Baba Sucks

Sucking up the web

Stealin’ Yo Shit

November 17th, 2006 | Category: Second Life, Stuff, libsecondlife

So lots of people seem to think IRC is the place to find true character. Let’s talk about what I knew about CopyBot, Second Life, and you.

People seem to think CopyBot was developed to cause the destruction of Second Life. That’s simply not true. Am I saying it wasn’t going to cause a lot of discussion and worry? I knew it would, because it’s something that’s important.

The issue isn’t CopyBot. The issue is what real protections you can expect in Second Life.

Nothing will prevent copying. You can only react to it after the fact. Trying to stop it will only lead to failure, and it will have the effect of limiting fair use.

We’ve seen the same words from Linden Lab, from Robin and Cory. We’ve all been saying the same thing. I’ve been saying it for months, others have been saying it for just as long if not longer. A lot of people are aware, and it still seems that those who would be effected by it, the content creators, do not hear us.

CopyBot isn’t a very good copier. It’s inefficient and buggy. One good thing about CopyBot, and also mirrored in my comments taken from IRC, if it can copy an avatar down to the last prim and with the same appearance it will have HUGE visual impact. That’s the kind of thing you don’t shrug off. It almost instantly connected all those disparate dots for anyone that watched it do its thing. What is yours is now suddenly somebody else’s.

I didn’t develop CopyBot, but I was aware that it would cause a controversy. I was glad for that because now almost nobody is not aware of the limitation in the protocol. Happier? Probably not… Do you want to be happy, or rather oblivious of libsecondlife and angry at Linden Lab for something else?

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