03/07 at 5:18 pm
Kids playing “Better Business Bureau” always picture themselves as the chair of the board.
Prokofy Neva, Consumer Watch
Goddamn, here we go again. Yet another stupid, misinformed attempt to create a “Better Business Bureau”. And yet another “ratings” system that styles itself as a “Better Business Bureau” even though, unlike a better system, slrealreps.com, it has no place to write commentary. Can you count like 20 of these in the last two years? (And those are only the ones we hear about). Remember all the “whitelist” debates on the old forums? Gwyn’s pontification? Remember Chili Carson’s big splash with this at SLCC and all the press attention she got? (None of those reporters came back a few months later to discover, as we did, that no BBB ever got made due to pressing RL commitments of the founder).
Like many more competent before him, notorious Second Citizen bad-boy Joshua Nightshade has cooked up the latest BBB “concept” in response to the usual skin-theft hysteria which differs little from all those before him, and works something like this: “No business but my business and my friends’ business.”
Remember when we were kids? We would all climb up in the treehouse, and for some, the most fun part was kicking aside the ladder to prevent somebody’s snivelly little brother from climbing up and being in the exclusive club of older kids. Everybody laughed like hell and felt superior and special…until they realized that now they couldn’t get out of the treehouse themselves. That’s what all these attempts are like: misguided, because they involve making yourself and your friends the “good guys” on the “whitelist” and blacklisting everybody else who is “bad” — because you say so — and killing the overall climate for thriving business.
Even on griefsta tit-posting Second Citizen (if you missed Mulch Ennui’s posting of a pic of his RL scrotum, I guess you haven’t lived Second Life), the gang starts to raise objections when they sense that Joshua, who has had his own heavy skirmishes with the tribe there, is simply making up a list of himself and his chums to leave other people off he hates. Siggy Romulus is the first to squawk that with stuff like that, Prokofy will be screaming FIC before you know it.
All of these ventures fail, even the most highly-qualified and best-intentioned of them (Chili Carson got all that pre-press because she represented a RL big accounting firm in SL, although it never came to anything?) for one simple reason: people don’t understand what the Better Business Bureau is in real life, and what it does, and how that should be adapted to the harsh Wild West conditions of Second Life.
CONSUMER-DRIVEN, NOT BUSINESS-DRIVEN BBB
If you’d like to understand, it’s easy enough to go to bbb.org and read how it works. It’s also helpful to talk to those who have actually filed cases with it, and seen how the steps work and what the system does and doesn’t do.
Unlike all the wannabee Second Life “Better Business Bureaus,” the BBB isn’t made up of a select coterie of top businesses who like to envision themselves as “maintaining order” against a gaggle of lawless copyright thieves, skin-rippers, copybotters and scammers. It’s not the Chamber of Commerce or some sort of Association of Regional Business — or the Sellers’ Guild, protecting its special interests. It’s a *better business* bureau because the way it works to *make business better* is not round up business wagons into a circle to fire at people they don’t like — smaller businesses, businesses they believe to be scammers, or consumers. Instead, the “better business” is ensured by those directly affected by it — consumers.
No, far from being top-down and top-heavy, the BBB rests on the concept of citizens’ actions from below at the grassroots operating to make business better. Business gets better not from businesses deciding to be better; business gets better because consumers compel them to be better. The concept is *consumer-driven* not business driven. That is, the *consumer* — the person who develops a complaint about business, large or small — drives the system. It is he — not another business fancing itself the pillar-of-the-community, who fills out a complaint and attempts to find a hearing, both with the volunteers and paid staff at BBB or similar organizations, and with others who access his assessment, and the public at large. This simple distinction between “consumer-driven” and “business-driven” is lost on all the folks trying to recreate the BBB in SL.
TRACKING A CONSUMER COMPLAINT VS. BUSINESS-IMPOSED STANDARDS
So, for example, once I develop a problem in RL with a shady car repair garage on the West side, I can look up their information with the BBB, and find out that others have also had complaints about their pretend-repair jobs and whopping bills. I can file all my information and work with the BBB to get some justice — it’s a civic method of redress rather than attempting the arduous route of going to small claims court or taking more serious legal action, although the advice you get can also go in that direction. If that West side car shop wants a better reputation, it has to clear up my problem and get the case resolved and show it operates in good faith.
