Anaiya Arnold

Czari Zenovka wrote: As someone who has an older computer (and if I could have upgraded mine I would have LONG ago - technology marching on and all) and literally cannot run any of the viewers that work with DD, this effectively puts me out of business in 2 months if LL's deadline stays fixed. I have a small shop and not that many items, but I had a steady stream of purchases on pretty much a daily basis from them. 99% of my sales came from the MP. I can't believe I am the only merchant in SL who is in a similar situation. No, you're not alone. I always said I would keep a premium account so long as the cost per value remained static, but this really rips the value of out of the SL experience for me.

Darrius Gothly wrote: The latest version of Phoenix doesn't support the Merchant Outbox .. not even the one they just released the other day. However the new Firestorm does AND they've got a skin for Firestorm that is a dead-ringer for V1.x version viewers that you just HAVE to see. Jessica Lyon gives a great "treetops overview" of the new skins in her YouTube Video introduction of the new Firestorm. (And yes to both .. it's pronounced Fooey .. and Oui, I understand "je ne comprendez pas") Well that's wonderful because the newer Firestorms and V3 are worse than useless and unusable on my computer.

Niall Braveheart wrote: Was surprised to see an end date for the use of magic boxes set right at the release of DD, I would have expected LL to wait until DD was stable and any initial bugs/issues resolved. . I was surprised to be greeted by a picture of an apparent cross between a deranged Carebear and Pedo Bear, roasting a marshmellow over the burning corpses of our magic boxes when I went to the marketplace. I wish the Commerce Team would get off our lawns or at least stop burning our boxes and roasting marshmellows over their still recognizable corpses. At least we know why DD took so long. We thought a bunch of technical problems were delaying things but now we know the centrality of Magic-box Burning Bear to this whole project we can see that some of the hold up was in designing Magic-box Burning Bear's aesthetic qualities, and composing a compelling back story for him, but that most of the hold up was waiting for the legal team to research the probability of either any copyright/trademark holders of the Carebears or Pedo-bear launching an expensive copyright infringement case, or worse a Trademark infringement and brand dillution case, in response to this indignity.

Toysoldier Thor wrote: Anaiya, I am not going to debate your logic or that of Rivens or Gavins. If you feel so confident in your beliefs enough that you cannot and/or do not even want to take the time to confirm your belief with the intent of the Creator.... that is completely your call. If some day a creator - rightly or wrongly - takes you to court for creating content with his / her input content in a way not intended because of LL TOS that your registered LL account agreed to or interpretation of the Creator's License to Use then that is great. I guess you like going to court just for the fun of it and like risking your resold goods on your "beliefs" as opposed to the facts as well as the Creator's intent. There is nothing to discuss with you or riven or gavin. Do what you want. My position still stands to those that want to avoid conflict and future potential court actions and costs.... DONT ASSUME YOU KNOW THE LAW or KNOW HOW A COURT WILL DECIDE. Do what the OP did.... confirm your standing with the Creator before spending time, $, effort on making a creation that you plan to resell. Smart Merchants would do that. Stop with the manipulative, low cheapshot BS about checking with creators directed at me Toy. Can you discuss things like an adult or not? In plain English, again for your benefit, since it seems you need people to take a sledghammer to a point before you can get, I have no intention whatsoever of transferring any full perm content between my accounts. Is that plain and clear enough for you to understand Toy? I honestly cannot believe the lowly cheap shots you will sink to just to avoid admitting you are wrong. The people whose interests are at risk here are full perm creators who want to limit licenses to one avatar per licensce bought and who might follow your foolish and utterly wrong advice. You are wrong. Get over it.

Rival Destiny wrote: Toysoldier Thor wrote: Anaiya Arnold wrote: Personally I've never needed to use a full perm item with another account, but I would not be judging someone who does so in instances where there is no indication they should not. If sellers want full perm content restricted to a single avatar, then they need to explicate this rather than expect everyone else to guess as much. It does no one any favours to pretend otherwise and in fact risks misinforming a full perm seller who might decide to rely on such an assumption based on reading such inaccurate advice. Anyone who wants to restrict use to one avatar should explicate this clearly in their license and preferably before the sale unless they are willng to refund the purchase. It's not something that it is reasonable to expect others to guess when the expectation of non-sharing between avatars relies on a wholly inaccurate assumption to begin with. There cannot be sales between avatars anymore than there can be sales between chairs, or bootstraps. It's very important that full perm sellers understand that they need to stipulate rather than assume non-sharing between a single persons' avatars if they wish such a restriction to limit sharing between a single person's avatars. Otherwise, even with the best will in the world, some people are going to fail to guess the intended restriction and will end up sharing between their alts contrary to the content creator's wishes, without ever realizing the content creator did not want them to do that. Anaiya, As has been posted earlier... the full perm sellers had and still have a reasonable cause understanding that BY DEFAULT unless otherwise stipulated, the buyer of content should not assume the buy is between HUIMANS - its between REGISTERED LL ACCOUNTS that all humans have agreed to the LL TOS before each of their registered LL accounts were allowed to log into SL with. You and your Alts each operated independently by you. Of course you have the full rights as the human that registered each of these LL accounts, but you also agreed to the limitations that each of your accounts with LL has. You as a buyer of the full perm content should assume that you CANNOT transfer content to your other alts based on LL agreed terms and because how can any full perm seller reasonably control use of their IP usage when he / she has absolutely no way to confirm or even validate who all your alts are? HECK even LL doesnt know that all your Alts belong to you. So, how do you or Gavin or any others think it would hold up in court when the Seller takes you to court for this poor assumption of the LL TOS and the Seller's Usage agreement? And, last point on your content... its is really in the best interests of the BUYER of full perm content to buy this content from the seller with a 100% full agreement of the terms that the Buyer needs from the content. WHY? Because lets say you are a buyer of a pack of full perm textures from a Seller of these textures. The deal happens and you then spend 2 months making this amazing new creation and put this new creation onto MP and make 1000's of sales from this build. Then 1 year later the Seller notices that you seem to have violated one of his conditions of use of his full perm textures. He demands you STOP selling your products based on it and also he is furious and wants compensation from you - a portion of all your sales you made from this amazing build. He takes you to court over it. IF he loses, other than court fees all he loses is no access to the revenue he wanted from you and nothing else. IF he wins, courts shock you and side with the Seller (Gavin and Riven and Nef were wrong after all - ohh darn - why did I listen to them and that thread).... other than court fees you also lose your main product that was a hot seller, you also *owe the Seller actual $ penalties by paying his back a portion of the renenues that he demand. So.... let me ask you again.... who do you think is the party between the full perm seller and buyer that should be most interested in making sure the terms of use of the full perm content. Let me answer for you..... THE BUYER !! Anaiya - None of this is fact but a mere interpretation so when in doubt, simply ask the creator if you ever have an issue and/or something is not stated in a license. Often if it isn't stated, it is because the creator has no problem with your intended use. User licenses tend to weight out the do not's more so than the can do's. The OP of this thread has already contacted one creator who did NOT stipulate alt useage and was told that they have no issues with his alt using the textures. And as I said in one of my earlier comments, there exists at least one texture maker that has it listed in their license that alts are allowed to use the textures. hth No it's a fact that avatars cannot contract, and it's a fact that contracts do not contain clauses they do not contain. I have no doubt about those two facts. Nor do I need to contact any creators about how I am using content since regardless what any particular creator intends so far as alt sharing is concerned, I'm not in any danger whatsoever of frustrating their intent. That much is clear in my first post. My concern is that on the basis of baseless assumption, some posters are giving an impression that full perm creators have some protection in an imagined "default" limitation. It's important for full perm content sellers to understand the reality so they are best prepared to control their content as they intend. I have no doubt that there are people who will never guess such a limitation is intended if it's not in the license, but would abide by the restriction if it is there in the license. That's more than enough reason to ensure full perm creators who intend this limitation are appraised of the need to explicitly include it in their licenses.

