My Letter to M Linden About BuilderBot

So, Desmond goes away and who's left claiming authority to discuss business? Jesse? Yeah, that's *just* like what's happening in SL.

What's the opposite of irony?

Fair enough, I guess. That's not my position, and that's probably why I read Carl's post a little differently (and probably wrongly). *Use* of a tool in contravention of SL permissions is a ToS violation and LL should reiterate its commitment to dealing swiftly and decisively with violators. I think (apparently controversially) that irresponsible distribution of such tools is also counter to LL's interests, and it would do well to discourage that behavior by whatever means it has available. I don't think those means include ToS enforcement nor direct legal action that might qualify as "banning" the tool.

But, yeah, Carl's statement does claim the distribution to be a ToS violation. That seems just wrong on the facts--I certainly can't defend that position--so if that has been the actual meat of the debate here, I've missed it.

Still, just practically, I don't see LL being able to respond effectively solely by enforcing ToS-violating IP infringement on its own grid, especially while programs facilitating such infringement spread here and on other grids. In theory, another company might, but in practice, LL's measly efforts will be swamped unless it also tries to limit proliferation of such programs.
One might well think so, but actually not. I'm much more interested in solving problems than in the actual solutions (which is probably one reason that I have so few products that I ever get to market before I'm distracted by a shiny new problem). Anyway, I grant that the whole SL economy is based on a vast majority of people who don't share my idiosyncratic feelings about this. That was why I mentioned it.
Yes, but I find myself channeling some inner Prok when I read:My inner Prok lives in a dark and scary place, so I prefer not to go there often, nor stay there for long.

No, I'm just saying that it is not a strong business driver.

Many things have fair/legal use, but they still get banned (or placed under controlled use). There are always stronger drivers (business or other ones) behind this.

Neither are my thoughts of good or bad relevant - they are not drivers at all.

I also consider arguments in the line of "if we ban things like BulderBot" we should also ban bricks because they can be used as weapons" is a case of reductio ad absurdum. The pertinent thing is what are the drivers here? The strongest will win.

Anya I more then welcome any relevant input as to what you think should be done to solve the current situation but I do not see anything except for little one line sniping remarks from you.

Not quite, this thread is "ban the VCR, CD writer, and MP3 player that ignores industry standard permissions systems", only there isn't an industry standard permissions system for VCR, CD or MP3 players, so the analogy doesn't quite work.

I agree Osprey - it's all a bit murky right at the moment, but something _will_ happen and the best way forward will be found.

That's the argument that I have been making, too... and it's not too far from the position that I see *most* of the people you're arguing with taking.

The horse is out of the barn and its grandchildren have already spread too far to rein in. The people who have the most access to these tools are the ones who you least want to have it. Trying to limit proliferation of these programs will itself cause damage and direct resources away from more important goals, and it won't work.

Plus, this doesn't appear to even be all that effective a tool of its kind.

Explaining how ridiculous that is might satisfy your need for more than one line, but it's funnier to let you have the final word, particularly given my previous comment

There's no industry standard for content protection in virtual worlds. There isn't even anything as universal as the content scrambling system in DVDs, or Apple's Fairplay, or Microsoft's Plays-for-sure. And media players that ignore all of these (yes, including CSS... look up "region free" DVD players) are all legal.

Okay, I thought of a concise, non-pedantic way to explain it, but it's still going to be more than one line...

I remember learning how credit cards worked when I wanted to buy something with my allowance and my dad just handed my item to the cashier and paid for it with the rest of his order, using a credit card. Imagine my confusion when he still wanted me to give him the money.

I laugh at this now in the same way I laugh at your taking yourself so seriously discussing business

However there is a Second Life standard for permissions that this tool bragged it would cirumvent and that's where people took issue.

in all fairness they did not bragged about it, they just stated that adding a check for that would slow down the program to much and was therefor ommited.