It isn’t that all the car repair shops on the West Side band together among themselves to protect their “good name,” and lock out all the car repair shops on the East side they believe to be “scammers,” and call consumers who complain about them “trolls”. No, that’s not it at all. Instead, it’s an open system that gains transparency precisely because it’s driven from below, not from above, and it rests on the free actors of citizens all over assessing how the car repair shop really functions, and really reporting realistically on it.
Of course, there could be that East Side car shop who might, if real life was filled as much with anonymous bad actors operating in bad faith as Second Life, submit a fake consumer complaint to tar the noble name of the West sider car shop. But that sort of anomaly gets ignored in a system where everyone can freely submit good and bad complaints — there’s a “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” concept going on.
WHITELIST ME AND MY FRIENDS, BLACKLIST MY ENEMIES
Businesses, if they want to be better, develop good practices and pay attention to consumer complaints and also feel the heat of accountability by knowing that a system like the BBB can at any time call them on their shoddy merchandise, dodgy sales tactics, and poor service. But that’s not what the wannabee BBBers in SL want to do — they want to make a Guild, and ban everybody else. The BBB has many elements that help businesses organize and share information and so on — but the heart and soul of the operation is the *consumer complaint process, not the business-driven white-listing process envisioned by SLers*.
Whitelists are what the FIC and business elite have always wanted to make out of every BBB type operation. That’s why the Electric Sheep’s FlipperPA Peregrine weighs in on this thread telling us that the way to go to make a BBB is to use Ban-Link. For him, the heart of the system isn’t accountability of those in power and those who should be responsible to consumers, but keeping in power those who have large land and third-party shopping sites that even if “commission-free” helps burness their reputation and more importantly, provides them with vast amounts of customer and market information for free.
That means not serving the customer, but banning everyone you don’t like, or imagine, without any due process, http://www.typepad.com/t/app/weblog/post?blog_id=274032&id=31759822&saved_changes=1#
Italicto be a scammer. Arbitrarily, for example, he has placed me on Ban-Link because he doesn’t like my *writings* (not because I’ve cage-bombed his sim inworld!). But that’s what he and other Ban-Link proponents imagine is the bright future of Second Life, cleansed of all those “unwanted elements” and “parasites”.
KILLING THE CLIMATE FOR BUSINESS AND STANCHING THE INFUSION OF NEW BLOOD
The problem with such cleansing is you wind up being unable to get down from the treehouse, you become isolated, and eventually you and your high-falutin’ friends wither away and die from lack of connection to everything else — and lack of a feedback loop that can send important market signals.
When you make the bar so high for becoming “approved,” and establish “criteria for membership” (Chili Carlton was going in that direction, acting like a Chamber of Commerce rather than a BBB) new businesses with creative ideas and often an eager following of new customers cannot enter your midst. Ultimately, they start making their own associations and clubs then and leave you out. People are incredibly grim and grisly about sharing business information in Second Life for the greater good; many inworld business types assume that you are as nasty and cut-throat about business as they are, and they’d rather put a horsehead on your bed that cooperate. It’s a phase.
Sellers Guild and the awfully-named Content Vigilantes that Nightshade is hyping are what in fact people pretending to be BBBs really want. They want an exclusive club that can drive out people they think are either poor in talent or suspect as to copying content — with themselves as judge and jury. They want the most aggressive and mean-spirited deterrence they can think of to any too competitors — and they’re willing to call “copiers” even people who simply got the same indea they did independently and executed it better, or who simply went to the same Internet photo stock and auction house sites as they did and copied the same RL stuff from authors they didn’t credit, either.
The viciousness of the Sellers Guild mentality knows no bounds when it comes to claims about yardsalers commiting “theft” because they legally and rightly sold objects put consciously on “copy” and “transfer” by their creators — who wanted to inflict the burden of viral marketing on others.
