Hamlet over at New World Notes seems to be questioning the effects of content theft with this image:
Image from New World Notes
From NWN:
Once again, this is only a challenge regarding the economic impact of content theft. The moral and social impact of such theft, as seen in a recent, mysterious incident reported by Shopping Cart Disco, has a terrible impact of its own. But looking at the broader macro picture, where is evidence of the damage?
Surely I’m missing something obvious; please tell me what.
Unfortunately, he seems to have disabled comments so no rebuttles can be made. At least, I can’t see the comment box.
I dunno guys… what has he missed? Anything?
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I couldn't help but notice that this graph doesn't take into consideration the influx of users we have had since 2006, when free accounts first opened. The percentage of merchants affected by content theft in relation to new user flux is not taken into consideration in this graph.
My thoughts exactly. Just as soon as SL went free, it was featured on a lot of news media, and that's exactly how I found out about SL. Just imagine how much higher it would of been if CopyBot wasn't around.
Increased number of users, SL received lots of real life publicity around the same time attracting large number of sign ups.
Gambling means money moves back and forth a lot, when gambling was legal in SL.
Also land sales, people were buying land and selling them.
As far as I know, CopyBot doesn't affect gambling or the land market.
As I said in other post is due the amout of people on SL.
I born in the q2 of 2007 and still didnt know anything of copybot and see it 102M, then I think was in th q3 and q4 when designers complained about copybot, I think i remmeber manifestations in celestial, etd, last call, and look the numbers 66M, then till today the numbers increased but has been also theft campaing and concious people and btw, in the q2 2007 102M and I remember we were like 30000 people online frequently, now q2 2009 we are like 60000 people online frequently and just 144M, by this maths, the economy should be double arriving to 200M
So it hurts copybots…?
Today there are far more bots online than in Q2 2007. How many of the 60,000 are bots? Some say 50%. If thats true then the economy is up 40% because bots don't spend money. However if 30% are bots then the economy is stable and showing no change. Weigh this against real world economic conditions and vs how many of the 60,000 are non-spending bots and you have your answer whether the economy is affected.
Personally I kinda doubt that very much of the money being spent on stolen content would have ever went towards non-stolen to begin with. When they can get an item for 100L that would have normally cost 5,000L, would they have paid the 5,000? Sure some might but what percentage? I highly doubt its more than 5% if even that high. The real lost sales are coming from people wearing the stuff and others who would want to buy it can't find it due to creator name changes and confusion. Also the annoying hoops that some creators feel the need to inflict on buyers such as verifying you are human or anti-copy devices that do little to protect. Creators need to wake up and realize they are sometimes their own worst enemy.
Its a complicated topic Autumn, and your conclusions are also subject to supositions.
One of the biggest problem of copybot is the lost value of items, to put an example, I really know very few people that buys Redgrave skins, and the reason is why most of newbies wears ripped redgrave skins, so redgrave is loosing this kind of customers that probably will buy the fatpacks of the skin release. But is also true due to Redgrave is a well know mark due to piracy, some of the new people the 1st shop they will go to buy a skin will be Redgrave. So maybe is loosing one kind of sales and wining another, but plus is lossing sells rom people that resells their skins, how many satellite shops i have seen that sells riped redgrave skin? An doesnt stop here, then lot of designers taking profit of this rips, copying redgrave skins, u just have to look how many skins nowadays are similar to redgrave.
So my point is that is loosing the creative value. It's hard to explain, some designers just will care for the sales, by my side i would loose motivation and end doing serialized skins with fast make ups just for sales, like currently are doing lot of brands wich by other side is not their foult as lot of them live from SL and have to adapt to SL market.
In my eyes the current market is quantity over quality, wich has it reasons, the most improtant is that people needs buy new items cos soon this items will be riped and everybody will wear, so brans needs release fast new items, but this makes loose quality.
So this graphic can say lot of things, maybe copybot impacts the economy maybe not, but I am sure copybot imapcts creativity. You just have to look for example how many skins are released everday, how many have seams, fast tints, fast make ups, ugly bodies, or just another eloh skin with different face. Wich again has their reasons cos people will wear prolly 1 or 2 times or for some photo, so the thing that needs is be new, not be the ultimate skin, and if its ultimate quality u probably will have lost ur time as soon will be ripped and lost its value.
