I could say so much on this, but I will keep it to this: I think that was a bad decision, because IB has been a very helpful person in this community. I will miss his humor and helpfulness very much. There is a lack of things at both sites - PP and RO. I have reason to say this, and things that people complained about for RO happen at PP. When bad stuff happens, people always want to say "Well if you come here, that wont happen" but the truth is that it does. Both sites tear each other down... and for what ? Sorry but I just get sick of the backbiting on both ends. I know I am going to catch a lot of flack for that and I have quite a few friends at PP, but I have to be honest and I have never been one to lie or bite my tongue. Anyway, IB, you will be missed... best of blessings w/your upcoming ventures. You, of all people, deserve it... and its not just cause you're a neighbor ;) ~hugs~

Interesting, Jaqui, Micheleh. That's my understanding of contract from when I freelanced. And, that's something to look into. Forgive me for not saying anything yea or nay on what I'm thinking on that - I learned a long time ago to not completely telegraph what I was or wasn't planning to do. I don't have a problem with Clint, Mehndi. I may not agree with his views on enforcing the policy and what it makes him, but I don't have a personal problem with him. You won't catch any flack from me, Jai. Do what you feel best, kiddo. Take care of y'self, y'hear? ;] Heh heh. Scott - even when you're in, you're out.

Ah. Good point, rogergordian, very good point. I used the "email all buyers" option here for the first time while I was requesting and requiring Clint to remove my store, to email all of our DigitalVisions customers on what was happening, where they could locate our current and future items, and making sure they had current contact emails for me. I just figured that was a part of customer service in this case.

Well, having had the need to contact a lawyer in the past over some things, I can say that if it was a class action suit, no one would have to attend any court hearings. Also the states attorny generals office would be a good place to complain. Sometimes they can resolve a matter without undue litigation. There are rules and laws which people must abide by in this world or the result is total anarchy. I have a landlord who seems to be under the impression that since he owns the buidling, that he can play fast and loose with the law. NOT!!! The funny thing is he seems to have gotten that impression due to the fact no one has stood up to him. If anyone believes they are in the right then no way should they let themselves be trampled over. Thats called being a "doormat".

Renderosity's 2nd rule of business: never miss an opportunity to piss off your vendors.

Attached Link: http://www.attorneygeneral.state.tn.us/

Various replies to this thread have mentioned a merchant "contract" which as far as I can tell does not exist.

The only agreement for merchants is the one on the upload form and that's it. Please go read it.

Here's the main part:

"By uploading a product using the form below, you are representing that you are the sole owner of the intellectual property being uploaded or that you have the legal right to sell the intellectual property on behalf of the owner. You agree to indemnify Bondware Inc. in any dispute which may arise regarding products that you sell through this site."

-Jeff

So IOW if we sell "exclusive" here, then change our minds and go sell the same thing elsewhere(like TurboSquid ferinstance), you can't say so much as "boo" about it? You guys really do need to create a contract. /P

Actually the indemnify thing is just a catch all- it can be broken easily if there has been a breach of contract or illegal activity.

oh, so, if there is no contract that means that the merchants get to keep 100% of the sale?

"Ironbear - FYI!!! I did a search through the database just to substantiate your slight distortion of the issue that it is common knowledge that those of us at RR know you are a store admin at DSi. You signed one forum post, out of the possible millions you have made, as DSi Store Admin. Now tell me how easily it would have been to not catch that? I'm not here to continue the argument - just displaying a more accurate description of your misleading statement. Tommy" Regardless if IB - or anyone else - made mention of the fact or not, R'osity changed the policy and should have researched all merchants that would have been affected.