So you are so interested in this problem that all you have to offer is more insults?
What do YOU want to do? Do you want to ban all tools? Do you want to encourage LL to punish violators or maybe immediately pull all copies across the grid as soon as it has been shown they are in violation? Come on now give us something except for crap.

That Linden Labs has repeatedly said they wouldn't attempt to enforce by banning tools that allow you to bypass them, but that actually using those tools to do so is a serious violation of the ToS. Which I think we agreed was an appropriate position.

It's quite similar to Apple and Fairplay, except Apple tells you how to bypass it to make unencrypted backups of your tracks, and has at times encouraged you to do so.

And Fairplay is still more of an industry standard than the Sl protection scheme.
Thank you, you saved me from making the same point with extra sarcasm and a side of irony.

I already had my say, thank you. I'm not so full of myself that I need to keep repeating myself, and I'n not insane, so I don't expect anyone to suddenly say, after my nth repetition, "OMG, you're right!"

That, and talking to *you* about any of this is silly. You may think it's just an insult, but my terse post about what happens when someone like Desmond leaves the conversation fully explains my thoughts on what is wrong with SL. That *he* is gone and *you* remain, still talking about business, ethics and copy controls, is the perfect analog for what is happening in SL. I can't possibly better illustrate the challenges I think content creators now face.

When I read this, two things instantly pop into my head:

1. How are they calculating those numbers? You can't assume that every illegal copy is a lost sale. I'd say maybe 1 out of 3 for skins, 1 out of 10 for clothing. If we assume generously $8US/sale, then that's at least 7,500 illegal skin copies ($20K lost, divide by 8 is 2,500 sales, times 3 is 7,500 copies) - plausible, I suppose - but 25,000 illegal clothes copies - that seems implausible. I'm not sure what numbers to assign for other objects, and especially how they'd work for textures. But I'll gladly accept your numbers or your friends' numbers for any of these, as long as the math is worked out and seems plausible.

2. With those numbers, why aren't we seeing more copyright lawsuits? Under US law, a successful copyright suit entitles you to receive actual damages plus the infringer's profits (though the latter would be negligible for things being given away). Or statutory damages, which in the case of willful infringement can be as high as $150,000 per work. I suppose that many of the infringers either don't live in the same jurisdiction or don't have enough assets to be worth pursuing, but many would. If the problem is really that severe, we should be seeing cases other than the few that Stroker has filed.

There's a reason RIAA settles for a few thousand dollars here and there, and it's not because they couldn't hope to collect the maximum. It's because they believe the publicity of such cases will discourage others (ignoring the bad effect of such publicity on their public reputation).

I'll go out on a limb and say that the existence of more copyright lawsuits would be good, objective evidence that the impact of copyright infringement is severe. I won't rule out other evidence, but a simple statement of perceived losses, even from multiple business owners, doesn't cut it.

Well, you know what? That puts them squarely and appropriately in the same boat as the rest of the known universe when it comes to dealing with copyright infringement issues. Why should LL be able to solve problems the rest of the world is facing only attempting the exact same solutions which have repeatedly proven to be full of FAIL, by entities much larger and more prominent than themselves. Simply put, LL ALREADY has shown that they are at least cognizant of this fact of life, and so far have charted their course away from the stormy seas; the problem is they seem to be only paying lip service to the rest of the commitment to deal with the problems.



Well, let's say you're in the middle of solving a HUGE problem for someone, one which you've spent many hours already (say, building them a really cool theme park in their sim), and a sim crash takes out a significant percentage of your work. If you are stuck on mainland, you are screwed; they don't do rollbacks on mainland for such things. Also, some crashes have been known to corrupt the sim snapshot backups, meaning that there IS NO "backup" to roll back to, even if they were willing to do so.

Well, I won't deny that my opinion on worrying about someone's profit line vs solving world peace or global warming tends to lean towards the latter. So, yeah, it's definitely far from a strong business driver, at least for me.



