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ChinRey wrote:

accept that the creator is actually trying to support themselves and their family


Me too! I think everyone has a right to try and extract profit from a situation so long as it doesn't lead to exploitation or criminal behaviour (which, again, in my view, this scenario does not).

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ChinRey wrote:


Freya Mokusei wrote:

You're not making
unlimited
copies

Well, obviously there is a limit to how big a market there is but apart from that, why not?

Because - in your scenario - you don't own unlimited space. :P

--


ChinRey wrote:

Backup and redlivery is more than enough reason to me. I build for my honest customers and I don't want them to suffer more than absolutely necessary because of the dishonest ones.


I can appreciate this perspective - it was an honest question. I would personally worry that I would be grouping plenty of innocent people in with the dishonest but that's the PR game you have to play with your own brand. Thank you for answering. :)

I'm not hearing anything particularly fresh or convincing - you have your perspective, and like I said first time around, I'm glad to hear it so that I can be aware of how some merchants are seeing their customers - the nature of all this has definitely changed in recent years. It doesn't sound like there's anything to back this up except your fear of risk. I don't imagine I'll change my behaviour based on any of that, I wouldn't recommend anyone else does either. But I appreciate you explaining it.

 Sorry for the derail. :)

ETA (sorry, I had a fresh spark): My concern is that by overreaching and limiting product versatility, creators (in general) risk alienating their fans (e.g. I've encountered non-EULA'd objects that report back to the creator their location, every time they're rezzed - fortunately they were modifiable but I still won't be going back to that store). This is self-defeating in SL, it creates hostility and suspicion, limiting reach via word-of-mouth. It also reduces sympathy, and if a creator is relying on a receptive userbase to do things like inform them of possible EULA-breaches or respect identities/branding and not purchase derivatives, then it categorically undermines this good will. This isn't a threat (obviously - I'm speaking generally, not about anyone's specific EULA), it's cause and effect - if everyone feels like they have to bypass a EULA just to get the experience that they "expect" from a Second Life product, then no-one will respect the social enforcement of that EULA, even if legal enforcement is possible. This already happens routinely outside of Second Life, with examples such as unlicensed game modding and derivative fan games, and public sympathy is increasingly less on the game developers side.

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Freya Mokusei wrote:

Because - in your scenario - you don't own unlimited space.
:P

There is no such thing as "unlimited". There is an infinite number of limitations so even infinity has its limits.

But if you flip a parcel a day it won't take long before you've had a lot of land pass through your hands even if you have just a very limited tier budget.

 


Freya Mokusei wrote:

ETA (sorry, I had a fresh spark): My concern is that by overreaching and limiting product versatility, creators (in general) risk alienating their fans

The answer there of course is to give everyhing away for free full perm. You'll still get lots of complaints from unsatisfied "customers" but they can safely be ignored.

I think it's important to understand there how cheap SL items are. I mentioned a million Lindens for a custom made one-of-a-kind mansion. That was not an exaggeration, it was actually a fairly low estimate for two months worth of hard work.

That's for quality. But quality doesn't sell in Second Life so if yu make something like that, you still have to drop your prices low enough to match those who figured out (quite correctly) that it's better to do a quick-and-dirty mesh with some quick-and-dirty textures with quick-and-dirty Cycles shading baked on them and even those who figured out (even more correctly) that it's even easier to just do quick-and-dirty uploads of ready made items you find on the internet.

So in the end you sell a few copies of that house at a ... symbolic really ... price. So let's say you sell 20 copies for 2000 Linden each and you made a net profit of 60 US dollars from two months of work - a dollar a day. Then one of the buyers rez more copies than you ever sold on land he once owned but sold on, making far more profit from your house than you'll ever do. Sorry, but even the most service minded content creator/merchant has a limit and I think this is way beyond.

 

 

 

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I suppose she'll have to clarify then, The way I understood her, she was talking about landscaping a parcel with no-transfer items and then sell it with the landscaping items included in the deal. That is not acceptable of course and if it's commonly done, it's something creators of landscape items simply have to do something about.

I was referring to private islands, where even though one might "buy" the parcel, one is basically leasing/renting it from the estate owner, because the estate owner still retains true ownership of both the parcel and any landscaping that they may have put out to create a particular theme or environment.  I should have used "leased" instead of "buy" in my earlier post.   I am fully aware when I have entered into this type of private island land transaction that everything belongs to the estate owner (even if I 'purchased' the parcel through 'About Land'). 

