Creator Arrogance

[CaithLynnSayes]

14 minutes ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

How do you add your own normal map that would line up with the dresses textures?

 

 

 

With one of them:

 

 

 

[Silent Mistwalker]

3 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

We have Mod rights!

Sure ya do.

[Rick Nightingale]

Yep, with one of them, if that's needed. I've been augmenting things with my own normal and specular maps for a long time... everything from building materials to clothing and even skins. No, it's not always easy with stuff that's UV-mapped intricately and has different types of diffuse on one texture... but that's not to say it can't be done and it's certainly no excuse to just say "no mod". Besides, there is a lot of stuff that isn't hard to do.

Let those who can, do. If you can't, that's no reason to say others shouldn't.

Dammit... I said I was done with this thread, lol.

 

Edited February 10, 2023 by Rick Daylight

[Rick Nightingale]

3 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Sure ya do.

I think 'Mod' was referring to modify, not moderator.

(unless it's a joke and I'm missing something... could be -> autism -> miss quite a lot, lol)

Edited February 10, 2023 by Rick Daylight

[Silent Mistwalker]

2 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

can do to improve or adapt it for their needs

Most people aren't necessarily looking to improve on what the creator has made. We're mostly looking to be able to adapt what they have made to our needs. If it can't be adapted, it isn't needed. If it isn't needed, no sale, customer goes elsewhere and likely doesn't become a repeat customer, which is where the real money is both in SL and RL.

[Rick Nightingale]

Another point re. obsoletion of no-mod things... hair, and any wearables with alpha blending.

Alpha blending order can now be reliably controlled by attachment point to combat the well known issue, if the items in question have a root prim with transparency. I modified some old hair for my wife a few days ago to make the central prim transparent (it also reduces render cost, so should be anyway but that isn't always the case).  If that hair had been no mod, it would still be as unusable as it was previously, causing bad alpha glitching with the head's eyelashes. The very same thing applies to clothing.

Mod perms = we can fix issues like this ourselves, even when the system is changed. No-mod = a useless or limited use product.

[Orwar]

   Creators:

[VaelFaye]

[Silent Mistwalker]

27 minutes ago, VaelFaye said:

 

The resemblance is amazing!

 

[Marianne Little]

13 hours ago, Dorientje Woller said:

TBH, it's a part of the arguement: I sell myself items on the Marketplace with a free demo available. Demo is Trans/No Copy/No Mod, the real item is No Trans/Copy/Mod and comes with a clear warning to try the demo before purchase. I can no longer count on my digits (hands & toes included) how many people are still buying without demoing an item. 

Your prices are reasonable. I think this is why people buy a 99 L shape - it is not a big loss. And since they are modify, it is easy to change things like leg length, shoulder width and so on.

Buying a modify shape to a low cost, with clear pictures of what you get, is not a very big risk. People who think 99 L is nothing to worry about, skip the demo.

[Qie Niangao]

9 hours ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

How, exactly, are you going to add the correct Normal and specular map to an item that is mod without the textures to make the normal and spec maps? For instance a dress that has a tight weave texture but no normal map on it. How do you add your own normal map that would line up with the dresses textures? Perhaps it has lace on the edging, a little silk on the cuffs. Several fabrics on one texture. Normal and specular maps have to be made with the texture or they wont work. 

Sure, not every product is going to benefit from the same sorts of modifications but there will be many opportunities to rejuvenate old mod-perm products using PBR materials. Lace-edged dresses not so much, maybe—although I gotta say, any designer putting multiple fabrics on the same face is either a masochist or stretching some stock template awfully far.

This gets me thinking, though, that PBR materials may not be uniformly beneficial to modifying stuff if creators get in the practice of selling Material assets that are themselves no-mod. I wouldn't pay a plug nickel for such a thing, but SL has a way of creating markets that seem perversely unlikely. (E.g., some folks sold no-mod shapes for a while, maybe still do?, products that would be worse than useless to me. More similar to Materials are EEP assets and they too could be sold no-mod although I can't imagine why anyone would consider buying any such thing.)

[Qie Niangao]

9 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Most people aren't necessarily looking to improve on what the creator has made. We're mostly looking to be able to adapt what they have made to our needs. If it can't be adapted, it isn't needed. If it isn't needed, no sale, customer goes elsewhere and likely doesn't become a repeat customer, which is where the real money is both in SL and RL.

