With DVDs, yes, it may be technically illegal, as ripping a DVD violates the license granted you by the movie distributor. In more cases than not, you are paying a set fee for the right to watch the contents of a given disc using an endorsed medium. In other words, you are not buying the right to watch the movie. Ripping the disc or playing it on an unsupported player is a contractual violation, as is downloading it from an alternate source, having already purchased the DVD.

However, DVDs are unique in this regard. Where such a specified license is absent, the Betamax decision or the DMCA is in force. I believe the DMCA is relatively restrictive (though I’m less familiar with it) but the Betamax decision permits personal, non-distributed copies under fair use. This idea is what allows iTunes and Windows Media Player: you are allowed to rip CDs you have legally purchased, with the purpose of listening to the songs from your computer, and iPod or some such device.

What is illegal, of course, is distributing said ripped songs. Unauthorised distribution is copyright violation in the case of intellectual property. A situation where mere copying is prohibited under an unarticulated license is with actual property, where someone is copying from the original medium. (This all gets very complicated when the original medium is digital.)

Unauthorised downloading is illegal in a situation where the downloader is not licensed to a copy of the asset in the first place. However, if, for example, you would rather download a ripped copy of a CD you own than rip it yourself, there is no functional distinction under fair use. [note: I have, on occasion, downloaded music illegally.]

The restrictions in SL of “no copy” or “no transfer” are not so much technical limitations as they are directives. If the author has restricted copy or transfer, then you are not allowed to do so, whether or not it is technically feasible. However, in a situation where the author has restricted both copy and transfer rights, I feel they have violated the spirit of fair use. A “no copy” asset follows the analogy of actual property, which you can give away if you no longer require it. A “no transfer” asset follows the analogy of intellectual property, which you can copy for your own use, but that represents a non-transferrable license.

If these two typologies were fully elaborated, “actual property” should be both transferable and modifiable, as it represents a physical object over which one actually has ownership, rather than a license. However, because there are no manufacture costs, all SL assets are unlimited editions unless the author artificially shortens supply–further limiting the RL analogue.

I think your analysis of CD ripping is inadequate as an analogy to SL assets. Similarly, I think most SL content owners do not understand the RL analogues to their permission schemes. Some creators want to have incredible control over how their content is used, but actual property passes out of the control of its creator once it has been sold. A dress that is sold no copy/no mod/no transfer is undesirable because has no RL analogue. If you were to buy an actual dress from Nordstrom, you would be allowed to raise or lower the hem and give it away to one of you friends if you so desired. Alternately SL dress sold copy/no transfer would be analogous to an intellectual property license, as dictated by the Betamax case.

In short, the SL permissions system does not explicitly lend itself to RL copyright precedent, and your analysis of music copyright suggests that SL rights-management is too disconnected from other media.

This all begs the question: should SL be an analogue of real life, of the internet, or a combination thereof?

‘Twas another day in Second Life,
and residents were shopping,
the linden dollars flowing free,
from peer to peer were swapping,
when from 1st life a voice did cry,
“I can’t afford a lot,
so I shall bestow onto this land,
the gift of copybot”

The residents soon cloned and cloned,
with child-like passioned glee,
no builder was safe from the evil code,
that ran off with their IP.
They all shut shop, they would not sell,
if we would copy things,
that they themselves had nicked wholesale,
from Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings.

And when a cat sold copybot,
a riot soon broke out,
with placards galore, the crowd did roar,
“Cast that kitty out!”
And this being the land of Second Life,
our furry fiend was smitten.
A giant boulder was conjoured up,
and smote that naughty kitten.

And now I come to Second Life,
but what is this I see?
Twenty Thousand avatars,
all of them like me.

In unison the clones exclaim,
“Extropia is hot!,
We look like you, it’s a dream come true,
HORRAY FOR COPYBOT!”

Of course I say,
“You go to hell,
for what you do is stealing,
people work hard to build in here,
where is your sense of feeling?”

And of course I condemn copybot,
to steal is just not groovy,
now what was the name of that site that lets you download the latest movie…!?

Extro Dasilva- will comment further on IP theft after she finishes her album ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band’.

One very intelligent person told me recently that only the “mediocre creators” (or those lacking confidence in themselves) are truly worried. The good ones — like in real life — will not worry: their most important asset is their minds and their ability to *create*. And these cannot be reproduced

How many avatars have you seen that look like iconic figures such as Nintendo’s Mario or LucasLimited’s C3P0? Have these people obtained permission to use these copyrighted images? Does the fact that these replicas obviously were a labour of love (or maybe the owner paid one of the remarkably skilled AV designers to make it for them, but the expertese is still there) make it OK for the creators to go ahead and use someone else’s IP?

What about the nightclubs that stream music inworld? Do they need the consent of the artist to stream their work? If they do not have permission and they are not copying, only streaming, is that copyright theft?

What about my own writings that rely heavily on essays by people more knowlegeable than me on certain topics (such as Gwyn Llewelyn) who I never credit? Where exactly does scholarship end and outright plagarism begin?

On a different note, Gwyn’s comment that Sl is not Utopia is correct. It never can be, since utopia is a static society whereas SL is heavily dependent on technology. Technological development is an evolutionary process, and every change that is introduced into such a process (which also includes the choice to do nothing) inevitably improves life for some and makes it more difficult for others. Evolution simply cannot ocurr under any system that makes life uniformly good or ill.

The founding father of the extropian movement, Max More, once commented ‘in place of the static perfection of a utopia, we might imagine a dynamic “extropia”- an open, evolving framework allowing individuals and voluntary groupings to form the institutions and social forms they prefer’.

You could argue the case for Sl to be a shining example of such an extropia. Then again, you could equally argue that this is just my ego trying to get Linden Lab’s world renamed in my honour;)

Extro DaSilva- still rather egocentric.

What blows my mind is that people are so shocked and hurt by the revelation of LL’s owners’ and employees’ true intentions. Granted those misconceptions were based on official verbiage; but actions have far outweighed those words over the past two years.

Still, the users need our sympathy more than explanations and toldyousos. We need the practice to be able to work the public through the horror of not being securely anonymous when using a Second Life account. Wonder when that one’ll hit the fan?

It’s certainly likely, due to the spread of P2P technologies from the late 90’s onwards, but there shall still be those rare few who have yet to “try before you buy, but don’t bother to buy/forget to delete the track”

Deeply concerned about: The venom of crowds, regardless of position and right or wrong, is on display for people to see. I’ve seen people who say things like “Ban them and all who support them” and other various things that illustrate gross prejudice and discrimination.

Is this because they are anonymous?

Tragic, but human, nonetheless.

The whole situation reminds me of a piece of open source software called DeCss, written a few years ago to allow Linux users to play encrypted DVDs, which the powers that be had decided should only be viewed on Windows and Macs.

People realised that once they had access to the underlying video stream, they could share it or burn it onto a blank DVD. And worse, some people realised they could sell those copies.

Now, does this mean it was wrong to write DeCss? It’s creator was dragged in front of the Norwegian courts twice and both times was acquitted, much to the annoyance of the MPAA. Does this mean it’s wrong to use DeCss? I’ve used it from within media players to watch DVDs on my Linux machine. Does this mean it’s wrong to be able to save the unencrypted video? I’ve copied DVDs I own onto my Linux machine so that I can watch them without having to get up and get the physical disc.

Is it ok for me to burn copies onto blank discs? For my own use, yes. DVDs as a physical medium can be fairly fragile at times and having a backup isn’t a bad idea.

Is it ok for me to sell those copies? Absolutely not, despite the fact that DeCss makes it technically possible.

Copybot is similar. It was written with an honest, and to be truthful, rather mundane purpose in mind. That people have been able to use it to profit doesn’t mean Copybot is totally wrong or that its developers should be vilified in the manner in which they have been. It only means that people can do things they couldn’t before, which includes infringing copyrights where they couldn’t before. Does that make it ok to infringe on those copyrights, especially with the intention of profitting? Absolutely not.

So the hysterical content creators are now in the same position as the RIAA and MPAA, and Linden Labs now finds itself in the same position as many courts around the world. The Lindens stance is similar to the Norwegian courts, asked to prosecute DVD Jon, as he is known nowadays. Which is to say that these tools are acceptable in themselves, but some things you can use them for are definitely not acceptable. People using them for unacceptable behaviour can and will be punished accordingly.