I was not referring to buying of mainland parcels where the parcel ownership, in LL's view, changes hands.  When I have purchased mainland where objects have been left on the parcel by the previous owner, I do not consider them as part of the sale, and I return them via auto-return once I have made the purchase.
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CassieMaia wrote:

I was not referring to buying of mainland parcels where the parcel ownership, in LL's view, changes hands.  When I have purchased mainland where objects have been left on the parcel by the previous owner, I do not consider them as part of the sale, and I return them via auto-return once I have made the purchase.

Ok, thank you for the clarification! Yes, a parcel "sale" on a private island is really just a rental and that' different of course.

But it does happen on mainland too. It wasn't hard for me to find an example of a parcel for sale with no-transfer content included and I've bought such pacels myself in the past. I returned the previous owner's content wof course but I didn't have to, I could have just kept using it.

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Freya Mokusei wrote:

ETA: In fact, I could see a counter argument. Having one of Pamela's houses on their land already MIGHT give them the information they need (via inspect) to purchase a more original house from Pamela, themselves. If the quality of the sample is good enough, maybe Pamela would get a unique sale just through having proximity. Win-win!

 

i just give a real time example of this

i once rented this parcel on this sim which was built to replicate the feel of New Orleans french ish blues. Nice place

the parcel was in a row of shotgun shacks. Was pretty cool

when I rented then I got land rights, including the right to return objects (incl. the shotgun shack itself) So I did that bc I couldnt mod it,  not being mine

and I went and bought my own shotgun shack for myself, put on the parcel, and was able to mod

 

+

was a win-win-win. The sim owner got to preserve the ambience of the sim. The shotgun shack creator got another sale. And I got to mount position and mod my house as I wanted it to be

everybody happy

 

 

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ChinRey wrote:


Freya Mokusei wrote:

Because - in your scenario - you don't own unlimited space.
:P

There is no such thing as "unlimited". There is an infinite number of limitations so even infinity has its limits.

But if you flip a parcel a day it won't take long before you've had a lot of land pass through your hands even if you have just a very limited tier budget.

 

Freya Mokusei wrote:

ETA (sorry, I had a fresh spark): My concern is that by overreaching and limiting product versatility, creators (in general) risk alienating their fans

The answer there of course is to give everyhing away for free full perm. You'll still get lots of complaints from unsatisfied "customers" but they can safely be ignored.

I think it's important to understand there how cheap SL items are. I mentioned a million Lindens for a custom made one-of-a-kind mansion. That was not an exaggeration, it was actually a fairly low estimate for two months worth of hard work.

That's for quality. But quality doesn't sell in Second Life so if yu make something like that, you still have to drop your prices low enough to match those who figured out (quite correctly) that it's better to do a quick-and-dirty mesh with some quick-and-dirty textures with quick-and-dirty Cycles shading baked on them and even those who figured out (even more correctly) that it's even easier to just do quick-and-dirty uploads of ready made items you find on the internet.

So in the end you sell a few copies of that house at a ... symbolic really ... price. So let's say you sell 20 copies for 2000 Linden each and you made a net profit of 60 US dollars from two months of work - a dollar a day. Then one of the buyers rez more copies than you ever sold on land he once owned but sold on, making far more profit from your house than you'll ever do. Sorry, but even the most service minded content creator/merchant has a limit and I think this is way beyond.

 

 

 

But think of it this way - the houses left behind will be of limited use for the new landowners as they don't have actual ownership. They can't modify or move them, or even have them stay on the lot if they want to change the group of the land and turn on autoreturn. The new landowner may start thinking, "This is a nice house but I wish I could do X - maybe I'll buy myself a house that will let me do X. Let's see - who should I buy a new house from. How about from whoever made this nice house already on my land?" As nothing in Second Life has true marginal cost to the manufacturer, it's free advertising for the builder of the home.

Of course posting on the forums can also be free publicity, but somehow it seems to turn into the opposite of advertising for certain merchants.

 

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Theresa Tennyson wrote:

Of course posting on the forums can also be free publicity

Interesting idea, never really considered it before although the thought has of course crossed my mind.

I doubt it's a good idea though. Being an active, regular participant on this forum takes up a tremendous lot of time and you onyl reach a very small part of the SL community this way. And of course, if you really want to have something sensible to say here, you'll also end up giving away quite a lot of info for your competitors to take advantage of.

