Codex Alpha

Bitsy Buccaneer wrote: The bullet point heading is Anti-Competitive and Abusive Behaviour. The practice is abusing the marketplace system as it stands (using it for advertising whilst encouraging customers to shop in a way which means the seller doesn't pay LL the commission). You might be making somewhat of a valid point of 'anti-competitive' behaviour, but against LL itself, and you would have to also assume that is why the marketer is doing it, and not just having a sale for incentive for people to visit inworld, or simply to have a sale. So this is anti-competitive in the context of against Linden Lab itself? That somehow offering sales inworld to get customers to visit is an intent to cheat LL out of commissions? LMAO. Is Linden Lab your competitor now? If so, how? Sales have always been a part of marketing. Personally I've never used it, in RL or otherwise, I charge a fair price for my services and it is beneficial to both me and the customer to agree on one It's another thing to claim that the marketer is doing it to avoid commissions specifically, which I don't believe would be the intent in many cases. That thought never would cross my mind, as I think the commissions LL charges are quite fair, I personally wouldn't have a need to avoid them, and wouldn't even enter my mind should I have done the same thing by charging less inworld for incentive for people to visit. I guess that's the difference between an ethical mind and a crook mind. The ethical mind may not even consider such angles unless educated by a crook mind. Bitsy Buccaneer wrote: Demanding that a commission be charged in-world as well seems a very strange solution to what is essentially one person's objection to the way the bullet points are titled. It's interesting that you change my statements to make me appear hostile, but i never 'demanded' anything. You also like to imply in many of your responses that I am alone in opinions or the topics I bring up. Can you ever keep your responses to the points being made, instead of pointing the finger at the individual poster? I offer solutions and practical suggestions, rather than criminalizing a whole group of people who's intent may not be malicious or deceptive at all, and are simply doing what they see in RL in SL (and is not anti-competitive in any way to their peers at all).

Sorry, you'd have to assume the marketer is both being malicious and deceptive,and is intentionally trying to cheat LL out of monies. We see shoppers use BOTH inworld and SLMP for purchases, so your claim doesn't hold water. (unless you have stats to prove it) Also, LL losing out on commissions if inworld still does not make this "anti-competitive' behaviour.. and can easily be solved by taking commissions from EVERY transaction inworld or not. Now read the rest of the post, about what inflating prices means.

Please remember, this is not about me, let's make this clear. Whether I follow the TOS or not, is irrelevant to the discussion. I'm discussing the interpretation of the guidelines, and asking how putting something on sale inworld, whether intentionally or unintentionally even applies as 'anti-competitive' in any way, because one would be only competing against themselves. But as usual, the discussion becomes about the individual and not concepts, which is not what forums are supposed to be for. And yes, it is very frequent practice for prices to vary from SLMP stores and their inworld stores, top names doing it regularly, as literal incentive to visit their inworld stores. This would hint that it is not breaking the TOS, or we have mass amounts of top sellers setting a bad example. eg. "Visit my inworld store to get this item 10% off!". Other people think this falls under 'anti-competitive behaviour' guidelines, and I've simply asked "How so?" I haven't read a well-thought reply yet. We need to interpret these lines and apply some logic to it. Would the action or intent be malicious, or for the purpose of deceiving a customer out of their money? If so, then yes its probably against the TOS. If not, it probably is just a harmless sale, a simple (and legal) incentive for people to visit your brick n' mortar store inworld, and is not in any way a criminal or deceptive activity, especially if stated on the blog, the SLMP store or otherwise. Let's study what 'inflating prices' actually means in the real world, shall we? eg. inflating prices in order to make the product appear to be higher quality: This would be like selling a cube for $300L that yo or others would normally sell for $100L, but you sell it for $300L because you claim it is special, and worth the extra cost, though it essentially is the same product. eg. inflating prices in order to bolster a sale price (fake sales). Like a cube you normally sell for 100L, but inflate the price to $150L, then say it's no sale for $100L. This may cause a consumer to purchase the item thinking they're actually getting savings, but are not. There are more examples with a simple Google search on the subject, but it boils down to one point: DECEPTION. Is it the seller's intent to rip you off? It is anti-consumerist, and anti-competitive to represent your product at a higher worth than it actually is, to bolster it's value in order to collect it's real price on an alleged 'sale' price, or to raise prices on products that the average consumer needs just because there is a shortage (The $100 Tylenol bottle example). So no, I don't believe having a sale inworld, or offering sale prices for a limited time, or even as incentive to get people to visit your store inworld is against the TOS, or anti-competitive or anti-consumerist in any way. There is nothing wrong with LL reviewing it's guidelines, changing or clarifying them, so that people understand clearly what is fair practice or not (besides their own conscience) and everything runs smoothly. Forums are a good area to discuss these matters, and affect change, if change is to be had. Or at least, it gives me something to do and discuss while I drink my morning coffee, why so serious? If anyone disagrees with this analysis, tell me why, and give me examples.