That's probably true. It's probably weird of me, to always ponder ways to uniquely customize something before I buy it, or ways to use it to personalize something else I already own.

Even with no-mod clothes, it would seem a failure of imagination to buy multiple pieces from the same outfit.

[Theresa Tennyson]

14 hours ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

How, exactly, are you going to add the correct Normal and specular map to an item that is mod without the textures to make the normal and spec maps? For instance a dress that has a tight weave texture but no normal map on it. How do you add your own normal map that would line up with the dresses textures? Perhaps it has lace on the edging, a little silk on the cuffs. Several fabrics on one texture. Normal and specular maps have to be made with the texture or they wont work. 

Personally, I'd be more inclined to use mod to get rid of/edit incorrect/badly done normal and specular maps. There have been plenty of things I haven't bought because the creator's Artistic Vision was apparently that cotton should look like it is coated in polyurethane varnish if you get close to a light source.

[Jennifer Boyle]

There are some issues related to this discussion that I have long wondered about but never seen discussed, so I am going to bring them up.

The permissions system limits abilities, not rights. Laws limit rights, not abilities.

Under US law, the first sale doctrine protects the right of an owner of a legally-acquired copyrighted item to resell the item. Doesn't the no-transfer permission prevent buyers from exercising this right that they have under law?

Under US law, buyers of "software" have the right to make a backup copy. IANAL, and I'm not sure that all digital goods legally count as software, but I am sure that scripts and items containing scripts do. Doesn't the no-copy permission prevent buyers from exercising this right that they have under the law?

Am I missing something?

[Rick Nightingale]

I don't think you're missing something; laws have been made about or applied to other in-world 'game' areas (see Loot Boxes in particular, and SL's gacha machines). At what point does 'buying' something for 'game money' cross over into a real world transaction with real world laws governing it? Ultimately, it's all real money since it has to be purchased and can be cashed out. The UK parliament has a currently active bill to discuss such things as Loot Boxes and their legality and taxable status.

At the moment most of this goes on under government radars. To be honest, it's not really an area I want explored too deeply - we get taxed enough in RL here!

If you want to go down that sort of road though, my biggest thing is that I, a human, with legal rights and not my 'avatar' paid for my items in SL... I should be able to use them on any avatar I choose that is mine. After all, it wouldn't be hard for LL to link alt accounts together, especially if they all share the same legally identified payment details. Personally I think the alt situation would have been much better handled by having one log-in account for LL, under which numerous avatars could be created and logged into the grid.

Let the sellers go bat-crazy over that one. Talk about wailing and gnashing of teeth!

(That's just one of the many things that crosses my mind at 3am when I can't sleep in bed and I'm redesigning the whole of SL, along with in-world mesh creation, an overhaul or the permissions system to protect both creators' and consumers' rights...)

Edited February 11, 2023 by Rick Daylight
grammer and speling

[Katherine Heartsong]

10 minutes ago, Rick Daylight said:

If you want to go down that sort of road though, my biggest thing is that I, a human, with legal rights and not my 'avatar' paid for my items in SL... I should be able to use them on any avatar I choose that is mine. After all, it wouldn't be hard for LL to link alt accounts together, especially if they all share the same legally identified payment details. Personally I think the alt situation would have been much better handled by having one log-in account for LL, under which numerous avatars could be created and logged into the grid.

Always wondered why this wasn't the case. One log in, multiple avatars instead of alts. I don't use alts (except my male me) but I'd support this 100%.

[Rowan Amore]

What's been paid for with RL money are Ls.  You're trading one virtual thing for another virtual thing.  Neither is real.  It only becomes real when you sell your Ls for RL currency.   

[Rick Nightingale]

Playing devil's advocate... then why did gachas have to be banned? It's virtual things, traded for other virtual things in a game world and neither are real. Likewise loot boxes on other games.

It's only 'not real'* because so far our governments haven't said otherwise. I truly hope it stays that way despite the drawbacks it brings mostly for consumers.

*Edit: wrong way to say it... I mean it's only not attracting real legal interest, or something like that

Edited February 11, 2023 by Rick Daylight

[Rowan Amore]

6 minutes ago, Rick Daylight said:

Playing devil's advocate... then why did gachas have to be banned? It's virtual things, traded for other virtual things in a game world and neither are real. Likewise loot boxes on other games.