The SC thread is an instructive lesson in how the harsh tribal ethics of the exclusive and abusive clan functions to obtain conformity. Some of the group may wind up following Nightshade into making yet another self-appointed and suspect “whitelist” that vindictively persecutes people they believe to be in the wrong, or they may very well use the same abusive tactics to club him into submission to prevent *him* from whitelisting to reserve for themselves the right to whitelist. Regardless, none of those speaking in this debate have grasped the higher issues here: better business is created by consumers, not businesses.
Businesses may believe themselves to be altruistic, but their interest is always in the bottom line. Consumers, on the other hand, have their purchasing dollar as their ultimate power and their willingness to engage in a range of response, from private to vocal protest to litigation.
CONSUMER VERSUS BUSINESS INTERESTS IN SL
We don’t need a “Better Business Bureau” in Second Life, which with these individuals, and these particular intentions, will turn into at best another failed experiment in FICdom or at worst a cabal to enforce Ban-Link even more ominously. What we need are consumer-driven organizations that look at what constitutes good practices and what they can positively promote as serving their interests as buyers.
Buyers, at root, cannot care tremendously about skin-copying. That’s a harsh but real truth. Skin-copying, if it leads to cheaper skins for their purchase, are not going to be a source of consternation for them. But good skin makers with loyal followings can get consumers on their side if they show that skin-copiers are inferior, won’t provide updates or modifications or customized options because they are thieves, and don’t supply customer service. Those concerned about copying have to provide the array of service that the consumer won’t get from a thief; sadly, that is the only real recourse in SL under the current conditions.
Buyers also care about the ability to copy because it’s a convenience to them, given how much everything breaks constantly and gets lost in Second Life. That means builders that sell houses in one copy only for fantastic sums because they are worried about people being able to rez out copies endlessly are not a better business from the consumers point of view.
Smart builders know that not only do they have to provide copyable buildings, they even have to frankly incorporate into their product the fact that thousands of small rental agencies all across the grid are going to put out a row of their copyable homes to rent, and will want the scripted devices to function on separate channels. They won’t follow landlords around screaming that they are making unauthorized copies, or sell them a single copy of a $5000 house that breaks the first time the Lindens crash a sim and lose half the build. They realize that renters who see a house they like in a rental become a long-term customer prospect and buy from that house creator; that landlords who have a supplier who takes into account their needs are bulk purchasers, trying every new model. If you are a house-maker today in Second Life still selling single-copy breakable houses, and you aren’t in the very high-end custom niche market where people spend hundreds of RL dollars on their cribs, you are not going to get in the consumers’ better business list. This is the reality of serving the consumer in a free market.
Thus, from these examples you can see what “better business” in SL really fears: empowered consumers who will force them to meet their needs better, just as they do in RL. And that fear drives them to form oppressive guilds and try to lord it over forums and venues to keep in power. It’s the driving force of the core problem of SL, that has an incredibly harsh anti-business climate as its founding ideology, even though paradoxically the Lindens themselves have a profit-making business (or should be) selling land, and even though they welcomed RL big business on to their platform. That harsh climate is embodied by the few at the very peak of the pyramid controlling media, public venues, forums, etc. to ensure that they stay in power. In that sense, it’s no different than any small mid-Western town where the town fathers from the “best families” run things.
What SL needs is bunches and bunches of consumer groups coming into being to fight for all kinds of things — rights of island deed purchasers against scamming island owners; rights of television and radio buyers to be protected from unscrupulous media makers who go offline for long periods, don’t answer IMs, or even quit SL and never serve their customers; rights even of purchasers of sex services not to be ripped off by scamming pimps. Ever sector needs its Ralph Naders.