So no, if you're in SL mainly to sell: do not spend any time or effort posting on this forum. (But of course, if you post here anyway, why not mention your store in your signature. ;) )

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The root of the problem here is that you took what is actually a rental and perceived it as a "sale". Island "sales" of land are precarious because at any time, that island owner can stop paying tier and then dump you, and your "owned land" will disappear into the void.

There is much less chance of that happening when you buy from Linden Lab directly. And if you rent rather than buy, and suddenly the rental agent disappears, you might then lose only a week of rent or whatever you paid in advance, not the purchase price of land.

This whole "rent of island land" is a long-standing controversy and deception and LL just doesn't want to address it because they want original island buyers to increase and they can only do this with the "sell land" option because many people want their own group on land and to be able to control it more.

But of course, they could do that on the Mainland, even paying Linden Lab a higher cost than a rental, and the rumors of blight and griefing are overblown these days. Large stretches of the Mainland are simply empty and abandoned and you might have an entire sim to yourself with one parcel owned only. And you can rent in group rentals such as I and others have and have most of the group powers you need to manage your land anyway.

As for content not selling, that seems normal to me. All landlords will put out landscaping, trees, rocks etc, some of which might go on "your land" but not count on your prim count. A lot of that stuff is non-transferable. While  you can sell parcels with "objects on parcel for sale," they have to be transferable to start with. So the landlord has done nothing wrong given the exigencies of the system.

It's a good thing that Linden Lab does not intervene in disputes because that would imply that they'd have to maintain a court system with judges and bailiffs and that is too costly and ultimately stupid.

Caveat emptor is always the rule in SL.

 

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Prokofy Neva wrote:

 

But of course, they could do that on the Mainland, even paying Linden Lab a higher cost than a rental, and the rumors of blight and griefing are overblown these days. Large stretches of the Mainland are simply empty and abandoned and you might have an entire sim to yourself with one parcel owned only. And you can rent in group rentals such as I and others have and have most of the group powers you need to manage your land anyway.

 

Caveat emptor is always the rule in SL.

 

This is misleading

First you could buy a parcel on an empty sim and then later have other parcels sold and ugly builds or other laggy commercial venues spring up around you.  There is no guarantee thins will remain as they are when you buy.  At least with a private island most residential estates have covenants that prevent this. 

Renting Mainland is just as risky as renting or 'buying' private island land,  The landlord, just like private island owners can stop paying the tier, just decide they don't want to rent anything anymore and not refund your money or pull any of the other shenanigans bad private island owners can.

Fortunately most landlords are not like this and if someone researches their landlord first before renting mainland or 'buying' private island land, you most likely will have a good experience.  There are private estates that have been around for years and years, many longer than mainland landlords.  They don't last that long if they are risky.

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Thank you for the information Cassie.  I do however understand the difference between the two.  I have sold my own land in the past, listing it both with the objects and without when my listing was not moving.  The issue I have is that land owner's listing specifically included the custom home and all of the landscape in the sale.  However, after increasing/paying my tier to accommodate the parcel AND paying the asking price, the original owner only gave me limited permissions on the home, and no landscape at all.  Instead, she wanted to provide. Me with a landmark so I could purchase the landscape myself.   Given the absence of any regulatory construct, or even interest to enforce such transactions (by LL), buyers such as myself sink real money into a premium membership - for the privilege of even owning mainland, tier costs that are way more than the size of my parcel because there is not a "pay what you use" system, and the purchase price for goods not received.  Seems to me that everyone gets fat on my land purchase, yet I don't even receive what I paid for. This is a problem.

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Let me clarify...  This was mainland parcel, not an estate.  It was listed for SALE not lease.  The listing specifically stated that the custom home and landscape were INCLUDED in the sale.  I purchased the parcel directly yet did not receive ANY landscape, and only limited rights to MOST of the house.  When I asked the previous owner to please consider a rebate from the selling price because those items really did not come with the sale as advertised, she simply responded, "no."  

The reason this is possible is because the system allows you (the seller) to include objects in the sale, however does not have the ability to discern what objects are transferable or not.  It only ADVISES that the objects must be transferable.  As such, sellers can use that option to make their parcel more appealing, yet not deliver after the sale.  In my case, the landscape and home made that parcel.  I would not have even considered the purchase if it was an empty lot.

The most efficient way to remedy this is to simply remove, "Include Objects In The Sale" as an option in the Sell Land window.

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CATEvogel wrote:

 

The most efficient way to remedy this is to simply remove, "Include Objects In The Sale" as an option in the Sell Land window.

