Philip Linden: All Copyable Content Will Be Free
by Pixeleen Mistral on 13/11/10 at 8:35 pm
Second Life founder suggests selling live experiences
Second Life’s content creators may be in deep trouble if Philip Rosedale – the on-again, off-again CEO of Linden Lab – can forsee the future of online content. Mr. Rosedale is quoted in the Time magazine Future of Content Time 100 Roundtable as saying, "anything that can be made and recorded becomes essentially free" – cold comfort to those selling virtual goods ranging from music to pixel clothes.
Could this attitude explain the strained relationship between Second Life’s merchant class and the game gods? Linden Lab has seen more than a few lawsuits from content creators who believe the Lab has been less than diligent in protecting content and copyright in the virtual world.
But all is not doom and gloom – there may still money to be made on teh interwebs in the interactive services industry.
Second Life cyberesx pricing circa 2004
After slagging off content sales, Rosedale pointed out that live experiences hold out hope for monetization because "[people will pay for] the live experience. That doesn’t yet technologically exist on the Internet. When it does, a lot of content will happen in that venue and people will figure out what they can charge for that. A live experience is not something you can make a copy of and put on BitTorrent."
Does an emphasis on selling live experiences suggest that online escort services are the key to cashing in on the metaverse once the technology improves? If so, some Second Life players are well positioned for the coming economic boom, having spent the last 6 years selling their live experience skills for L$2000/hour (about $7.50/hour USD).
Anon
Nov 20th, 2010
yeah that was what I was saying wasn’t talking about me personally was saying in general
IntLibber
Nov 20th, 2010
Nelson Jenkins
Nov 20th, 2010
@ IntLibber
“While I agree, Anon brings up a point, that it’s hard to appropriately value the worth of an item with no tangible production cost, especially when it is being purchased with fake (fiat) currency.”
Ok thank you for explaining your flawed understanding of economics. Claiming that the price or value of something should be determined by its production cost is invalid. It stems though, from a commonly held myth by the left about economics that is called “the labor theory of value”. This theory has been completely discredited for quite a long time by many economists.
The last theorist who promoted this theory to any degree, was Karl Marx, and current day marxists continue to hold to this theory, wrongly, which is why marxist ruled countries tend to fail so spectacularly when they continue to insist on adhering to such a theory.
Modern economists have long deprecated various labor theories of value, and instead adhere to marginal utility theories, while a shrinking subgroup adheres to the subjective theory of value.
Subjective theory of value asserts that something has value only if it is both useful and *scarce* (hence your point about zero production costs also factors in here). If someone copybots your product and releases it full perms, then it becomes increasingly non-scarce as it is freely reproduced and distributed to the entire market. However, while a product remains free of IP theft/open sourcing, it continues to hold value because as the gatekeeper of production, you set a price at which you are willing to sell your product, and its scarcity in the market will be determined solely by the number of people who are willing to meet your price.
It is when you factor in the psychology of the buyer and their willingness or not to meet your price that we arrive at the current and proper theory of value, that of marginal utility. Each actor in a market will value products differently according to their own personal needs and wants, their ability to pay, AND how well a given product is perceived to satisfy the utility needs of the user.
When you are hanging on the edge of a cliff, you need a rope or a rescuer a lot more than when you are not hanging there. A man who is hungry or thirsty is in greater need of food or drink than one who is not.
When I was in college, my economics professor gave us an analogy that every freshman could comprehend, that of the beer drinker and the bartender. A beer drinker gains a significant amount of utility from his first beer: refreshment, maybe a slight enjoyable buzz, and an increasing sense that the beer drinker is more manly and sexually attractive than he usually is, and less inhibited in socializing with the opposing gender (or the same gender, depending on your preference). Each additional beer is of decreasing utility as he gets drunker, less able to control himself, until he is absolutely shitfaced, any additional drink not only provides no added utility, it may have negative utility (i.e. makes the drinker behave in ways that turn off others, make him unable to socialize, and possibly puke his guts out, get busted for drinking and driving, or pass out or even die of alcohol poisoning).
In the above case, the drinker may be willing to pay four bucks for a quality microbrew on that first drink, but as his marginal utility drops with each additional drink, his willingness to pay for premium alcohol also drops. He doesn’t order top shelf booze, instead settling for house booze that is cheap swill that he can no longer taste anyways and only serves to increase his buzz.
In this sort of case, it demonstrates that the price one is willing to pay for a given product has absolutely no relationship with how much it costs to produce a product. This should thus disabuse you of any further notion that the value of a thing should be determined by its production cost.
As for fake or fiat currency, that is a totally different argument regarding the idea that money should have inherent value to protect it against inflation during dynamic economic times. There are valid arguments for both sides: fiat currency that is regulated by a coordinated central bank can, if managed responsibly and not subject to the baser whims and wants of politicians and their constituents, ameliorate the negative impact of recessions at the cost of reducing growth during boom years. Conversely, inherently valuable money (i.e. gold and silver specie or notes, etc) prevents politicians and their sycophants from bankrupting the public purse and driving the nation into debtors insolvency when a nation overcomes any natural thrift that their ancestors knew and instead adopt a marxian bread and circuses welfare nanny state.
None of these arguments really has anything to do with theories of value or the supply and demand for various products, real or virtual.
Nelson Jenkins
Nov 20th, 2010
@ IntLibber
Jesus fucking christ, it was a joke.
