Full perms items and alts / partners

[Meshes1488303295]

I sell full perms items on the marketplace. Because I think my items are very affordable my license does not allow sharing the items with alts or business partners. The problem is that you cannot control if people still do so.

Now I have found on the marketplace a business tool, that you can connect to your items in the marketplace and in world. Then you can login to a website, and there you can see your sales reports. But not only sales reports, it is also able to shows rez reports.

So since I have installed this tool I can more or less follow the items that I have sold. I can for example see if the buyer rezzes the item right after buy, or leaves it two days in his inventory first before he rezzes it. I can also see when someone besides the buyer rezzes the item, and who that person is (avatar name I mean). But these rez reports are not able to show me the permissions of the item.

I installed it not long ago, so working with rez reports is still new to me. But since I can get them I view them every day. As far as I can see a very large majority sticks to the user license. But I also see rezzes coming up in the reports by people who did not buy the item. I can see those avatar names, but I have no idea who they are connected to, so I neither have an idea who gave them the item. But now I came across a case where an avatar did not buy the item, but did rez it. This item is (for example) called Rose. The non-buyer avatar now renames the item to Yellow Rose. And then a few minutes later I see the avatar who has bought the item, rez this renamed Yellow Rose.

So my conclusion is that this costumer is sharing with an alt or working together with a partner. But my problem is now: I still cannot be sure that the buyer did violate my user license. Because this website cannot show the permissions, it is still possible that my buyer has disabled the copy permission before he gave it to the alt/partner. In that case it is allowed to transfer to the alt or partner.

How do other full perms sellers deal with this? Do you allow exchange with alts or business partners?

And what do you do when you have the he suspicion that someone is violating your license, but you have no hard proof? Just let it be, or contact that person to seek an explanation?

[Madeliefste Oh]

Hi Meshes

I do allow transfer to alts. A license is something between you and another human being. With a license you transfer some of your rl rights to another rl person, not to another avatar. An avatar cannot actually buy a license, it is the person behind the avatar that buys the license.

A person has only to pay me once for the use of my products in SL. I don't mind if he has one alt or six, as long as it are alts.
Business partners is something else, because here we have to do with another rl person. He has to buy his own license to work with our products.

That is my view on the matter, but I know there are other creators who do have the same term of use as you: no transfer to alts.

[Ela Talaj]

A simple script put in the sellable object could IM on-rez same information without any website and also could IM current owner's permissions info for the object. The web-site is more convenient of course because if you sell a lot such IMs would create a lot of spam.

[LillyBeth Filth]

Hi Meshes,

Interesting tool that! Although, ignorance is bliss for me. I can't stand the emotional stress of chasing people down for license issues. 

I have come to expect and accept people will share files if they can. Not just in SL but on the www in general. It's part and parcel of "digital goods" industry. 

Personally, I don't limit customers from sharing the texture they have purchased from TRU with their own alternative accounts or partners. The alternative account issue, as far as I am concerned is the same RL person so I have no issue with that.

The Partner issue I also am fine with because people build in teams or couples. It doesn't make sense to have 2 people from a couple buy the same textures to work on a project they're building JUST to avoid cross sharing.

You cannot control file sharing in SL when you set the item to full perms. I have tried over the years and it's just a big fat waste of negative energy. 

 

[Deja Letov]

In my texture shop I do allow transfer between alts. Honestly, it's another alt of the same person so why not? Besides, if you are talking about a legal binding document, I'm not even entirely sure it's legal to sell to an "avatar" and have it hold up in court. Also...keep in mind for builders it would be very difficult to keep it all straight. The majority of full perm suppliers I buy from for my furniture shop do allow transfer to alts.  In fact I usually look for that before I buy. But I'm sure there may be a few in there that do not. But how can anyone expect a high volume builder...with say 1000 or more purchases from full perm suppliers. It would be impossible to remember and most don't include a TOS in their packaging, they just put a sign at their store. And others that do include a TOS don't even address the issue of transfering to alts.

[Rya Nitely]

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LillyBeth Filth wrote:

The Partner issue I also am fine with because people build in teams or couples. It doesn't make sense to have 2 people from a couple buy the same textures to work on a project they're building JUST to avoid cross sharing.

 

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This ^

 I think it might just take someone who has been around for a long time and has a matured business to realise the problems when you build with a partner. When you build together, as my partner and I do, it is almost impossible to avoid sharing textures and animations. Here is an example - I build a boat, I texture it and I put in the animations. My partner creates the scripts. He can pass me the script and I can try to get it to work, but very often I hit a problem and the only way to fix it is for me to give him the boat, full perm, so that he can work on it. Then he passes the functioning boat back to me again. There is no other way to do this. Usually he doesn't bother having animations or textures because I do this part. He does the scripting. But once I hand a full perm boat over to him then he has those full perm animations too. We also share the selling of the items we create together. He often sells the rezzer version and I sell the standard version of the same boat - and we are set up as one business.