Yeah, you don't really want to do that. It's a valid option, but used inappropriately in this sale -- and it's pretty easy to accidentally use it inappropriately like this, too, so a warning about how it works when buying would be appropriate.

So it's unfortunate, and it does especially suck if this seller made explicit promises in the listing text. Still, I'd hate my tier to go to paying a Linden to listen to the evidence and make a judgment of how much damages to award, if any.

Back on the "valid option" thing: There's another current, unrelated thread wherein the topic of Copy vs Transfer permissions for furnishings is discussed. This has shifted over the years, from Transfer to Copy, and for landscaping items too. Back when I started out, most landscaping items were sold with Transfer permissions, and some sellers offered Copy permission items for much higher prices. Now that's pretty rare, and most stuff is sold Copy/No-Transfer. The point is, back when the "include objects in sale" option was defined, it would almost always do the right thing, whereas now it only works correctly when the seller takes very special precautions.

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I agree that this was deceptive, however, as in any purchase in SL, it's buyer beware.  Most all prefab houses and many landscaping items are not transferable. The exception being those built by the land owner or purchased full perm.   A lot of custom builds are not unless the price included full permissions. 

As the buyer, you could have checked that the items were in fact transferable before you purchased.  

If you didn't know how to check it's easy enough to find out by asking most experienced residents or here in the forum.  Click got to EDIT, then the GENERAL tab and look at the next owner permissions.

.

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Qie Niangao wrote:


CATEvogel wrote:

 

The most efficient way to remedy this is to simply remove, "Include Objects In The Sale" as an option in the Sell Land window.

Yeah, you don't really want to do that. It's a valid option, but used inappropriately in this sale -- and it's pretty easy to accidentally use it inappropriately like this, too, so a warning about how it works when buying would be appropriate.

So it's unfortunate, and it does especially suck if this seller made explicit promises in the listing text. Still, I'd hate my tier to go to paying a Linden to listen to the evidence and make a judgment of how much damages to award, if any.

Back on the "valid option" thing: There's another current, unrelated thread wherein the topic of Copy vs Transfer permissions
for furnishings
is discussed. This has shifted over the years, from Transfer to Copy, and
for landscaping items
too. Back when I started out, most landscaping items were sold with Transfer permissions, and some sellers offered Copy permission items for much higher prices. Now that's pretty rare, and most stuff is sold Copy/No-Transfer. The point is, back when the "include objects in sale" option was defined, it would almost always do the right thing, whereas now it only works correctly when the seller takes very special precautions.

I'm pretty sure that no-transfer items stay on the lot when you buy it with objects included, but they don't transfer ownership, etc.

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Oh, yeah, good point, so that's another way in which it might still be a valid option.

(Personally, I can't imagine owning land without Auto-Return enabled, which would poof the untransferred stuff -- but I've never bought land containing anything I didn't want to replace anyway.)

While I'm posting... Next Owner Permissions is almost always indicative of what will happen with the stuff on the parcel, but not quite always. Suppose for example that I have a full perm thing, then set its next owner permissions to not include Transfer (which might be required as part of the item's EULA), then set that out and offer it as part of an objects-included land sale. It will transfer along with the land because it's my permissions that apply in that sale, but the buyer will get an item they can't transfer further.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I was rather surprised to see this post while purusing the forums as I am the owner of the rental companies that the OP mentions. I tried to help the OP with finding a rental and instructed them on how to pay the rental box at the landmark I gave them if they were interested. Instead they paid me directly while I was offline and left a nasty message about now having no rental and getting screwed out of their money. I then tried to contact them and when I got no response as to what rental they had wanted I returned their money.

Sometime later this person then returned and rented a location through the rental box. After one day they informed me they needed bigger space as their massively huge castle type build was hanging over the edge of the platform. I then transferred this person and the money they had left to a larger but similar empty platform. Which by the way they can place anything they want on it as long as it doesnt go over the boundaries and the prim count. I dont recall how long this person rented for but they left at some point without notice.

I am able to be contaced by IM to email, email, notecard, and a support portal on my website..all which is detailed in my profile. Short of smoke signals and carrier pigeon I think I have it covered..lol

I'm not exactly sure what this person expected from my rental company or from the others but I feel confidant that I gave the best service that I possibly could. I've have learned to except that I'm not going to be able to please every single person and I may not be able to provide exactly what a person wants and they will find it elsewhere and thats just fine with me.

I have no intention of bad mouthing anybody in this scenario but I felt the need to put my two cents in as this is a business I have worked hard at since 2009 and I have a lot of pride in it!

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