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Differences between SL and FL economy

Liberty Tesla
Perpetual Newbie
Join date: 1 Sep 2003
Posts: 173
04-22-2005 10:12
From: Nashville Rambler
Public corporations:
Is there *No One* among the ~10,000 active participants that folks can agree to trust?!
If there is, that person can be the a banker for many corporations. You might want to pay them something significant for their trouble.
GOM has taken up that responsibility, as has Anshe. But it's a lot to ask of someone who is basically giving up their leisure time to participate, and there is no trust mechanism (like an employment contract) that allows delegation of responsibility and trust. Burnout, or retirement to avoid burnout, is the result; witness Hank Ramos' recent withdrawal from the currency exchange business.

From: someone
Copyrights:
SL has good IP security. Could you please provide more details on why you believe that IP is an issue?
I never mentioned copyrights (which are more-or-less addressed by SL's permissions feature), but patents. Copyrights protect particular expressions of an idea, but patents protect the underlying idea itself. A patent would allow someone who figured out some new feature (such as short-range teleporting via llSitTarget) to claim ownership of that idea, and charge royalties for its use.

Patents might or might not be a good idea in general in SL -- I'm not a fan of patents for software, which SL "inventions" sort of are, and sort of aren't -- but it's one form of incentive that exists in RL, but not in SL.
blaze Spinnaker
1/2 Serious
Join date: 12 Aug 2004
Posts: 5,898
04-22-2005 10:15
From: someone

Patents might or might not be a good idea in general in SL -- I'm not a fan of patents for software, which SL "inventions" sort of are, and sort of aren't -- but it's one form of incentive that exists in RL, but not in SL.


Yeah, this is an amusing difference and one that probably screwed Kermit over. The fact is you can not patent anything in SL (assuming the TOS can be held up in court) as you give up your right to do so.
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