Fluffy Sharkfin wrote: The most talented creators, in my opinion, tend to be those that are willing to expand their skillset and learn new technologies and techniques in order to get the best possible results and push the boundaries of their creativity.

If the separate viewers are set to the same cache folder, this may cause issues as well. I use(d) all these viewers in the past between SL and Opensim, with main, alt and offline test accounts, and I ensure that each and everyone one of them have their own cache folder. At least one per viewer to ensure there is no corruption. If you have reset your cache, and as stated by Amethyste to open up the main SL viewer and your inventory appears, then this may be the issue. I've had this happen in the past only when sharing viewers with the same cache path. Now I have SL_CACHE, FS_CACHE, S_CACHE,etc for each viewer.

This happens across the internet, on a variety of marketplaces.. Unless the copyright holder discovers and files a claim, the perpetrator can get away with it indefinitely. Also, if they upload Mickey Mouse avatar, there is no way for you or I to know if they have a valid license for it or not, so we have to assume they do - unless once again a copyright holder says otherwise. Selling copyrighted stuff works, popular art is more in demand than original creations, but what can you do.

Here is what we're talking about, you never specified what software you are using, but here are some tutorial examples of baking multiple textures/materials/images into one. Find tutorials specific to your software.

brunotusker wrote: So far I have created what I like to call low poly models. Textured them up and made them look all sorts of pretty. But so far I am unsure of what is considered a "efficient" to the SL-Viewer. Take my latest project which is this RPG Themed Crystal Necklace Pendant The model is 3 prims with a combined total of 1540 faces and only 772 vertices. Here is a game screen of the objects weights Since this intends to be a rather small object are these numbers going to be considered ok? I've done all I can to make sure it's as minimal as it can be. Also the next question comes to texture sizes. For texting purposes the model is currently using the full size 512x512 textures I made for all 3 meshes in the object. But when i plan to sell it they will be using 256x256 tetures. The most complex texture which is the crystal sits at 80kb of total diskspace for a good idea how much an impact the textures could have. Also another thing I would like an opinion on is the differences of my models. The crystal is obviously textured. But originally I wanted the binding and the mount to be using SL's shiny and color materials only. But after closer examination adding ambient occlusion to the two seemed to have made them more lively and stand out better. Here is a screen of the older model The efficiency of your model will be how much detail you can display from a high-poly model to the low-poly models required by SL and computer games. This can come from learning or reviewing how to bake a high-detailed model, using it's resultant normal, AO and other maps to create textures for your low-poly model. The efficiency in your model, as far as displaying it in Second Life will get down to how you make your LOD models, how each will break down as the viewer moves away from them, while still maintaining the visibility of it and keeping the silhouette of the model as long as possible. You will need to learn or review how to decimate your models into less vertices/faces to accomodate this. You can get an idea about that by doing a trial upload of your original mesh up into the SL viewer, then view how many vertices it expects for the other models from LOD1 to LOD4 (lowest). You should make a mesh model for each of these LODs to optimize your mesh. You may find that your earrings will stay at 3Li (to maintain detail), or even fall lower after you upload the custom LODs in the viewer and assign the physics model as well. As far as textures go, the size should match the size of the mesh for sure. Too many creators are slapping full size 1024px textures on rings and earrings and shoes and such, and lagging everyone else out with the burden. For earrings, pendants or small lanterns, noone's going to see the amazing texture anyway unless their face is right up against it, so most care should be spent holding up the shape of the mesh and basic colors at distance. You can color and shine the binding and mounts in-game after the fact, as long as you have assigned a separate material to it of course (separate from your textured material). If you wanted AO on the bindings and such, you would unwrap those areas of course, bake out the AO map, then you could apply the black and white AO texture and change the color/shine in-game as well. You could use the AO baked texture as a base for your entire mesh, and texture in the parts you would like to, and leave the other area black and white. Then with the 2 separate 'materials' (faces in SL?), you could share the texture, but could change the color and gloss of your bindings inworld. As far as size of textures are concerned, the smaller the better for optimization, but personally I can't seem to use them as anything I upload under 512px (at 256 or 128 for repeating textures) get overcompressed, blurred and unusable. Hope this helps, just trying to glean what your needs are and help out somehow.

