Is 'THIS' the future of Second Life ?

Creator accounts for US$ 495? Never heard such nonsense.

In fact the only way to some closer to a solution against theft, is finally understanding that anonymous accounts are no good.

Give people a period to try out Second Life, and during that period they simply cannot transfer any item. After that (let's say 2 week) period, verify. Either by credit card, or by some other form of identification. If those idiots that steal stuff now, know there are legal consequences, they might think twice. But at this moment, the only info LL has, is your IP. Almost asking for fraud, isn't it?

Verify and get a full SL, don't verify and miss the transfer possibility. Copybot all you want, no way to transfer.

But in no freaking way limit people to create. For my business, I can fork over 495 dollars, that doesn't worry me. But how many talented creators will leave us? Think before coming up with things like this.

Marcel

Sure they can. Second Life not only provides such a capability, but it also runs on software that was developed by individuals who didn't have to throw down 500 dollars, 500 markka, 500 pounds, or even 500 lindens, to get the right to create a product. The whole open source ecosystem that's been nibbling at Microsoft's backside and has been adopted by big companies like IBM because it works so well makes nonsense of this argument.

There IS no such barrier to entry for digital media, and every year more barriers fall as cheap and free software that lets anyone participate in more and more exotic areas using a computer they already own. Second Life is just a part of that.

If you want a virtual world with a barrier to entry for creative people, Blue Mars is waiting for you. For the rest of us, we like Second Life the way it is now.

What capitalist country do you live?

In the United States of America, you can participate in a capitalist market for free.

In fact, this is how how businesses in SL started.

In fact, you can, in many cities, participate in the market through free media that allow you to advertise your used or made item/product for free.

Stop trying to cook up an excuse for protectionist and elitist market practices.

Don't have time to read the whole thread. Just wanted to say this: Anonymity isn't really the problem. Being able to prosecute easily, is. There are currently some very open, bold, copybotters in SL, with popular main grid stores, whose content is stolen. They are known, but because of where they are in the world, hard to prosecute.

So, changing the free account system will change other things for other people in SL but it will not slow down the thieves.

Very interesting thought. As it is technically impossible to avoid texture theft, at least identification (and still maintain a free account) could do the trick. Best suggestion so far, or is there a snag that I didn't think of?

lolwut?

"Known" copybotters that are not being kicked by LL? Who have popular stores?

Please PM/IM me some names or else I just cannot believe this.

They don't need to be "easy to prosecute", they just need to be "easy to permaban".

The only issue would be that not everybody wants, or is able to verify. But that will be the problem with every system, nothing is perfect.

As soon as someone knows they are known by the provider (LL), they know they will be caught if doing something illegal like copybotting someones merchandise. They might be prosecuted, and at least be permabanned. Creating new accounts is impossible, as all accounts must be verified (if they want to be able to transfer stuff).

Formerly I supported premium accounts only after an initial 2 week trial period, but I understand that would cost too many members. Plus 72 dollars per year might be not too much in my part of the world, but is some countries it is several days of work. So let's abandon the idea of premium, but go with the verification idea. Seems a valid solution to me.

This certainly seems closer to a workable answer than anything I could come up with.

For starters, it gets to the underlying problem without distraction: it's about *transfer* (not sales) and *identification* (not payment).

(Before this post, I was going down a sort of parallel line of thinking: denying the ability to transfer assets "created" by an unverified account. That's pretty much a dead end, however, because for several interesting asset types, it's possible to construct new products without being the "creator" of any of the assets as far as the system knows. Trying to fix that is definitely the hard way to attack the problem.)

At first glance, I was worried about the trial period: in two weeks, a lot of copying can be done. But if there's just no way to transfer the copies to anybody, I can't think of a way it could be a problem.

Whatever is used for identification would have to be solid enough to at least discourage a fraudulent copier from using a steady stream of false identities. (This is where a steep fee is a simple--but unacceptable--approach.)

One question: Would there be any reason not to make Notecards the sole exception, so residents could use them to communicate even during their trial period?

One has nothing to do with the other really. But according to those who have been stolen from, the big copybotters are devilishly determined and sneaky. They seem to have deep pockets, too.

IOW, ain't no such a thing as permaban, in some cases. Kind of like 'permabanning' spam from the internet.

I realize I'm very late to the party here, but:

I may be a very small player in the world of SL business, but I'm a "self-made man" to a large extent. I came here intending to learn how to build and script (and later picked up animation too) and that's what I did for the first 6 months+, mostly sitting on a plywood platform 100 meters up on a friend's land, running off to sandboxes to experiment with larger builds and physical objects that have that annoying tendency to roll off the platform and into neighboring sims. After several months I was fortunate enough to hit upon an idea for a niche product and that same friend allowed me to sell it in her shop rent-free (I did do some light scripting and, later, animating for her). After a time I had put some lindens aside and sales were steady enough that they would cover the cost of a premium account and my first piece of land, so I opened a shop. Yes, with one product in it LOL.

Things have grown a bit from there, and I've changed my focus but my business is still decidedly on the scale of "covers tier and the occasional beer money". The point, though, is even though I am currently PIOF (not used) I've never paid Linden Lab a penny out of pocket, and if I hadn't needed PIOF to expedite that first little cashout I wouldn't have anything on file at all. Honestly it pained me to go PIOF because I was proud of my little game and enjoying it too, gritting my teeth and insisting on pulling myself up by my bootstraps based only on what I could create and sell in here, even when it would have saved me some time and hardly been cheating at all to hand over my credit card and buy a few lindens now and then.

Being forced to make a cash investment blows people like me out of the water, and also kills dead similar idealistic dreams of stumbling across a talent or an aptitude for something in SL and just making a go of it. For every "serious" business person I know in SL, I know one or more who came here strictly to have fun and found out that creating stuff and selling it is even more fun, with the added bonus that sales can help defray tier and such. For that reason and others I'm generally opposed to the notion of drawing a hard distinction between "business users" and "recreational users", and making people cross that line with cash in hand.

All that said, I do think free accounts have done more harm than good and I'd happily have ponied up $10 or something to get started in SL. I just think it's a mistake to tie paid accounts to the ability to create content.

I do like Marcel's idea of a trial account that is limited in the amount of permanent damage it can do by not being able to transfer. Good thinking there.

Spending dollars to make pennies will eventually discourage the deepest of pockets.

Well, one can hope.

Who's for leaving the gates wide open to infinite disposable anoymous alt accounts and massbotting for another 5 years?

Linden Lab

don't forget that people can hop down to the local courthouse in some places and get death certificates... and register with a dead person's identity and verify.

It's been done many times for credit cards, id cards, etc... it's happening now for age verification.

There's also the possibility that somebody could kidnap Philip Linden and brainwash him into giving them a free account.

I think that would kill the use of Second Life, but I could be wrong.

For sure, free accounts aren't 'trial' accounts anymore.

Linden Lab is not going to reverse the decision they made in 2006.
It's simply not going to happen - Wanna bet? Oops, I bet we can't bet here.

We have people verifing with their dogs, uncles, etc

It will happen, identity theft is a number one crime on the internet

So what happens when the thieves have to verify? They falsify the data given with legit information stolen from somewhere...

And then your DCMA go to a person that is dead, or never even been on SL

OK, say the scumbag creates 100 disposable alts one day. Their "two weeks" have already expired on all 100 accounts when the first of them starts selling his bootleg.



Well, it doesn't necessarily have to be a steep fee. The one-time $10 fee to set up an account is hardly steep or unaffordable by the vast majority of users. Plus, it means they have to identify themselves to some extent. Banning by payment info has a great advantage as well: it is MUCH more difficult and costly to get "more payment info" than it is to simply sign up for 100 accounts to use whenever.

Walmart Visa card - can be created with false identification data since it's pay as you go like a debit card.

They can use them to bypass this barrier you want to put up.

If a person thinks they can make a big profit selling stolen textures/items in world they will take the necessary steps to stay ahead of the barriers put up.

It's like gun laws, the criminals don't worry about them... they only really affect law abiding citizens.

Sure

Yeah, but then you have to go to Walmart and get another one, then another one. Costs time and money to make the trip, unless you live next door. You probably won't be making a bunch of them up at one time in advance, since it would tie up your money and raise suspicions.

It's not a perfect solution, but no solution ever is. It is a lot easier and less intrusive than most DRM schemes, however, and would work more effectively.

Actually, that kind of thing isn't a problem.

However...

I got some of these for presents for my kids (who are both adult). There's a fee about $5.00 for each card you get, and the card company uses something like Aristotle to cross-reference your name and address, and limits how many cards you can activate for online use in a given time period. My kids birthdays are only a month apart and close to Christmas and I had to wait because I triggered some kind of limit.

Well, it gets to be a problem because the hassle factor involved in going to Walmart to get another card is orders of magnitude more hassle than simply creating yet another free throwaway alt (which they have to do in addition anyway).

After a while, it becomes apparent that it isn't worth the hassle, especially since many infringers are lazy to begin with. There are a few that are machines, and will do it regardless, as long as there is profit involved, but they are just as likely to use stolen credit cards as go down to their local Walmart (or equivalent) to get another card. For them, they will quickly run afoul of a lot more devastating problems than a few permabanned accounts.