Friday, February 8, 2008

Virtual Theft In Second Life

Reading an article on Reuters about theft in Second Life, it seems to become really annoying for creators, who put a lot of energy in developing something, and then see how someone else is running off with their ideas, their products and, as result of that, with their money.
Those thieves are even so arrogant, that they invite the creator to join their group, to register in SL again, every time they are banned with a different name.
Millions of dollars are circulating in SL, without having a police to investigate possible crimes or laws for them to enforce.
As Second Life is a free-account-based virtual world, pirates are becoming increasingly brazen in their activities.
In the past there were already some lawsuits for similar cases, but all parties involved were based in the U.S. It will be harder to pursue when the persons or organizations are not from the States, as the example in Reuter’s article.
This person is a German citizen; who even suspect he’s being copied by a national of neither the U.S. nor the E.U.

Linden Lab Linden has a detailed page with instructions on how to file a complaint under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which provides a mechanism for copyright-holders to seek relief if their designs are copied online, but will avoid disputes between avatars.

There was recently a blog post called ”Better Than Free” written by Kevin Kelly, who is an editor-at-large for “Wired”, and lays out some interesting assertions:
“The internet is a copy machine. At its most foundational level, it copies every action, every character, every thought we make while we ride upon it. In order to send a message from one corner of the internet to another, the protocols of communication demand that the whole message be copied along the way several times….. Every bit of data ever produced on any computer is copied somewhere.

When copies are super abundant, they become worthless.
When copies are super abundant, stuff which can't be copied becomes scarce and valuable.

When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.”

He describes his eight “generatives” that he believes will be the ways in which individuals and organizations can generate value:

"….A generative value is a quality or attribute that must be generated, grown, cultivated, nurtured. A generative thing can not be copied, cloned, faked, replicated, counterfeited, or reproduced.

  • Immediacy
  • Personalization
  • Interpretation
  • Authenticity
  • Accessibility
  • Embodiment
  • Patronage
  • Findability"

Interesting story, interesting thought….

/me taking back my old typewriter, not to leave any trace on my pc, and changing the black ink lint after every article, so nothing will be traceable anymore.

Ooooh how I love the technical progress in our modern society!!!

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