Shopping in Second Life: About Permissions

"Permissions" is a term indicating what the buyer or recipient of the object can do with it:

• "No copy" means that you cannot copy the item after you get it. You only get one. 
• "No transfer" means that you cannot transfer the item after you get it. You cannot give it away or sell it.
• "No modify" means that you cannot modify the object after you get it. You can't change the texture or re-size it.

On a Marketplace ad you can find the permissions on the lower right side of the page. 

This is from a gacha being resold.

When you are searching Marketplace you can choose to see items with certain permissions, although results are not always accurate. 

From lower right sidebar on Marketplace search

On an ad you may see something like "Copy/Mod/No Transfer" or even C/M/No transfer.

There is another permission - "Move" on the Edit Menu. If you share an area with a group, this needs to be enabled if you want all the group members to be able to move the item.

"Full-Perm":

You often see the term "Full-perm", which means that the buyer has the permission to modify, copy and transfer the item. Full-perm items are often used as components in a larger build, for example, a full-perm door may be used in housing construction. You will see a lot of modified former 'full-perm' items for sale. Most sellers of FP objects state that the FP object is not to be re-sold without changing the permissions.

It is not illegal to re-sell an item that you have modified, but it can be annoying to the buyer to find out that the 'original' item they bought is just a mod of a full-perm item. I've noticed that some sellers specify "This is original creator content" on their ads.

Two statues: One on left is an older full-perm.

History of one full-perm item:

The statue (on the left) is called Azura Queen and is being sold on Marketplace as FP for L$1.  I have learned that this model was based on the Daedra Azura from the Elder Scrolls/Skyrim game. In the game she is also named "Queen of Dusk and Dawn" and "Queen of the Night Sky".

The right-hand statue is one I bought from a recent event. The original item had been altered enough that you could argue that it was not the original and so fair use.   Shortly after I bought it I found that it was just a modified full-perm item. My main objection is that the seller changed the name of the statue and listed themselves as the creator.

I found 16 different versions of this statue on the Marketplace that had no or very minor changes. Prices went from L$50 to L$299. Two were even being re-sold as full-perm!

Here is an interesting article by New World Notes about people ripping off Skyrim mods.

Also a forum thread about ripped content. 

Strawberry Singh has good advice in her article on full-perm rip-offs and suggestions for how to protect yourself. My understanding is that if an original content creator finds that their full-perm object is being re-sold without changing the permissions, or an article has been copybotted,  Linden Lab may remove all the copies of these items in everyone's inventory - I do not know if this is true, but it pays to be aware.