Toysoldier Thor wrote: Anaiya Arnold wrote: Personally I've never needed to use a full perm item with another account, but I would not be judging someone who does so in instances where there is no indication they should not. If sellers want full perm content restricted to a single avatar, then they need to explicate this rather than expect everyone else to guess as much. It does no one any favours to pretend otherwise and in fact risks misinforming a full perm seller who might decide to rely on such an assumption based on reading such inaccurate advice. Anyone who wants to restrict use to one avatar should explicate this clearly in their license and preferably before the sale unless they are willng to refund the purchase. It's not something that it is reasonable to expect others to guess when the expectation of non-sharing between avatars relies on a wholly inaccurate assumption to begin with. There cannot be sales between avatars anymore than there can be sales between chairs, or bootstraps. It's very important that full perm sellers understand that they need to stipulate rather than assume non-sharing between a single persons' avatars if they wish such a restriction to limit sharing between a single person's avatars. Otherwise, even with the best will in the world, some people are going to fail to guess the intended restriction and will end up sharing between their alts contrary to the content creator's wishes, without ever realizing the content creator did not want them to do that. Anaiya, As has been posted earlier... the full perm sellers had and still have a reasonable cause understanding that BY DEFAULT unless otherwise stipulated, the buyer of content should not assume the buy is between HUIMANS - its between REGISTERED LL ACCOUNTS that all humans have agreed to the LL TOS before each of their registered LL accounts were allowed to log into SL with. You and your Alts each operated independently by you. Of course you have the full rights as the human that registered each of these LL accounts, but you also agreed to the limitations that each of your accounts with LL has. You as a buyer of the full perm content should assume that you CANNOT transfer content to your other alts based on LL agreed terms and because how can any full perm seller reasonably control use of their IP usage when he / she has absolutely no way to confirm or even validate who all your alts are? HECK even LL doesnt know that all your Alts belong to you. So, how do you or Gavin or any others think it would hold up in court when the Seller takes you to court for this poor assumption of the LL TOS and the Seller's Usage agreement? And, last point on your content... its is really in the best interests of the BUYER of full perm content to buy this content from the seller with a 100% full agreement of the terms that the Buyer needs from the content. WHY? Because lets say you are a buyer of a pack of full perm textures from a Seller of these textures. The deal happens and you then spend 2 months making this amazing new creation and put this new creation onto MP and make 1000's of sales from this build. Then 1 year later the Seller notices that you seem to have violated one of his conditions of use of his full perm textures. He demands you STOP selling your products based on it and also he is furious and wants compensation from you - a portion of all your sales you made from this amazing build. He takes you to court over it. IF he loses, other than court fees all he loses is no access to the revenue he wanted from you and nothing else. IF he wins, courts shock you and side with the Seller (Gavin and Riven and Nef were wrong after all - ohh darn - why did I listen to them and that thread).... other than court fees you also lose your main product that was a hot seller, you also *owe the Seller actual $ penalties by paying his back a portion of the renenues that he demand. So.... let me ask you again.... who do you think is the party between the full perm seller and buyer that should be most interested in making sure the terms of use of the full perm content. Let me answer for you..... THE BUYER !! Toy they might be reasonable to make that error, but it is an error, and it's just as reasonable to not make that error. Full perm creators who want to limit full perm licenses to one account are not helped by being told their errors are reasonable nearly so much as they are helped by being informed of the need to explicate the limitations they intend, very specifically in their license. The fact is Toy you are legally wrong. I can absolutely assure you that without the stipuation of a limitation the license held by a human being is applicable to other SL accounts just as if I buy software that fails to stipulate I may only install it on one computer at a time, legally I may install it on as many of my computers as I please. However reasonable the error involved you describe, it is an error. The limitations we agree to, to access SL, do not restrict use of full perm items to one account. None of the obligations contracted into by agreeing to the TOS oblige end users to mind read, or to make guesses about what end user limitations were intended but not mentioned in any end user license. That would be an absurd requirement and you will not find it anywhere in the Secondlife TOS. The agreed terms do not entail any obligation to ensure anyone knows who a user's alts are before they use content in ways that do not contravene eiyher the specified end user license, or LL's permissions systems. Your odd court vigenette is no help to full perm sellers who need to know the realities of the situation and how they can best exercise control over their content and IP, rather than hear fairy tales that never will fly. I have every confidence that if someone tested a case the court would rule firstly that the parties to the contract are the legal persons operating the avatars, and secondly that in the absence of any explicit limitation to use content with a single avatar forming part of the contract, that no such limitation is a term of the contract. I have no idea why this would be less than obvious actually. The courts do not go about granting disposal of property, possession of property, and the right to contract to things that lack legal personhood Toy. They just don't. The courts are additionally very loathe to interpret contracts as entailing anything not specified as a term of the contract. In reality your fairy tale is fantastically far fetched, and it's not as though someone in the thread has not confirmed that they have sought legal advice on exactly this issue and had a lawyer confirm as much. Why on earth do you not want full perm creators who want to limit their content to be as best protected as possible? The reality and how to best protect their creations is what they need, not far-fetched fairy tales.

