[Opensim-users] Speaking of Content Theft, How About Our Own Backyard?

[Karen Palen]

About the only way to make stolen stuff unattractive is to police the sellers looking for (real) watermarks!

Remember though that every protection scheme has its price (as we see in the SL fuss right now!).

Usually it is the would be honest user who gets hurt the most. They simply avoid buying anything.

At one time I would fly somewhere twice a week, since all the "enhanced security" has been introduced I avoid air travel whenever I can!

Anywhere in the Western US I drive, in 2008 I drove from Phoenix to Chicago and then to Toronto on business!

At least within 500 miles of Phoenix (e.g. LA) door to door drive time is less than flying and FAR less hassle.

Trouble is it is very hard to track just how many customers are lost through extra hassle so they tend to be disregarded until the whole system collapses.

I see that exact same scenario playing out in Second Life right now. I rarely buy anything in SL any more because I want to use it in my own sim and the permissions generally will not allow that!

In 2008 I averaged L$15K/month spent in SL, so far this year it is L$125!

Security is worthless if it costs you more in sales than doing nothing!

Karen

--- On Wed, 2/24/10, Master_Mirage <mirage123 at verizon.net> wrote:

> From: Master_Mirage <mirage123 at verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: [Opensim-users] Speaking of Content Theft, How About Our Own  Backyard?
> To: opensim-users at lists.berlios.de
> Date: Wednesday, February 24, 2010, 8:45 PM
> 
> 
> The greatest weakness of our virtual environment is that it
> must ultimately
> be rendered within the confines of a viewer application to
> make the world
> visible on our computer screens.  This, by its very
> nature, makes it
> impossible to protect any content whatsoever.
> 
> It's like all the copyguards surrounding video.  they
> all work well and
> great when attempting media to media copying, as in disc
> duplication.
> However, the moment the video is rendered on a screen then
> it is ultimately
> vulnerable to exploitation.
> 
> One of the easiest, fastest and most sure-fire ways to
> "steal" a new movie
> in the theaters is by simply using a video camera in the
> theater to record
> the video as it plays on-screen.
> 
> With virtual worlds, the fact that everything must
> ultimately be rendered so
> that we can see and enjoy it, also means that
> circumventions can easily
> exist to exploit the rendering and thus be "recorded" and
> saved by an
> unscrupulous pirate who can then do whatever they wish with
> the end result.
> 
> - Len
> 
> Well i think its more a matter of making it less attractive
> for someone to
> do mostly. If there is no use for stolen stuff because the
> system wount let
> it be imported or exported is part of it. The other would
> be a type of water
> mark in it to. Why i agree most all of that wount stop it,
> it could at least
> leave a verry bad taste in there mouth. Most users are
> verry cool and dont
> want problems from anyone and tend to do the right things.
> As it is were not
> really trying at all and i think anything is better than
> nothing. 
> 
> We dont have to make it easy or attrative for the bad guys
> though. :-)
> 
> -- 
> View this message in context: http://n2.nabble.com/Speaking-of-Content-Theft-How-About-Our-Own-Backyard-tp4622175p4630357.html
> Sent from the opensim-users mailing list archive at
> Nabble.com.
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