Here’s my rebuttal, though.
An item with zero production cost that you cannot own which has a virtually unlimited supply has no intrinsic value. Customers purchase a license to use items in Second Life. They do not purchase the item itself, or at any point in the process own anything other than a license. You’ll still get their money because, yes, you are controlling the consumer’s ownership of said license and access to the experience you provide for them (similar to paying for a baseball ticket – nothing physical is being exchanged besides a license to experience something).
Fiat currency uses roughly the same logic (most notably the paper kind). You don’t own anything with an intrinsic value. The person controlling the output of the currency is the one who sets its value. (Hence all that complicated exchange rate and inflation stuff that I’m not going to cover because you obviously know about it.) You are just purchasing a license of sorts, that you can say “hey, I effectively can use this chunk of gold reserves and do things with it, but I don’t actually own it and can’t physically access it without some complicated legal mumbo jumbo”. The critical difference between currency and SL items, though, is that even currency has some production value and barriers to production. You can’t up and start a mint or start counterfeiting money for free. Keep in mind that it’s also illegal.
Second Life, however (and the internet as a whole) allows you to make counterfeits (copies) for free. The only barrier to production is finding a copybot viewer or permissions exploit, which isn’t hard at all. Now, of course, it’s illegal too. But criminals are criminals. They don’t care. Counterfeiters will counterfeit. Copybotters will copybot.
Now, the Second Life economy is a very arbitrary system. In real life, companies must sell products at a point between the cost to produce it and the amount that customers are willing to pay for it. This sweet spot of supply and demand is evident in pretty much anything, and yes, it is partly influenced by the demand by customers (because you can’t sell a candy bar for $100, but if you charge $0.10 for it, people will snatch it up), but the core of pricing is at what point does it become profitable for you. Car companies can’t sell cars for less than the value of the raw materials and time put in by the employees of the company, otherwise they would be in deep shit.
Second Life operates differently. Prices are mostly dependent on demand. If you price something at L$10, everyone will buy it. If you price it at L$10000, some people will buy it, but probably not many. Even so, you will always make money. Personally, I price my junk based on how long it took me to make it (which gives me a vague idea of the quality within) and how much money most people would be willing to pay for it. But if I wanted to, I could just give it away for free.
Therein lies the ambiguity of placing a monetary value on something with no intrinsic value. The producer is the one that sets the price, and can do it at any level they wish. That’s why you can get some great houses on the cheap, yet some idiots insist on charging 10k for a giant house made out of default textures and misaligned walls. Since there is no “prim tax”, there is virtually no cost to produce something (besides upload costs, which are one-time and should be earned back by the first sale anyways). In addition, you are not even purchasing anything – you are purchasing a license (quite like if you got a Hulu subscription, you don’t own anything tangible, but you can access content through your computer/TV).
Now, you are right in the sense that you can control the scarcity of something, but you cannot control it well at all because there is no tangible object that you possess (as in your bartender analogy). Copies cost virtually nothing to create and can be created without your knowledge. You can clone a virtual car, but not a physical bottle of beer.
Metaman
Nov 20th, 2010
to me this is how L.L is going to both kill Second Life and the market if rosedale has his waye with this plane.
IntLibber
Nov 20th, 2010
Nelson says: “An item with zero production cost that you cannot own which has a virtually unlimited supply has no intrinsic value.”
while technically correct, your assumption that items sold in SL are “unlimited supply” is false, as I previously said. The supply of virtual goods in SL is limited and scarce due to the finite number of people who see the marginal utility value of an object matching or exceeding the price at which the creator offers it for sale.
The only items that match your statement are freebies that are full permed. Fully perming something makes it possible for anybody to reproduce infinitely and distribute infinitely. Objects that are not so permed thus retain scarcity features and behavior in the market.
“The critical difference between currency and SL items, though, is that even currency has some production value and barriers to production. You can’t up and start a mint or start counterfeiting money for free. Keep in mind that it’s also illegal.”
Actually this is inaccurate. It is illegal to copy someone elses currency (Federal Reserve Notes, for instance) but it is perfectly legal to make your own unique currency, there are several such that are used in various regions of the US. Amherst Hours are one such example. You can mint your own coins from precious metals as long as your coins are not similar in design with US Mint coinage (for instance, the case a few years ago against NORFED’s coins was based on claims that the NORFED coins were too similar to US Mint coined gold coins, and not on the legality of private currency).
“Second Life, however (and the internet as a whole) allows you to make counterfeits (copies) for free. The only barrier to production is finding a copybot viewer or permissions exploit, which isn’t hard at all. Now, of course, it’s illegal too. But criminals are criminals. They don’t care. Counterfeiters will counterfeit. Copybotters will copybot.”
Again, slightly correct, but resting on false assumptions. Objects in real life are easily stolen as well. The fruits or vegetables on stands in markets, magazines and newspapers on racks at public news stands, etc. The only limit is on the individuals willingness to risk the consequences of being caught stealing.
Just because something can be stolen doesn’t mean it should be, or that that makes it worthless. The primary part of your comment that matters is that LL’s negligence in creating a more difficult to crack digital rights management system creates a low barrier to entry into the criminal marketplace. LL’s refusal to publicly name the RL info about IP theives also makes it easy to get away with such criminal activity. This makes LL complicit in serial criminality, and thus, as I’ve stated in the past, makes LL a corrupt and racketeering organization.