We discussed this issue with Sylva a while back (owner of Sylva's Animations) and she did feel slightly uncomfortable with it but gave way to trust and common sense.

[Lexi Zelin]

That tool sounds very interesting but a little too envadish .. I wouldnt want to do that to my customers watching their every move with the item they bought but that's just me.. For me I have found that offering your customers the option to purchase an extended liscense which allows them to use your products with their alot or business partners is very helpful and many people are very honest and willing to purchase it. While of course there are others out there who do not. My business has become very large over the years so it get's harder and harder to control things. I do PROWL the marketplace at least once a week making sure no one is selling any of my items with full perms. Those that do sell my items with full perms get a 24 hour warning before I start faxing out DMCA's against them. 

As for alts and passing your full perm stuff around to others... You need to keep a log of ALL your customers. This log is simply a list of people who have purchased from your either in world or on marketplace. It is best to start this list EARLY in a business, I didnt start mine until about 6 months in and it took HOURS getting all the names... I add new names to my list once a week. It's a big PAIN but it's important if you plan on running a true business with full perms. When someone buys an extended liscense they are applying for their alt/business partner to become apart of this customer list. Once the person is on the list they are safe from any of my questioning, or dmca filings. Other than that it's just important to keep an eye out. It get's harder and harder as your business grows with more purchases and customers but go through your list weekly and soon names will become familiar, you may not know them or really know their store but youll be able to spot someone selling your items that you have never seen them buy before.  

 

Also, another BIG concern that I don't think many full perm creators realize is the use of their products on OTHER GRIDS. If you wish to keep the use of your items in the Secondlife grid ONLY, this needs to be stated in your TOS and you can also offer a more expensive extended liscense that will allow the person to use your items as non full perm on another grid. My liscenses are very cheap.. 500L for the alternative avatar liscense and 2500L for the off grid use. But, I have seen another store sell theirs for 7,000L and like 12000L for off grid use. So, it's all up to the creator as is everything else. I hope all this helps you and if you need any help with anything just holler at me in world <3 

[Lexi Zelin]

The thing is, not everyone's alt is their alt. As a full perm seller I have spent the last year fighting against a group of people who copybot and buy peoples full perm items and post them for all to get for free. THIS is what we do not want to happen. As full perm sellers, if you are SERIOUS about your business you most likely DO have a statement about the use of alts or transfering to other avatars to sell. Because, I don't know if little timmy over there IS in fact YOUR alt. It could be your friend, or whatever with a totally different store. But, many people do this, weather it's for an honest reason or not. I am even guilty of doing this! I own another store which is a non full perm mesh clothing store that I have to run on my alt because I don't want it mixed with the full perm side of my store on the marketplace. But, It's full name is: Simplecandy by: AngelRED Couture. So you see that and say oh yeah I know her, it's the same person. Same with my AngelRED Boutique, another line of non full perm stuff. But, I DO contact full perm creators out of respect since I am one and I DO understand. I have never had one tell me I could not transfer to my alt and sell on my alt after speaking with them EVEN if it's in their toss. And I am the same way.. If you come to me and talk to me, tell me your situation I WILL work with you! I think most serious full perm sellers are the same. I know and talk to many of them, we do NOT bite! hahahah I do always appreciate someone coming and asking me about something they are not sure about in my tos rather than going out and selling my **bleep** as full perm and then pleading ignorance.  

[Drake1 Nightfire]

you need to say in each and every item you sell that you have a tracker in the item. Otherwise you are doing some serious invasion of privacy. You can't use a tracker without a persons knowledge. Personally i will never buy a single item from your shop.

To your example... Someone didn't buy it from YOU. They rezzed it, renamed it and gave it to someone who bought it to rezz? perhaps the person who renamed it, retextured it for the one who did buy it... You sell full perm items.. if i buy one of your items and retexture it and resell it as copy/mod no trans, you will see them popping up everywhere..

Why torture yourself and cause people to not trust you. I do my building at my home. If i rezz one of your items at my home, you now have my exact location of my home.. you could TP in whenever you wanted to. Talk about invasion of privacy.

 ETA

way to keyword spam BTW..

mesh, silhouettes, diy, template, photoshop, gimp, download, original, SL, content, quality, fantasy, builder, creator, resale, clothing, bag, texture, hat, 3d, model, fashion

what do those have to do with a 3D anchor?