CRITERIA FOR AN SL BBB
The reality is that every so often, some pompous and pretentious set will nevertheless go about making a BBB, with themselves featured prominently in it. I haven’t found a better set of criteria than the one I developed back in 2005 as an argumentation against Gwyn’s dismissal of consumer-based advocacy when we had this discussion:
o The BBB has to have buy-in from various sectors of players, old, new, random. It has to be free of alts, free of obvious Linden favouritism, and representing different sectors, not just the old buiness sector elites but the new businesses and new players and randomizing factors to keep it from being biased itself. The make-up of the BBB has to be something that has respectability and credibility to all, and doesn’t cause some average players, when acquainted with it, to roll their eyes.
o The BBB cannot be an in-game scripted, information-gathering, third-party site operation that uses the guise of the BBB to continue to gain an advantage in the game by gathering dossiers on other players. That means it cannot be run off third-party sites that collect information *when they themselves do not sign up to follow the TOS as those entities*. Some businesses envision themselves above the fray and free of fault and imagine themselves running this entity to protect themselves from investigation. Your notion that the people forming this cannot themselves ever make a mistake seems laudable, but you’re forgetting that you can blot out their actual past harmful mistakes simply by blessing them with membership in this group, where they get to lord it over others forever. I’m for having a rotating membership of this given the way in which possession of the BBB itself will be gained by the power groupings.
o Picking one player’s lot in the game, one player’s business, or one player’s website — or group of players — will instantly discredit this BBB and only stimulate consumer advocacy movements against it as it will be a bastion of Big Business. Even for “convenience” it cannot be “housed” within one player’s business or “housed” on their website where they use their scripts or website functions to gather information as they perform investigations.
There has to be transparency involved in the investigation process itself and it cannot become a backroom function for “confidentiality” reasons. There’s a lot more that has to be said about due process here.
o Lindens who become involved in it have to be of the “office Linden” type with highly professional backgrounds, and not liaisions who were five minutes ago old players with their biases and networks
o The BBB has to have the power to investigate charges of fraud, and charges of bad business practices, and charges of reputation slander. But it cannot become the last instance. The last instance must be Linden Lab and its TOS and its own procedures.
o The formation of the BBB and its operation cannot be a secretive process but must have transparency and accountability
Joshua Nightshade
Mar 18th, 2007
Adios Mulchie. Happy St. Patrick’s day.
Panda
Mar 18th, 2007
“SL Newbie, keep up the good work, you’re asking all the right questions, and making all the right estimations.”
But Prokofy, SL Newbie isn’t posting with his/her real name! How can you take anything s/he says seriously? ZOMG!
Nacon
Mar 19th, 2007
Hold up… from what I’m understanding is that Prok claiming that Joshua is a liar… ok fine, but have you realized prok still haven’t said anything else about ESC and copybot, after accusing them for the wrong idea? We all know Prok DO tend to lie for public attention, do I need to pull out links again?
So the point is, how true can it be if one person who lied about something out of anger to another person while claiming Joshua is a liar too?
any idea? ok fine, forget prok.
If Cristiano Midnight is also lying… then how good is Mulch? Any one recall the total idiot named Michael Crook, who happened went a long long distance to go against Cristiano, but ended up doing what? Making an defiant apology on a video, publically. That’s quite a distance for a troll to go for. Yet… has Cristiano failed to keep up with it? Oddly enough not.
Meaning Cristiano does not have the intendedness to lie or troll like an idiot. Could Mulch be a troll? From reading sources all over the forums and his posts… I’d say, indeed he is. Sure… that’s just my opinion but how wrong could I be? Just look, decide for yourself.
And now… it would be a good idea to stop all the non-sense posting in here, shall we?
(without any doubt, Prok and/or Mulch will be posting right after this post.. to troll again, of course)
Onder Skall
Mar 19th, 2007
Prokofy, you are a constant challenge for me. Thanks for that, actually – you’re keeping me sharp!
As I’ve said before (publicly and in my own name) I don’t usually agree with you, but I’m glad I take the time to go through your material. Today I find myself in agreement with you on this issue. Go figure.
What a nightmare – this idea that in order to go about my business I’d have to suck up to some self-styled “Powers That Be”. The prospect of having everybody fill out applications to adhere to some disintrested stranger’s standards is pretty awful. BTW, I prefer PTB to FIC, but hey, that’s just IMHO.
And wow… look at them spam the comments… best part about writing for the Herald, don’t you think? It takes some balls to write for this thing!