None of this means that peoples creations are worthless. It is, however, a deterrent against people putting in the effort and investment to create digital goods in an environment where their investment isn’t more or less secure. This is no different than a banana republic that doesn’t enforce individual property rights because its government is corrupt and its justice system weak and corruptible. People move their assets to economies that respect property rights, the primary reason that developed nations like the US, Britain, etc are such economic successes while other places are not.
SL’s economy is suffering primarily due to the failures of LL to make the economy and property of its residents secure, which drives content creators out of the economy.
hoisve
Nov 20th, 2010
And intblubbers will blubber.
Umm, it couldn’t have anything to do with the RL economy tanking or the fact that SL is starting to become dated, right genius?
Wake up. Basing an income upon intangibles that can be easily copied regardless of what the platform try to do to combat it is bad personal economics and a Utopian dream.
Als, Blub, you’re not the only person who had to take micro/macro. Come back to Earth, balloonhead.
Alyx Stoklitsky
Nov 21st, 2010
“the primary reason that developed nations like the US, Britain, etc are such economic successes while other places are not.”
I think it has more to do with enslaving africa’s people and land, and having lots of guns.
So in other words, it’s all about being white.
If you want build a successful empire, the best way to do it is to develop an enormous military and enslave every weaker nation you can and have anyone who even thinks about ‘white guilt’ executed as a race traitor, not whine and cry about a concept as laughable as IP rights.
Nelson Jenkins
Nov 21st, 2010
@ IntLibber
It continues to amaze me how misinformed you are as to the Second Life economy and the differences I outlined.
while technically correct, your assumption that items sold in SL are “unlimited supply” is false, as I previously said. The supply of virtual goods in SL is limited and scarce due to the finite number of people who see the marginal utility value of an object matching or exceeding the price at which the creator offers it for sale.
There is no effective supply limit on virtual goods, because in a purely technical sense, only Linden Lab owns the good and has given you a limitless stack of licenses to distribute as you please. That’s like saying the supply of Photoshop is limited and scarce because most people won’t pay thousands of dollars for it. There is an infinite supply of Photoshop. Just a lot of people don’t want to pay for it. You’re confusing supply in the purest sense (i.e. where the object itself originates) and supply in a business sense (the method in which a company sells the object).
The only items that match your statement are freebies that are full permed. Fully perming something makes it possible for anybody to reproduce infinitely and distribute infinitely. Objects that are not so permed thus retain scarcity features and behavior in the market.
We are trading licenses. That’s what permissions are, a license. Freebies are just Second Life’s public domain. The “scarcity” (in your mindset) that originates from restricted licenses is only an illusion, as anyone can covertly create their own copies without any harm or debt incurred on the original creator, eliminating any scarcity involved.
It is illegal to copy someone elses currency (Federal Reserve Notes, for instance) but it is perfectly legal to make your own unique currency, there are several such that are used in various regions of the US. Amherst Hours are one such example. You can mint your own coins from precious metals as long as your coins are not similar in design with US Mint coinage (for instance, the case a few years ago against NORFED’s coins was based on claims that the NORFED coins were too similar to US Mint coined gold coins, and not on the legality of private currency).
You’re completely diluting the subject at hand. If you make a new currency, you make a new economy and you can control how the currency flows, making both of our arguments immediately void and irrelevant.
Objects in real life are easily stolen as well. The fruits or vegetables on stands in markets, magazines and newspapers on racks at public news stands, etc. The only limit is on the individuals willingness to risk the consequences of being caught stealing.
Again, you miss the mark. Tangible objects have tangible value, and harm the person who’s selling them if they’re stolen. Creating a copy or breaking the terms of a Second Life license creates no debt or harm.
Just because something can be stolen doesn’t mean it should be, or that that makes it worthless. The primary part of your comment that matters is that LL’s negligence in creating a more difficult to crack digital rights management system creates a low barrier to entry into the criminal marketplace. LL’s refusal to publicly name the RL info about IP theives also makes it easy to get away with such criminal activity. This makes LL complicit in serial criminality, and thus, as I’ve stated in the past, makes LL a corrupt and racketeering organization.
Shit, I should call 911, because our conversation just went head-on into that tree on the side of the road.
None of this means that peoples creations are worthless. It is, however, a deterrent against people putting in the effort and investment to create digital goods in an environment where their investment isn’t more or less secure. This is no different than a banana republic that doesn’t enforce individual property rights because its government is corrupt and its justice system weak and corruptible. People move their assets to economies that respect property rights, the primary reason that developed nations like the US, Britain, etc are such economic successes while other places are not.
Yes, fire department? My friend here just drove into a tree. I think his car went off topic and he swerved into it.
SL’s economy is suffering primarily due to the failures of LL to make the economy and property of its residents secure, which drives content creators out of the economy.
Oh my god, hurry, he just climbed out and he’s talking a bunch of nonsense! I think he might be mentally handicapped now!
IntLibber
Nov 21st, 2010
“It continues to amaze me how misinformed you are as to the Second Life economy and the differences I outlined.
There is no effective supply limit on virtual goods, because in a purely technical sense, only Linden Lab owns the good and has given you a limitless stack of licenses to distribute as you please. That’s like saying the supply of Photoshop is limited and scarce because most people won’t pay thousands of dollars for it. There is an infinite supply of Photoshop. Just a lot of people don’t want to pay for it. You’re confusing supply in the purest sense (i.e. where the object itself originates) and supply in a business sense (the method in which a company sells the object).”
