Re: [mmox] mmox Digest, Vol 1, Issue 111

["[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>]

>Even if it is recognized by consensus as a valid form of data to be
exchanged between grids, which is reasonable when presented in this
way, the twin problems of relevance WRT the domestic legal context and
of relevance WRT the actual implementation of any DRM in the target
grid make this sort of data irrelevant when it can be entirely
superseded by any other form of user content associated to the object
(like, say, a CC license notecard as in SL, or a simple copyright
notice).

Extraordinary reluctance to transmit information given the usual value of opensource to want information to be free and to move unhindered across frontiers!

Putting a CC license notecard *is not sufficient*. CC is not an economy and not commerce; it's a browbeating to give your content away for free in exchange for name credit only. It is not the foundation for a micropayments scheme. Notecards can also get lost or removed. 

If the permissions information is transmitted, and the TOS of the sending platform includes within the concept of trustworthiness that such permissions information must be implemented, then you have a very good ready-made regime for proving trustworthiness.

>To put it differently: if we do not mandate any implementation of DRM
per protocol specifications, then this sort of data is purely
"client-side" and is better left to the resident/player-creator to
make and include in the concerned object. And if we do mandate DRM
implementation, then this implementation ifalls short of the diversity
of legal contexts (for example fair-use cases, which vary widely
between jurisdictions), breaks some models (like mine), and reduces
greatly the possibility of interoperability with a number of existing
VWs like the OpenGrid or (AFAIK) Solipsis.

Transmitting metadata about permissions doesn't "fall short" of diversity. It creates the bedrock of diversity for an economy that is based on capitalist commerce and not only on collectivist "sharing" and *that* is what enables diversity.

I'm glad to hear you confirm, however, what others in OpenSim keep denying, mainly that to transmit metadata about permissions in fact "reduces greatly the possibility of interoperability with OpenGrid. Now why is that? Interoperability should give choices of systems, not take them away.

"Fair use" might need some updating or contextual examination and shouldn't be invoked casually merely to defeat commerce. In a virtual world, just because the platform providers already stream all the content, you already have your fair use, and so does everybody else who would like to see an object "for reference"! If you buy a skin or table, it renders for you -- what more "fair use" would you need when the entire thing renders for you always and everywhere, in your copy? If you've rezzed it out or are wearing it, everybody sees the full copy already lol. No, invocation of "fair use" here, as if stopping copyright theft in a VW would hobble fair use seems out of place and out of date.

>If you insist that there is space for this sort of metadata and the
protocol does not mandate DRM implementation for the server-side to
enforce, then I can live with it. But I'll still think it a waste of
resources.

Well, why can't it mandate DRM implementation as a condition of trustworthiness? And...why does the mere passage of information "waste resources"? Tons of data is transmitted, what, you can't spare a few bytes for c/m/t?

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