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I'm just curious where they've shown interest in DMCA... I remember when sl-lib came out they seemed not to care, and I believe they even gave it a lil nod.

I believe you, because the DMCA in their interests... but it just seems weird that a company could support both FOSS and the DMCA. One, because I don't think I've seen anyone take that position... and two, because there are serious philosophical and practical contradictions between the two.

At any rate, anyone seeking to pursue and enforce the DMCA (or a copyright issues) will run up against the same issues that the MPAA has:

- Jurisdiction issues if the violators live outside the US.
- Investigative issues... it's hard to even track down offenders and prove an offense.
- Resource issues... meaning someone has to be willing to pay for the lawyers and everything else that would go along with a lawsuit.

In short, there is a legal recourse... but I just don't see it as happening in the real world. And even if it did, I doubt a legal solution is a maintainable one. There will always be people out there who could fly below the radar, or just not care about the possible consequences, just look at the bittorrent sites or DeCSS.

Right now, LL is sort of riding the fence between open and proprietary. They seem to be a proprietary company with open ambitions. But at some point they'll have to make a decision:

- to lock down the technology and the servers.. and go forth in the mold of Warcraft and iTunes. DRM/encrypt everything, and hope to stay one step ahead of the hackers and rippers.

- to open everything up in the mold of the World Wide Web. And allow everything's real value and *intrinsic* irreproducibility to determine the price.

It's a hard decision to make, either one could make or break the company, and I wouldn't want to be in their shoes.

False scarcity (copy permissions) has really created a strong market in SL, and I have tons of really unique items to prove it (including the wonderful multigadget). I don't think there'd be nearly as much cool stuff out there if the artists weren't getting paid current prices...

But ultimately it will keep *true* market from developing. If LL doesn't open up, SL will never become the standard 3d protocol. And if they don't, someone else will... the need for the 3d protocol is out there. So... i guess in some ways their choice will be between being the next Prodigy or the next Netscape... lol. Neither of which seems too appealing.

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