It's because you have an expectation that the marketplace will function within acceptable parameters. If you would only drop this expectation in favour of expecting complete borkage in every direction, your expectations would not be frustrated, although your market experience would be just as slow.

Personally I've never needed to use a full perm item with another account, but I would not be judging someone who does so in instances where there is no indication they should not. If sellers want full perm content restricted to a single avatar, then they need to explicate this rather than expect everyone else to guess as much. It does no one any favours to pretend otherwise and in fact risks misinforming a full perm seller who might decide to rely on such an assumption based on reading such inaccurate advice. Anyone who wants to restrict use to one avatar should explicate this clearly in their license and preferably before the sale unless they are willng to refund the purchase. It's not something that it is reasonable to expect others to guess when the expectation of non-sharing between avatars relies on a wholly inaccurate assumption to begin with. There cannot be sales between avatars anymore than there can be sales between chairs, or bootstraps. It's very important that full perm sellers understand that they need to stipulate rather than assume non-sharing between a single persons' avatars if they wish such a restriction to limit sharing between a single person's avatars. Otherwise, even with the best will in the world, some people are going to fail to guess the intended restriction and will end up sharing between their alts contrary to the content creator's wishes, without ever realizing the content creator did not want them to do that.

DYNASTY Clip wrote: it would deture them they are trying to humiliate you do you think they want the persion who they are trying to get to get the better of them? let me guess you are one of those people who hate horror movies and you also do'nt fight back physicaly in sl when some one attacks you lol They are trying to get a reaction and attention. Drowning someone is a reaction and you cannot drown an avatar without giving it enough attention to drown it. I have no idea why you expect to get the better of them were these features available. Are you going to drown every avatar you meet on the offchance that it's a griefer? How will you know who to drown until they've gotten you first? This would definately add to the "sport" for griefers as someone else has pointed out, and you should not be engaging griefers if you want to deter them, or if you'd prefer to not be banned (as multiple other posters are pointing out). You deter griefers by ignoring them. Drown them in boredom.

Actually it does give you permission: As long as you comply with the terms and conditions below, both Linden Lab and the Residents of Second Life (collectively, “we”) grant you the following copyright licenses: A License To Capture. You may take snapshots and capture machinima of the 3D content we created that is displayed in-world, and A License To Use. You may use the resulting snapshot or machinima within or outside of Second Life in any current or future media. “Use” means “use, reproduce, distribute, modify, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform.” For other definitions, see Definitions. Both the License To Capture and the License To Use (collectively, the “Licenses”) are non-exclusive and royalty-free. In addition, the License To Use is worldwide, sublicenseable, and transferable. The word "we" refers not to LL exclusively, but collectively to all residents.

Verena Vuckovic wrote: "I should not be beholden to you or to explaining myself to you if I want to indulge in TOS abiding skulduggery. It's none of your business whatsoever." It most certainly is my business if I bump into.....as I have done a number of times......a 'friend' who is showing as offline. And nobody can answer the one simple question.....why would anyone who isn't on friends list and who has never heard of you....want to know if you are online anyway ?? "As it happens, I often wish for minimal non-necessary interuptions while I am busy, while still being able to immediately respond in the instance a customer wishes to contact me. " Lol ! You've just totally contradicted yourself there.....and shown the utter absurdity of your argument. A person who has never heard of you is not going to give a monkey's if you are online or not.....even if it is displayed. So the only people who are going to want to communicate will BE those customers..............the one's you so desperately want to be able to communicate with but from whom you hide that you are even online !! "That's my business and if you see the fact that sometimes, I need to work without being tempted to socialize by open solicitation from friends to do so, while still wanting to be available to immediately provide non-social customer service as skuldugery, that still does not make it any business of your's." Lol ! Let's say I am a customer of yours. I have a complaint. I don't want to be fobbed off......I want answers right now. I look up your avatar in search.....and it says you are offline. So I take that at face value and don't communicate. You seriously call that being available for your customers ??? What a farce. It's not my problem if you cannot pick friends that you can get along with without e-drama being involved. You don't need a good reason from anyone for anything. No one owes you any kind of reason. You're not the owner of SL and if people who you think of as "friends" don't want you to know their current online status, they don't owe you a thing, including information about whether they are online. If that's a problem for, employ discretion in choosing your friends. E-drama is not an inherent right Verena. Your analysis of my argument makes no sense at all. Customers will tend to not check my online status before IMing me. They send an IM and thus find out if I am online. People on my friends list can see my status from their viewer unless I supress their ability to do so and tend to not IM unless it looks like I am online. If I supress my online status from my friends in my viewer( which I tend to not bother with because I never think of it, but which I appreciate having the option of doing very ocassionally when working on something that is being difficult and I really need to not be overly distracted from), then customers will simply IM me as they tend to and thus find out that I am online, but people on my friends list tend to not IM me unless their friends list shows that I am online. What people who have never heard of me has to do with that, I cannot begin to guess. I hope most of SL's user base, and my customers are not e-drama mongers and hence would IM me at their first convenience if they need customer support, rather than assume they will get fobbed off despite having no reason to believe I am a fobber-offer. The last customer who IMed me, did so when I was offline and got a response in under 10 minutes. I would hope most SL users have enough sense to understand that if they wait for me to coincidently be online at the same time as them, they may have to wait a really long time, and in fact, it might just not happen.

Rolig Loon wrote: @Anaiya -- I can appreciate your perspective. I find the "busy" option awkward and annoying so I rarely use it myself, but I do value my quiet work time and will protect it against unwanted intrusion. Aside from occasionally being annoyed, though, I see little need to disable a very useful function -- one that I rely on fairly heavily. I hate this forum software....... Just to clarify, I am completely against disabling this function in lsl. It's been active much too long and a lot of content relies on it. LL implemented it, people relied on it being available to sell products they cannot trivially fix, replace or refund, and people spent on the basis that this was a supported feature that would not suddenly go poof. I'd feel that way if there were work arounds, but for some legitimate uses there just are not adequate work arounds. I would rather the water were not muddied by someone giving text book examples of good reasons to not keep it, in support of keeping it. I absolutely agree this function needs to stay. We need the function for a lot of good reasons, but facilitating e-drama is not one of those good reasons and frankly as a supporter of this function, I don't want anyone to think that "keeping tabs on e-partners for the purpose of e-drama facilitation" is even on the table as a good reason for keeping this important feature functioning.