I still have complaints about the editorial style. Your arguments are perfectly solid, but you are (probably unintentionally) casting the players here in a more negative light than necessary. Yes, what they are doing is bad for us, bad for them, bad for everybody, but it’s not like they got together and said: “alright, let’s think of something mean and nasty to do today!”
We should allow recognition of the fact that they had all the best intentions when they set out. They were TRYING to do something GOOD here. Nobody ever sees themselves as unreasonable. They saw a way to make things better for everybody and improve the situation for themselves at the same time. We just happen to completely disagree with the method.
Prokofy Neva
Mar 19th, 2007
Oh, come of it, Onder! What a Pollyanna you are! Do you really imagine THESE PEOPLE have good intentions, and are operating in good faith?
Of course they’re not. Anything they create is a poisoned chalice. Anything they do, even if appears positive, is condemned because of the enormous font of bad faith which long ago poisoned the well, not only on the old official SL forums, but on SC.
SC is a profound exercise in bad faith. Surely you can see this. These people live to pounce, play gotcha, harass, bully, intimidate, hector, sneer at, indoctrinate, etc. Just read their posts. My God, man, you’re smokin’ weed here.
They merely wish to circle the wagons in their own little club. They are no different than the snotty kids in junior or high school who form cliques whose main purpose is to keep others out.That’s why it always takes this form. THere is always some evil person they need to keep at bay.
I’ve performed that role of the scape-goat for them for ages, haven’t you noticed?!
Anything that Joshua does *is by definition* a loud, lame, and pathetic narcissitic bid for attention and the worst kind of attention-whoring. I could have said nothing and written nothing and the denizens of SC would have run him out of town on a rail. Go read the thread on SC, it’s quite instructive.
These bad actors are a short list. I call them “the Toxic Twenty” for that reason.
Mulch Maker
Mar 19th, 2007
“These bad actors are a short list. I call them “the Toxic Twenty” for that reason.”
hey, am I in the toxic 20 or not?
“Go read the thread on SC”
Hey, this whole prokofy recomends people read SC is a new angle, i like it!
it is hip and urban and fresh where as your old schtick about “I’m glad I’ve stopped reading, much less posting to, completely)” has grown old and stupid (although still quite funny)
and yes, i am smokin weed!
:mulch:
Joshua Nightshade
Mar 19th, 2007
The thread on SC was actually quite helpful as it was exactly what I asked from everyone; a reasonable, constructive dialog with suggestions for the idea I had.
I do owe you quite a measure of gratitude however, because after you wrote this piece I got considerable numbers of business owners asking me how they could participate and just as many who helped me with solutions to reshape the project.
Thanks Prok!
Cocoanut Koala
Mar 19th, 2007
I consider it an abuse of the DMCA to file them on people who are selling things that were freely given to them, with all permissions granted.
As to what I was talking about earlier,it turns out I didn’t misunderstand after all. I went back to the SC thread and found that yes, you did intend for people to be encouraged to buy only from those who are a part of this group:
1. “The point of it being overtime we would get all the “good” content creators in and with enough effort and advertising educate newbies and buyers alike that if you’re interested in supporting the original effort of content creators, you should only buy from accredited members . . . You teach people that they shouldn’t buy from someone not on the list and the alts can’t set up shop themselves.”
2. “And it would really only work in conjunction with education and advertisement. The greater push would be behind getting people to shop at only accredited stores. That would lessen the impact of anyone who tries to open shop with alts or whatever.”
3. “So you already have that groundwork in place. It’s not a big leap to go from ‘I only shop from people I know’ to ‘I only shop from people on this list that I trust.’”
See, a lot of people don’t WANT to belong to a group like this, yet the group would “educate” everyone that they should buy only from those who are a part of the group. I’m against that.
coco
Joshua Nightshade
Mar 19th, 2007
Coco, you don’t know what the “group” is like.
Yes, a lot of people don’t want to belong to a group that is looked at as if it’s an exclusive club. I give you that. I don’t want to belong to a group like that either.
