A gift to the public

I had gone through the OSGrid forums on the topics that were of interest to me. Luckily, OSGrid is still a small and early project, and so it IS possible to get an overview of all existing topics and the main opinions and characters. I like being able to do that, because I enjoy to have a view of the full picture of what is happening with something I dedicated myself to.

As OSGrids was ‘bleeding edge’, ‘early alpha’ and a ‘testgrid’ for Open Simulator (all statements I had read repeatedly) it is of no surprise that most people active at it are developers, programmers and it-pros of some sort. I, on the other hand, consider myself a ‘content creator’ (to use a Lindenspeak term), and what I’m wrestling with is not code (except if it’s a door script or such), but rather prims, permissions and prices.

There are three questions I could pin my thoughts down to:

1. What is it we’re creating?
2. Who owns it and what can they do with it?
3. How valuable is it?

There is a great fear among creators of content that their creations get ‘stolen’, i.e. stripped of permission settings and copied and distributed around for free, or even sold by someone else. In order to prevent this, LL is getting more and more rigorous in battling content theft. There seems to be the basic understanding that content, which isn’t ‘controlled’ will damage the economy harshly. For this reason, SL is, and will most probably remain, a ‘walled garden’, where content and assets are forever linked to the one SL account which acquired them (unless they are transferable). This system was no problem as long as SL was the only SL-based grid around. It no longer is, though.

What we are creating is data, mostly in form of textures and linksets. Data can get transferred and copied infinitely through a computer network, and once it’s standardized, be transferred to other computer networks. Music industry is fighting (and losing) the same war since music became recorded, and especially since it began to be transformed into data distributable through computers. As of yet, no system of protection has been invented which would prevent copying data. Most probably, because people do not want it to be secured.

So who owns our creations? This is a legal question, as well as a philosophical one. Legally, the point is (supposedly) clear: The creator owns it. Copyright simply can’t be transferred. The creation itself can be transferred (for example when an oil painting gets sold), but the copyright remains with the person who created it. So what are we selling, when we are selling copies of our creations? We are selling a ‘right’ to use them in a certain way. In the case of Second Life creations, this right – if it isn’t stated in an attached notecard – is usually made clear by the permissions system: copy, modify, trans. It is clear, what these terms mean technically – what you can do with them inside the SL environment. It is, however, unclear what they mean legally. Does copy mean, you can make as many copies of the same creation for yourself as you want? Then you should be able to use the creation for alternate avatars of yourself, and on other grids, as well. Or does it mean, you may only make copies for the one avatar you got it for?

The matter gets really complicated once someone takes the creation of someone else and modifies it, because depending on how fundamental the modification is, it is no longer possible to tell who is the ‘creator’ of the final product. Let’s say, someone made a long sleeve white shirt. Someone else took the texture of the white shirt and altered it – in cases dramatically – to a short sleeve hawaii shirt. We all use tools to make our creations. We use computer programs, we use textures, we use templates, we use brushes, and scripts, and other resources to produce what we make. Some or all of these elements were made by others – do they have a right in our creation as well?

From a philosophical point of view, creations aren’t always viewed as something that can be ‘owned’ at all, as the artists who create them are seen as tools of some higher power which speaks through them. Therefor, artwork is usually attributed to higher powers, and cannot be owned by a single human. It is a gift for all, and the artist is the messenger of the gift.

So, depending on what view we lean towards, is it possible, and is it neccessary, to make a business about creations? To many, this is an either yes or no question. Either they view themselves as the rightful owners of their creations, and therefor as the only ones who are in charge of their distribution and usage, the answer is a clear yes. If, however, creations are being viewn as a benefit to the public, and not ownable by single humans, the answer would be no. Both of these views seem unfair, though, because both public and creator do have certain interests in the creation.

The public is right to claim that a creation needs to benefit all, and needs to be distributable freely, yet it is only fair to give the creator some compensation for the work he put into bringing the thing he made to life. These interests aren’t even conflicting at all. The public wants the creators to be motivated in making some more creations, and the creators want the public to be interested in their creations. All that is neccessary is to find a common ground on which both can comfortably meet. This common ground isn’t installed by permission systems, digital rights management or any other technical installation, nor is it made by legal means. It is a free agreement between the creators, and the public who wants to use the creations. And it is neccessary for us to find that common ground.

In order to do so, however, creators need to step back from viewing the public as mere ‘customers’ ready to ‘steal’ their creations at any given opportunity, and the public needs to realize that it’s in their own interest to give the creators some sort of compensation for what they do. This is a large scale problem, and none that can be solved in as small an environment as OSGrid. However, as the permission system in OSGrid doesn’t work reliably to protect creations from getting ‘stolen’, creators are forced to overthink their strategies and business models. Therefor, I am selling my creations with as many permissions as I’m comfortable giving out. Basically, all of them are copy / mod / no transfer, because I want people to use them for themselves as much and in any way they want, but don’t want them to distribute them to others, for free or for sale. This is my fast and easy way to make this policy clear. I might include a larger statement of what I like my creations to be along with them, to clear these questions of content theft / legal distribution for my customers, at least. But I also ask for a small fee as compensation for the work I put into making these things. I think this is indeed a fair trade.