Qie Niangao wrote: Okay, for cheap disposable newbie-friendly stuff, it hardly matters. But still: why would a creator choose to make something no-Mod? I know you'd never do that with your products. You respect your customers too much for that. There are a tiny handful of cases, usually involving some sort of role-play, where no-Mod serves an actual function in the product's operation. Otherwise it's creators who think too little of their customers, or just think too little, period. Anti-competitive (in context of defaming a potential competitor to ensure one's own place), elitist (claiming one's group is more enlightened, talented or knowledgable than another), condescending statements bolded in red. 1) Implying those who disagree create inferior products, not very SL-friendly or respectful to newer and aspiring creators 2) Implying those who disagree don't respect their customers 3) Implying those who disagree haven't thought their choices through. 4) General opinion logical fallacy 'appeal to authority', that having more experience means one's opinion is superior over someone else. 5) Projection of traits onto others but comes out of their own mouths (or typing in this forum) Education > Condescension

I'm very confident they can figure it out technically.. now desire is another thing. Time better spent on Second Life 2 would be better, and probably more profitable than Sansar, at least in the next 10 years.

You shouldn't worry about what others may think, just speak for yourself. Anyways, it got your attention, didn't it? Skillz. Now perhaps LL or at least this forum's moderators will deal with it, or clarify the rules, because it's a nifty little loophole that doesn't need to happen. If I get a post removed for using an image of a product, with all details blurred out, or providing even a general 'search' link to demonstrate a point I make, then the same needs to be applied to everyone. Or... When in Rome... do as the Romans do. Thank you for your reply.

1) Sarcasm 2) Fits perfectly in the Merchant forums, as it is something that concerns Merchant practices 3) If you don't do this, don't worry about it.