Ironbear - FYI!!! I did a search through the database just to address your slight distortion of the issue that it is common knowledge that those of us at RR know you are a store admin at DSi. You signed one forum post, out of the 14 + thousand you have made, as DSi Store Admin previous to your removal from the Private Merchants Forum. Now tell me how easily it would have been to not catch that? I'm not here to continue the argument - just displaying a more accurate description of your misleading statement. Tommy

Attached Link: http://market.renderosity.com/merchant.ez?UploadDigital=Yes

-JH.

nah joffry - that means that Renderosity can keep 100% of the sale if they want to - since the merchants have no way to protect themselves ;) lol It's either like it or lump it as far as this site is concerned. If any merchant reads what JeffH says and still continues to sell here then they are not smart business people. Allowing anyone to sell anything of yours without a binding contract is very foolish. A contract protects the merchant as much as it protects the site. What's to stop Renderosity from doing anything they want with your merchandise if you have no contract with them? Oh and btw, I have no 'agenda' at this point in time. I no longer work for any online site in any capacity whatsoever. But I would hate to see merchants who I've dealt with in the past get screwed. And if you're doing business with Renderosity without a contract - then you've left yourselves wide open to get screwed by them.

Since there are terms involved in a commercial transaction, that - in and of itself - constitutes a contract or agreement (of the terms) between the merchant and R'osity in exchange for hosting the products. Therefore, neither side could change the terms of the agreement after they have been agreed upon without offering the other party the chance to read and agree to the new terms. All agreements are "set in stone" once both parties agree until such time as both parties acknowledge and accept the changes. It would appear that R'osity is, once again, trying to use linguistics to absolve themselves from a fix they placed themselves in. IMHO, I do not see the pertinence as to whether you call it an agreement, a contract, terms of service, etc; they all imply the same outcome.

If that's the case then where in that agreement does it mention access to a forum?

Well, considering that the rules have changed and more than one affected merchant has discussed the access as being part of the original agreement, I would suspect that the verbiage has been changed since they signed up or that the document you linked to was not the one they were referring to.

It appears that the Merchant Resource Center document has been revised to include the "If a Renderosity MarketPlace Merchant has a vested interest in a competing broker site or is not participating in a professional manner Renderosity Administration reserves the right to remove their access to the Private Merchant forum." at or about the time the original decision was made.

I am sure the affected merchants would be better poised to answer that question.

There is only one agreement and it's on the upload page.

It never had anything about access to a forum as part of it's content.

-JH.

Well, obviouisly, the impression was there in order to make the affected merchants believe it was part of the benefits of the agreement; otherwise, why would so many merchants back up the claim that it was?

"Merchants Forum / Chat All MarketPlace Merchants have access to a private forum that you will now see on your side navigation bar under Admin Forums. It is not open to the general Renderosity public. The Merchants Forum provides a place where you can communicate with other store contributors and the Renderosity team. Feel free to ask questions and discuss issues here. Updates pertinent to store contributors will also be posted as necessary. Please visit this forum often...." oh?

Jeff, it also doesn't say I can't make arrangements to split up my products zip files and sell individual textures from them offsite or through email does it? After all, if I split the product up I'm not selling the whole product and therefore not in violation of the "exclusive" aspect of the sparsely worded "agreement", am I now.

I think Jeff is doing merchants a favor by pusing the fact that there is no real agreement.

Who here, merchant or customer, would like to see a real agreement established? I would.

I second that Kendra

i would settle for a bit of professionalism on this site- they keep harping on it yet they themselves are pretty clueless about what exactly they are trying to accomplish. Or honesty would be a good thing. To me this looks like another "time to clean house" attempt. If there are so many here who they wish would go away, then why not just come out and do it? Just warn the remaining merchants to dl their own products for safekeeping, bring the server down, redo everything and reopen it- with more stringint membership requirements. That would keep the riff raff and trouble makers and naysayers out, would save them embaressment about always having to justify their boneheaded attempts to push those who do not meet their criteria out the door, and they wouldn't have to explain anything to anyone because all that would be left would gbe those of like mind. Seems that is what they are trying to do anyways. And by closing and reopening- they could redo// clean out the store of items that do not sell, etc etc.