I don't believe that "business" should always be the sole, or even most important driver in all considerations in life. Thus, at some point, the concerns related to non-business stances on a subject need to also be heard and considered. This MAY be one of those cases, but I also believe there are some business concerns which would be damaged by taking the stance of banning Builder's Bot.



Well, you might not think so; I certainly wouldn't say that about yours OR mine. What is "right" for business isn't always "right" for everyone and/or everything else. That's why businesses are (and should be) heavily-regulated entities, if for no other reason than they have the power to run roughshod over important rights. Remember, there's nothing in the law which guarantees businesses a profit, just the opportunity to do so within the realm of legality.



Well, yeah, to a degree it is considered reductio ad absurdum, but when people can actually be sued for "circumvention device: screwdriver", it's not as far-fetched as you might think:

"By considering the facts of the Adobe and DVDCCA cases we can expose a major flaw in the logic of the DMCA. CSS was not difficult to crack. The security of ``E-Book Pro'' was laughably simple to break. To follow the wording of the DMCA to its logical conclusion, let's imagine that there is an access-control chip installed in all TVs that prevents viewing of non-MPAA approved channels. Let's also imagine that to allow the viewer to watch whatever he wants, all someone has to do is open a panel on the side of the TV and pull out the big red chip that has a ``DO NOT REMOVE ME'' sticker on it. The only tool necessary would be an ordinary screwdriver. Under the DMCA, the screwdriver is now illegal because it is a ``circumvention device.'' Even though the screwdriver has other non-infringing uses, anyone distributing the screwdriver, or plans to build a screwdriver, or information on where you might find a screwdriver, can be prosecuted. It's like banning spray paint because it might be used to create illegal grafitti. Clearly that idea is absurd, yet current U.S. copyright law does have these implications."

As far as weapons go, you can't even take a pair of fingernail clippers onto a plane anymore. The TSA will confiscate them when you go through the "security theater" gates. I have good reason to imagine bricks would be confiscated, too.

I don't believe anyone here has the right to claim SOLE authority to discuss business matters. Certainly there are a number of business owners here discussing this issue, and their opinions matter just as much as Desmond's. The size of their revenues is irrelevant, for reasons that should be painfully obvious.

Errr, because of how well they use said revenues?

*wink*

Sorry! It's Friday.

Considering that Jesse has helped far more content creators (scripters) get into "the game" and succeed than Desmond can EVER hope to help, I find that a really ignorant talking point, and would consider it insulting as well.

I mean, if the only prerequisite to having one's opinion on something be considered at all is one's popularity and/or the size of one's bank account, that pretty much eliminates ~99% of all content creators. As a result, why should they bother with SL anymore if they can't express their opinions on a subject of concern to them?

I don't consider throwing away good money on a Ford "using revenue well".

Maybe he's a very helpful scripter, but we aren't talking about scripting or helping. I'm a scripter, too. I don't think it lends any legitimacy to my talks about business. In fact, I could hardly argue with someone suggesting it rendered my opinion on business irrelevant

I'm also mindful that scripts are about the only SL assets that aren't easy to copy. It renders most things scripters will say about the harmlessness of copy tech just short of disingenuous, IMO.

My apologies to Jesse, however. I'd cut Void some slack in a similar circumstance because I recognize her scripting expertise, even if it's irrelevant to this discussion, and I may just be thick that I don't remember Jesse's participation in the scripting forum. It's been a while since I participated regularly there.

I wonder how many people realize that copybot/builderbot is coming to real life.
Just one example:

http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/WebHome

If you think about how much the world has changed in the last 10 years due to the internet, just imagine how much it will change when the average home has one of these in it? Especially once they gain the ability to use multiple materials.

Jay Leno uses something similar to create replacement parts for some of his car collection.

Want one of those new thingies you see on TV, find a friend who can use CAD and a bingo, you can make your own.

Any ideas how we track that?

I'm more interested in crime prevention, than crime investigation. Copybot, and a version of BuilderBot that does not respect my permissions, should be illegal.