I'd tend to agree that cannot help yourself. Of course all your nonsense about whether or not I stop is bullying. You are attempting to insult me as being unable to drop a matter, in the hopes that I'll find that accusation humiliating or hurtful and drop it. Insulting people with an intent to humilate or hurt them so as to influence their behaviour is of course bullying and obviously so. You still cannot make the simple distinction between being told what your argument assumes by necessary implication, and being told what you are thinking, and that is unfortunate for you but not my problem. This side discussion started when you told me what my use of the word creator meant. That's a fact and no amount of attempted history revisionism on your part can change that fact. I've told you a "myriad" of times that your argument assumed a creator by necessary implication because you used the word created. What you personally assume is utterly irrelevant. Your argument consists of the words you typed, and logic does not rely on your personal assumptions. Whatever you personally assume, if X was created, then a necessary implication is that X has a creator. That's true no matter what you assume. Neither logic nor the conventions of the English language are reliant on your assumption. As to your first post, I've read it and none of your spin washes. The post is plainly asserting that an intelligent creator designed the universe, and this is the case when read in the context of everything Porky posted before it. In fact your spin is just ridiculous on this count. The fact that Porky suggested something first, does not make your assertion not your's or not an assertion. The fact that your post responded to Porky, does not make your assertions within it, not your's or not assertions. You asserted what you asserted, and I'm happy to requote the entire post in full for you. You are still hung up on what I think you think, but in fact I don't care what you think Phil. I've said little about what you think, and suspect that you are stuck on this hump possibly because you do not understand the subtle but distinct difference between being told what you think or assume and being told what the necessarily implications of your assertions are. As unfortunate as that incapacity must be for you, and although I'd help you there if I knew how to, it's not actually my problem. I could ask why you assume I assume you assume a creator, but I probably have more insight into that than you do. As to the last time, how is this last time any different from the previous last time Phil? It's certainly amusing to read how you are not going to respond any more, which lasts until the next time you respond, and then to read your lamentations over not being taken at your word. It's like you're on a mission to entertain me. At least you've summarized yourself with some accuracy in the last paragraph there, so that's got to be progress for you on some level.

Dirtnap Mumfuzz wrote: This post seems to have degraded (as many interweb discussions do) to a contextual argument based on misinformed perception of comprehension, for the sake of keeping the spotlight focused on a few egos at the expense of many. Owning a product and owning its license are two different things. Without license, you 'own' a copy but not its license; in other words, you are paying to borrow the item. License can be revoked, read the fine print. Crossing the line between virtual and physical theft to suit your argument makes as much sense as saying that because the banks only borrowed the money, those taxpayers deserve to foot the bill for the bailout and homeowners deserve to lose their homes, and is a primary contributor to why you are confusing yourself. Bait and switch tactics are quite malicious, and ownership is usually identified or interpreted externally as a display of unexplainable defensive behavior. And we all do it, it is a factual matter of human sociology. It is not a question of physical ownership, it is a matter of wrongful acquisition and infringement of copy RIGHTS, aka LICENSE. The content creator at ALL TIMES unless they specific otherwise MAINTAINS THEIR LICENSE. You are talking about an intangible or non-physical product, and the rights to protect that license extend to anyone willing to protect them. Licenses can be acquired or sold, which removes or transfers IP RIGHTS for LICENSE not 'product ownership'. Ask Paul Mcartney about how he felt about Michael Jackson outbidding him for the IP rights to his own music, which he waited his whole life to get back. Do ya think Paul decided to just go ahead and use the music he created anyways, even though the license belonged to someone else? Get it? This is the same concept that the insurance industry uses to bully government powers into cooperation with their system. If I take your car without your permission, and return it, I still have STOLEN it. If I take your credit card and return it, I have STOLEN it. If I take your idea and profit from it, I have STOLEN it. If I share your corporate secrets and company policies with your competitor, I have assisted in stealing it. If I take your idea to another country and make knock-offs, I have STOLEN IT; even if the laws in each country conflict. If I buy a copy of your CD ( note that when you buy music, you are borrowing the CONTENT, not buying the LICENSE) and make copies and give them to my friends, i have STOLEN it. If I take ideas from companies and share them with other companies, even though the first company still has their idea I have still commited a crime called THEFT. Read the news sometime this stuff is all over the place. This is really simple stuff. Which is probably why most people don't get it. The only time it is not theft is when the creator cannot or does not wish to maintain their license, and we have a category just for them; we call it Public Domain. There also exists a means for helping define and solidify shared works, rights, licenses and other concepts, known generally as Creative Commons. At this point, from reviewing the web log, I believe you are just bickering about grammatical semantics for the sake of arguing, because attention is fun! But playing referee as to the meaning of 'theft' and its mechanical application is the one thing that serves no purpose whatsoever, seeing as the real decision will not be based on armchair blogattorneys making grand assumptions, anymore than all LL problems will be resolved by that one or twenty guys who want to start shouting in forums about how to reverse or fix their latest patch or update with a revert. Attempting to affect public opinion by smearing the terms under accusation of a scare tactic is a scare tactic in itself. And this is what we call bait and switch. The license to the design belongs to the designer unless otherwise licensed, and the weight of responsibility falls upon the content creator to pursue protection of their LICENSE. NO amount of bored people on Second Life forums arguing about how many shades of white "white" really is, will ever change that. Using insider information to profit from stock markets is theft. Stealing company secrets, granting homeloans to people you know cannot repay them, IP theft, identity theft, content theft, copy botting, embezzlement, copyright AND trademark infringement, plaigarism, piracy are all theft. Theft is theft, whether physical or virtual, just like water is wet, whether or not it is potable. However license is only as enforceable as your ability to enforce it. So good luck with that. But that of course is only my opinion, which you are welcome (and likely) to completely misinterpret or disregard as usual. Spin and spin as you like IP violation is not theft, just like assault, murder, rape, arson, tresspass, drink driving, and a whole slew of other really, really wrong stuff are not theft, and smearing these things as theft when they are wrongful and obviously so if described accurately, would simply be ill conceived, and in some instances would minimize the wrongfulness. Theft is actually a relatively petty act in many cases, and most instances of theft are probably trivial in comparison to many instances of IP violation. It's kind of apples and oranges to compare a 1.99 candy bar being stolen from a supermarket, to the ongoing violation and devaluing of someone else's property rights, and the persistent undermining of their ability to earn from their IP rights, perhaps going on for years on end, in respect of just a single subject of IP rights. While theft can certainly go beyond the petty, it usually does not, but it's very common for victims of IP violations to be hit big time, over the long time, in respect of a single creative work, by multiple distributers and many, many more receivers. You seem to be under some impression that whether or not IP violation is wrong is relevant to whether or not it should be called theft. Murder is wrong, but while someone attempting poety of speech might call it 'the theft of a life" it's not theft but in fact much worse than theft; it's homocide. "if it is theft it is wrongful" is true, but "if it is wrongful then it is theft" is not true, is indeed very simple to understand, although I do not see that this explains why so many get it wrong so often.

Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: You're making a big point out of something very small I think. If I were to define theft, it would be something like: "taking something that doesn't belong to you". IP infringement perfectly fits that desciption. Whether the "taking" involves the original owner being left without the "stolen" goods makes no difference to me really. For example I can "take" a picture, that doesn't mean I've taken the subject. It's a bigger point than nit picking over using DMCA as short for "file a takedown notice using the DMCA provisions". You cannot take something and leave it in place at one and the same time. People are not taking the property, but rather producing unauthorized copies, and indulging in unauthorized use. If it's such an irrelevant point, it's somewhat of a wonder that anyone would risk encouraging this conduct by insisting on using the wrong terminology. I've seen people rationalize their violation of IP rights on the basis that people are calling it theft and they reject that it is theft. There's just no need to invite such a rationaliztion. It's a violation of rights, plain and simple. No good comes of mislabling it in a manner that invite rationalization of wrong doing, and calling it theft does exactly that. Your example is absurd. The picture and the subject are two things, like A & B are two difference things. So you are suggeting that IP violations are "theft" because if you "take"*** A, that does not mean you've taken B. I cannot explain why that makes sense you to, it's nonsense to me. ***of course the word "take" in this sense does not actually mean "to remove", "to take into one's possession" or even "to transport" but really "to cause the creation of", which only makes your example more bizaare.

Verena Vuckovic wrote: "This whole rediculous issue could be resolved with no coding at all, just a change to the EULA stating that SL is a social enviornment and to not expect to be able to creep around invisibly. The busy flag is enough to tell friends that someone is not able to chat at the moment, there is no need for angst-causing skulduggery like masking logins." Couldn't agree more. We have this skulduggery masquerading as 'privacy'. As you say, there is Busy mode........and people can mute and so on......so I cannot see a single legitimate ( non-skulduggery ) reason for a person logging into a social environment and effectively preteding they are not there at all. A person's reasons for wanting to do so strike me as rather more dubious than mere 'privacy'. Not to mention that it is utterly absurd that a person can pretend they are not online......yet anyone in their groups or on the same sim can see that they are. And that includes 'friends' from whom they think they are hiding their status. The net result being that such people get booted out of friends list. After all.....what kind of friends pretend they are not even in the country ? There's nothing in the TOS against skulduggery. You have no right to know stuff about other users that they have not chosen to disclose. If you are worried about your partner cheating on you or other e-drama nonsense, then pick a better partner. Problem solved. I should not be beholden to you or to explaining myself to you if I want to indulge in TOS abiding skulduggery. It's none of your business whatsoever. As it happens, I often wish for minimal non-necessary interuptions while I am busy, while still being able to immediately respond in the instance a customer wishes to contact me. That's my business and if you see the fact that sometimes, I need to work without being tempted to socialize by open solicitation from friends to do so, while still wanting to be available to immediately provide non-social customer service as skuldugery, that still does not make it any business of your's. As to llReqestAgent....., of course it should not be broken but the e-drama reasons you suggest would be good reasons for at least considering that there might be some utility to doing so.

Like his idea to limit access to creation tools in SL to "professional creators", whatever that means?

Thanks for keeping us in the loop. It's nice someone can be bothered doing the job the Commerce Team are paid to do. The proposal is a significant improvement. I see no reason why IMs about returned items should be forced on us if something is returned to us. There is no reason other than laxness for LL to not make this an optional setting in the viewer.

Porky Gorky wrote: Anaiya Arnold wrote: Omnipotence is a long shot in my opinion. It might be the case that the limits of our human minds prevent us from comprehending it and hence it merely appears paradoxical to (at least some of) us, but it's at least as likely and probably more likely, that the potential of our human minds allow us to conceptualize this impossibility despite the fact that it cannot exist in any form outside our minds and their imaginings. You are most probably right, but I cannot accept such a theory absolutely. In a multi-verse that could potential contain an infinite amount of universe, the odds are that there should a universe out there that has suitable conditions to facilitate human omnipotence. Given an infinite amount of time, it is feasible that we should be able to replicate such a universe ourselves. I guess all I need to do to prove my theory, is to prove that infinity is real. RIght now infinity is only workable with abstract concepts such as Time and Mathematics, we cannot prove that anything with real substance can be infinite. I need to prove that the multi-verse (which I am assuming exists) is infinite and can spawn an infinite amount of universes. Einstein's theory of relativity dictates that a singularity (or big bang) does not contain anything that is actually infinite, only things that move mathematically towards infinity. So, the first step in my journey to omnipotence is to prove Einstein wrong. No big deal :smileyhappy: I can't accept it absolutely either. There's no proof of it and the evidence is all based on logic. It's conceivable that the limitations of the human mind are entailed in making omnipotence appear as a logically impossible paradox. Logically omnipotence is impossible, but logic's ability to give insight into reality may be the limitation, rather than reality. So I cannot accept that just because omnipotence is logically impossible, that it is necessarily the case that it does not and cannot exist. But I do find omnipotence unlikely, a long shot, and less than probable. In any case, I'm sure you'll report back when you've completed that first tinsy, tiny, small little task. :smileytongue:

Phil Deakins wrote: There's just no stopping you is there? Anaiya Arnold wrote: I don't know why you think that if you use the word creator, created, and that if someone responds to what you are saying following your use of the word, that it's reasonable to propose that everyone must think the responder's use of the word means intelligent creator, while your's does not. I do feel you've had plenty of chances to explain that and the fact that you have not done so indicates to me that you can see no reason why this would be the case either. I've said this stuff so many times before in this thread but you seem to have an extremely selective lack of memory. When the universe is being talked about, the use of the word "creator" usually means a 'being' - intelligence. But that aside, I've also said that I don't assume any creator of any type. I lean strongly in that direction, for the reason that I also stated, but I don't assume it. I know that you hate being wrong, otherwise you wouldn't keep on and on about it, but, in this case, you did get it wrong. Live with it. That applies to the rest of your post too. There you go again with the expecation that you can bully me into silence. Have you stopped? Why should I stop first? You started it. I told you exactly when I will stop; when I feel like it and not one post sooner. It's not your business to tell me when to stop posting. If you want that kind of control over other posters, rather than trying to bully the members of someone else's forums, you're welcome to start your own. It does not matter how many times you say that usually when the word creator is used it means "X, Y, Z" because this does not explain why it did not mean "X, Y, Z" when you used it, but suddenly meant it when I used it. It simply suggests that you continue to think that you can both dictate and change the meaning of words, on the fly, based on who said them. Obviously if you do not assume a creator then at least some of the time "creator" does not mean what you insist it must mean when I use it, because it's exactly the word you used. Rather than repeating the same old irrelevant fluff, simply explain why my use of the word creator, when that use simply follows from and is wholly derivative of your own use (and hence necessarily means exactly what you meant when you used it) means something different to what it meant when you used it. If you'd rather childishy indulge in the internet equivalent of play ground name calling in the form of "do you never stop" type jibes (as though no one will notice you sure have not stopped) and "x, y, z your memory" and "just argumentative" accusations, and other such bullying and trite generalized insults that have so much more to do with your level of maturity than my personal characteristics, then that is also your choice, but be aware that I will amuse myself with your antics so long as both I am inclined to and you continue to obligingly perform. As to what you assume, again I am telling you what your argument assumes, whether or not you assume it. When you say X is created you are asserting a situation in which X has a creator. That's that. Whatever you intended to assert, the fact remains your argument assumes a creator, just as the claim "Hamish stopped beating his wife" assumes Hamish was once in the habit of beating his wife. That's how necessary implication works, whether or not you understand it.

Charolotte Caxton wrote: Decision laziness was the problem I observed in the belief that everything is preordained. If everything that is going to happen is going to happen in only one particular way, then any decision one could make would be the right decision as it is the only possible decision. Takes away a lot of pressure, and responsibility, and makes absolutely no sense. Yes, that's exactly how it struck me too.

The cost of hosting a wish list is negliable. The bytes involved is minimal; there are probably digital watches with enough memory to host the negliable amount of data needed for a wish lists for everyone who shops on the markeplace. XStreet provided more features than the marketplace and were still able to provide the wish list and pay for its costs within the 5% commission fee. If LL cannot do the same, then it's just proof of incompetence. Personally I think they just cannot get their act together in the development phase and chuck everything in the "too hard" basket just like the return of last names, and sorting out the database so far as true online status is concerned (as per kelly linden's comments on this matter). You seem to wish to ignore that LL would benefit from such a wish list if anyone did. More sales means more happy customers buying more lindens and spending more time in world, and that's without taking into account LL's commissions on marketplace sales and cash outs. That's how it's paid for. Increased income being generated. If they broke even between the costs and increased revenue, it's a win because they've enhanced the customer experience and delivered extra value to customers at no net cost to themselves. There is a limit to how much you can nickle and dime people before you are so tacky and classless that no one wants a bone of you.

If this is the case then my opinion of this would not make it past moderation. SL is all about anyone being able to create and an open playing field. I was really excited about pathfinding before I read this. I did not think anyone could screw up worse then M Linden. There's nothing I am allowed to post on this forum that comes close to describing how I feel about this and what I am coming to think of that Rodvik chap.

