Will Someone Kill The Copybot Story, Please?

It seems that the more time which progresses, the less facts are involved in these discussions and the more conjecture. The latest articles are... weird.

Let's start with the facts. That would be refreshing. Most people don't even seem to know what [t:copybot] is, or what it could do.

Here's what it can and cannot do:

• Could
  • Make use of existing baked avatar textures
  • Make use of existing avatar shapes
  • Rebuild avatar attachments and attach them
    • These are purged upon boot / daily
  • On occasion crash Simulators
    • This is a simulator bug, and has been reported -- a good example of libsecondlife helping uncover a hidden problem that could have exploited to wreck the grid
• Could not
  • Copy contents of objects
    • Includes scripts
  • Cause any damage to the SL official Viewer, simulators, or any content.
    • This includes client-side hardware

Of course, it would help if the people who were writing about all of this knew their way around SecondLife. Most of them can't seem to differentiate between 'avatar textures/attachments' and 'the entire grid'. Take a breath. Even the latest from one of my favorite blogs doesn't take into account the inherent protections of SecondLife for creators; the only problematic aspect are textures - which, incidentally, is also a common issue with copybot.

In Opinion: 'Bot Life In Second Life', which references Koster's blog entry on the Copybot debate. The [t:Prokofy Neva] debacle continued, ad infinitum, ad nauseam - including Prok's accusations that the Electric Sheep Company had something to do with it. Lock up your tapioca pudding. Prok goes on to say only one 'group' could work on reverse engineering the API when the Terms of Service of SecondLife, which is true, but not completely true. Anyone could join LibSL, so the accusation is made null by reality. If rumor and innuendo could be classified as griefing, as well as attempted smear campaigns against individuals and companies, well... griefing does come to mind, but not in the way Prok tosses it around. The truth is that Koster was right. It was inevitable. And the fact that no resident has actually lost any sales (aside from when the protesters closed their stores, due partly to agitation), or made a stink about it for quite some time demonstrates that it certainly was not as bad as people have made it out - or continue to make it out to be. Take a breath. Release. Inhale the facts, exhale the real issue:

Copyright litigation in SecondLife is not cost effective.

The cost of suing someone for infringement in SecondLife would hardly be cost-effective, unless you can find a lawyer willing to work for $1 US/hr. Therefore, the protection mechanisms are important, but technologically the copy protection mechanisms anyone could provide - not just Linden Lab - will always be able to be circumvented. Ask the RIAA, the MPAA and the BSA.

That Copybot took so long to happen is simply amazing. That it was made by any group is not relevant; some group would have made it. It did not kill anyone, and it has hardly had an effect on the economy beyond the effects of the hints and allegations of the media; the discussions have been more destructive than Copybot in that regard mainly because people didn't bother to check their facts or they made up their own as they went along.

Life has gone on in SecondLife. While debates about virtual economy and copyright are good, and something I would like to see more of - give Copybot a rest. Copybot's only true use in this case was a catalyst to get a discussion going, but the discussion is not and should not be about Copybot. It should be about the balance of creator's rights and user's rights. The creator deserves recompense for their labor, and the consumer has a right to use the product as sold by the creator. All in all, there's still very little in the way of a user created public domain mechanism, which will stifle competition in the long run.

But, you see, no one wishes to speak of that. The alarmism wasn't based on rights or wrongs, it was based on fear and that fear has been proven by time to be misplaced. If there was griefing, it was griefing of rogue developers and the people who brought supposition and allegations based on hearsay, and the continuation of those ripples.

Let's talk copy protection and copyright in virtual worlds. But let's not continue to blow the copybot out of proportion because the people before did. The residents of SecondLife have had reasonable discussion about this over a week ago. Let's talk about real problems like those of textures within SecondLife, which inherit real world ambiguity in copyright. Or is that too close to home?

Wake up and smell the coffee, folks.