Should the permissions system be revised?

[Jennifer Boyle]

There are two areas in which it seems to me that the current system unnecessarily restricts and inconveniences users with no benefit to creators or anyone else.

One is my inability to rename no-mod items. This is particularly irksome with texture-change mesh clothing. As an example, I may have shoes that have many choices of colors. I want to put on black, ones or red ones, etc., and not have to attach and fiddle with a HUD every time I wear them. If they are no-mod, the only way I can record the color of a copy is to create a separate folder for it. It would be more convenient if I could add "red" or "black" or whatever was appropriate to the name. An alternative would be for creators to not make things no-mod. I don't want to mess with the design of the shoes; I just want the convenience of renaming them. Why not have a "sub-perm" under the next-owner permissions like "may rename only?" Why shouldn't I have that? What would be the harm?

The other is that no-transfer is absolute. Creators have a legitimate reason to want to prevent two accounts from using an item at the same time. They have no legitimate reason to want to prevent ownership from passing from one account to another. Imagine what RL would be like if no one could sell their house or car and no one could donate used clothing or books? Since the goods that we are considering are fragile digital files that can become unusable or even disappear for many reasons or for no apparent reason, backups are essential, so a user must be able to make copies. Creators are rightly unwilling for purchasers to be able to transfer something they bought while retaining a copy. But, why couldn't we have, instead of absolute no transfer, either "transfer and delete all copies" or, better, "transfer all copies" as the next-owner permission. This might require that a unique identifier field be added to properties; the unique identifier would never change, once assigned. A single copy of the item could always be transferred without restriction by the creator. What would be wrong with such a change?

 

[ChinRey]

Oh yes! More detailed mod perm settings is high on my wish list too.

I have a feeling the "transfer and delete" and "transfer all copies" ideas may be hard to implement though. The assets server would have to shift through its entire database with several billion entries every time somebody wanted to use these functions and that may be a bit too much to ask for.

Edited May 20, 2020 by ChinRey

[Jet Dallas]

Nice ideas but immensely cumbersome to implement for little added value.

Take the "transfer and delete all copies" as an example. What happens to the copy someone put into a prim and then took back into inventory? Once the server or whatever trawls through every single item rezzed in world on every single sim to locate a copy of the item you own it's still there - hiding inside the prim.

Whilst this in initially a nice idea it is totally impracticable due to the need to perform a grid wide search for copies of the items and ways around the deletion.

Edited May 20, 2020 by Jet Dallas

[Mollymews]

finer control over the No-Modify permission would be good

Name, Texture, Scale for example. Each able to be set independently

 

[Jet Dallas]

I'd love just the ability to set "full bright" off on creations that I would then purchase - no idea why people insist on setting things full bright when they are not lights.

[kiramanell]

If you sell a RL house, or car, you literally transfer title of ownership to said items to another person. In SL, however, every transfer of a copy-item is de facto just that: a copy. And that makes true transfer simply impossible. For starters, LL would need to track all copies (for deletion). This, in itself, is already undoable: and no, not undoable in the figurative sense of 'way too much trouble', but literally undoable. You rez a building on the ground (thus giving it a new UUID), you take an inworld copy of it, and what you now have in inventory is already (without human-like A.i) no longer recognizable as being a copy of the original. Especially not when you linked like shadow-prim to it or something (needs to be mod for that, of course). Or a home you stuck inside a rezzer, with all linksets being altered, one way or the other. Ergo: utterly undoable. So, it follows that every such made-transferable object would need to have been no-copy to begin with, which opens up a whole different, and likely larger, can of worms.

But here's my idea... wait for it... let's get rid of no-copy altogether! Seriously. No-copy makes no sense, for several reasons: you could lose the object (like a breedable falling off the edge of a sim; and no, not everything can be retrieved: sometimes it's truly gone).

I recall a vendor once argue "My beds are always no-copy, because I don't want ppl to make copies, and start a hotel with them." But that is just silly, of course, because it means, if I wanted to open a hotel, I would just shop somewhere else, where they sell copy-beds. Simple as that.

Also, 'copy' -- because of all IP right stuff we keep hearing about -- already sounds suspect. But copies in SL are really just, and only, copies to your own inventory. So, tl;dr: I suggest LL do way with no-copy altogether, and makes everything just copy ny default.

[Artair Glendullen]

I'd be down for a new version of no-mod that lets me delete scripts. 

[Jet Dallas]

9 minutes ago, Artair Glendullen said:

I'd be down for a new version of no-mod that lets me delete scripts. 

Amen to that! I have my hair the way I like it. I'm not going to change the colour. I'm not going to change the size. I'm not even going to use the optional styles. Why can't I delete the 2 scripts in that hair that serve no purpose. Yes it's "only" 2 scripts but they all add up.

Better still - why don't the designers of these things include a feature like that in their HUDS (some do why not others?).

 

Edited May 20, 2020 by Jet Dallas

[kiramanell]

2 minutes ago, Jet Dallas said:

Amen to that! I have my hair the way I like it. I'm not going to change the colour. I'm not going to change the size. I'm not even going to use the optional styles. Why can't I delete the 2 scripts in that hair that serve no purpose. Yes it's "only" 2 scripts but they all add up.

