Just today, Rezzable announced the release of their new tool: BuilderBot. In the essence, BuilderBot is used to copy the content of the entire sim and turn it to OAR file. Then you can import the file on your own OpenSim sim, whether it is on some alternative grid or on your own computer. The tool is BSD licensed and free for non-enterprise use. There are another two parts of it: the OAR editor and importer for Linden’s grid. Those, as aimed to professionals, will be distributed under different license and charged.
And now, even before I say the spooky word ‘copybot’, I hear some of you screaming about stealing and theft and copyrights and about the world crumbling down into hell.
And some of those screams and concerns are understandable although, IMHO, exaggerated. Yes, it is possible to use BuilderBot to steal someone’s work. But, how likely is that that is going to happen? We are talking about the whole sims here. And copying the whole sim is not the same as stealing a skin or hair here and there. You know, sims are pretty big. Hardly that copying the entire sim will go unnoticed and that there will be any doubt about the copyright infringement when the case comes to Lindens or the court of law.
On the other side, we get the great backup tool for free. And if you ever did some significant building, you know how desperately needed that tool might be. Not to mention the possibility of making the whole region on local sim (installed on your own computer and working off-line) then uploading it to the grid of your choice.
It’s the building tool against the stealing tool case. But it’s not up to the software developers to do the job of lawyers. And lawyers should not interfere in the job of software developers. You know that a knife, a simple kitchen knife can be used to kill somebody. That happens quite often. But that doesn’t mean that knife shouldn’t have been invented nor that we should stop using them for good purposes. If and when it is used for murder, there is law to deal with the case.
But let’s leave the knives and talk a bit more about digital tools. You know, digital stuff is terribly easy to be copied, multiplied and distributed around. It’s not only second life stuff, it’s text, music, movies… everything. And our society is spending enormous amounts of money to get some control over the process. Most of the time, those efforts are fruitless attempts made in the completely wrong direction. Instead of software protections that get broken the day after they are released, we need better system that will cover both creators and the consumers. So far, if one wants to be 100% sure that their item won’t be copied, they should make them of wood or stone, not bits and pixels.
So we don’t need the anger against the tool, we need better system to protect our intellectual rights. Or you disagree?
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