And as I already told you, I wouldn’t want to inadvertently blacklist anyone who just chooses not to participate verses those who were kicked off because they were stealing. Which is why I’m willing to go to extraordinary lengths to assuage whatever concerns anyone has to joining up with it.
If you have a particular concern that’s prohibiting you from considering a system like this, please tell me. If your gripe is just that you don’t want to join a group at all then there’s little I can say to convince you otherwise. I would hope though that the system would demonstrate for itself that there are benefits to being associated with a group (and by group I’m not meaning ‘small selection’) of content creators who have established promises and vows to conduct themselves with integrity.
Cocoanut Koala
Mar 19th, 2007
I’m not talking about inadvertently blacklisting someone.
I’m talking about, “You teach people that they shouldn’t buy from someone not on the list.”
And, “The greater push would be behind getting people to shop at only accredited stores.
And, “It’s not a big leap to go from ‘I only shop from people I know’ to ‘I only shop from people on this list that I trust.’”
There are a lot of people who would not want to join this group, period. No reason necessary.
coco
Ian Betteridge
Mar 20th, 2007
Cocoanut says: “I consider it an abuse of the DMCA to file them on people who are selling things that were freely given to them, with all permissions granted.”
You may consider it such, but it ain’t necessarily so. If the holder of a copyright makes it clear that you cannot resell something, you cannot resell it, even if the game mechanics allow it. You are granted a license to use a work in a particular way, and even if technology allows, you cannot – legally – use beyond the terms of the license.
Consider the analogy of a DVD shipped without copy protection. This doesn’t give you the right to copy and resell the DVD, does it?
Cocoanut Koala
Mar 20th, 2007
I should have said: With all permissions granted, and no accompanying literature spelling out any agreement to the contrary.
coco
Joshua Nightshade
Mar 20th, 2007
And that’s where you don’t understand Coco. You don’t HAVE to have accompanying literature spelling out any agreement to the contrary. The agreement afforded by DEFAULT according to US copyright law is that the items belong to the creator unless explicitly, written-ly declared otherwise.
That’s what you keep missing.
It is NECESSARY according to US copyright law to obtain permission before you resell, reclaim, whatever something that someone else made as your own. Giving something to someone, even if a “transfer” checkbox is checked, doesn’t afford that.
So let’s distill it again.
It is NECESSARY to obtain permission in order to resell something made by someone else as your own.
It is NOT NECESSARY to specifically state that you cannot resell it. That is assumed by default. However, specifically stating it certainly does help clear up confusion. But the rights afforded to intellectual property are afforded BY DEFAULT and a checkbox doesn’t clear that.
Cocoanut Koala
Mar 21st, 2007
“It is NECESSARY to obtain permission in order to resell something made by someone else as your own.”
Then how can E-bay exist? How can I have a garage sale irl?
And if that is the way things work, why can’t people put DMCA’s on someone who resells something in SL that they bought?
If my SL laundry set is my intellectual property in perpetuity, and I put on it that you can transfer or sell it, what’s to stop me from claiming that you can’t, after all, because my laundry set is my intellectual property, whether or not you paid me for it when I originally gave it to you?
I would say you keep missing something.
Moreover, if you have checked off a box saying I can transfer or sell the object, then without documentation to the contrary, that is already a de facto contract giving permission for me to do just that.
coco
Reality
Mar 21st, 2007
Real Life: A person does not claim they made a pair of Nike shoes going for less than one tenth of the original price.
Second Life: A person is capable of creating a look-alike item, or even an exact replica of someone else’s work. They are then capable of selling it off as their own.
Now here is where it gets a bit fuzzy:
Real Life: Someone is given a gift that cost the giver over $100. This person can then do one of two things: Keep it, or sell it. Usually the second option does not happen unless the situation is dire.
Second Life: Someone goes into a Freebie Shop and picks up their entire inventory, then turns around and opens up a small shop within which all of these items – some with note cards stating they are not to be resold, some with the notation in the scripts inside the object stating the exact same thing.
Now then, what is wrong with someone selling freebies? They are selling something another person made and specifically put out into the market – free of charge – with the intention that they never be sold for any price, regardless of documentation.
