Broken Toys: All Second Life, All The Time

Posted on November 15, 2006 by Scott Jennings| 7 Comments

Raph Koster has more on Copybot. Since he did such a good job of analyzing the issues involved, I’m just going to copy what he wrote and use it as my own opinion on the matter.

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  • Aufero

    Damn. I don’t always agree with Raph Koster, but that’s by far the best summation of modern copyright issues I’ve seen.

  • Bob

    To really make the copyright case, they will basically have to prove the “this stuff has value and should be taxed” crowd’s case for them, wouldn’t they?

  • http://www.damnedvulpine.com J.

    So what, Raph wants to be for Second Life what Lars Ulrich was for Napster?

    Yes, of course they’re doomed. So is MySpace. You don’t want to be the guy pointing it out, because here’s what it does: it just draws more attention to the target while people wait for it to die.

    I mean, ferchrissakes, SomethingAwful now has a running feature devoted to the hoisting and petardedness of SecondLife. Did Raph really have to use this as an opportunity to remind the world of why our society isn’t ready for a free-for-all Holodeck and that SL really ought to have seen this all coming?

    Either some people are just way more considerate than I am and really want the best for all concerned, or some people really just like staring at trainwrecks more than I do.

  • http://intrepidcardplayer.blogspot.com GuidoSarducci

    Did you ever notice how you never actually saw the “common folk” in Star Trek?

  • robusticus

    Unlike music, they control everything: the distribution, the player, the media, everything. So, there is a technical solution. A rather simple one, at that.

    Player created content won’t go away no matter how hard you all wish.

    Funny I was having a conversation a week or so ago with a normal (non-orc-slaying) friend of mine about 2nd life, and their questions all centered around exploitation… starting with, can people burn down your house, and ending with… copybot.

  • http://www.raphkoster.com Raph

    “Unlike music, they control everything: the distribution, the player, the media, everything. So, there is a technical solution. A rather simple one, at that.”

    No, they don’t control the client. You never control the client, remember?

    In point of fact, the actual development of CopyBot happened because they allowed an open source project to create alternate clients to the data stream… but it would have happened anyway, just as wedges and the like have happened for every other VW client.

  • Nicademus

    I don’t really give a damn about SL and I copy the floppy whenever it suits me. But I’m always FASCINATED by these Frankenstein moments where corporations who have a vested interest in keeping down the libertarian horde release a tool in complete good faith only to see it almost instantly perverted into a tool for the “enemy”.

    Gnutella comes to mind, but this case is even more egregious. I mean it’s one thing for wedges to be eventual inevitable, it’s another thing to hand dupers the majority of the code set they need.