Sorry, its not me with the ignorance here, I understand the SL economy just perfectly. It is you who is totally ignorant of economics. You need to take a basic Microeconomics 101 class, but it will enlighten you and possibly banish those marxist cooties from your brain.
I’m not confusing supply in the pure sense from supply in the business sense, because “supply in the pure sense” is totally irrelevant to business.
What I am trying to explain is that while in a normal microeconomic business case, you have two overlapping curves, the supply price curve and the demand price curve. The supply price curve is convex in the x * y slope, while the demand price curve is concave. The demand price curve represents the quantity of product the public will demand at a given price, and the supply price curve represents the quantity of product the producer needs to sell at each given price to reach their profit targets.
What you utterly fail at is accounting for the fact that the producer has income needs for themselves, either to fund their SL activities, or more optimistically to fund their RL costs of living. So based on their income needs, they have to amortize those needs between all product sold, using the demand price curve. The amortized cost (known as a fixed cost) is still a cost of production, one which you and your ilk totally disregard in your arguments, even if there is zero *marginal* cost to reproduce a single item.
Normally, these two curves overlap, and the microeconomic best solution to satisfy supply and demand exists at two points: where the two lines intersect. The producer can sell a lot of product at a low price where the lines intersect, and generate the same amount of revenue as they would at the higher price/low demand point of the other intersection.
Producers generally prefer the high price/low demand point simply because it takes a lot less work and risk, and less investment in sales and marketing as it does to reach the low price/high demand point.
In SL, most assume that both points take the same amount of work since there is zero “production cost” to create more copies, but this totally ignores the fact that advertising, marketing, etc is REALLY hard to do well in SL, and you need to promote a LOT more in order to reach the high sales/low price point on the curve, so the SL user has to work a lot harder. The more that Linden Lab fucks up search, causes your parcel UUID to be “lost” from the database, or otherwise acts capriciously toward you as a merchant, the harder you have to work to market and advertise, spending more money, and thus pushing the supply/price curve outward more.
What copybot does is by increasing the risk of loss of IP, it forces creators into a panic mode, so that they will feel the need to use the low price/high demand point always in order to deter theives who may object to the higher price point and use copybot “to teach the creator a lesson”. This is essentially the argument that music pirates make about the music business, that they charge too much for CDs/DVDs, and too much per song for legal online downloads, and “need to be taught a lesson”.
“We are trading licenses. That’s what permissions are, a license. Freebies are just Second Life’s public domain. The “scarcity” (in your mindset) that originates from restricted licenses is only an illusion, as anyone can covertly create their own copies without any harm or debt incurred on the original creator, eliminating any scarcity involved.”
It is true you are “trading licenses” to use content. That is the nature of intellectual property. That doesn’t mean the property doesn’t exist or have value.
You are also suffering from the myth that “anyone can covertly create their own copies without harm or debt incurred on the original creator”. Firstly, most items that are retailed in SL tend to be permed to allow the user to copy them. Very few retailers make their items nocopy/trans (Stroker Serpentine is one exception), simply because the risks of LL losing your inventory that is often valuable is quite significant, and most merchants totally understand that and want to ensure their customers don’t feel screwed by inventory loss.
So, everyone is already able to copy copypermed items to their hearts content, thus satisfying the individuals varying marginal utility curve in consuming/enjoying the use of an item. So your argument fails there, nobody has to use copybot to produce enough copies of most products for their own personal use (excepting of course the argument that some make that they think they have a right to enjoy the use of those items outside SL, which they don’t actually posess due to the limitations of the license).
What is limited for most products is the ability of the user to transfer an item, and the lack of transfer perms from user to user is what maintains the scarcity of the item in the marketplace. If you use copybot to break this transfer limitation, you are breaking the law and deserve to be punished. You are not “not harming the creator” by doing this either, because by breaking transfer limitations on copyable content, you are destroying the value of the object and eliminating the creators ability to be compensated any further for their investment in creating the product. So, once again, your arguments fail the test of reality in SL.
“You’re completely diluting the subject at hand. If you make a new currency, you make a new economy and you can control how the currency flows, making both of our arguments immediately void and irrelevant.”
Sorry but again your understanding is completely flawed. Making a new currency doesn’t ‘make a new economy’, it merely gives people alternative media of exchange. While, like any market that is once a monopoly and then becomes competitive, the market for money becomes a lot more competitive the more alternatives the user has, each type of money is going to be valued different based on the users trust that a given currency will retain value AND that it will be fungible in as many places as possible (i.e. maximized utility). Due to differences in perception of each by each individual in the market, and varying based on how each currency’s reputation fares due to PR (how, for instance, we see the current competition between the US Dollar, the Euro, and the Chinese Yuan/Renmimbi for global dominance, and how each government promotes itself and denigrates its competitors).
“Yes, fire department? My friend here just drove into a tree. I think his car went off topic and he swerved into it.”
Yes, Egypt? My friend here is an illegal immigrant in your country, he is living in denial.
Nelson Jenkins
Nov 21st, 2010
@ IntLibber
I don’t have the time nor patience to further refute your irrelevant arguments, so let me state my core point:
SECOND LIFE DOES NOT HAVE A REAL ECONOMY.
