TOS Terror

[Rita Munro]

SL is a place of creativity.
And on such places there is the question around for intellectual property.
This question is ok.
But where does the hold of such an IP right end?
Where does the freedom for ongoing creativity start?

In recent months many vendors wrapped pages of text into their boxes, which are called "their TOS".
A dubious development:

1) TOS - What we agree on:
If we buy e.g. a texture, we agree on the texture as item and a certain Lindendollar price for it. As we all are under

Linden's TOS, we agree on not reselling the texture as it is.
Is there anything else we agree? To go into slavery? To pay a double price? Or do we agree to follow EVERY notecard

which is wrapped as surprise in our box?

Never the less we read astonished on box-opening: "By buying my item, you HAVE agreed(!) to the text which WILL

follow."  - -  EXCUSE ME?!

2) TOS intended afterwords:
I am a merchant. After having done my building work and my images uploaded, I sometimes receive a notecard with TOS.

The sender claims, I must take off my new item because of his TOS. If I read those TOS, I have the feeling, I never

heard of them before.
By good luck I found out in three(!) cases, that the original TOS were changed to fit for a restriction of my item.
Many of my friends as well as myself receive no TOS at all with the original product.

3) TOS with absurd results:
One day I bought really nice textures for gift boxes. As I opened them, there was a notecard in, "whatever you build

with my textures: you must not give it away with transfer-permission."
What?! A no transfer gift box? I wrote an IM to the creator and received the answer, "just make it no copy".
What?! Who would pay for a no copy gift box? What a greedy offer.

But where does the greed come from?
I think, it is not my greed. It is the greediness of a creator, who wants not only his own IP-rights for the texture.

This would be ok. But forthermore he wants to control my business realtionships.
This looks like a restriction of freedom and not ok.

4) TOS - what they wish:
Popular restriction whishes are, that they want you to restrict our own items: You shall not make them copy, you shall

not make them tranfer, modify etc. I saw every combination.

But the strange desires go on: They checked the items and they(!) judge, if you "did enough" building with their

textures/sculpties. If there are not linked to many other items, they think, it is "their work" still.

They checked even my prices. They accused me to "destroy" their business by making prices, which are for me customer

friendly and reasonable.

And they want to make Lindens, Lindens and Lindens. e.g. they think one single persom must buy several times the same

thing and must not hand the things to e.g. an alt avatar. No, not even for backup purpose. They make more money, if

you must buy one thing several times. So they write it in their tos, of which they implied you would have complied by

buying.

5) TOS in practise:
Most of us have texture organizer and sculpty organizer, which gives us the ready prim. Sometimes we trash the

(sculpty-)texture and just keep the prim. How to find out, where a stuff came from at all?
Those notecards usually have the name "TOS" and are mostly not to find again. Even if you find them again, they are

one page long. Reading/translating(!) legal textes instead of playing SL?

How do you deal with this?
Do you have use Excel-sheets with permissions to fulfill all their strange desires?
Do you do stop sell full permission at all? Do you obey your suppliers, instead of giving best service to your

customers?

Every full permission item is a source of build-on and a treasure for the whole SL community. Recently an item came

back to me after 3 three years. It had completely changed. I loved it! This is what for I play SL.

Under the line I want to put the questions:
What does TOS terror mean for the development of creativity in Second Life?
What does it mean for freedom of merchandism, for the joy in building?

Rita Munro

[Irene Muni]

[bee Baroque]

tl dr

wrong forum

and. what irene said

http://blogs.secondlife.com/community/forums/general?view=discussions

[Baeric Constantine]

And what are your particular concerns?

[CrashOV Uladstron]

You make sure you read the creators TOS BEFORE  you buy, if it's not made available to you before you buy the item you ask the creator to make it available to you. And then you only buy things that you agree on the TOS. The end.

[Rita Munro]

Good Irene did not post the link of the forums, but the link to a graphic.

Thank you for the "real" link, I will post it there.

Rita