Prokofy Neva
Mar 21st, 2007
Joshua’s grasp of copyright law is as tenuous as his grasp on reality. Bobbs, Merrill is the last century’s case that established that yes, you can buy up somebody’s inventory and resell it at a lower cost.
This argument has fested endlessly in SL but it is people stewing in their own soup without real knowledge and without real case law — and frankly, there isn’t a case yet out of SL and until there is, this issue won’t be put to bed.
A real court and real judge would likely see that there is a situation where you can consent or not consent to have your items re-sold for free or a lower price, and close the case, if it ever even gets to court. If you don’t want your things taken, and you view normal resale as “theft,” then you turn off “resell”. Oh, and BTW, you stop arrogantly imposing your dreck on the world and expecting everybody to use their tier-paid land to put our your dreck to spread virally and help your brand name. Uh-uh, no sale.
Business owners who gather around Joshua to form anything but a circle-jerk will find out the hard way, just as the WoW guild members found out, that he is unable to manage or lead a project like that, being a pathological liar and a deeply disturbed human being skilled at Internet histrionics and psychological manipulation. I realize it’s always unpleasant to keep on reporting and commenting on these persistent problems in SL society, where psychopaths and Internet histrionics sufferers have to keep being exposed. I think it’s a public service, however.
Reality
Mar 21st, 2007
Sorry Prokofy, but in this instance you’re not living in the real world.
Honestly, your failure to follow even simple logic astounds me! Here it is for you, dumbed down so even you cannot fail to follow it:
1. John Doe creates an item he wishes everyone in Second Life to have.
2. John Doe knows the only way for this to be possible is to make certain everyone can get a copy.
3. John Doe does not want anyone to have to pay for this item – ever.
4. John Doe wants everyone to be able to give a friend a copy.
5. John Doe thus sets all permissions and places the item into a box, said box set to sell out either the contents or a copy of the box itself at a price of zero linden dollars.
6. Sleazy McGee takes advantage of John Doe’s generosity by getting a copy of the item and then selling it for upwards of one hundred linden dollars.
7. John doe finds out about it and is understandably angry that someone would take advantage of his generosity.
8. John Doe notifies Sleazy McGee that the item was intended to be shared and never sold for profit.
9. Sleazy McGee tell John Doe to fuck off – he set it to transfer/resell so therefore he must have been allowing him to sell it for a profit.
10. John doe responds by telling him once more that the item was never meant to be sold for profit by anyone.
11. John Doe’s only recourse is to organize a boycott of all the wares Sleazy McGee is selling in an attempt to force him to remove the item.
The moral and proper logic here? transfer/resell does not always mean the maker is giving permission for a dirt bag to make a profit. If anything it shows that the option to transfer and the option to resell should be seperate permissions.
Joshua Nightshade
Mar 21st, 2007
Prokofy, you don’t even understand the difference between real-life assault and the virtual harassments you pitch fits over. I highly doubt you understand our legal system on a high-school level much less one that you can put into practical application. Reality pointed it out in terms even you can understand, though ofcourse you won’t.
Coco: “Then how can E-bay exist? How can I have a garage sale irl?”
This is another mistake you keep making. There is a concept in copyright law that is called fair use. Fair use gives you the right to do with things that you’ve bought however you want. If you buy a car, fair use gives you the right to rip off the paint job and cover your hood with reindeer ornaments. You have that right, it is established. Fair use gives you the right to give or resell that car to someone else as well.
Fair use exists different in “intellectual property” circumstances, which is what all copyright in SL adheres itself to. Intellectual property and normal copyrights are very different. In Second Life it is possible to make a car and duplicate it indefinitely over and over and over and start up your own business selling a car that someone else made first.
Do you get that distinction? In real life sites like Ebay exist because fair use laws allow you to resell the items you’ve purchased. Because once you resell them, you NO LONGER OWN them anymore. Here’s a better analogy. You take a CD from a computer program. Fair use laws allow for the duplication of one copy of the disc to serve as a backup in case the original is destroyed, typically. But you make a million copies, and what’s more you start selling them to people for less (or more even, doesn’t make a difference) than the person who created the program. This is exactly what’s happening in Second Life with freebie resellers. They’re making indefinite copies of material they didn’t make, which is illegal firstly, and they’re claiming them as their own creations, which is plagiarism.