So I am aware of all this things, and I am aware that the last thing I want is piss my custumers, but 1st I dont want to piss me, so I think my marketing policy is different from any other shop, and there are more than 5000 persona than can give faith of it
Only a complete dumbass buys financial reports that are not subject to independent auditing. Where's third quarter anyway? Oh and yes… all those "disappeared threads" with majority merchants stating sales were the worst ever? Interesting that most people have results diametrically opposed to LL's numbers typed on paper. All that abandoned land also indicates something is wrong since it is visibly obvious less people are paying tier and less money is changing hands over land sales. So apparently LL must be propping their numbers up from other sources that are not really valid like selling Anshe Chung a shitload of homesteads to make up for lost resident to resident transactions.
Many SL content creators just reiterate the same silly argument that the music industry used to make: that every ‘stolen’ item is a lost sale. And they are also reiterating the mistakes of the music industry: doing things that alienate potential buyers and drive honest customers away. E.g.:
- do you really expect that I’ll buy something really expensive, when I’m fully aware that inworld it may look quite a bit different than in some cutesy photoshopped blog posting (or in some vendor ad), if the item is ‘no trans’ and I have no recourse if I got cheated?
- do you really expect that I’m buying from a shop that tells me the moment I tp in that I have to click on some button to confirm I’m a human, otherwise I’ll get ejected within 15 seconds?
- do you really expect that I ever invest several thousand L$ in some really expensive item, when LL may remove that item anytime because it was stolen, even if I as buyer didn’t know that?
There was actually never any solid proof that music piracy hurts sales, yet the industry lamented, and put copy protection into place.. which caused piracy to skyrocket because the illegal music was much less hassle than the legal one with its copy protection schemes. These days, it’s finally possible to buy music legally in (unprotected) MP3 format, and sales are just fine.
Personally, I stopped buying music when everything got copy protected (sheesh, I don’t want to fiddle around with copy protection when I want to listen to my music on different devices). I just got into the habit of listening radio much more often, instead of buying. Maybe I’ll start to buy MP3s, now that it’s possible legally, but it’s kind of hard to change habits
Wow, you are an idiot to compare SL businesses run by one person to a giant corporation like Sony or MGM. Sorry, it has to be said.
Copying in SL hurts INDIVIDUALS. That person on the other side of the screen who works from home, is not funded by millions of dollars of investors money, does not make money from company shares.
It is like comparing a busker to a music corporation!
Sorry, I said it once but I'll say it again – idiot – to compare chalk with cheese …
Failed reading comprehension class? The point is not that Sony can stand the losses better than some housewife. The point is: are there any losses?
And while you THINK it is obvious that there are, this is no replacement for solid proof. Flecainide and Encainide suppress ventricular arrhythmias, but nevertheless they increase the risk of dying from arrhythmias – and unfortunately that was found only after many people had been treated for ventricular arrhythmia with these drugs. Nothing is true just because it LOOKS obvious.
I could make a very simple counterargument: every item SEEN inworld is advertisement for the creator. So if people who anyway would never have bought this item, but nevertheless wear it, more honest buyers see it, and get interested in buying it. Total sales will increase thus.
Before you call me an idiot, PROVE that this argument is wrong. Don’t just cry like a baby.
Problem is that i am more and more inspecting high quality clothing items that have a copy-bot alt as creator, so i have NO F**ING clue what the brand or who the real creator is and where i could buy it. Your "counterargument" sucks deeply. And btw in the late 90s the Asian music market collapsed because noone was buying music anymore. Sales dropped around 84%. This crises only survived the big production companies who only produce now casted boy/girl bands and only earn their money with selling these songs and bands for advertizement/comercials. Independant/alternative (housewife) music is dead in Asia. So much for that shitty argument.
I usually know who the creator is when I see something interesting – because I’ve seen it already in some blog or ad. But I’m wearing a dark skin, and most pics are from people with pale skin. I have no f*cking clue how the thing would look like on me, and thus I’m happy if I see it inworld on someone with dark skin.
NOT, if the item was copied, then the potential sale that could have gone to the original creator goes to the copy thief.
Yeah, the holy ‘potential sale’.. what is, in your opinion, the reason why so many SL inhabitants walk around wearing trash? You think they do that because they really, really, really want to spend lots of money, but just can’t find a decent shop?
As the saying goes, one man's trash is another man's gold.
I don't see people wearing 'trash' – that's rather subjective don't you think?
No, I don't think that. Not for a second.
Style is subjective – everyone has their own. And some styles are in fashion, others are not. But aesthetics is universal and eternal, otherwise it wouldn't be possible that we can still appreciate and value the art of cultures that flourished thousands of years ago.