When you look at exchange rates, supply/demand curves, price points, and all that fancy-pants economics mumbo-jumbo, you are totally ignoring the fact that Second Life’s “economy” is nothing more than a interpersonal currency exchange system designed solely to give content creators a reason to bother making things in-world. Linden Lab doesn’t give a shit about your money until you cash it out. You don’t have to own a home, buy things, or even advertise your product, as you so vehemently claim. (I have never paid a penny for advertising, yet I do perfectly fine.) You could conduct a business wholly by word-of-mouth and through person-to-person exchanges, and not only would you ever have to pay a penny on it, you wouldn’t even get in trouble from the government for it. In reality, you have to own a home, clothes, food, water, medical care, probably a car or bike of some sort, and all those modern necessities like toilet paper, electricity, gas, et cetera. Not only that, but the IRS is breathing down your neck for your tax money for a government you may or may not support! It’s such a complex system that calling the Second Life system any form of “economy” sort of insults the grandeur and power of the real global economy.
The Second Life “economy” is ass-backwards, at that. You can buy a car for L$500 but a gun costs L$2000. You can rent a sizable parcel for a house for L$2000 a week, but the house itself is only worth L$1000. You simply cannot compare the Second Life “economy” to anything in the real world because there are no parallels. Since there is no forced taxation by the government, which means the L$ would continue to dilute itself into oblivion if LL didn’t strictly control their totally arbitrary exchange rate for a currency not officially recognized as such by any government, business, or private person.
However, I digress. Back to my original argument. An intangible item cannot have a set tangible value. It can only be arbitrary, based on how much the supplier wants people to pay for it, because if someone were to receive the item at no cost, it would not force any debt onto the supplier. Hence, if someone copies a CD, the artist isn’t suddenly shouldered with debt – they just did not make a sale, and proceed as if nothing happened.
Darien Caldwell
Nov 21st, 2010
“An item with zero production cost that you cannot own which has a virtually unlimited supply has no intrinsic value”
Patently false. In the end, the value anything holds is decided by it’s owner or potential owner. If I put a cubic foot of empty space for sale for 100 dollars, and someone decides to buy it, it’s worth 100 dollars to them. That’s the reality of commerce and free market. The market decides what it’s willing to pay.
And I won’t even get into the ‘sentimental value’ of items, value can vary widely from person to person.
Nelson Jenkins
Nov 21st, 2010
@ Darien Caldwell
It has subjective value, but no objective value. Sorry, half of those posts I wrote whilst at work and used some screwy wording.
The point is if I have something that takes up no space, uses no finite resources, I don’t physically possess, and costs nothing to produce, it has no value in and of itself. Someone might be stupid enough to buy it for cash and I’ll get some money off of it, but I can just go and create another one at ∞% markup and make money from nothing.
Now, yes, you can factor in the cost to produce software by the salaries of those hired to create it, and thus you have software with some value. However, since each unit of software is not created using finite resources, you can’t adequately judge how many sales you will make. For example, if you made a program that cost $100,000 in salaries and expenses, you could either sell 100 copies for $1,000 each or 1,000,000 copies for $0.10 each to make back the expenses, yet there is no production cost difference between the two scenarios. On the other hand, if you were selling apples, it would cost 10,000 times as more to produce 1,000,000 apples than 100 apples, and you would have to adjust the price per unit to cover the cost of production for each apple and not just the one-time expenses.
Second Life falls under software, not apples, and the cost of production of anything in Second Life is extremely low. So essentially, that translates into Second Life objects only needing to cover a small one-time expense, then anything from there is pure, 100% profit. Since the object being sold is 100% profit, none of the purchase price is being used to cover the cost of producing it, and thus it has no objective value.
A furry
Nov 21st, 2010
Digital objects have value. Just look up Metallica vs. Napster.
Baloo Uriza
Nov 25th, 2010
I, for one, am happy to see Philip’s vision and foresight there. People might criticize him for that, but when was the last time the Richard Stallman compatible viewpoint was wrong? (Hint: Never).
Kinoko
Nov 25th, 2010
Well I feel that Second Life was one of the best inventions ever made, and I do not really bash philip.
The problem with SL isn’t Linden Lab, its the community, and the residents of Second Life, who just don’t give a FK.
Yes LL made some major mistakes, but the community in SL just doesn’t care, allows content theft distribution in their groups, or on their regions, and does not do anything about it, LL allows people to use BanLink systems which should not be allowed in SL, then of course there are going to be a lot of major problems with the Content Theft, Spyware, and SL is going to get a really bad name.
LL should basically just make new rules that say Residents are only allowed to use Ban tools with Basic network functions, or what Linden Lab offers. At no time can people use or store residents info, or key in a network ban system, and make more improvements against the theft, and problem solved for the most part.
And no I am not angry at Philip for the mistakes he did not make I am angry at the certain communities I have been part of in Second Life that have permit Content Theft from our creators, and the Emerald Developer hax0rs for their DataMining and such even though Skills, and Zfire continue to do so without making it legit by LAW, and LL permits it.
So far I have been part of two groups in Second Life that have permit Copybotting distribution and copybotters in their group
Smiggles Decuirs groups, and any Members of hers cross grouping, or friends even with her is a big risk because she permits her sisters to use Copybot and did nothing about any of it when over a dozen photos of proof were given to her in her face. This person pretty much has connections all over GOR, or did. Also This group was related to over 10 different RP groups which had Copybotters, and illegal alts in their group which distributed stolen cotent in it, and Copybotted it. They all try to cover their tracks by making legit Purchases at certain stores, and then Copying it and giving to friends usually with no transfer and spoofing creator etc. Usually skins, and clothing. These groups also had connections to what occured in Thieves Mother Load. Also if you see Hope Shim, or KatWoman Yootz they are both from italy and deep into this bullcrap, which is a person who gave me over 20 stolen Animations from Vista Barnes, and a Lot of redgrave skins, and still plays sl today.