In SL, no one is arguing about prohibiting people who buy a dress or prim hair that they no longer use from giving it away to friends. They’re trying to prohibit people who set up shop selling off as many copies of those dresses and pieces of hair as they want.
I don’t know how to make this any clearer. There’s a big difference between selling your neighbor your old pickup truck and using a cloning machine to supply pickup trucks for the greater tri-state area.
Please stop turning to Prokofy for clarification of copyright law. She can’t even define “completely stopped posting.”
Joshua Nightshade
Mar 21st, 2007
Oh and as for the WoW guild, Prokofy, I never led anything in that either. I quit the guild because I disagreed with the leadership it had. Surely you won’t be a hypocrite and say you now support Mulch’s leadership qualifications.
Solar Legion
Mar 21st, 2007
It may interest you to know Joshua that I have placed a proposal to have Linden Lab make resell/Give away two separate permissions.
Cocoanut Koala
Mar 21st, 2007
Well, before I take the time to reply again on the subject at hand, I will take a moment here to express total and abject DISGUST.
How DARE you say, “Please stop turning to Prokofy for clarification of copyright law.”
I have never discussed copyright law with Prokofy. Why would I do that? I have not “turned to him” for any of my thoughts, regarding this or any other topic.
How dare you insult me by assuming I can’t think for myself, or don’t have thoughts of my own. Do you want a list of my academic awards and achievements, and career intellectual awards and achievements AGAIN? Did you miss them the first go around? I will be happy to provide them again and make you the fool.
Or will you insist on continuing to treat me as an idiot child despite ample evidence to the contrary?
Now, once I get over being pissed off, I might come back and discuss this some more.
Or would you rather I didn’t? And that’s why you said that to piss me off in the first place?
coco
Reality
Mar 21st, 2007
coco, kindly note that when I say this I am applying it to every person alive:
Academic Awards? Yes, award a person for thinking exactly as their chosen Institute of Higher Learning wishes them to think!
Career Awards? Yes, let us give an award to someone that thinks exactly as their employer wishes them to think.
In fact nearly all awards are given out to those that do not think for them self.
The only exception? Nobel Prizes.
Joshua Nightshade
Mar 21st, 2007
“How DARE you say, “Please stop turning to Prokofy for clarification of copyright law.”"
Your arguments are identical to the same ones that Prokofy makes constantly, albeit more civil and polite, so forgive me for assuming that you agreed with her.
But we keep going into these things and you fail to understand that these aren’t “opinions” based on my interpretation of something, these are what actual US law -states- and has been upheld repeatedly in many court cases. It’s not a guessing game or anything close.
Cocoanut Koala
Mar 21st, 2007
Well, my arguments for a lot of things are like the arguments a lot of other people make, too. That doesn’t mean I looked to them for my argument!
In fact, in this case, the whole thing is practically a no-brainer to me. I will get back to it later.
Reality – no, sorry, I do have a very good brain, and I don’t look to others for what to think.
coco
Reality
Mar 21st, 2007
coco – No, sorry you have to prove otherwise.
Nothing Personal
Mar 26th, 2007
I’ve read a lot of Joshua’s posts, here and at SC. He is totally childish and prone to personal attacks (fine call me a hypocrite), and should not be put in charge of anything other than running his mouth. He takes a holier than thou approach to ever post and comes off as very condescending and self-interested. I’d boycott any SL-wide project with Josh at the helm.
Joshua Nightshade
Mar 27th, 2007
As I already pointed out previously, while I don’t expect everyone to love me, I do expect a modicum of respect if they expect me to take any ill-written gripes seriously. And that level of respect involves not hiding behind an anonymous account to flame ideas and opinions. You’re welcome to any boycotts you want, but they’d have a greater effect if you were a bit prouder of your opinions.
Maxwell
Apr 9th, 2007
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