You come across as someone who thinks A LOT, but your thoughts come across as muddled, and confused. I don't even have a clue what your point is.
That's a cute phrase. So, in a nutshell:
1) Most people don't want to invest money in SL. If they can get copybotted stuff, ok.. if not, they will just do with some freebie.
1a) Therefore, 'stolen' item != lost sale. Those wearing stolen stuff never intended to buy from you.
2) Aesthetics is, to some degree, an intellectual endeavour, and potentially costly if you're not a designer yourself. People are not here for that, they just want to have fun.
3) I'm on a few hours per day. I inspect a lot, mostly high quality items, because that's what I might want to buy eventually. In the last month, I've only seen one single avatar with obviously stolen stuff (anti-inspect shield, hair with her name as creator, no shop in picks, so she isn't a designer herself). In all other cases, the creator was correctly identified. ONE SINGLE AVATAR out of maybe about a hundred.
4) I think there's a growing rift between a few very professional creators, and the many others. Yes, plenty of shops close, probably because their sales go down. But quite possibly the reason is simply that a growing fraction of consumers flock to the few top creators.
5) This blog is mostly read by creators, and there's a lot of groupthink going on. Hamlet may be wrong or right, but there's not much interest in critical reflection of his thoughts. Everybody laments that copybot is the end of the world, but there are NO hard numbers to prove that. It's true that Hamlets graph can be explained in many ways, but that simply shows that no explanation can claim to be the correct one.
agreed… 1000% ive got milion of MP3, even for serevral yeas im downloading FLAC, high quality music and my harddrive. but i always buy orignal cd form my favorites band… always… once a fans always be a fanatic. same with SL for sure, i always buy hoorenbeek shoe no matter what, even if there is a lot of copycat else where, even with a lower price, but i always buy that shoe.
who say that creator is not a thieft too??? many of you all copycat from poser/daz3d rip the skin using textrure converter, apply the tatoo using 3d-decal then sold it 1000L$ crap thats bullshit. compare re*gr*** with the freak from daz3d, see the hand, will shocked your self out. you build a house with a design from google, rip texture form many web, using torrent and download tattoo pack then upload and say that hey im a tatto artist. get many 3d .obj convert it to sculpt can claim that that is yours. IS ALL BULLSHIT….
people this is not second life anymore now is named SECOND LIE
I constantly pass money between my alts, this is counted in the figures as user to user transactions? Do these transactions actually mean anything, it's just passing money around isn't it, nobody really making a profit or loss? What would make more sense would be to see figures of money withdrawn or money put into the SL economy?
I can show an example of copybotting directly hurting sales. I was considering purchasing anims from Akeyo recently. When I saw the post on the copybotting and passing round of Akeyo anims I decided not to purchase any. Firstly, I imagined seeing thousands of avis all having the same ao walking around and the snob in me (I am ashamed to admit) didn't want anims that were everywhere. Secondly, I thought with having these aos, people would think I might have taken stolen goods (even though mine would have been a bought copy) the snob in me would worry about what other people were thinking. These are lame reasons to not purchase a product, but if I am thinking this, then other people might be too?
Considering what people have already proposed, something else to consider would be the transfer of illegally gained funds from one avatar to another. I would imagine those using copy-bot would know that, if caught, their avatar and its inventory would no longer be accessible, so they would bounce the funds to "cleaner" accounts; this would have been easier to do with free accounts available. Thus, user-to-user transaction goes up negatively.
Good point! and it may move between several alts.
Doesn't take into account the number of creators who quit SL, who stopped designing, or those who never even started after seeing the futility of it.
So from the graph, we can ascertain that copybot thieves make more money than ever!
I don't think Hamlet thought that through all the way. 9 times out of 10 that I find or hear about stolen items, they're for sale.
Without crosstabs on resident population growth, land expansion and transfers (which are not affected by content theft) and personal service payments including tips, escorts and so on, these stats are meaningless. You cannot make any conclusions on the economy based one one factor.
I'm a consumer and a creator in SL – I'm one of those who pays into SL every month and who doesn't recoup their expenditure via sales (or anything else). Every month, for the past 2 years, I have paid LL around $155 for the pleasure of owning some land. I've had a really good time, done some amazing stuff, and met some truly great friends.
I think this month is the last one for me. SL has become a haven for thieves and the immoral. I am sick of it. LL are just fire-fighting their problems and failing to address the concerns of their residents. The entire system is corrupt. This post just confirms my feelings on the matter – every day I'm reading more and more about content theft and it makes me so angry – but with no way of addressing it anger becomes stress,and why the hell should I pay $155 a month for something that stresses me out?