I agree with Marigold in not wanting to see mainland zoned. I think that linden homes though really opens up possibilities for mainland if LL chose to implement mini developments, preferably laid out in a block near a road, near an LL plot with some kind of LL provided organized activity, with free for all use land of varying intial plot sizes, bordered by protected roads, also in the vicinity. If done right, and laid out in enough places, in existing mainland, mainland would be totally revitalized. There would be some point to shops in such an area because the areas would attract visitors and by-passing traffic. Placing the linden home development down one end of the "township" road, and the linden activity down the other would encourage too-ing and fro-ing down the road and make paying tier for a roadside plot for a shop a much more viable option than placing a shop on a sim you have to attract visitors to, or in the middle of mainland-nowhere. So long as each is within common draw distance of the other, there is every chance people will choose to walk rather than tp, and anyway they can still see what is between the two and choose to detour to look at that interesting house, those cute meroos in someone's yard, or that shop whose brand they have not yet discovered. Settlements like this could somewhat alleviate or even reverse the trend for shutting up shop in world and putting all the eggs in the marketplace basket. It would also be a great place to own a home for those of us who do not want linden homes, are happy to see our neighbours and would love to be able to "people-watch" from the comfort of our own front yard. Since this would bring more visitors and allow linden homes to not all be squished together in an endless Edward Sissorhand-esque sameness, it might make lindens homes more attractive too. At the moment every time I have visited one of these developments it has depressed me. It's just endless, squished together, and seeingly empty house on house, all cut with the same cookie cutter. By being discretely tucked away from the grid, they also invisible unless you deliberately go to a linden home region, so they have no opportunity to inspire by-passers to want their own little residential linden home. The extra prims for linden homes could be a sacrifice made for being on mainland rather than in a linden home only area (ie there is no free house and its prims come off the land usage prims available to the home owner), or could be gained from sparsly primmed linden owned "open land" areas placed in the very centre of the linden home development area (a kind of local "commons"), and from having more roads within the sim boundaries (since they are low on prims and ought to be able to built in less prims than the land they sit on can usually support). We know that protected road frontage is highly desirable so this can only increase the value of effected land. In a sense, this would be a different way to "lower tier" without encouraging people to pay less tier. LL would get less teir land from each or many of their mainland sims, reflecting the lowered cost of the hardware to host sims, and would heighten value for many by causing more plots to be bordered on one side by "protected linden land", and more land to be in areas of high traffic, but it would not cause someone to pay less for what they already have as would occur if absolute price were lowered, and is likely to happen if people were given more land/prim at each price point. Instead of giving us more land or prims each, LL could raise the utility and enjoyment of our land and simultaneously recognize that the hosting hardward costs less, by accepting less teir paying land per mainland simulator, and devoting that land (and its computer time resources) to roads, Linden provided activity areas, and sparsly primmed open land at the centre of the "new" mainland linden home blocks. Of course the patchwork ownership of mainland might make it very difficult to find spots where there is enough abandoned or for sale land to do this without inventing more land which is kind of self defeating on a number of counts. I suspect adult mainland would be the best place to prove the viability and desirability of such regularly scattered townships, because it has not been "ad-farm" carved in the same way longer established mainland has been. However there is a lot of land for sale in small patches that LL could simply generate lindens to buy where enough of it coincides and some limited and very carefully planned and consulted "forced moves" would be more justifiable for such a project than the Zindra-bound frogmarch, especially if accompanied by advantageous compensatory steps. When they completed the building and auctioned highly desirable roadside land in the middle of the settlements, I suspect they'd get a lot of the generated lindens back (ie could 'resink' them) so it probably would not impact the exchange rate on balance. Since linden homes are supposed to be stepping stones to eventually moving into mainland (or at least that is how LL appear to have promoted them) it would make a lot of sense to place these homes where their owners are expoed to mainland and "owner built" uses of it. You could take a linden home and never get any better clue of what it is to own mainland land, because you might never see mainland. If linden homes were on mainland, this would be much more likely to encourage linden homers to move into a less restricted plot they can put their own house or building on. The important thing to me is recreating hubs of activity and visitors and mixing them into areas where residential and commercial tennants can choose to be in a hive of activity, without averse limitations on their creativity, as since teleporting came into being, most of mainland only really caters to large plot owners (if you own enough land you can make your neighbours fairly irrelevant) and those who'd rather not see their neighbours and are happy to build in the sky to avoid them. A few managed estates with zoned spaces might be ok too, for those who want to see their neighbours or build at ground level but have small plots and do not want a "ruined" view or nusiance next door. But for a frontier pioneering feeling as Rodvik has indicated a desire for, there needs to be areas that attract good numbers of visitors and facilitates opportunities to see interesting things, meet or observe interesting folk, interact with interesting content, and all with an opportunity for commerical venues to capitalize on attracted visitors. I love teleporting but I do think LL should have done something to ensure that there were still many, many places that attract visitors and invite them to explore more widely. If you knew that there were little townships scattered all along the road, hubs of activity where you can be sure to see not just interesting things, but interesting people/avatars going about their interesting business, I think more people would explore those roads. I gave up road wandering because it just feels so barren and desolute even when surrounded by builds. We need to feel if we go for a walk we'll see someone in their yard, come across other road walkers, and encounter hubs of activities on our travels, rather than simply endlessly empty builds or even just barren country side. Some people might not mind endlessly wandering without a sign of life, but many people find that kind of depressing, which is worse than merely boring. As to the liden provided activities, these should be something residents cannot offer but which encourage the use of stuff residents do offer. A place to see and be seen for instance encourages people to buy content for their avatars and having activities that do not interfere with seeing and been seen rather than activities like linden realms that distract one from other avatars and call their attention merely to game mechanics provided by the lab itself, would not be so useful. It's difficult to imagine quite what these activities would be. Some obvious ones that would work for new users would be the kind of tutorials that have historically been used, with an indicator in your profile that you've completed it. If Ll are going to gamify and people need to learn to use SLbut do not want to be forced through a tutorial, dumping them in an activity area like this rather than a welcome area or a random place, and awarding them a "I completed" indicator for their profile would be an improvement over forcing people to go through a tutorial, launching them into the world with no idea where they are or what to do, competing for game time against content creators, or dumping folks in troll infested, confusing, unwelcoming welcome areas. If you do not want the tutorial you walk into town or tp elsewhere. If you do, then there it is. And afterwards, you have an immediately obvious starting place for exploration and encountering people and who are not welcome area trolls, and interesting, resident generated content.

