Do PIOFs and NPIOFs get a free ride?

Yeah, but the infinate supply of free anoymous alts allows them to flood X-Street wih complete impunity. Which is why Search and X-Street should require some verification to use or even a US10 bond/license. because it the moment it's a 100% no lose situation for the immoral, they can create disposable alts faster than the DMCA can take them down.

Right, this is another dimension, but not irrelevant to the discussion, as I was mumbling about in an earlier post.

The premise of the thread as I understand it is that the distinction between "payer" and "freeber" isn't sufficient to distinguish between "contributor" and "freeloader". That's a perfectly valid claim, and it's difficult to claim otherwise, at least as a categorical truth.

Another dimension, however, is what net Real Life Money contribution is made by an account to the SL economy, directly or indirectly. The direct contributions are pretty easy to tote up: the amount of L$ the account buys minus the amount it cashes out, further reduced by any L$s paid for rent that goes from the landlord/estate to Linden tier or land fees, and by various other fees to LL sinks such as uploads and classifieds and parcel listings. (Note: It's not a bad thing to pay Linden salaries and hosting costs, but that's not contributing directly to the economy.)

Indirect contributions are much harder to quantify. These would be the amount of Real World Money *others* pay into the economy because of the existence of the account under consideration. How do we begin to measure that?

Well, one observation is that if our account only draws freeber accounts, and those freeber accounts only draw other freeber accounts, etc.--that the transitive closure of attraction generated by this account is all freeber--it generates zero indirect contribution to the SL economy.

One might be tempted to quantify some part of the contribution by the amount of L$s paid to the account by other residents for some reason, such as they want what that account produces as goods and services. This obviously undervalues the contributions of freely donated products and services, to the extend that those draw payers to the economy. It also seems flawed in the other direction: microparcel extortionists and copybotters presumably draw some L$s from residents but their actions are so damaging that they actively drive payers from the economy. So much for the free market as a metric of contribution (not unlike real life).

A further observation: it is *very* possible for a "payer" to have a net negative effect on the SL economy, much worse than a hypothetical freeber who contributes nothing socially nor financially. Every US$ an account cashes out raises the bar for that account to have a net positive effect on the economy.

Oh great another person who speaks for "everyone", doesn't think there's a problem or doesn't want it discussed or thinks LL will do something if just we stick our heads in the sand. I'm starting to suspect a lot of copybot runners are against this.

No one makes people come into this thread discuss it, so people not interested should just not read it or post in it.

Myself and a lot of other business people are starting to think a lot of "Elitists" have a lot to lose by any clamping down on content theft, or just come into a serious discussion thread to "LMAO", so yeah we should be careful about "alienating" people. Many peoples businesses are already screwed by the problems anyway.

What does that have to do with anything that was discussed in this thread? Not that I am the on-topic police....but where did that come from?

Let me lay out two scenarios here.

Firstly, myself. My first avatar was created in 2005, my second in 2006. In between I spent 6 months away from SL, and got my second one just as payment was dropped. My first one was created due to a huge amount of peer pressure. I resent having to give my personal information to everyone that asks for it, so this took a lot of convincing. And yet, 2 years after my first avtar was created I went Premium. So, if there was no pressure on me to sign up, and I had to pay for an account, I would never have been in SL.

Secondly, sometimes I have invited friends into SL, then bought them things like avatars and so on to feel welcome. Especially in the case of someone I don't see a lot IRL, but can in SL. These people never directly contributed to SL at all. But I am certain the people I buy from would disagree that there was no economic impact, though.

How is putting payment information on file giving personal information to everyone asking for it? You're receiving access to a service. It's not that much to ask.

The problem with NPIOF is, as others have said, there is zero accountability. If someone does something to someone else that normally would open them up to civil liability there is zero recourse for the victim. You could file a John Doe suit, get a subpoena against Linden Lab for account information and have nothing to show for it. Granted if the person behind the guilty account is from a country beyond the court's reach there is still nothing that can be done, but it would at least discourage content theft by people in North America, Europe and several other nations. It would also eliminate a lot of the silly griefing that goes on through endless alt accounts of semi-sociopaths that apparently have nothing better to do with their time.

It's a trend I have noticed online.

1) Play on game V - give your personal information to company W
2) Go to forum X - you need to be registered to read the forum
3) Go to forum Y - you need to be registered to search, even if you can read
4) Go to newspaper Z - you need to register to read articles

I dislike having to leave a trail of my own information no matter where I go. And yes, websites DO get hacked. And the information stolen. I was here back in the days when LL's whole credit card database (encrypted, I may add) may or may not have been compromised.

For me it's a principle thing - where do we actually stop providing personal information? Why should LL qualify, but random blog or forum A not? Or is it fine to provide information to anyone who asks for it / demands it? Is it fine to demand personal information from everyone that stumbles across you in Google?

Identity theft happens daily. Who can I hold accountable if I didn't even bother to protect my own private information? What guarantees do I have that LL, or any company, will safeguard my personal information? That they won't sell it to a third party? So why do I have to extend guarantees of my own?

It's the wall for you. Quickly behind the barn. Line you up. Turn you off.

But I am not in favour of freeloaders or panhandlers.
Bunch a'Halloweeners.

/me passes Jig her AK47 and Fidelista cap . . .

Another thing I thought of, so I won't edit my previous post.

McDonalds provide you with a service. Places like McDonalds that handle small amounts of cash are ideal for disposing of fake bills. Therefore, it would facilitate criminal investigations if everyone that buys at McDonalds are required to give their names and home address if they purchase anything with cash. That will save a lot of taxpayer money, as the police will be able to find the perpetrator much faster. And a name-taking at the door will similarly assist with finding and apprehending those people that steal McDonald's money.

Of course this will also have to be extended to everyone that handles cash, like your hairdresser, the petrol filling station, etc. After all, it's not that much to ask, is it? You are receiving access to a service, after all.

Good point to remind us that businesses use cash transactions all the time, they are anonymous, and that's just a normal course of business.

There is one important difference, however. If McDonalds were getting stuck with a lot of counterfeit bills, and its customers were routinely getting those fake bills in change before detected, McDonalds would have to enact some sort of greater security to protect itself and its customers. But there is no crime of anonymity routinely affecting McDonalds and its customers that would require it track identity. In Second Life, IP theft is routine, and it's the Second Life customers- as in the content creators- who are the victims.

I won't say that requiring identifying information is just trivial. It is intrusive. But the question is whether it is nonetheless a security measure that is warranted, given the real theft that actually happens thoughout Second Life, and that attempting to have identifying information on all customers may reduce that theft significantly and provide recourse for merchants when it does happen. I don't think it's a decision made by analogy to an entirely different industry; it has to be made on the specific costs and benefits unique to Second Life.

Just the bullet eh?

Pep (Rathering than lingering cancer.)

You have a right to not have your content ripped off. I have a right to privacy of my personal information. You are, in essence, contending that your rights supercede mine. Not unusual - some rights are more important than others. I am of the opinion that your rights are not more important than mine.

Let's look at a online industry, then. Some people on the net go out of their way to slander some other people, and this is growing. People have a right not to be slandered. One solution is to restrict anonymity on online forums and blogs. That way, if I slander someone, they can get redress.

The only thing they recognise is that by making the entry level for sl as LOW as possible, they increase their odds that in those many freeloaders, some decide to drop some money at Linden Labs.

Unfortunately it also brings some layers of the population most of us where living perfectly fine without.

Oh don't be so dramatic! The rifle doesn't have BULLETS!

It's a fashion statement, silly!

(Duhhhh!)

You might be taken more seriously if you realised that it is impossible to slander anyone on the 'net.

Pep (IANAL but even I know that.)

How amusing, another joke about wishing me dead.

Pep (Perhaps you should form a group.)

What, from a bullet-less rifle?

I think you are more likely to die from burning . . .

(I am SURE I caught a whiff of scorched martyr there . . .)

(Methinks that your entirely valid sense of outrage over having death by cancer wished upon you would be better served if you yourself didn't trivialize the original transgression by comparing it, entirely out of context, with remarks that are clearly very different in intent and effect.)

I think SL needs free accounts too. As personalities, I agree that a lot of free members contribute to the richness of out virtual world.

Most of us start as free members - I did, and I upgraded to Premium about a month after I joined.

What LL needs to do is provide sufficient incentives for people to wish to become Premium. This can be done in two ways - either by enhancing the benefits enjoyed by Premium members or by reducing the benefits of Basic members. In the end it's really down to whether LL feel they need to make such changes or not. A commercial decision.

...unless you use voice?

You are correct. I am not a native English speaker, for me there's very little distinction. It is indeed called libel. Please accept my apologies, and treat the post as if it contained the word libel.

It is against ToS to record voice conversations in the first place, and if several participants are involved in voice (necessary for independent corroboration; a one on one conversation could easily be disputed - and anyway, slander requires that the defamation be "published" it is almost impossible to identify who has said what, which is necessary for the specific identification of an avatar with the words spoken.

Pep (Too difficult!)

If you are too paranoid to give your info to SL, then don't.

Just don't complain when the world changes and those without PIO are locked out or have their access restricted.

It needs to happen.

you can't really say they have the right to protect their content and then use you have the right to break the TOS..

Basically you both have the right to agree or disagree to the TOS..if you agreed to the TOS and lied about your information then who is abusing who's right?
the bottom line is who would actually have the right to be here..the person that lied or the person that did not lie?

For the record, I am a Premium member, so my information is on file with LL. However, this was MY CHOICE. Had I been forced to do it, it would not have been there, because I would not have been here.

Can you please point out where I am advocating violating the ToS? I never said I am in favour of lying to LL, just that I think that providing personal information to LL is not required. My name itself is not private, nor is my email address (I have several anyway). However, beyond that I refuse to be forced to provide anything, unless I choose to share it.

I am certain that you want more than "Avatar X is controlled by John Smith", since that alone is insufficient to find a person amongst 6+ billion.