Qie Niangao wrote: It's an unending source of amazement that anyone ever buys no-Mod cars. Newbies, maybe, but after generations of obsolesence (most dramatically, the great Havok upgrade, many years ago, that made so many physical vehicles uncontrollable, but even just Materials properties turn older no-Mod vehicles into mere historical curiousities), it's completely irresponsible to sell no-Mod vehicles of any kind. The weirdest part about this is that some makers (including at least one named in this thread) offer different vehicles types with permissions specific to the market in which they compete. For example, quality boats are mostly Mod perm, trains practically all Mod perm, and airborne vehicles now in the process of migrating to Mod perm after a long, dark time when they, like cars, were mostly no-Mod. The point is, there's no possible excuse cars should be any different -- it's not as if there's any script complexity to finding those wheels if there's a CHANGED_LINK. I don't get it, and so far the only explanations I've heard amount to creator superstition and ineptitude -- and yet, why specifically cars and not other vehicles from the same makers? You should start a petition to LL to remove all vehicles that you find 'irresponsible', and not up to your permissions requirements. You should also petition LL to make every product made to have default copy/mod permissions, to save creators the trouble of clicking the buttons. Secondly, my first vehicle ideas are based from probably older scripts, and outdated, and may not perform as well as newer scripts - because I have little experience with vehicle scripting, and the documentation is spotty or even non-existent. I have some ideas, but haven't released any yet, due to those limitations. So I stick with hovercrafts and gliding objects for now, until I can find good documentation. If that's all they do, and based on older scripts than so be it. Maybe they can't cross sim lines yet... so what? I"m learning like anyone else, and will set the price based on its performance, and the market and reviews will handle the rest if there is any shortcomings. You are also conflating two issues - Outdated vehicle scripts and permissions issues These are two separate issues. Yes we should encourage updating of vehicles, and can do so by providing clear API documentation to do so. IT is 'irresponsible' to villainize an entire group of creators because they don't meet your personal standards, or have different ways of marketing than you - then posting for others to 'not buy' from them. That is anti-competitive by nature, especially when you're not having a discussion with said creators about it. We also need to accept that there are probably thousands of outdated items still for sale, knowingly or unknowingly, but that's just how it is. A creator can handle this with their own marketing, instead of calling other creators 'irresponsible' or 'inept' or 'suspicious' without addressing each item case by case Don't be another poster on these forums bordering on 'anti-competitive behaviour' by bashing others, while promoting one's own stuff as superior (That is still advertising) Mod permissions are another thing, and are unneeded, by the MASS of Second Lifers out there, who wouldn't have a clue to even 'fix' their own vehicle anyway, so is UNREQUIRED. If you don't want the yellow Lambo, don't buy it. Noone is entitled to permissions, nor is the creator of which to be labeled anything negative just because you disagree with their marketing practices. Just sell your own vehicles Copy/Mod/Transfer yourself if you wish. Once again, a creator is not 'irresponsible' or conducting 'bad or anti-consumer practices' because they sell vehicles or other items no-mod. Stop labeling them as such AND SUPPORT YOUR OPINION Phil Deakins wrote: That post was nothing but sarcasm. I was posted because what he described actually happens a lot here - or at least it appears to happen a lot here - and he was highlighting/criticising it. Thank you for noticing. Sarcasm can be a great tool, if it's actually recognized.

Beethros Karas, of Bee Real Estate. Check current packages, teleport to them, if you like, rent.

Since Theresa and ChinRey mentioned names, and it is apparently okay to advertise stores, products and sims by name, as long as it's not yours, I'd like to recommend; Joey Thornhill, he makes amazing modern sports cars like the Maserati and Lambo. His detailed and superior work is an amazement to look at, you should check out his store, his products and head to his sim as well. My second recommendation, a creator who is definitely not related to me in any way, nor is it an alt account of mine, or alternate store is Freddy Firebird. He is an amazing vehicle creator too. Can't forget Porche Pete (pronounce Porsh-A Pete, by the way) and Kenny Kamaro, both icons in their own right, and definitely not affiliated with me in any way. So good all of them, highly recommended, search for them on the marketplace and buy from them too.

It is only you and a few others that make conversations about the poster, and not about the topic, and as usual, here you are doing it again. With always the condescending manner. This is not about me, I just supplied examples, and how I think through it. And yes, unlike you, I read every word of the blog I cited, and fully understand Penny's position, and so I offered mine. This is how forums work. Notice, I am criticising Penny's opinion, not Penny. You would do well to learn from that example. Sassy Romano wrote: At this point, I propose that everyone counts to 10 and someone rezzes a no copy/no mod campfire and we can all have a group hug and sit around singing while roasting copy/mod marshmallows, while simultaneously hoping that everyone else turns up in the same dress as me such that I can snag the other 500 texture variations in one go! *beams, ducks and runs* We should, because this should go under 'shop talk'. We are all colleagues here, all supposedly in SL to have fun and create, so discussing ideas doesn't need to be a person vs person affair... People can change their views and opinions with new information, but attacking them personally does nothing, especially if the reply does not even address the points made, in agreement or otherwise by the original poster.

Penny Patton wrote: Agreed. If someone wishes to sell no-mod that is their business. That said, if that is how they choose to run their business, I'll be taking my business elsewhere. However, it is my belief that many people choose to release no-mod due to some fundamental misunderstandings with regards to how SL works (see anyone who claims they only release no-mod to protect their content) or due to a belief that it will somehow negatively affect their salesand that's why I think this is a topic worth having a discussion about. Did you even comprehend my post that I typed out (even being more self-deprecating then I needed to be, but wanted to supply honesty for the sake of discussion), then you say it's about a 'fundamental misunderstanding of how SL works". Lady, you're only 1 out of 33000+ SL users - and that is your opinion. According to your blog, you state; "The best policy of course, is to avoid no-copy/no-mod content altogether and to encourage your favourite content creators to abandon bad, anti-consumer business practices which prevent you from getting the full value out of your virtual land". Huh? I build meshes and content so you can get the full value out of your land? Am I not doing that already by making an optimized mesh, optimized LOds, and optimized textures? Do I work for you now? Churning out meshes for pennies on the dollar so that you can use them to make money on your own sims? When did that license happen? I don't remember that anywhere! I thought I was making content for the average SL'ers to enjoy - products I wish were available to me when I started SL. How evil of me to only let the customer own 1 Copy of a specialized, supposed-to-be precious item! How dare I make a product(s) in appearance and function to only be a desktop/mantletop/tabletop ornament, but no! Penny thinks I should make it copy/mod so users can make it 20 stories tall if they want to!! Why not just use the product as intended? As a paperweight? On many products there is little to no point to HAVE mod permissions, it's unneeded, especially if the product is made to work with classic avatars, and already includes scripts for size adjustment, color and texture changes, and sitting or animation positions. How about if you don't like the existing sit animations (even though I see the same ones over and over), then don't buy the product? Don't call other marketers 'bad' or 'anti-consumerist" because you don't agree with how they like to license their products. And yes, it is a license to use a product. The price of a product is determinate on the end use of it. If I design a logo for a local band, knowing they are broke, I may only charge them $50 to help them out. However if it is a huge worldwide band, with plans and ability to sell millions around the globe I'm going to charge a much higher market rate. If logo is only on 100 t-shirts at a one-weekend event, the charge for the license is going to be much lower than licensing/selling a logo to a worldwide company who plans to sell 1000's of shirts monthly world wide. This is the condescension that is spoken of, the elitist mentality in SL that I rail most against. Top names and big sellers basically trashing others because they don't agree with their practices. Thats almost 'anti-competitive' by default. If you said that on these forums, noone would see the post because it would be removed. Stick it on a blog, out of LL's reach, and you're allowed to call creators 'bad' and 'anti-consumerist' The fact is, you have it in your opinion that nocopy/nomod content is undesirable - but that opinion only applies to YOU. If there is a concern of losing the item, that is EASILY solved by contacting the creator, or have LL put a REDELIVER button on the product page that could deal with that. No mod has reasons, both prideful,practically, creatively, commercially, and cleverly.. Both no copy and no mod can be used or not used to increase the percieved value and preciousness of a product. Therefore in itself is a marketing strategy, and A VALID ONE. I plan to make more 'collectible' products, in limited edition, similar to gacha.. some are going to have unique traits (once I can ramp up my production again once RL issues get out of the way). I have wonderful awesome plans, and many of them are going to include no copy, no mod content. And those plans don't include, nor need to, the ability to make the product 20 stories tall, or replaced with a crappy texture, and 'renaming' the item. It won't be because I am practicing 'bad' , 'anti-consumerist' actions in SL. I just don't serve the tastes that you prefer. I appreciate your opinion, and take it into consideration, as I always do, I just think you're missing a lot of potential in this, and denying valid reasons. Maybe I don't want your item rezzed on your land the way you like to use it. So what. Work around it. You're not entitled to nocopy/nomod just because you say so. I still have the no mod/ no copy amazing octopus table by the way, it's great (though loooking dated cuz its years later). I treat it carefully, and never had a problem. If I could it rez it any where I liked, with multiple copies, then retexture, and rename it how I see fit - IT WOULD NOT BE THE SAME PRODUCT. AT ALL. Note: I have products of varying permissions - I just don't want someone to be preaching that I am using 'bad practices' or 'anti consumerist' practices, so just like she may be 'educating' consumers about this, I'll 'educate' them of the other side of matters.

It's actually very easy, and skirts around the forum policies about advertising your product or store... 1) Create an alternate (known as a 'sock' as in puppet) account. 2) Create a post in the fashion forum or otherwise claiming you need help 'finding' an item you saw somewhere, used somewhere 3) Log into your main account (perhaps even another alt/sock account) and be very helpful by posting direct links to product listings on the Marketplace, or name-dropping others you would like to advertise (maybe even if it is your own) 4) Don't forget to do this daily. 5) Sarcasm. Understand what it is, and what makes this post so on-point, and great PS. Also, I found this wonderful jacket worn by this guy (include picture) that I saw at some club in SL, could anyone tell me what jacket it is, or who designed it, or what store I can go to and buy it? Thanks a bunch! :-D

Yikes, make sure you are logged into secondlife.com, and not another site that may have phished you. On a brand new install of Opera, secondlife.com and the marketplace are working fine with no errors, on my end. (installed it today to test for you). Have a nice day. arabellajones wrote: On what I have seen over the years, LL feels uncreative and stagnant. Maybe it's a sustained communications failure, but it keeps happening. Sure, some people will be working on Project Sansar, but it's feeling a bit late for people to still not be talking about it. If the Lindens can't cope with testing different web browsers, is Project Sansar going to be worth bothering with? They're not really doing anything to excite me. I'm concerned about Sansar's success. The trend is that VR will flop once again, for the usual reasons. Plenty of articles about it showing perhaps a spike in sales this Christmas, and then abandonment because of the typical issues that Killed VR, more of a gimmick like 3D tvs. Meanwhile, what works (SEcond Life) may be being left to the wayside, which would be a huge mistake. Plenty of things to do to improve SL and get users in long before Sansar will replace it. Good VR or as a poster stated "When they have holodecks like Star Trek, then maybe I might care" is still years away.

Sassy Romano wrote: VaIentine wrote: If a content creator works for days to fine tune a dress texture for a pice of mesh, and the sell it mod, the customer could then tint the dress to be matte black with no detail at all, or change it to a horrible color shade that would ruin the creators texture work. Or look at it the other way, the texturising person wasted time making textures that weren't met by the customer need. What a waste of time! This is my concern, or any other design decisions being made, like adding sit positions, animations, scripting or otherwise. I understand why a customer would love that freedom, but on my end, why bother doing all sorts of stuff, and doesn't this defeat the purpose in the end? If a creator isn't thinking "I'm making cool things" and instead shifts to "make things for ultimate user end use.." when did this change? When I started SL, it certainly wasn't the concern of creators back then. They made what they made, I modded what I wanted to mod - I didnt try to fix their out of scale furniture for example, I just didn't buy it. So now I'm faced with a challenge when considering releasing some new stuff. I had 5 designs in mind (texture-wise) for a product, and though none of them may appeal to the end user (how will I know what styles they want), I have to decide "do i bother making the custom/handpainted textures, or just unwrap the model, slap basic textures as a starting point and present it as-is?" Why spend time doing the cool flaming effect on a product, if it's just going to be replaced by some random texture? What happened to 'if it's not on the menu, it's not for dinner' and suddenly SL is an opensource project? Seems counter-intuitive to a creative person to do that, I guess it all depends what your end goals is, and what market you want to pander to. Bitsy Buccaneer wrote; Modding prim & sculpt builds, retexturing them, playing with prims and sculpts, and then texturing purchased full perm mesh were all vital steps on my road to creating original mesh. They got me thinking about creating. The person who wants to mod your no-mod table might be on a similar path. Is your artistic vision so precious you won't allow them that? No, it's not that precious, it just seems counter-intuitive. I guess we could all start releasing mesh only with no texturing, and start selling 'silhouettes' of things instead. Why put so much work on something that will likely change.. assuming most users of SL are mod hounds... It's just a shift in my thinking about end use in SL may be needed apparently. Or not

I agree with the practical aspects of modification and copy. I just think it very strange that someone would want to go to great lengths to change, hobble or rebuild a product they purchased because thats why they got it in the first place. It all depends on the goal of the creator I guess, and what the buyer feels entitled to. This is a virtual space, so the same logic applied to what is pretty much unlimited copies available of an item isn't the same. I'll have to self-assess a bit more to see what I really feel about this, and perhaps adjust my goals and expectations as far as sharing future creative pieces, and stick to more generic fare that people can customize themselves until the cows come home, and save the unique designs for other sites. Thanks for your reply though, some points I'll have to think about.

My response is in the context of non-clothing, non-avatar meshes, but I can offer reasons for no-mod, and be quite upfront about it. 1) Pride. I don't want my product torn apart and used as lego pieces. That was not the intent of creating the item, and I hoped people purchased the item because they liked it as is, and not as spare parts. 2) Design. It was designed as such, so why need mod? A nice octopus table I bought had no copy/ no mod on it, and I was fine with it.. How would I make it any prettier than it already was? Though copy would be nice for safety issues, I've owned several no-mod items and was fine with it. But that's why I bought them. cuz I liked how they looked, no need to change. 3) Integrity. Some products rely on scripting to operate properly, and really there is no reason to mod it. If its for resizing, a resize script can be added. Also, modding breaks animations and sit positions that are added that may not be adjustable after the fact. 4) My intent isnt to sell builders parts. Kind of the same as the above 3, but there is a lot of work that goes into mesh design, UVing, texturing, custom bakes perhaps, LOD creations which all seem moot if we put it up to be changed. As someone else stated, why go through all the work of concepting, meshing and texturing if the end use is to be changed (and defiled! ) anyway. 5) Percieved Value I don't like this trend for customers demanding no copy/ no mod. IN some ways, it cheapens the product that it can be replicated 100's of times across 100s of sims - like buying that beautiful Maserati in world, then cheapening it because you can replicate it 100 times at all your friends houses - rather than be parked in its single state at your inworld home. That octopus table, architects chair/table, club chair, etc that I bought in the past with no copy/no mod were special items to me and I looked after them likewise. Noone got to sit in that chair, that was MINE! It wouldnt be the same if I could just rez 10 of them for all to sit in. 6) Common sense Why does anyone expect to go buy a Maserati, then go home and copy mod it anyway? Does copy permissions exist in RL? Of course, the caveat is that these could be psychological weaknesses in myself, but I hoped to clarify why some creators may not like to do this - valid reasons or not. In the end, if I'm not happy and take pride in my products, and feel they are appreciated, I won't make anymore. So let's not get too demandy of them (demandy isnt a word, but who cares, it works )

In our false-scarcity, money-based, living-expenses system, I need copyright to protect my IP and income against others who would take it away from me, along with possible income that I need to survive. I've had IP stolen from me in the past from sounds, images and files, and though I may have the pride that they had to steal, and I still have a vast fountain to create new works regardless, it is little to no consolation to me when I live in a world where I rely on my IP, or work ethic in order to feed myself. In a world where I had a dedicated income, and no living expenses, perhaps I could and would be a little more lax with what I share with the world, as status would now be associated with craftsmanship and originality, and one's fame or success would be from the admiration of others who recognize it. It wouldn't matter if my living expenses were met, then I could dedicate my life full-time to making this world better for all involved. I'm very much an advocate for 'facilitating' others and removing barriers they may have from entry into things, be it education, software and livelihoods. Opensource applications, free education, even 'warez' is a public service imo, empowering those who may not have opportunity as others do. A system based on aptitude and attitude, rather than financial ability. However as long as greed and money run our system, the same system we hate we must contend with by protecting and sometimes hoarding our ideas, creative pursuits and IP - BECAUSE IF WE DON'T WE ARE HOMELESS.

My argument is not actually with you, and never is. I'm arguing about the meaning and application and understanding of this line in the guidelines, and I why I believe it doesn't cover what the OP states. We can agree and disagree, but this is not personal.

Nutria2016 wrote: What if you have legit criticism, and the vendor chooses to respond with "message me before you review" to a 4/5 stars review? Hold your ground, leave the review up, and if the seller attempts to harass, belittle, threaten or abuse you in IMs, just block them. I did say the same thing to a customer once "You should contact me before you review", but only because the beefs were about features that were not included in the product, and not about the product, it's usage or functionality. Only you know if your review is fair and ethical. If it is, don't be intimidated. Noone should expect a 5 star, since there is probably always something that could be improved. This is probably why the majority of customers don't leave reviews, as it opens up the possibility of conflict or drama, which most of us could live without. Personally, I always try to do my best, but since I'm a perfectionist, I have to force myself to release something, so I will probably be more aware of shortcomings (real or imagined), so no review is going to surprise me.