Better still - why don't the designers of these things include a feature like that in their HUDS (some do why not others?).

 

 

Good (copy-)hair (from reputable merchants) already offer the option to delete all scripts.

 

 

[Jet Dallas]

5 minutes ago, kiramanell said:

Good (copy-)hair (from reputable merchants) already offer the option to delete all scripts.

Oh I do agree however my hair does not appear to have this deletion option despite other hair from the same reputable merchant having it - the little cogwheel option just does not give the "delete" option.

[kiramanell]

1 minute ago, Jet Dallas said:

Oh I do agree however my hair does not appear to have this deletion option despite other hair from the same reputable merchant having it - the little cogwheel option just does not give the "delete" option.

 

If the hair is mod, you could just delete the scipts yourself. But I'm guessing it probably isn't.

Funny thing is, LSL allowes for the llAllowInventoryDrop() function, so that ppl can drop tems into a prim inventory -- when so coded, of course, with llAllowInventoryDrop(TRUE) -- even in no-mod objects, but there's no corresponding function to allow for inventory delete on non-mod items. Tsk.

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

Many of these ideas would be good if implemented, the problem is they would slow SL down to a halt every time someone chose to use it except maybe the rename feature. The reason that it maybe not allowed for then it makes the item look like something its not and anyone looking at it might be confused that the creator sells that specific product as named which they dont, meaning it would be harder to look for in the MP.

They would have to be time limited, such as will only apply on server restart day. which would then disrupt a lot of people when they logged in to find their inventory was magically altered without their agreeing to it. Imagine if you bought something and then the creator used the transfer and delete option on it to give it away to someone else. everyone who bought it might loose it at that point. Imagine if you bought something and a creator got a bug up their arse and used the delete all option because they were rolling out a new version and wanting everyone to come get it. suddenly the item you were happy with as was is gone. that would be very frustrating to some people.

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

4 hours ago, Jennifer Boyle said:

One is my inability to rename no-mod items.

Changing the permission system would probably break the SL completely.

Instead, appeal to your favorite creators to have their stuff set to Mod (with scripts No Mod). And enlighten them that there are no adverse effects to setting their mesh things to Mod. It will remain as vulnerable to copybotting as No Mod mesh is anyway.

Maybe all wear a tag or T-shirt saying: "I won't buy your No Mod mesh!"

And maybe it's an idea for merchants to have a tag that says: "My mesh is Mod."

Edited May 20, 2020 by Arduenn Schwartzman

[steeljane42]

51 minutes ago, kiramanell said:

But here's my idea... wait for it... let's get rid of no-copy altogether! Seriously. No-copy makes no sense, for several reasons: you could lose the object (like a breedable falling off the edge of a sim; and no, not everything can be retrieved: sometimes it's truly gone).

Gachas. No, not a fan of them myself. But they are very popular in SL, might be a bit less these days, than at their peak, but still quite big thing. Creators could make "no-transfer gachas", of course, where machine would give a player random copy-able prize, but it would completely kill the big market of resellers/traders, lots of popular events and all related "community". So I doubt LL would ever do that. Besides I think it's unnecessary, we have a choice to not buy no-mod and no-copy stuff already, so as long as perms are clearly listed, it's up to customer.

And yeah, let's not be like those people from the bast who truly thought that copy-able furniture is most terrible thing ever and they lose money because of that, I remember seeing a few of them on those forums. If they had their way with their anti-copy company, we would still have to buy multiple copies of same furniture. So while I wouldn't miss transfer things myself, and would be happy to never see another gacha in SL again, there's still plenty people who likes those.

3 minutes ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

Instead, appeal to your favorite creators to have their stuff set to Mod (with scripts No Mod). And enlighten them that there are no adverse effects to setting their mesh things to Mod. It will remain as vulnerable to copybotting as No Mod mesh is anyway.

How they'd sell their 45 color versions and fatpacks then? Someone might just buy white pants and tint them black, the horror. /s

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

14 minutes ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

Changing the permission system would probably break the SL completely.

Instead, appeal to your favorite creators to have their stuff set to Mod (with scripts No Mod). And enlighten them that there are no adverse effects to setting their mesh things to Mod. It will remain as vulnerable to copybotting as No Mod mesh is anyway.

Maybe all wear a tag or T-shirt saying: "I won't buy your No Mod mesh!"

And maybe it's an idea for merchants to have a tag that says: "My mesh is Mod."

your right setting things to no mod does not stop copybotting at all for those who like to think it does. there are still ways to get around it if the that user really wants too.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

More nuanced permission system? Yes please. Doing away with absolute no-transfer? No thanks.

There are legitimate uses for these kinds of things. Probably not the general "commercial clothing" situation most people seem to be thinking of, but certainly some things. Things made for specific people, group content, etc.

[Fauve Aeon]

34 minutes ago, steeljane42 said:

And yeah, let's not be like those people from the bast who truly thought that copy-able furniture is most terrible thing ever

No-copy / buy each instance is also somewhat of a design decision, many people will think twice about rezzing 10 identical chairs if they. have to buy each one. Some creators would rather you not do that so they charge by the chair. I’ve bought many no mod and no copy items because I liked them and I accepted that that they were permissions-restricted. Sometimes it’s OK. 