So…. more abandoned land coming right up! Pointless to attempt to sell it cos it's mature mainland and that market has bottomed out. I would sell it to an alt but I can't figure out how to do that without having to pay tier twice. My 70k + inventory will apparently be wiped after a month if I stop paying tier… I am fed up with feeling trapped into paying every month with no clear way of getting out whilst still keeping some assets – so it's bye bye from me.
Probably an inappropriate place to post this, but I don't know of a better one. I have about 6 or 7 days to decide whether to stay or go. Reading SCD depresses the feck out of me – it's all bad news. From the 'secrets' which are just excuses for bitchfests, to the onslaught of reports of content theft … it's just all such a downer. If anyone has a link to somewhere that celebrates the good stuff (no, not the official website, please!) throw it out here and I'll give it a read – I have lost all enthusiasm and I could do with a reminder of what's good about SL.
I sold my mainland cheap (it sold within 2 hours), and downgraded to a free account a couple of months ago. I still have my over 80K inventory (oooh the horror!). It took me a few days to realize how much more I enjoy SL without the burden. Don't leave all together, give it another shot.
Check out this blog for a reminder of what's really beautiful about SL…
http://yseblog.blogspot.com/
Yeah man … even though I can be considered a bad-guy by some, please don't leave … take the burden out of your back and just wander around and have fun. I do it every morning before starting my day.
It is a beautiful world full of nice people, and if you look at it as a game of doing stuff not possible at RL, that's it, you will start to enjoy it under a completely new perspective.
Cheers,
The Borg.
http://metadventures.blogspot.com/
Thank you – am feeling soo disillusioned right now – I'll have a browse and a think – got a week to decide. Maybe I should stop reading SCD – it is hellishly depressing recently.
I agree wholeheartedly with Casja (above) and Camille (on NWN) – this is a prime example of the "media" taking one single set of statistical data and drawing conclusions from it that simply cannot be drawn. It's like comparing…. I dunno… the number of SCD readers with how many breakdown's Britney has had this year! It doesn't compute (I don't think… lol). Certainly not without a LOT more data and a LOT more math (math done properly too, not shonky journalistic math).
I'd advise anyone reading who doesn't feel fully capable of understanding statistics (if you don't know what the significance of a t-test is, that's you) to draw NO conclusions from this graph at all, as it says nothing.
@Polero, why would your stopping payment of tier remove your 70K inventory? Abandon your land. Just like in the real world. And if this *game* is making you depressed, playing it. For god's sake, all of you who protest about all this stuff, just quit. The world won't end. You'll have more time to spend with your friends and family. Sometimes I think the best thing that could happen is for Linden to pull the plug. It's been a fun few years, spent way to much $$ on this game, but if it ends, the world still goes on.
polero wanna sell ur stuff?
agreed to Kal, people come and go, you quit some newbie comes with fresh idea build sell it make a millon ppl copyboted it, again and again… thats is called nature law, we cant avoid it even inworld. the show must go on ::lol::
LL doesnt care about things that doesnt activly effects their economy.
LL created copybot way way back in the days, it leaked to PN who published it publicly and it arrived in mass size to SL.
Copybot came, and its here to stay, LL doesnt mind.
This graph is junk: might as well blame the rise in account on the fact that some content on the Sony PlayStation would not run on the older models starting in 2006.
One of my scripted gadgets took me over 1,500 hours to code. I have over 50,000 of them in the field. I would never have spent any time on it if it could be ripped of. I refuse to upload it it in any OpenSim, because there is no script security (or any other security) there.
Content theft has enormous implications. It destroys the economy. It removes incentives to make good content. Why bother?
I fear for SL. I see no possible way to stop copying of textures and skins and objects now, so there is no reason to invest much time and effort into them. Linden needs to produce a RSA key fob like I use on my online bank accounts, (a hardware passcode gadget), that authenticates me. Without it, any sharp coder can crack the s/w codes and appear to be a legitimate viewer and steal all they want.
I predict most textures and objects will become a cheap commodity, where the only decision is to buy a stolen rip-off now, cheap, or spend a little time looking for it somewhere else, where it may be cheaper.
Only well done, scripted content will be salable for more than commodity prices. Why? Because you can’t copy my code. You have to re-code it. And that takes skill, time, and/or lots of money.