[Opensim-dev] Thoughts....

[dr scofield]

The Burnman wrote:
> Hello Terry,
>
> My concerns are with what I have quoted below.  As a content creator, 
> I am concerned with the lack of Intellectual Property rights 
> protection which client side inventory would pose.  Why bother to 
> create content if it is going to get stolen and redistributed?  You 
> will see a lot less in the way of quality content, since many people 
> use their content creations as a source of revenue.
>
> I am not sure how the developers feel about this, but as someone who 
> relies on the ability to set permissions to protect my IP, I would not 
> like to see client side inventory asset storage.  Now, if the option 
> to restrict content to remain on the server and NOT be stored locally 
> were available, that would be fine with me.  That would allow content 
> creators to decide for themselves how their content is distributed.  
> Of course, items flagged as server side only would not be able to move 
> from grid to grid.
>
> It's an interesting problem to solve.
not really. there's not much to solve. aside from scripts, everything 
else is already copyable via the client as the client has to render the 
virtual world, so it gets prim info, textures.

scripts are only "protected" as long as the grid "protects" them. 
there's nothing that prevents me from adding support to my OpenSim copy 
that will give me access to scripts stored on my grid. sure you can then 
refuse to sell your content on my grid, but once we have 
intergrid-connections (and i guess that's one of the goals to achieve a 
web-like virtual universe consisting of interconnected grids), that  
becomes a bit problematic as avatars will expect to be able to take 
their assets with them to whatever grid they visit. the only thing we 
could do is add "export allowed to..." permissions and then you could 
specify grids that you trust (or specify whose certification you trust)...

"permissions" are really just "license digests": they allow you to 
signal your intent to the user. that's about it.

and, no, for various reasons DRM is not the solution. it just doesn't work.

    cheers,
    dr scofield

-- 
dr dirk husemann, mathmatics and computer science, ibm zurich research lab
SL: dr scofield ---- drscofield at xyzzyxyzzy.net ---- http://xyzzyxyzzy.net/
RL: hud at zurich.ibm.com - +41 44 724 8573 - http://www.zurich.ibm.com/~hud/