'Second Life' Faces Threat to its Virtual Economy
A program making the rounds of the Linden Lab's digital world allows users to copy whatever they like, even if they're supposed to pay for it. Images: Storming the virtual gates
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What is "virtual"? There is nothing virtual about the economy that is described in this article.
I have never spent any time in Second Life, but according to this article, people in the virtual world create and sell digital assets. The seling part happens with Second Life currency; however, this currency has an exchange rate with US Dollars. Real money. A Second Life community member built a CopyBot to enable programmers to duplicate assets they have built for in order to aid in the process of creating derivatives as well as demoing their creations. The CopyBot was created with an Open Source license and other members of the community have used this tool for more nefarious purposes like copying/stealing assets that had been paid for and then disseminating the copies.
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