What are the benifits of selling meshes with No-Modify permisison?

[MeshPromo]

Assume selling mesh grass with no-modify permission.

1. Will it help to prevent or at least to discourage copybotters stealing that item?

2. It is easy to figure out the UV map of a grass and make our own textures. So if the mesh is no modify, will it help to get more sales by selling different kind of textured versions, as then customers can't add their own textures. Resize script, texture/color HUD can be added.

3. Or will it cause to reduce the sales as customers feel annoying about the no modify items (even though menu/hud there) and they move for modify enabled stuff?

We already know customers more like if its not only modify but also full perm. Therefore I specially looking the opinion about this by those who already have marketplace and selling things.

Edited September 29, 2019 by MeshPromo

[Christhiana]

1 No

2 While you could probably generate some extra sales with texture packs, you would probably be losing more in sales from people who prefer copy/mod. No matter how many texture packs you make, there will always be demand for something just a little different or with a different shade.

3 I have found that most of my customers like to make tweaks to items they buy to make them fit their homes/builds perfectly. 

I sell all my builds as copy/mod. I usually include a color or texture menu as well for those who are happy to select from a few options. 

[Alyona Su]

3 hours ago, MeshPromo said:

1. Will it help to prevent or at least to discourage copybotters stealing that item?

I believe this is the primary motivation creators sell no-modify and it is them presuming that their stuff is actually worth the effort and risk of copying their stuff. In which case, this applies (for most people I know, anyway):

3 hours ago, MeshPromo said:

3. Or will it cause to reduce the sales as customers feel annoying about the no modify items (even though menu/hud there) and they move for modify enabled stuff?

If comparing competing items and the modify version cost twice as much, I'll always spend more for the modify.

If more creators would do like this one does, they'd sell more:

• Copy version: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Itos-Oriental-Sampan-drivable-copy/7538152
• Copy/Modify version: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Itos-Oriental-Sampan-drivable-copy-mod/12185246

Even though the price difference in these is on the extreme end, I still went with the modify version. I may be in the minority of shoppers, but I know I speak for a lot of them. This creator is wise because he or she caters to ll of us.

[ChinRey]

23 hours ago, MeshPromo said:

1. Will it help to prevent or at least to discourage copybotters stealing that item?

I will go further than Christiana and say selling no modify encourages copybotters. In the copybotters' minds, the stricter the perms are set, the bigger the challenge is. But only in their minds of course. A copybot viewer simply ignores all permission settings so it makes no real difference at all.

 

19 hours ago, Alyona Su said:

If more creators would do like this one does, they'd sell more:

...

Even though the price difference in these is on the extreme end, I still went with the modify version. I may be in the minority of shoppers, but I know I speak for a lot of them.

I think you belong to the majority there. I tried something similar for my Buidlers' Supplies store, not copy-only vs. copy/modify but copy/modify vs. full perm. Everybody buys the full perm version whether they really need it or not.

Edited September 30, 2019 by ChinRey

[Chic Aeon]

While I sell my items mod, I support those who choose not too. I believe one of the main reasons is that people can't CHANGE your items greatly. I have had people contact me about my "two bedroom recycled Victorian home" and there never was one. Someone had taken all the parts and built one from my parts. That can get very messy and difficult to explain to customers. Also people can make some really ugly things out of items that you have worked long and hard on and that is pretty depressing.   

[MeshPromo]

53 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

A copybot viewer simply ignores all permission settings so it makes no real difference at all.

I just wonder why LL can't just suspend the people who use copybot viewer by mentioning those are illegal viewers in TOS, as its easy to identify which viewer someone is using, by automated server software.

Also if LL study those copybot methods, they can make some security tools to trigger when someone using those copybot codes.

[Mollymews]

28 minutes ago, MeshPromo said:

I just wonder why LL can't just suspend the people who use copybot viewer by mentioning those are illegal viewers in TOS, as its easy to identify which viewer someone is using, by automated server software.

Also if LL study those copybot methods, they can make some security tools to trigger when someone using those copybot codes.

it is not easy to detect a copybot application when the source code for the viewer is available.  With the viewer source code a person can compile their own viewer, adding in a copybot module which works totally client side.  From the server pov this viewer looks and acts the same as the official LL viewer

stepping up to the next level of copybot application, which sniffs the data packets coming in thru the computer's ports. In what's called a man-in-the-middle-intercept.  From the data packets, object/asset data can be reconstructed and saved to disk file.  With packet sniffers neither the client viewer nor the server will ever be able to detect that this is happening

preventing copybotters is largely a social measure - good police work by the enforcers.  Most people into copybotting are careless. It is their careless behaviour in dealing with stuff they have copybotted  that identifies them to the enforcers

[Da5id Weatherwax]

2 hours ago, MeshPromo said:

I just wonder why LL can't just suspend the people who use copybot viewer by mentioning those are illegal viewers in TOS, as its easy to identify which viewer someone is using, by automated server software.

Also if LL study those copybot methods, they can make some security tools to trigger when someone using those copybot codes.

You can rip textures and meshes with any viewer, even the official one, and it involves areas of the OS with a higher privilege than the ring at which the viewer runs, so can be (and usually is) completely undetectable to the viewer. I'm not going into details because that would be against the rules on publishing howtos for violations but there are legitimate developer tools that hook the GL stack or the graphics driver. Getting your hands on one of these is trivial, as would repurposing it as a way to rip SL assets be.

The original "copybot" - an inworld avatar-like object that used scripting to capture the texture uuids of what you were wearing and make itself look like you - used viewer resources and its method no longer works. However, if what somebody wants to do is rip assets to local storage there is nothing LL can do to detect or stop them. Period. For it to be displayed on your screen it is already in memory on a system that you control. You already HAVE it, ripping it is just a matter of accessing it. All they can do is act on reports of stolen content if/when it is reuploaded to the grid, and this is what they do.

[Kyrah Abattoir]

3 hours ago, MeshPromo said:

I just wonder why LL can't just suspend the people who use copybot viewer by mentioning those are illegal viewers in TOS, as its easy to identify which viewer someone is using, by automated server software.

Also if LL study those copybot methods, they can make some security tools to trigger when someone using those copybot codes.

Because they can't.

Copybot viewers don't interact with the server itself in an "illegitamate" fashion. They can't make the server do anything that violates the permission system, they just ignore permissions locally with the data that all viewers receive.

Copybots viewers can't steal scripts because scripts are never sent to the viewer to begin with, but anything that can be seen HAS to be sent.

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

18 hours ago, MeshPromo said:

2. It is easy to figure out the UV map of a grass and make our own textures. So if the mesh is no modify, will it help to get more sales by selling different kind of textured versions, as then customers can't add their own textures. Resize script, texture/color HUD can be added.

3. Or will it cause to reduce the sales as customers feel annoying about the no modify items (even though menu/hud there) and they move for modify enabled stuff?

Something like grass really needs to be modifiable so the dimensions can be altered to suit the space. I wouldn't look at no mod landscaping items long enough to consider whether or not I might want to retexture it so your texture packs would be wasted on me.

Meanwhile, if the item offers versitility so I can adjust it to suit my needs, I'll start checking out its LOD fall-off.

This isn't a hypothetical situation for me as I've been searching for a wildflower borders and meadows for my Linden Homes camper site this last week. There's an overwhelming amount to choose from so eliminating things like no-mod from an MP search is necessary to try to narrow it down. Then inworld stores to look at the LODs. I ended up putting out some heather that came as a free gift from one of the stores. Decent LODs but there was too much white in the textures for the overall setting. I can't change the Linden landscaping of course, so I thought the heather was strictly temporary and was using it to experiment with dimensions and placement. A friend was over last night, complained mightily about it and told me to give it a bit of a grey tint. They blend in much better now. I'm still looking for something else, but it's an example of why it's so important to let people tint.

You don't know what other textures people will want to use it around. You don't know what windlights they use or how their computer and graphics card affects what they see. There is no way to make enough texture packs to meet all uses so why restrict potential customers in hopes of squeezing more money out of a few?

Edited September 30, 2019 by Bitsy Buccaneer

[ChinRey]

2 hours ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

Because they can't.

Copybot viewers don't interact with the server itself in an "illegitamate" fashion. They can't make the server do anything that violates the permission system, they just ignore permissions locally with the data that all viewers receive.

That's well explained but to make it even clearer, the viewer has to download all the content before it can display it. That goes without saying really. Once the data is downloaded to the user's computer, it's out of LL's hands and it can be tapped into in various ways.

 

2 hours ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

Copybots viewers can't steal scripts because scripts are never sent to the viewer to begin with, but anything that can be seen HAS to be sent.

It gives me some grim satisfaction to think that I managed to stop the time on the hypergrid. Hattie's Ex Machina street clock is all over that place but it doesn't work there sicne the copybotters never got their hands on the script I wrote for it.

This brings me to a point that may be worth mentioning, you don't actualyl get much content copybotted from SL in SL. It's safer for the crooks to smuggle their loot across the border so what you see in SL is generally content stolen from games or from some of the few good and honest opensim creators who ahven't given up in disgust. Content stolen from SL usually end up on the hypergrid os - on at least one occasion - in commercial games.

Edited September 30, 2019 by ChinRey

[Kyrah Abattoir]

1 minute ago, ChinRey said:

on at least one occasion - in commercial games

Show!

[ChinRey]

5 minutes ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

Show!

Sorry, I can't. It was posted on the old SLU forum that doesn't exist anymore. Cristiano is going to resurrect the content from it at his new VirtualVerse forum but he hasn't gotten around to it yet.

Edited September 30, 2019 by ChinRey

[Kyrah Abattoir]

I sometimes wish SL could fingerprint content in some fashion, so that when you upload a texture everyone uploaded a thousand time already it just links to the existing one rather than creating a new one.

[Alyona Su]

8 hours ago, ChinRey said:

I think you belong to the majority there. I tried something similar for my Buidlers' Supplies store, not copy-only vs. copy/modify but copy/modify vs. full perm. Everybody buys the full perm version whetehr they really need it or not.

I Amy be or not, I don't know, but I do know this: there are two type of shopper: Those shopping on price and those shopping on quality. I believe the Modify permission is part of the "quality" equation, because it allows me to fix where there may be a glitch, to it allows me to add the item to another item or voice-overs; improving the quality, etc.

Those who shop quality have no problem paying a higher price for it, as long as it's within that shoppers threshold of reasonable. Offer both versions (mod/no-mod) is the smart thing to do. Not doing so and offering only no-modify is the creators' sad mistake of wanting control after the sale.

[JUSTUS Palianta]

My creator friends keep telling me to make my creations no mod because it slows down the copy botters, it seems to be a common belief so many creators stick to no mod to hope to protect there work.  Even when they know nothing stops someone stealing your work if they really really want to they still stick to this no mod practice.  Personally i use mod when i can and i have had people thank me for it.

[Alyona Su]

6 hours ago, JUSTUS Palianta said:

My creator friends keep telling me to make my creations no mod because it slows down the copy-botters, it seems to be a common belief so many creators stick to no mod to hope to protect there work.  Even when they know nothing stops someone stealing your work if they really really want to they still stick to this no mod practice.  Personally i use mod when i can and i have had people thank me for it.

This is with the presumption by those creators that their stuff is desirable enough to go through the effort and risk (most are not, I believe.) Sure, some are, like the big names, but many are really full of themselves in this regard, or even worse: don't want purchasers of their stuff to "mess with their 'art'". The truth is that if they have cultivated their brand then off-shoot copies won't matter because the brand itself can be stronger than copy-botters.

For clothing... ~shrugs~ For practically anything else: I'll spend three times as much on a modifiable competitor to a no-modify anything. I know I just speak for myself, but I also know there are many with the same or similar mindset.

Edited October 9, 2019 by Alyona Su

[Da5id Weatherwax]

On 10/9/2019 at 8:57 AM, JUSTUS Palianta said:

My creator friends keep telling me to make my creations no mod because it slows down the copy botters, it seems to be a common belief so many creators stick to no mod to hope to protect there work.  Even when they know nothing stops someone stealing your work if they really really want to they still stick to this no mod practice.  Personally i use mod when i can and i have had people thank me for it.

Your friends are wrong. Without going into enough details to be a howto for ripping, 'botters just install and configure the libraries required to hook the graphics stack (these are legitimate developer tools and freely available) and then forget about it. They can use any viewer they like, even the official LL builds. Then when they see something they want to yoink they hit a hotkey, get a few seconds freeze-up on their framerate and their local HDD contains a copy of every mesh and texture that was part of the scene they were viewing at the time.

Literally nothing you can do with SL perms or silly script tricks gets in their way or slows them down. If it's displayed on their screen it's already in their system's memory, and that's where they pull it from. Stuff like easily-detectable "malicious viewers" are the tools of the distant past unless they are wanting to rip animations.