legal mumbo jumbo aside, threats of lawyers and class action lawsuits and tit for tat, who said this, who said that, dot your i's and cross your t's, the bottom line is this: merchants are feeling alienated. I've never seen anything so sensative in the merchant forum that's I'd consider so overpoweringly secretive that it would put renderosity out of business for the competition to know. Is there some conspiracy here? Why is renderosity so paranoid? If a merchant sells his or her items here, then dammit, they should be allowed in the merchant forum because they are "paying" you sell their stuff here. Tell you what, from now on, how about all the merchant who want to discuss their super secret merchant business just do in the showcase forum, or poser forum. How about that? You know what will happen? Some admin say "this message has been moved to the merchant forum". You are making us unhappy. Doesn't that bother you? In the least little bit? Aren't you sad to see people who have been here since the day this site opened tell you where to stick it and leave? Doesn't that bother you all? Isn't there anything else you can do besides say "I have no personal problem with you and I'm sad to see you go" and leave it at that. Shame on you guys. Oh, by the way, I've had beyondbent.com for a long time now, I'm the owner, operator and sell my goods there, so do a few other people. How long before I'm locked out of the merchant forum. Davo

Davo - Do you broker products for other merchants other than yourself? Clint

yes I do.

Bye bye Davo, I'm sure the other merchants will miss you. I wonder how long it's going to take them to track down the other site and store admin at least two of whom I know are still allowed merchant forum access. Not exactly a secret, their names are on the site staff lists. What a frelling joke. Guys, get a reality check, even I can see the damage you're doing. I find it amazing you can't.

"How long before I'm locked out of the merchant forum." uh oh davo.. Think it will be about..looking at watch now.

I have a couple of questions. 1) ScottA: Why are you peppering this thread with nonsensical animated gifs? They do not add to the discussion, and neither do the snide asides directed at IB. What they do achieve is to make you, and the site you represent look extremely unprofessional, and untrustworthy. 2) If the issue is (as I see it in my attempt to understand Renderosity Admin's POV) preventing the competition from accessing confidential information; why not take a different approach? Rather than alienate your members(aka: customers) and merchants by denying them (franchised merchants, for lack of a better term) access to something so simple, yet so important as a forum to discuss Renderosity merchant related issues; why not do this?: Don't discuss confidential Renderosity business related information information in the merchants forum. Not that this excuse holds any water for me anyway, but if you are going to insist that you only want to lock out he competition from confidential info, simply don't share that info in the forum. Why is that such a difficult thing?

Davo- stick me on your email list please- i like your stuff-just been too busy to buy more - haven't had time to play in a while.

it's a house cleaning attempt- If they were really trying to keep confidential stuff confidential- they would have already made a " for renderosity exclusive brokers only" forum. That would take care of everything. Multiple brokering merchants would still have a forum to ask "where thier check is, how to do that better, what price do you think i should charge for this..." And the rosity exclusives could go to their own break room to discuss top secret squirrell highly senstivive issues such as "where thier check is, how to do that better, what price do you think i should charge for this..." shrug

Hi Momcat - Becasue we like to get input from the merchants from time to time on changes we are thinking about implementing. All MarketPlace changes are shared with ALL merchants via a Montlhy merchant newsletter once they have been implemented. So if a merchant doesnt have access to the forum he will still be notified of changes made. Clint

WHAT!?!?!?!?! Holy moly. That's what I get for assuming. I would never, never, never enter into a business arrangement with someone withoug a contract with a delineation of rights and responsibilities. "I wil do this, you do that. If I don't do this or you do that, this will happen. If I want to change this, we both have to reverify. Sign here, file in triplicate." PERIOD. Anything less is not business, it's playing pretend. Make it up as you go guidelines don't cut it. I think, Clint, that you are one of the sincerely nicest people I have ever met. It's a shame you are being put in this position.

I know that >^_~ I just want to see what their excuse is when faced with common sense. The Exclusive merchant forum idea isn't a bad idea either. Too bad Renderosity Admin have such a difficult time accepting ideas they didn't come up with themselves, or admitting when they make a mistake.

"Becasue we like to get input from the merchants from time to time on changes we are thinking about implementing."... Kinda like the way feedback was allowed on this one?

Yes Clint - but there would be a time delay in certain merchant's getting such 'important' information since they would have to wait for the monthly newsletter to come out. This might give the merchants who have access to that forum a competitive advantage over the merchants who have to wait for the merchant's newsletter to come out. Something for everyone to think about.