It's only 'not real'* because so far our governments haven't said otherwise. I truly hope it stays that way despite the drawbacks it brings mostly for consumers.

*Edit: wrong way to say it... I mean it's only not attracting real legal interest, or something like that

I'm assuming it was because you didn't know what you were trading for hence the supposed gambling aspect.  

[Rick Nightingale]

But it's not real

It's an example of a real world law being applied in a place where nothing is real, according to you (I'm not really arguing with you on that).

How about another example: I buy a music download with bitcoin. The download is digital, it is no more or less real than the thing I might buy in SL, whether visual, audio, whatever. Someone created it, someone sold it, someone bought it.

The creators has legal rights to their creation... so does that make it real as far as the law is concerned?

Bitcoins are not real. They exist only digitally, just the same as L$. I can buy and sell and trade them, but I cannot hold one in my hand. Do governments consider them real? Too right they do... and they get taxed!

What's the difference, really, between that and SL?

Edited February 11, 2023 by Rick Daylight

[Rowan Amore]

Again, assuming here.  Ls are only used in SL unlike bitcoin.  They have no value outside SL and only have RL value once you sell them.

Edited February 11, 2023 by Rowan Amore

[Rick Nightingale]

I disagree. People keep their L$ on sale at a high value, hoping to get a windfall if the price rises that high. Not much different to RL investing. Until it was banned by SL, L$ were traded elsewhere, and I know they still are although (for LL readers) I certainly don't have anything to do with that or the places that do it. I just know they exist.

Bitcoin has no intrinsic value until you sell it for fiat currency.

I think my point is that the digital age is redefining what we can call 'real'. Governments are slow to catch up with some of it, fortunately or not depending on one's view I guess.

[Rowan Amore]

But you still can use bitcoin at numerous places.  You can't buy things outside SL.with your Ls.  That, IMO, is the major difference.  Selling them has no baring on you using them in trade for a merchants product.  You're not paying them in bitcoin.  You're exchanging  one virtual item.for another.  You can play your music download numerous places.  I can't wear my virtual wardrobe or anything I own in SL outside of SL.

I guess my impression is, you're not actually purchasing in SL the same as you do.in RL.  One pretend thing = one pretend thing all enclosed inside SL.

[Rick Nightingale]

Yeah, I get your point. Try saying that though to some newbie who's just bought their first L$ and been ripped off with an empty box on the MP. We get them here occasionally and they basically get told to get over it because there's nothing they can do. I bet they feel it's pretty real though. And frankly so do I if I get ripped off.

At the end of the day it does amount to real money at some point; paid in and paid out. Just because it's used for intangible* goods in-between those two points doesn't mean that isn't real.

To me, the only difference is that governments are not 'noticing' us, largely I guess for the reasons you say but that doesn't mean there is any fundamental difference between my examples in RL and in SL. It's just a matter of scale. The L$ trading that goes on outside SL is of course nothing like the scale of bitcoin trading and wasn't even when it was LL-legal so there's no impetus for governments to care... not enough for them to bother stealing off us.

Anyway... good debating with you

*Edit: hey, there's a good word, at least I'm sure we can agree on that one

 

Edited February 11, 2023 by Rick Daylight

[Theresa Tennyson]

2 hours ago, Jennifer Boyle said:

There are some issues related to this discussion that I have long wondered about but never seen discussed, so I am going to bring them up.

The permissions system limits abilities, not rights. Laws limit rights, not abilities.

Under US law, the first sale doctrine protects the right of an owner of a legally-acquired copyrighted item to resell the item. Doesn't the no-transfer permission prevent buyers from exercising this right that they have under law?

Under US law, buyers of "software" have the right to make a backup copy. IANAL, and I'm not sure that all digital goods legally count as software, but I am sure that scripts and items containing scripts do. Doesn't the no-copy permission prevent buyers from exercising this right that they have under the law?

Am I missing something?

Every"thing" in Second Life is the "property" of Linden Lab. Creators maintain the copyright to their original work but they grant Linden Lab a wide license to use it within Second Life. When you "buy" something you're basically just paying for the ability to "use" a Second Life asset within Second Life, and the owner - Linden Lab - has set up a variety of ways it can and can not be used which may or may not be dependent on settings other users have given them.