Crimson Urge the BloodLines clan has a guy named DarkMatter Steamer there, and he has allowed our members to invite over a dozen members 1-60 days old all newbs, or possibly copybotting alternate accounts. I was given a box of over 100 copybotted hairs so it seems from Truth Hawks, RQ, HXC, Armidi, and many other creators in Second Life. DarkMatter Steamer refuses to do anything about the copybot, and I personally showed him the illegal HM Modeler our group was using to possibly COpybot, and spoof stuff on some of my own objects, and told him how the distribution cycle was going and how to prevent it. He refused to do anything about it, and still today Crimson Urge Located in the Region of Arcadia Twilight is allowing stolen content to be given around to everyone, and all the newbs this usually occurs by hand. The Queen is named Giselle Blackheart, and has been busy in Real Life, she says changes will come, but I am not sure if she is going to do anything about DarkMatter Steamer, who banned me, made threats to me, and accusations without any proof really after refusing to do anything about the content theft distribution in our group. Personally He is only a 358 day or so old account, and he is a n00b to Second Life, and should have never been granted this much power over a group in SL, but he was, and he is a bad dictator. I can say that if it were my position, and I was informed about Stolen Content, I would be doing the best I could to prevent such to help all our creators in SL. There is never any way to be 100% and stop content theft ever, but having a community that has strict policies about wearing stolen content, and distribution helps keep SL clean, and make a good family/group. I will say that when the clan was named Twilight Knights we never had any problems but once DarkMatter got control of the Royal Council Mind screwed his friends and all that, we had major issues when it became Crimson Urge, and he was left alone in charge of everything.
Most SL Militaries I have seen have really strict rules against content theft, or distribution, and that is what I would like to see in other families,groups, and simulators in Second Life. By doing this we would help protect our creators a hell of a lot more, but again its the lack of Leadership, and owner decisions that cause problems for groups.
These are just some examples, and encounters I have had with stolen content distribution in Second Life. I just hope that when the Teen Grid merges here we can get more people against content theft, and I will gladly support anything agaisnt it. The only thing I will not support is any type of illegal spyware, or datamine system storing any of my data without my consent, including my avatar key, or name.
Making a Strong Legit SL Community that Strictly Follows the LAW & SL TOS is the best way to go against content theft I feel.
IntLibber
Nov 25th, 2010
Nelson,
Sorry but your utter lack of understanding of economics, real or virtual, continues to be demonstrated here. (besides that, your resorting to all caps yelling indicates you are frustrated at losing the argument)
Firstly, your claim that there are zero recurring expenses is utterly false. LL charges you to list your store in search, to advertise products in classified ads, and stores also cost tier/rent for the space/prims that they occupy in a sim. If you want a product on marketplace to have a prominent place on the site when you introduce it, LL can charge a few thousand L$ for every week you request that. So, once again, you are utterly wrong.
Secondly, the cost of creation isn’t insignificant. The cost to create any significant scripted/sculpted/textured item to the creator in time, effort, upload fees, etc can be quite large. While it is true that that can be amortized over time amongst many sales, the cost of that time also discounts future revenues value (i.e. the reverse of interest, a dollar in the pocket today is worth more to you than the promise of a dollar in your pocket in a year. This is the real reason for inflation in todays economy, because the “backing” of the dollar is debt, and debt represents the labor done in the future to pay it off, the fiat dollar is a future labor backed currency, and as such, its value is discounted over time, thus inflation occurs.)
Given the commonly accepted metric that a month in SL is worth a year in RL, then any revenues you generate on a product in a years time are worth at least 30% less versus the money you spend today to create it today. A five year old product sale is worthless to the creator when he created the item. For this reason, virtual products have a finite life span of value to the creator, and thus, they have inherent value because the creator has to achieve a sufficient return on his investment within that time frame. So, again, Nelson, you are quite wrong.
Go back to school and take some business and economics courses next time you want to argue with the big boys.
Nelson Jenkins
Nov 26th, 2010
@ IntLibber
Sorry but your utter lack of understanding of economics, real or virtual, continues to be demonstrated here. (besides that, your resorting to all caps yelling indicates you are frustrated at losing the argument)
I tried to use all caps to direct your attention to the point I’ve proven several times now, but once again you chose to ignore it and criticize me for making one last futile attempt to prove something to a stubborn, pompous troll.
Firstly, your claim that there are zero recurring expenses is utterly false. LL charges you to list your store in search, to advertise products in classified ads, and stores also cost tier/rent for the space/prims that they occupy in a sim. If you want a product on marketplace to have a prominent place on the site when you introduce it, LL can charge a few thousand L$ for every week you request that. So, once again, you are utterly wrong.
It is very, very easy to pay nothing to run a business. A purely Marketplace-based business only requires 1 prim, which can be placed on a friend’s parcel at no cost. In addition, you continually blubber about advertising. I have NEVER advertised anything for a fee. Never paid for a classified ad (because nobody reads them). Never paid for a listing enhancement on the Marketplace. Never bought a third-party ad space. I only bought land because I wanted to; I could have easily been just as successful through a Marketplace business and word-of-mouth.