Chosen Few wrote: Anaiya Arnold wrote: Yeah, for someone who persistently calls IP infringement theft, before then declaring that the OP has only infringed and done nothing criminal, I don't think you're really in a position to nit pick. The terms "IP Infringement" and "IP theft" are synonymous. They are both used all the time, by everyone from creators, to news reporters, to lawyers, to judges, to the FBI. Even McGruff the crime dog calls it "IP theft". The word "piracy" is also often used. All three mean the same thing in this context. As for the subject of it not being a crime, that's just a fact of law. There are plenty of illegal activities that do not amount to crimes. Speeding, for example, is an infraction in most cases, not a crime. At the level we've been discussing here, IP theft is a tort. Torts are violations of the law, but they are not crimes. They are civil violations, rather than criminal violations. There is a difference. Well, there's historically always been a difference, anyway. That may change. As you may or may not be aware, there's an active effort in Washington right now to try to criminalize just about all IP theft. We're not there yet, but we might be in the near future. (Oh, and by the way, if you're now planning to make a stink over the fact that McGruff the Crime Dog has the word "crime" in his name, or that the organization for whom he is the mascot also has that same word in its own name, don't bother. They're not about to rename the organization or the character, just because they happen to have taken up the cause of tort law in addition to criminal law.) In any case, the reason I so "persistently", as you put it, use the word "theft" in any and every discussion like this one is to underscore the point of how wrong it is. It's no joke, and people like the OP here absolutely MUST be made to take it more seriously. For whatever reason, people don't tend to take the word "infringement" to heart as easily as they do the word "theft". Hence, I make this deliberate choice of wording for very important reason. Anaiya Arnold wrote: Most people seem to understand what is meant by "file a DMCA" just fine, even if this is not sufficient for pedants, but obviously you are no pedant when it comes to your own expression. It's not a question of whether "most people" might or might not understand it. It's a question of making sure EVERYONE reading it can understand. Terminology is important. It also wasn't an attack on anybody, so I have no idea why you see this apparent need to be defensive about it. There's nothing wrong with someone making a mistake, and there's nothing wrong with someone pointing out a mistake. However, there is something wrong with stubbornly definding a mistake after it's been pointed out. You'd do well to be a little less concerned about defense, and a little more concerned purely for the accuracy of information. Anaiya Arnold wrote: IP infringement is not theft, which does not mean it's not criminal. Theft entails denying the legitimate owner of ownership, not merely denying them some benefit, exploiting from their work, or trespassing against their rights. IP infringement is no more theft than if I snuck into your yard illegally to draw your apple tree so I could sell the resulting art work. It's illegal and wrong, but it's not theft. Absolutely not true. Theft simply means the unlawful, fraudulent, or otherwise wrongful, taking of property. There's nothing that says the property must be physical. If you take ANY property that doesn't belong to you, be it physical or intellectual, you will have stolen that property. It's a simple concept. Look, I realize a lot of people tend to check their powers of comprehension at the door as soon as any legal discussion begins, but this really isn't rocket science. Your imagined requirement that the owner must somehow no longer have access to the property in order for it to have been thieved, is not in any way in tune with the legal reality, or even common sense practicality. Whatever the owner may or may not be denied as the result of a theft is just that, a result. It's merely one potential consequence of theft. It's not in any way definitive of, or causal to, the act itself. There is no actual requirement that an owner be denied anything at all in order for a theft to in fact be a theft. Anaiya Arnold wrote: It's called copyright because it is the right to produce and publish/distribute copies, and to determine who else may produce, publish/distribute copies, not a right to own every copy in existence. You misunderstood my meaning. I can see how, if taken out of context, my words might have been less than clear. I apologize for any confusion. I've gone ahead and removed that sentence from the post, to hopefully avoid any potential similar misinterpretations by other readers. Thanks for pointing it out. Let me now clarify what I meant. I was not trying to imply that copyright means the right to own every copy in existence. That obviously would be silly. What I was referring to was the right that every copyright holder has to determine whether and how copies get to exist in the first place. With respect to a system like SL, in which the users do not actually own any copies of anything, but merely have certain rights granted toward the usage of data within the system, the IP holder is the only actual owner there is. Therefore, when it comes to those cans, Valve effectively "owns" the copies, no matter who made them. If they decide to press the matter, all the unauthorized copies would poof out of existence, since LL would be obligated to remove them, under the law. They are not synomonous, and personally, if everyone including the newsman, the FBI, judges and some mascot took to jumping off bridges, I don't see that as any reason why I should. More pertintently to your choice to nit pick at the expression of others, just about everyone says "file a DMCA" too and if that's important to get right, then so is the fact that IP violation is not theft. The use of the word "theft" more widely seems to stem from nothing more than a misguided attempt to socially engineer outrage. It's obviously not theft though. If I steal your stuff theft has occured and you don't have your stuff anymore. If I violate your IP, a wrong has been done, the law has been violated, but you still have your stuff. Why anyone misguidedly thought it was desirable to detract from the obvious wrongness of IP violation by giving an invitation for people to rationalize to themselves "they say it's theft but obviously it's not, since no one is denied the property concerned, so it's ok for me to ignore IP rights", I don't know. It makes as much sense as calling theft assault and thinking this will clarify and focus efforts to reduce theft, when really it just invites argumentation over namership and an opportunity for someone to rationalize that "it's not assault like they are claiming, so it must be ok". Your reasoning is misguided and assumes that A) people are stupid and cannot figure out what words mean for themselves, and that B) the backlash of mislabling something to manipulate how people feel about it, will not result in them rejecting the wrongness you are trying to convey. If something is wrong, there is no need to manipulate how people feel about it by misnaming it rather than relying on more honest discourse and explanation of the true facts, and the fact that someone feels a need to mislable something to convey that it is wrong, gives many people the impression that it's not wrong and one can only make it appear wrong by misnaming it. We (those interested enough to find out) already know that blowing the potential harm of drugs out of all proportion and realism can in fact encourage people to see drugs as being less dangerous than they are, and to dismiss concerns about them. Why you think this would not equally apply to attempts to manipulate perception about IP infringement by misnaming it,I don't know. Possibly you've not thought very deeply about it. If you percieve someone is mislabling something to manipulate how you feel about it, does this make their arguments about the quality of that thing more crediable to you? I find it discrediting and evidently, I resent attempts to manipulate my perception, especially attempts that rely on mislabling something. That's essentially lying to manipulate me and it surely does not make me sympathetic to whatever argument or point someone is using such an ill conceived tactic to further. If you don't think infringement gets the point across, you could try violation of rights. No one wants to be violated or to have their rights violated. Note that when discussion of theft comes up, particularly burglery, it's not uncommon for someone to claim the violation is worse than the deprivation of property. Violation is a strong word, often much stronger than mere theft, and unlike theft, it's not a lie when you apply it to the violation of IP rights. The criminality of IP infringement has been greatly expanded on in various jurisdictions and I'm not entirely certain that what the OP describes is not already criminal in some applicable jurisdiction. Given the hodge podge of IP law and its state of recent flux, I would certainly not be willing to claim that no jurisdiction where the content is available has criminalized such content, no matter where it is published from, where that content is available within the jurisdiction. Your claim that the property does not have to be tangible is utterly irrelevent. You admit theft involves taking the property, not merely use of it, but taking it. If the original owner still retains the property, then it has not been taken, anymore than your property has been taken if I tresspass on it. No one feels a need to describe tresspass as theft in order to convince anyone that it is wrong and if people started to do so, this is more likely to make people question whether it is theft and therefore wrong, than convince someone who previously thought it was trivial that it is wrong. If you want to convince someone tresspass is wrong, you might point out how violating it can be, but it would be foolhardy to simply call it theft and expect anyone to gormlessly swallow that, just as though they do not know what theft means. It's not rocket science indeed. But the fact is, use of something without authorization is not theft in and of itself. Anyone who has not checked their comprehension at the door can tell you as much. I reiterate that you are just inviting people to reason that it's not theft and to rationalize from that, that it's also not wrong. That's counter productive. @RyOto: yeah, I also noticed that we're not the same person too, although this fact maybe less important to people who are not either of us .:matte-motes-wink-tongue: