They did not HAVE TO offer us the possibility to own our own copyrights, but they CHOOSE to do so because it made people enthousiastic and start a business in second life. They used the “You create it, you own” as a tactic to ATTRACT people to second and make money there and earn from those people. It is not more than logical that when you choose to give people rights, they will use those rights some day. It was fairly naive to think this would not happen. Honestly speaking, I do not think this came totally unexpected to linden lab. Big companies like youtube more or less ignore copyrights untill they are big enough, and then slowly after years of doing nothing, start to do something about copyrights if they’re really forced to do so by law. It’s more or less their business stratigy to ride on large amounts of copyright infringements till they’re known enough. Imagine youtube without copyright infringement a year ago or so, before the actual record labels were more or less forced to go on youtube themself? 90% of the interesting stuff on there (like music video’s) were copyright infringing material. They used all those infringing videos to their advantage to grow, become popular and eventually force the record companies to put their videos on yourtube themself, because otherwise some other person would do it anyway illegally. It’s a very sneaky business model, but because of the fact it takes so long to get copyrights and suits sorted, this gives these companies years the the oppertunity to grow and earn lots of money before changing their stratigies.

It’s not like we have to be SO GLAD that linden lab gave us the oppertunity to earn money from second life. Don’t get that wrong. When your’e buying a burger in macdonalds you think You are happy with the burger, but maconalds is MUCH MORE happy with your money than you are with your burger. They never payed US money. No, we actually pay EACHOTHER money when we buy stuff in second life. And yes linden lab makes this possible. But no not forget they earn from whatever we earn in second life. It’s not like I’m the only one earning from my products. They earn from each time I send money from lindens to paypal, they earn alot of money from tier. That server does not actually cost 300$ to maintain. It costs 50 bucks maybe. So in the end, all money we make, is money to them too. So it’s about time they stick by the rules they choose themself.

SL is not ‘just some game’, just like websites are not just made ‘for your fun’. A hamburger at macdonalds is also not just made for you to enjoy. It’s all just business. Business brings progress. Look at communist countries. They are all poor and have poor development. That’s just how humans ‘work’. We’re “made” to work harder if we’re rewarded. Just like dogs. The best way to learn a trick to your dog is to reward him afterwards. Second life would loose alot of it’s relative value if there was no money involved. It’s like designer clothing. In real life designer clothing is not actually better than alot of cheap clothing, but people like the idea of having a good item. To them the money represents the quality. It’s all in their mind of course. I’ve seen tons of noobs in second life asking for a good skin, while they were in fact already wearing a very good (famous) one, that was copied and free for them. They were happier after buyingan expensive poor quality skin. I’ve seen women saying men can get away with freebies, while they were in a store PAYING for other items that were in fact freebies too. The value is partly in their mind. Have you ever had 1 thing and loved it, but once you got more it made you loose your interest? It’s exactly the same with Gold. Gold is not actually worth more as a material. It’s just worth more because there is little of it. THAT is what brings the value of a product. If everything was free in second life, nothing would really have value. People would problably rent larger parcels because at least that would have a certain value. It’s all more complicated than it seems in the first place when it comes to value and satisfaction. People think their life would be great if they had endless amounts of money, but once you get more money, larger amounts of money will mean the same to you as more little amounts meant to you when you were more poor.

It’s simple, quality costs money, in RL as well as in SL. And there will be plenty people who are very willing to pay for quality. I know I am.

PS: tip to all animation content creators: Motion capture plox! It’s easy you only need 2 Wii controllers for it! (I’d do it myself but I’m lazy)

Your little idea would prevent most people from being able to see if they can even make a successful business within Second Life, as they’d be forced to pay even MORE than the average “free” account does to start up a business!

You may think that having a business in Second Life should only be for those who are “serious business people”, but that view wholly disregards the many successful businesses that are run by hobbists and/or “free” accounts.

As successful as some of them are, many barely break even as it is, adding the aditional $10 to their expenses could very well turn into the final nail in their coffins.

Then you have those who struggle to start up a business, most have other issues to worry about, without having to pay a premium just to try and bring in even a tiny bit of extra cash.

As for hobbists and those who create for fun or the community … (Begin sarcasm) Sure, make them pay for something that they do without true care for getting anything out of it. Why not? After all, it isn’t like they do anything at all that makes Second Life better for anyone! (End sarcasm)

Christ, I know a few people who would rather pull the plug than be forced to pay for a hobby or for the fun/joy of creating and bettering their community.

I also know at least one family that tried to make a little extra cash with a Second Life business or two … There was no way in hell that they could have continually paid a premium, just to see if they could make a business.

Let’s not forget that you’d also be forcing casual users to pay a premium, just to take a snapshot and store it in Second Life or even frame it for their rented homes. In addition you’d be forcing this same premim on people who build only for themselves, with no intention to sell to anyone.

In closing: If you don’t like “free” accounts and refuse to consider what I have said, well then let me know the name of your business so I can refrain from supporting your narrow minded ass.

Your little idea would prevent most people from being able to see if they can even make a successful business within Second Life, as they’d be forced to pay even MORE than the average “free” account does to start up a business!

You may think that having a business in Second Life should only be for those who are “serious business people”, but that view wholly disregards the many successful businesses that are run by hobbists and/or “free” accounts.

As successful as some of them are, many barely break even as it is, adding the aditional $10 to their expenses could very well turn into the final nail in their coffins.

Then you have those who struggle to start up a business, most have other issues to worry about, without having to pay a premium just to try and bring in even a tiny bit of extra cash.

As for hobbists and those who create for fun or the community … (Begin sarcasm) Sure, make them pay for something that they do without true care for getting anything out of it. Why not? After all, it isn’t like they do anything at all that makes Second Life better for anyone! (End sarcasm)

Christ, I know a few people who would rather pull the plug than be forced to pay for a hobby or for the fun/joy of creating and bettering their community.

I also know at least one family that tried to make a little extra cash with a Second Life business or two … There was no way in hell that they could have continually paid a premium, just to see if they could make a business.

Let’s not forget that you’d also be forcing casual users to pay a premium, just to take a snapshot and store it in Second Life or even frame it for their rented homes. In addition you’d be forcing this same premim on people who build only for themselves, with no intention to sell to anyone.

In closing: If you don’t like “free” accounts and refuse to consider what I have said, well then let me know the name of your business so I can refrain from supporting your narrow minded ass.

Spot on. The value of virtual objects inevitably trends towards zero, due to the dilution of the socially necessary labour time in their production (the Marxist analysis) or the drop in the marginal value caused by their non-perishible nature (the capitalist analysis). It all adds up to bad news for the virtual economy.

@Corsi

“Thus why it’s hard to find programs that will run on Linux”

Ever hear of Apache? The most popular server on the WWW? Runs on Linux?

I gave up Windows for Linux 6 years ago, and since then I’ve had no problem finding programs to do anything I wanted, which work better than the Microsoft equivalents, are continously refined and updated by the community around them, and which are free. In return I do what I can for the community. Others run profitable businesses providing support to the growing number of enterprises which have switched to open-source solutions to their IT needs. Everybody wins, except Microsoft.  

Careful now, someone may take umbrance and call you a ‘Smug Burgher’ or some other rakish term from a bygone era if you keep that up. :p

But yes, there is still a lot of events yet to occur, getting there is half the fun.

Why has no one mentioned that the whole economic model that exists within SL is fatally broken from the start? As the content system currently works it’s possible to.

*Mass produce any creation at zero cost.

*Keep virtually(no pun intended)unlimited inventory and transfer an unlimited number of items between unlimited users at no cost.

*Use items perpetually unless the creator has went to specific efforts to limit the items lifespan.

Given the above conditions it’s quite obvious that, with sufficient time, users will create enough free, full permission items to have major effect on the economy. Linden Lab has probably been aware of this situation for a very long time as it would seem to work to their advantage since the majority of their revenue is generated by charges for hosting services (virtual land) and not from transaction fees or Linden currency creation.

A world populated with free items is certain more attractive to potential users than one where a cost (both financial and *time based*)in incurred for each incremental upgrade and the ‘game gods’ of SL certainly understand that they are in direct competition with the many entertainment options available to online consumers.

Drifting further OT I fail to see how a ‘live’ building contest could resolve much as creation of quality objects for a 3D environment depends much more on use of ‘out of world’ tools for mesh and texture creation. The importation to ‘in world’ is the final step and should hold no surprises unless the rendering engine has undocumented bugs. That’s not how it is done in SL? Well, perhaps that explains why SL looks crude when compared to other games with much lower system requirements. :^)

Finally, ‘Linux’ was never a ‘for profit’ business that went bankrupt though there are many businesses that make revenue (and profit) from Linux related activities. It’s my understanding that the Linux kernel was created as a hobby project when Linus Torvalds observed that there were enough open source pieces to make a fairly complete operating system if someone wrote a kernel. The rest, as they say, is history with over 25,000 easily installable, *free* programs available for the current Linux platform.

Best of luck to Stroker/Kevin.

Aah yes, I see where you are coming from now. Thanks for clearing up the confusion. Perhaps LL will wind the clock back sufficiently far in order that we can retrospectively have this discussion, armed with hindsight and the vision that a crystal ball brings.

Actually, I do think that LL have been sitting on their hands on this one and its long been a ticking time bomb. Too late for a bucket of water now, though.

Cats, bags, horses, stables etc.

Yours, Obviously