Secondly, the cost of creation isn’t insignificant. The cost to create any significant scripted/sculpted/textured item to the creator in time, effort, upload fees, etc can be quite large. While it is true that that can be amortized over time amongst many sales, the cost of that time also discounts future revenues value (i.e. the reverse of interest, a dollar in the pocket today is worth more to you than the promise of a dollar in your pocket in a year. This is the real reason for inflation in todays economy, because the “backing” of the dollar is debt, and debt represents the labor done in the future to pay it off, the fiat dollar is a future labor backed currency, and as such, its value is discounted over time, thus inflation occurs.)
Thank you for another totally unrelated rant, this time about inflation. The cost of creating a script is 100% free. I see a lot of items on the Marketplace that used no sculpt/texture/sound/animation uploads. My most expensive product to produce was a sign pack for a bit over L$1,000 because it involved over 100 textures. In retrospect, I could have easily cut this down to, oh, maybe L$100 at most and just used a sheet of sign textures. My least expensive was L$0, of course. And don’t go on about the time it takes to produce something being measured in L$. You cannot measure effort in SL with money without simply picking an arbitrary value – which, of course, would be the price of the product in the end.
Given the commonly accepted metric that a month in SL is worth a year in RL,
… which I haven’t ever heard stated by anyone other than you…
then any revenues you generate on a product in a years time are worth at least 30% less versus the money you spend today to create it today. A five year old product sale is worthless to the creator when he created the item. For this reason, virtual products have a finite life span of value to the creator, and thus, they have inherent value because the creator has to achieve a sufficient return on his investment within that time frame. So, again, Nelson, you are quite wrong.
So, again, Mike, you base your argument on a point I disproved quite some time ago, that there is no investment they actually make in a product besides their time, which is not valid in Second Life. If you are intending to invest your time in Second Life, possibly the worst commercial platform available for doing so, you frankly deserve to have it all go down the tubes when the Lab fucks up. (Hey, that’s what happened to you! How quaint.)
Go back to school and take some business and economics courses next time you want to argue with the big boys.
I do not personally care about your obesity problem, big boy. Perhaps if you moved out of your parents’ house you could work on that a bit.
Please, make your final response. One last stand for trolls everywhere, proclaiming their victory over the mighty furfag. I promise I won’t respond back, because I’d rather try to explain this to my cat than to you (at least he’ll try to understand, then probably just flop on my lap and cuddle).
Doctor Yootz
Nov 26th, 2010
@Kinoko
SL isnt going to get a bad name. Its going to get forgotten.
Doctor Yootz
Nov 26th, 2010
Secondlife 2010, the world isnt what it used to be. Barbie sits on the toilet (villeroy & boch) worried. Her lingerie store where she sells the newest designs out of the newest victoria secret catalogue doesnt run anymore like it used to in 2008. She’s depressed, she made them with so much love and a stolen copy of photoshop.
Meanwhile, Ken sits in the living room on the corbusier couch and is watching a illegal copy of a *****movie on his Streaming-TV (sony Design). He doesnt get a ***** anymore because he has to think about his car shop. The brazillians copied all his ferraris and lamborghinis, also his “fast and the furious” collection! They took everything! All that after he had to download maya AND learn how to use it! And at the end the brazillians will put the Hobo-freebie-carscript in it, like he used to do, and probably sell it.
No, theres no fun anymore in ken and barbies hillside Villa (design by paolo soleri). The toys in the BDSM-basement lay untouched, and the ikea kitchen unused.
SL is ruined because of the copybotters.
Yep
Nov 26th, 2010
Go Getem Tiger
IntLibber
Nov 26th, 2010
All I have to say at this point, is the fact you are now resorting to personal attacks demonstrates that you fail. Rhetorical fallacies are the typical tactic of those whose arguments suck.
Kinoko
Nov 26th, 2010
Well I dont know a lot about Economics in games without having the exact numbers, but what I can say is this.
1. The Copybotters are ruining Second Life as we know it for sure.
2. Creators,CCA,ETC.
1. High Sale Prices VS Low Sale Prices.
For example I can go on Xstreet and buy an entire Neko avatar for 50L$, or I can go to bare rose $200 L$ for some really great stuff but its no copyto prevent thefts and such. Then you have those that sale fewer copies of stuff but at very high prices.
CDS,and ZF Redzone systems themself have caused harm to creators in some way, for example I have over 20 friends on my friends list who wont buy from creators using these systems, or even step foot on their sims, and that is like $3 USD per sale that they have lost if we would have bought something if not more. But again I don’t care we have other ways to obtain creators stuff if we really wanted it like Xstreet, Torrents ETC. Again its not like Linden Lab will even be able to do anything unless its abuse reported lol, and the actual obejct can be reported to Linden Lab, or is being sold in world or distributed but personal use LL can’t do anything. I personally dont do this type of shit, but I know other people on my list that do because they are CDS banned for using Emerald, I wont take any actions against those since the creators are using illegal systems.
Linden Lab Nickles & Dimes us?
1. All the L$ Upload costs can add up to a really big penny for example I was photoshopping textures alpha textures, and I bulk uploaded over 40 of them, I noticed that 20 of them had some minor mistakes I forgot to change, and BAM thats like 10 L$ X40 L$ Like $2, but imagine this on a much large scale of texture uploads across all accounts grid wide.
2. Consider the fact that Linden Lab has an Xstreet Market Place, and that they charge for optional advertisements, bold listings, and I think an L$ Charge, or fee to any items you sale on it such as Tax, I am not sure about this because I dont sell stuff on xstreet, but I think they do.
3. The fact LL Charges $100 just to rename a simulator which takes 30 seconds to do?
4. The fact that Simulators cost $295 a month, and $1000 To setup.
If Second Life were my gaming service, I would not be charging no more than $200 a month, and $500 setup fee for each simulator, if not less. This way you get a mass number of subscribers to the game buying Tier, make Homesteads more affordable to people who want them at like $100 a month, with like $100 Setup fee or something.
Look at World OF Warcraft still one of the biggest companies most subscriber game I have ever seen really and its only $16.99 a month lol?
5.Also people will maybe think im really insane, or nuts for saying this, but I think having all these Land Rental Companies renting Land is just Bullcrap, why doesn’t LL just Lower the costs so land can become a hell of a lot more affordable, and allow more residents into Second Life to actually play the game. We dont need people who are Billionairs in RL Comming into SL buying 100 regions and renting them out at $100+ Profit per month like seriously.
But again when it comes to Economics I dont know everything about them, although I do know that a lot of times Smaller Ammounts of $$$ Add up a lot faster than a Large Lumpsum espicially with a lot more subscribers.
Kinoko
Nov 26th, 2010
Oh yeah forgot to add this.
http://csr.lindenlab.com
All you need is a Linden Lab login name, and Password this would allow you to ban/suspend an account from Second Life, and possibly make remote changes to simulators across the grid depending on the Linden Employees Rank/Abilities. I know that LL can go directly into a region click admin, god tools, and instantly rename a simulator with GodMode 250+, but I think they might be able to do this remotely. Either way it takes like 30 seconds or less for $100 rename charge… Yes Easy Money, and I wish I had that job in Real Life I would be rich!!!.
Nelson Jenkins
Nov 26th, 2010
@ Kinoko
Agreed. I actually know a few people who have access, but obviously don’t do anything except look people up because bans, name changes, etc. leave a paper trail.
Kinoko
Nov 27th, 2010
/B/ Tard Time…
Just posting some random stuff about Content Theft, and some distributers in SL, Have Fun & Enjoy..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkBFkfaqMUw **Crimson Urge Updated**
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pqOgigK7fc CDS does not actually work actual proof XD.
Kinoko
Nov 27th, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjU_VxGEHDc HM Modeler
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izrvqslmJe4 **FOR THE LULZ**
Have fun hope you like, and Enjoy.
Nelson Jenkins
Nov 27th, 2010
@ Kinoko
Rules 1 & 2, newfag.
hobo kelly
Nov 27th, 2010
rule 1: you never talk about goatsee and,
rule 2: you NEVER talk about goatsee…
lolol
Nov 27th, 2010
Kinoko said ” 1. The Copybotters are ruining Second Life as we know it for sure.”
whoopty fucking doo if you do not want your Lego blocks copied then do not make it.
DarkMatter Steamer
Nov 28th, 2010
@ Kinoko
Oh hi I just wanted to make a first time post here, & I admit I am guilty of allowing my clan Crimson Urge to Copybot, & Distribute Stolen Content in our group located at (Arcadia Twilight). My Queen Giselle Blackheart is well aware of this, & we totally plan to do nothing about it. We have stolen a ton of skins, and Cloned an entire avatar of a person we recently kicked from our family & Posted it on a torrent site for download. We would just like to say to Bare Rose & All the other creators we Copybotted from HA HA HA, there is nuthin you can do. Also our group does make up false evidence about people, & attempts to get them banned from Second Life without reason if they do try to do anything about us…
We are the New WoodBury LONG LIVE WOODBURY!
KTHXBAI
Have a Nice Day…
Nelson Jenkins
Nov 30th, 2010
@ DarkMatter Steamer
http://i53.tinypic.com/1sxt1d.jpg
wingtip conover
Apr 6th, 2011
SL is going down the same road ebay did… Started out good but each year got more and more greedy and added fees everywhere to the point its not even worth using the service anymore…
ive been in SL since 2006, im a merchant and really wondering why i stick around in sl anymore other than to just be with friends who still enjoy it…
Who can remember when linden search results were based/sorted on traffic ONLY …. Now the results are based on how much you PAY linden compared to others in the same category… To me thats just ass backwards and like the one guy mentioned earlier he does good without paying for advertising but his buisness will never make the upper part of any search where before it wouldve and rightfully so…
Im honestly suprised linden hasnt charged builders per prim on an item… once you finish a build and check a box the item is finished version and pay yur fee for the total prims. i can see them charging you an edit fee to open it up and edit it and add prims or remove prims etc…
Or a weekly server fee for storing all your items… I bet they havent even scratched the surface of the ways they can make more money…
Keep bleeding people dry over stupid shit and you soon find people kissing your world goodbye linden….
Baloo Uriza
Apr 9th, 2011
The traffic sorting was too easily gamed, however, I’m not able to find any evidence of this paid search gaming you’re talking about…how are you coming to this conclusion?
FCKTHIEFFES LIKE KATWOMAN
Jul 11th, 2011
[IMG]http://i51.tinypic.com/2m307qb.jpg[/IMG]
http://i51.tinypic.com/2m307qb.jpg