Comments on: 'Second Life' faces threat to its virtual economy

A program making the rounds of the Linden Lab's digital world allows users to copy whatever they like, even if they're supposed to pay for it.
Images: Storming the virtual gates

[Len Bullard]

By the Way

I'm not endorsing stealing content clearly marked as owned. I'm saying that that is all DRM get you; a way to make it harder to steal and a way to prove it was indeed stolen. But you will pay a price for that defense in legal fees and if you carry it too far, in a lot of very pissed off customers who did pay for it and consider it theirs to use as they will. They will do as I saw my son did today with a game that he purchased in a store and after bringing it home, found he had to log on to the Internet and download more stuff just to play it. That kind of thing is ********.

You want protection. My point about what the VRMLers did was that without a binary, they found they couldn't protect anything and as a result, their community went into a tailspin without profits to show for legitimate hard work. So they coped as best as they could and now they are about to put their work in binaries if they so choose. That won't protect it; it will just make it a bit more inconvenient to steal.

But it is the closed system that is SecondLife that makes it possible to sell content there and it is the selling of content that makes it attractive to steal: it has value. So you live with the big bad world when you make stuff to sell. If LindenLabs can't protect it, find another place to sell it but be aware that the same scenario will repeat.

I didn't say that was a good thing; it's just Life Among the Mammals. Deal.

[Prokofy Neva]

CopyBot Was Deliberate and Malicious

Daniel, you quote Baba and put him in a context as if he is just some serious and thoughtful software engineer who is just telling us the technical facts.

But it's all fake.

He has been outed as someone utterly malicious and cruel in having done this CopyBot deliberately.

http://www.sluniverse.com/forums/Topic12867-1-1.aspx

[coryschulz]

I commented about this concept a long time ago...

http://news.com.com/5208-1030-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=22182&messageID=195793&start=-69
and
http://news.com.com/5208-1030-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=22182&messageID=195795&start=-69

yeah... Their arguments are worthless. The internet is a completely different economic system where the models of supply and demand simply do not and can not exist... It just inherently doesn't work that way. Everyone calls me a lier and a thief... That's like saying that the fact that gravity exists is wrong and that we should all attempt to work against gravity and make it non-existent.... It's just not reasonable and not possible. This is all so dumb and trivial and ego driven... it's sad really...

[aSiriusTHoTH]

life....

that is funny... I was thinking the same thing. This thing is just dumb. People really do need to get out more and have a "real" life.

[Bulldogg629]

Second Life: For when your first life sucks.

It seems to me that anyone that knows about Second Life falls into an extreme... Love it, hate it, or don't really care about it. My problem is with the people that so adamantly hate it. I see here and on other boards, seething posts about how ?they had it coming?? ?why don?t they get a real life???what do they contribute to society? and I have to wonder, what is it that makes you hate these people so much? Let me point out that I don?t play Second Life, I have dial-up. I would like to give it a try, but I would probably tire of it. That said, just because I?m not a member of the game doesn?t mean I have anything against them. The fact that they took a game and made it into a functioning world is pretty cool if you ask me. Second Lifers are no different than Star Wars Online players, or any of the other mmorpg?s, and no one hates them like this. So what if people want to invest their time in fiction is that any different than a comic book reader? You criticize them for putting real money into something that isn?t real. Is that much different than pumping quarters into the machines at an arcade, or paying for a sports ticket just to watch. Second Life, as with any other hobby, doesn?t need to earn you money or contribute to the world to make it an enjoyable hobby. Speaking of contributing to the world, as one poster here wondered? Most Second Lifers are graphic designers, programmers or animators by trade, that?s why they do so well in the game. For those that haven?t figured it out, those are the same people that design most of what you see online... this page for example. And as for ?why don?t they get out and get a real life? perhaps its because of people like you that outcast people left and right, that a second life might be more preferable to the first.

[play7]

The future is dim for second life

The failure to address many have let a bad taste inthe VR mouths of many users. Open source is the issue. Since LLabs is longer caring about the common users, but instead IBM,DELL, Toyota etc are now teh main target to LLabs growth. Why doea LLabs care about the big players and not the ones that build their house of avies? Wel first its because for one..The writer of this store is himself a linden. His sole purpose is to promoto sl with positive views with basis reporting. Its bad enough LLabs no longer cares about those the helped them grow over the years, but insulting us to fall of this BS writing to better suit LLabs inthe ever growing narrow views of promoting shameless way of folling and lieing to its old and new users of their VR world. If you have not started playing SL don`t start! Say your money and go christmass shopping at walmart. You get the same sort of crappy CS as well. But atleast amd feel and touch the poorly made objects unless philip linden`s Second Life.

[emcourtney]

This is great, litigate now!

Ha ha, this litigation will do more to set back the IP goons than
the EFF could ever hope to on its own. Friends, IP is not
property, either real or chattel, in is only statuary monopoly,
remember this.

Trying to use copyright law to protect ideas as chattel property
will seriously weaken copyright case precedent. I need only
refer US residents to Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 8 of our
Constitution to point out the shaky ground any petitioner
seeking to protect in-world objects through copyright law
stands on.

Remember friends, IP Isn't Property.

[Jackx999]

But SL is racist.....

Don't you know Second Life is racist?
When you join you are offered a choice of Avatars. All have nice smiley WHITE faces, unless you want to pose as a Racoon.
And in the adult Horizons Resort, one character, Palad, says whenever the issue arises, he wishes the "furries" would stick to their own "community". It is clearly a metaphor for minorites. He defends his racist views, saying it is not illegal, but incites others to act. His girlfriend Felicity dismisses all Scots as "mean" and the few who have dared protest this RAMPANT RACISM have been arbitrarily thrown off the site by a defiant management

[TheTanZor]

You're dumb.

If you were not so ignorant and played the game for once, maybe you'd realize that you can CHANGE the color of your skin in-game. *******.

[RubikFox]

I can understand why you'd think it's racist because of the all-white choices for a starting character, but the starting characters available to choose from are actually randomly generated and change every few days to prevent too many newcomers from looking the same. So in this case, I suppose probability is racist. It just so happened that you've witnessed an unlikely random set of avatars whom were all white. And also, the furry fandom is a subculture, not a race.