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Second Life splattered by Grey Goo
Author: Ryan GarsidePublished: 20th November 2006
The Grey Goo is coming for you.
The problem, which has been caused by a worm attack named 'Grey Goo', is creating a massive load on the Second Life servers and thus slowing everything down. The worm works by creating what one user nicknamed 'Sonic Rings' which then replicate when players interact with them.
The official Second Life blog currently reports that the Linden Lab technicians are trying to fix the problem, taken from the site:
" [PST 2:44PM] An attack of self-replicators is causing heavy load on the database, which is in turn slowing down in-world activity. We have isolated the grey goo and are currently cleaning up the grid. We’ll keep you updated as status changes.
This is the second virus/bug to hit the Second Life world in recent weeks. Many Second Life users have abandoned the game (is it a game?) after the use of the CopyBot. This program allowed users to copy creations without paying any money to the original designers, leading to an uproar that Second Life Community Manager Robin Linden, had to address:
"This product has caused tremendous worry among content creators who want to understand how its use may possibly affect their business. In particular, they are concerned about theft of their creations, and the potential for unscrupulous people to undercut their prices and essentially take away their business."
These aren't the only troubles for the ever growing Second Life revolution. Many of the hardcore users are angered by the massive influx of 'tourists', people who sign up for free, jump into the world and spend no money. The problem, cry those who are trying to earn a living out of the game, is that the servers simply cannot take the 1.5 million or so users that are registered for the game.
That number is set to grow further still as the game's reach grows. We reported a few weeks ago that there will soon be a newspaper in the Second Life world and that Duran Duran performed a virtual concert – hell, maybe bit-tech should set up an office in Second Life?
Did you get a glimpse at the Grey Goo worm? Let us know in the forums.
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Comments (12)
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Get a real life ?
1. I'm not Grey.
2. I didn't lay a finger on Second Life.
That is all.
I've not checked that site out for a while, just reading through the Babywolfie emails, hilarity :D
i seriously think that signing up to their forums is a task long overdue
*logs on to city of villains (mmorpg)*
Guess what, folks, you don not have a right to be in business. Get over it.
Second life products can include new textures, models, animations and programming code made by said people.
That's true. Fundamentally all those "products" are intellectual, rather than physical items. They consist not of actual materials but rather of digital information, literally ones and zeros.
Much of the "value" of the commerece in trade today is in the form of digital data, be it music, software, movies or whatever. Unfortunatly the law has not kept up and so theoretically this virtual product is legally equivelant to a physical product. The reality is of course very different. If I have a piece of digital "property" and I give you a copy I have not lost anything.
There neeeds to be a significant change in the way intellectual property is regarded under the law and a more realistic model of it's value.
I see that as every right to "be in business" and to be less than happy when someone comes along and takes there work without any permission or recompense.
If you were talking about specific instances of intelectual property maybe I could even be persuaded that they were simply fleecing people for money compared to what went into them, but in this case you issued a blanket statement, which read as "ha stupid programmers/artists/animators they shouldn't be making money and I think its funny now that these people I dont know are being denied it" - I have to object to that, because I believe work should equal money and also blanket generalizations to be a very dangerous slope to begin sliding down.
THat's generally true, however, if the market determines that they dont want your product, or aren't willing to pay your price for it, then you go out of business. People may not have a right to copy IP, but they certainly have that ability and there is little incentive not to. It may not be right, or fair, but it is the reality. It is also a reality that most people would prefer to pay for somthing they feel has value. The trick in the modern economy is to set a price point where the creator still makes a profit but thatis not so high that people choose to either go without their product or else to obtain it by alternative means. This is the nature of an IP based market.
The problem is that many in the IP market want it to be more like the "hard goods" market in which physical items are traded and in which a items value is linked to that physical item. Unlike IP, if I give you my item I no longer have it.
The statement was intended to mean "Just because you made money doing thid yesterday doesn't mean that you are gaurenteed a profit tomorrow".
As for work equalling money, sure, if someone considers your work to have value and considers it worth what you charge. I can go out and dig a hole in my back yard, which is unquestionably work, but that doesn't automatically mean that I should be paid money for my work. Likewise, even if someone does want to pay me for my work, that is no assurance that someone else won't show up with a backhoe tomorrow and put me out of business. If the produce of my work is IP, then I have to factor in that my work can be stolen by anyone and that if in order to succeed I have to set my pricing to take that into account and to add value to my work in such a way that without me, my work isn't as valuable (such as custom design, etc)
You mean these sad people with no lives are annoyed they cant sell there virtual items to these so called tourists. Yeah these people sign up for free and dont spend anything because they were curious and joined due the hype. They then realised that they can spend their hard earned money on real objects and not virtual rubbish.