Scott still didn't answer my question. :(

It's all just a lame excuse- all it would take is for someone to make up a new user name make 2 or 3 items and make em rosity exclusives, stick em up there- and continue to sell other stuff at other brokerages under a different user name. No one but the user and whoever the user decides to tell would know any different- so this secret squirrel stuff doesnt wash.

he would only post a gif of his dragon playing the violin ;P Actually -( why i am doing this i do not know) he got a new job- he may have posted on his break and can't get back...

Too true Cheryle.

Actually it would be very hard to sell under a clone anywhere Cheryle. At some point a store has to give you a check for any product sold, and they would need a legal name and mailing address in order to do so. I wouldn't be able to cash a check made out to 'John Doe' if my name is Janet Otremba ;)

all it takes is a DBA ( doing business as) and //or putting other people on the account, such as a spouse, sibling, parent, child etc etc shrug Not really Jade- i have 4 accounts under 4 different names- it is actually quite easy to do

Damn, Clint, hate to pummel you like this, I know you got the shit end of the stick here when you "have to" defend the policies of the Choates... but... Clint Said: "Because we like to get input from the merchants from time to time on changes we are thinking about implementing." This would actually prove effective if our INPUT actually mattered, or Tim would actually LISTEN to the "input". I've been watching this stuff for a while now and I have seen Tim do the opposite of what the vendors suggest... so your theory, while nice... isn't really true. Clint said: "All MarketPlace changes are shared with ALL merchants via a Montlhy merchant newsletter once they have been implemented. So if a merchant doesnt have access to the forum he will still be notified of changes made." So it is okay for you to knownly shaft your fellow artists and merchants, segregate them and favor others, take money from those FOOLISH enough to stick around because you inform them of the changes once they've been made. Comeon people, can't you see what is happening here? By continuing to broker here, you are helping to support the segregration that is occuring here. By buying products in the online store, you are allowing other artists to get treated differently... you are helping to support this! Clint, you have always cared about this Community. You defended it and give so much of yourself to it. HOW can you support this kind of behavior? I know you are following the instructions of the owner of this place, but look at what it is doing to your fellow artists... to your friends. YOU of all people is the last one that I would expect to see enforcing stuff like this. You defended the rights of the artists even on the PFO, what has changed so much that you are compromising those principles now? People, either by purchasing in the online store here or carrying product in the online store here, you are supporting the actions that are hurting your fellow artists... your friends and you are helping to pave the way you yourselves will be treated someday. Jack

"Hi Momcat - Becasue we like to get input from the merchants from time to time on changes we are thinking about implementing." But we aren't going to listen nor do we care if the input is for or against

{ "Hi Momcat - Becasue we like to get input from the merchants from time to time on changes we are thinking about implementing." But we aren't going to listen nor do we care if the input is for or against} Exactly. I do remember some comments at the time of the first round of purges that there were actually a lot of people that were FOR the policy, but were afraid to speak out in the forum for fear of getting blasted. hmmmmm. A good question here is WHY were they afraid of getting blasted? Why were they not willing to speak up publicly for a policy they supposedly believed in? As I recall, the responses in the merchant's forum were very nearly totally AGAINST this policy. Why were the supporters not willing to make their reasons for support of the policy public?

... ... -.. -..

Yes you're right Cheryle, so long as you could provide them with a 'front man' so to speak - you could do business under another name. I hadn't thought of that.

I could have a family member such as my sis open up a new bank account(or open up one in her name- get a log in here-she gives me the passwords logon and i am happily uploading away to my hearts content- and if it didnt sell that would be good too because all i would be after is the forum contact to see all the highly sectretive goings on ;) not actually trying to sell anything ;) shrug ;) Same with paypal...

If this continues, it looks like the only merchants left will be the illustrious Mr. Brogan. I am no merchant, so I'm not going there, but I find it really, really sad this has happened - IB is inventory here, and I am sure there are other merchants here who have similar roles as he has - anyone know if they have gotten the same message ? If superdupersecret stuff wasn't discussed in the forum, but in the flier...why was he refused access to the forum ? IB - Thanks for all the cool stuff :-) ~S