+1, strongly agree.  How content is handled is largely IMO an issue of
the TOS extended by the grid owner.  OpenSIM should provide a robust
permissions system to allow content creators to manage access to
resources inside a grid but how something leaves or moves across a grid
is tied to the TOS for that grid.

Mike

On Tue, 2009-03-31 at 16:34 +0000, Colin B. Withers wrote:
> Won't this also force grids to do what SL do and forbid users to transfer 
> their accounts/log in details to someone else (and hence all their inventory)?
> 
> Why do I get the feeling that we are starting to wade in mud?
> 
> Can't all the issues of permissions, i.e. the three future (next owner) 
> permissions, and the extra two current permissions (anyone can copy, anyone 
> can move), and licensing, all be dealt with in the TOS of the individual 
> grids, which then apply to all users of that grid, both creators and 
> end-users?
> 
> Can you imagine the mess of an object with multiple textures, filled with 
> various anims, scripts and notecards (thinking sexgen bed here), and they all 
> have different permissions/licenses. Doesn't bear thinking about :(
> 
> Rock
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected] 
> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Michael Cortez
> Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 2009 5:05 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [Opensim-dev] Legal Issues was RFC Profiles
> 
> Tom Willans wrote:
> > Who are you giving permissions to the Avatar or the owner of the Avatar?
> This is the rudimentary issue at the bottom of this, and is IMHO the 
> cause of most of the confusion.
> 
> You can't make a legal agreement with an Avatar -- in all likelyhood, 
> the only legal standings an avatar is going to have in court is as an 
> alias for an actual human.
> 
> Therefore you are always making an agreement with the owner.
> 
> Now you may be making an agreement that the owner is being licensed to 
> use an object within the confines of a specific grid, t the owner is 
> permitted to make digital copies of said object within the regions of 
> that grid, is restricted to using those copies with a single specific 
> avatar and is not allowed to provide those copies to other people.  This 
> is what some creators and users believe is happening when you mark 
> something as No Transfer, Copy, No Mod.
> 
> Now others believe, for the same permissions that you are:
> 
> Selling the owner a digital copy of the item.  Since they now own it, 
> they are legally entitled to fair rights usage including backing it up.  
> They believe they have agreed to some terms of usage during the 
> purchase, which includes the fact that they will not modify the item or 
> provide it to others.  However since they (the human) own it, they feel 
> they can use said item anywhere, any grid, or any purpose including 
> importing it into their own 3D applications and creating 3D meshes that 
> they may render to jpeg and use to decorate their personal website.
> 
> And then there are lots of shades of gray between those two points.
> 
> > The permissions based system regardless of security issues does 
> > address this however imperfectly.
> IMHO the permissions system, as envisioned by LL fails utterly to convey 
> in a manor that is clear and concise as to what you are actually buying 
> or licensing when you spend L$ within SL, to "purchase" an object.
> 
> For more fun, one can always try to decode the LL Terms of Service:
> 
> Section 1.3: 
> ... "You acknowledge that Linden Lab and other Content Providers have 
> rights in their respective Content under copyright and other applicable 
> laws and treaty provisions, and that except as described in this 
> Agreement, such rights are not licensed or otherwise transferred by mere 
> use of the Service." ...
> 
> Section 3.2
> ..."Notwithstanding the foregoing, you understand and agree that by 
> submitting your Content to any area of the service, you automatically 
> grant (and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant) 
> to Linden Lab:"...  (a) a royalty-free, worldwide, fully paid-up, 
> perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to (i) use, 
> reproduce and distribute your Content within the Service as permitted by 
> you through your interactions on the Service
> 
> Many of these sections have been misread and misquoted, I myself have 
> done so. 
> 
> However at this point, I am fairly certain the intent of the only 
> license users of Second Life are agreeing to by merely using the system, 
> and buying/selling content in a normal fashion (no included license 
> notecards and such) -- is the right to use LL's SL.  You never have any 
> legal rights at all to the items you "buy" in the system.  A license is 
> never established between the content creators and the buyers -- instead 
> the license creators have licensed the content to Linden Labs, and under 
> the Terms of Service, Linden Labs allows other users to utilize the 
> content within the system.  I'm not even sure you can argue quid pro quo 
> has granted you a license or ownership, because LL makes it quite clear 
> that "Linden Dollars" have no intrinsic value, and all you have is a 
> license to move around some bits on their database servers that are 
> labeled as "Linden Dollars"
> 
> I highly doubt this is the intent of the vast mast majority of OpenSim 
> developers and potential users for this to be the case on any grid they 
> provide or visit. 
> 
> --
> Michael Cortez
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> https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev
> _______________________________________________
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-- 
Mike Dickson <[email protected]>
BladeSystem infrastructure R&D

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