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

23 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

More nuanced permission system? Yes please. Doing away with absolute no-transfer? No thanks.

There are legitimate uses for these kinds of things. Probably not the general "commercial clothing" situation most people seem to be thinking of, but certainly some things. Things made for specific people, group content, etc.

its my toy and you cant play with it...im special and only I can have it.

Edited May 20, 2020 by Drakonadrgora Darkfold

[Qie Niangao]

I think it would be possible to implement an additional new permission, "transfer all copies", without it needing to have a huge performance drain on the system -- but as already pointed out, it could have quite troubling unexpected effects. It's weird enough already how stuff behaves when no-transfer contents are removed from their inventories (like, anything painted with a no-transfer texture reverts to plywood), and this would have to happen to everything containing copies of elements given the new "transfer all copies" permission. I kinda see the utility but it seems it would accidentally trap so many unsuspecting users in so many unexpected ways, it just doesn't seem a net benefit.

The renaming thing is interesting because indeed no-mod elements are renamed automatically if you dump more than one same-named item into an object's inventory. There's not much say in what that new name will be, but still: the name already changes even if we don't have mod permission.

One theoretical possibility to get that specific name-changing effect without the Lab even being involved: a viewer could introduce a whole alternate naming layer, with name-to-asset resolution local to the viewer, to map through for no-mod name changes only. That could get cumbersome if there are too many thousands of these special names (but would there really be very many?) and I guess it would be very confusing if one switched viewers.

Anyway, I absolutely agree with other posters: Just keep complaining to creators who sell superstitiously no-mod content -- which is almost all no-mod content. And celebrate the ones who sell mod-perm stuff. (Whether I need it or not, I buy every new item from one creator who still grants Modify permission in a predominantly no-mod market.)

[Cinos Field]

49 minutes ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

Changing the permission system would probably break the SL completely.

Instead, appeal to your favorite creators to have their stuff set to Mod (with scripts No Mod). And enlighten them that there are no adverse effects to setting their mesh things to Mod. It will remain as vulnerable to copybotting as No Mod mesh is anyway.

Maybe all wear a tag or T-shirt saying: "I won't buy your No Mod mesh!"

And maybe it's an idea for merchants to have a tag that says: "My mesh is Mod."

I wish. So often, I politely request modifiable releases, saying I'd happily pay fatpack prizes for them, and never ever do the creators change their minds on it. Not once in 14 years. I've not even managed to convince anyone to make their scripts deletable!

I don't know why people are so stubborn about it, but it's just the way of SL things.

 

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

just do away with the no mod, no copy feature altogether just make it non transfer

[Fauve Aeon]

1 minute ago, Drakonadrgora Darkfold said:

its my toy and you cant play with it...im special and only I can have it.

If they made it, that’s one ay of looking at it. There’s nothing wrong with having something unique and special. Many people only buy copy mod as their choice too. There’s room for both of these things. 

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

2 minutes ago, Fauve Aeon said:

If they made it, that’s one ay of looking at it. There’s nothing wrong with having something unique and special. Many people only buy copy mod as their choice too. There’s room for both of these things. 

people who need to be unique are those afraid or being seen normal. the new normal is to be unique and different and special..

im different I stand out from the rest, look at me. im unique and special.

when really everyone is just the same regardless of how special or unique they really think they are.

anyone could remake the item if they wanted to take the time to learn how and make it exactly like the no-mod or no-copy unique special item.

[Fauve Aeon]

2 minutes ago, Drakonadrgora Darkfold said:

people who need to be unique are those afraid or being seen normal. the new normal is to be unique and different and special..

im different I stand out from the rest, look at me. im unique and special.

when really everyone is just the same regardless of how special or unique they really think they are.

anyone could remake the item if they wanted to take the time to learn how and make it exactly like the no-mod or no-copy unique special item.

Same but different. It’s ok to want to be somehow a little special, that doesn’t discount anyone else’s value. Sure someone can copycat and make a thing but they are always late and second if they do and person 1 is usually off to tgeir new creation by the time the copycat has made their thing. And off to a new topic while Pedantica beats her point to the ground too. 😉

[Wulfie Reanimator]

25 minutes ago, Drakonadrgora Darkfold said:

its my toy and you cant play with it...im special and only I can have it.

What you're saying is a personal preference. Yes, if you have something and don't want to share... go ahead. Nobody can MAKE you share, even if everything in SL became transferrable with no form of no-transfer.

But if I pay to commission something to be usable only by the members of my group, there's no reason any of those members should go passing that thing out of the group.

17 minutes ago, Drakonadrgora Darkfold said:

anyone could remake the item if they wanted to take the time to learn how and make it exactly like the no-mod or no-copy unique special item.

It's not about being unique or "having what others can't have." I've literally been the person to say "Your thing is not special, I'm going to make your exact thing and give it out for free." That's fine! But making things takes time. Respecting the money and effort someone else spent for That Thing is not evil.

Edited May 20, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator