"Scores of Second Life shop owners on Wednesday closed their stores in protest against Linden Lab and threatened the creator of the online fantasy world with a class-action suit, saying the company was responsible for the release of an in-world tool that could be used to copy their virtual wares," reports Information Week.
"Fearful of losing their intellectual property, store owners said their shops will remain closed until they're sure they could protect their property. The retailers, who pay a monthly fee for the virtual land to set up shop, accused their landlord of failing to respond to their concerns."
Later, the story says:
The controversy revolves around the software tool CopyBot, developed by the open-source group Libsecondlife. The group works with Linden Lab to identify vulnerabilities in the system that could be exploited by malicious users. CopyBot was created as a debugging tool, but was altered by someone outside the group so it could be used to copy objects within Second Life. "Even avatars have been copied right in front of people's faces, so that they were looking into a mirror," in-world resident CaveCub Milk wrote
Comment: There have been plenty of virtual worlds before, starting with MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) at Essex University in the early 80s, and growing through Worlds Away (now VZones), which had a graphical world with avatars over a decade ago. What makes Second Life attractive today -- especially to large corporations -- is the opportunity to control their intellectual property and make money. That's why CopyBot is a threat to this particular virtual civilisation.
Of course, even if CopyBot is blocked, it won't end the problem. It will probably just lead to the creation of more tools that do the same job.
Nick Carr has covered many of the issues in Knockoffs roil Second Life and The dingo stole my avatar.
