The Avatar is the Thing

Above: Avatars will fall into the center of the frame as the metaverse expands. Hellishly Gothly at Black Swan.

The current focus of "virtual worlds"--is about their world. This is a actually off the point as far as I can tell. We don't talk about the web in terms of being trapped on a single web site.  What the metaverse really should be about is the avatar and how this avatar is better than just using a browser to find and interact with information.

It is clear that compaines like Second Life or Twinity have a commercial interest in getting people tied-into their worlds. Selling "virtual land"  is how their businesses generate money. I still think the concept of virtual land is unnecessarily constraining. In fact, I would even argue (mainly at the pub though) that land cannot be virtual at all. Land is a physical thing and virtual land is misleading or even something that cannot be sold without significant disclaimers--ie this virtual land is not land at all, but some digital object in a game.  Ultimately the "virtual world" space will collapse as there is effectively infinite supply of digital space. Of course we are already seeing this as server prices continue to drop and storage space gets cheaper and cheaper. You can get a strong server in the cloud with a lot of bandwidth for $250/month or even a lot less. So why pay for a little tiney region for the same price? Why is a SL sim 256mx256m anyway? Soon enough you will run your own grid on a netbook or an iphone.

So what about the Avatar then. Well, the avatar should become more capable over time. Capable in many ways I hope. First, to be more realistic and be more like the person it is representing. This doesn't mean that you have to be you in the virtual online space. But the experience will be richer if the avatar is richer in life-like details and fluid motions. Second, the avatar needs to be smarter and able to do things, such as move around in more useful ways. The Second LIfe avatars for example need to be moved around step by step almost. But beyond the movement, they should have some intelligence to interact in the virtual space to help the user acheive the objective/experience they are after. Third, the avatar needs the freedom to move between grids. It shouldn't be more difficult than clicking on a web page in a browser now.

There are tons of techincal issues here, but the big issue right now is that all the "worlds" don't want avatars leaving too easily. They would prefer that your account is locked-up on their grid and your assets are bound to their platform.  It is simillar to a proprietary view of a software system.

We have been working on Opensim to understand how to make a more avatar-oriented approach to the virtual online experience. It seems very possible to decouple the avatar and the avatar inventory from a specific grid. Opensim allows for calling inventory from a database that is anywhere. So why not have inventory outside of a grid so you can move it or back-up your stuff? You can already buy digital content from digital libraries to put on your pc or store on a cloud server. Why shouldn't your virtual digital stuff be yours in the same way?

The movement of digital assets is a thorny topic for sure. We at Rezzable make stuff. Our initial idea was that stuff sold on Second Life should only be used within the Second Life platform. But in fact there is no language to specifically bind the licence of the digital assets to the SL grid.  Someone could argue that if they bought something that is no-mod, no-trans on SL that they should be able to use it on the same named avatar on another grid.  I actually think that is fair enough. But, you should not be allowed to break the digital rights management (DRM) once you leave a grid. That is sames a copybotting something to rip it and steal the content.

Linden Lab is typically moot on the topic of DRM. They will say that they made the platform and all the content is made/owned by the residents (users?) and that the "world" is full of people that break rules, so why is their problem to enforce them in SL. We get ripped all the time and LL's response is lame when really they could enforce their own rules much better.

So in the end virtual digital assets are as vulnerable as mp3s or movie files. It is really up to the individual person (anatomically speaking) to decide whether or not they want to support the content creator or be part of the rippers' illegal activity. Without support the content creators will have to stop making stuff or do it to give as gifts to the same people that are not honoring the terms of their creations.

The risk, as far as I can tell right now, is that if you show someone something online they can grab an entire copy of it. So any visitor to any sim on any grid can use a bot and rip a complete copy of your stuff. No different than someone taking a copy of a song off DAB.  That same virtual content can then be moved using something like SecondInventory or a more sophisticated bot.

The good news is of course that content is not bound to a grid. The good news is that a creator can manage their content, save it to a xml file, repurpose it as they want and even sell it outside of a virtual world platform--ya know like online. The liberation is as much for the content creators as it is for the avatar-oriented experience.  The bad news is that the impact of ripping can be more extensive and harder to track. The way I see it though is what is the risk/reward. The risk is that someone steals your stuff and damages the value of your stuff or takes away some sales. I prefer to think (maybe too optimistically) that the customers we really want to have are the ones that are wiling to support quality content. In fact we have some of these customers already in SL. We believe there will be many more outside of SL in the future. So the reward is big.

Nonethess, there should be some principles to guide people as they start to move between grids and have the opportunity to move digital assets with their new grid accounts.

Some ideas:

* Digital goods should have DRM that stays with an avatar name--so you can move between grids but not between avatars unless it is trans.

* People should honor the honor rule. Policing needs to be within a community and not expected from a service provider like LL (they won't do it anyway). But if you know that people rip stuff--don't buy it, don't welcome them to your area. We ban people across our sims and in many cases that is a deterrent. Social creatures that we are, we don't like to be shut out of a community if we value that community.

* Avatars need some type of credentials--so a sort of passport to say that they are a member of a community. Communities can then trust other communities as they see fit.  Communities will then also need to enforce some rules about DRM or area access.

* Avatars should be allowed to take their digital content out of a world and store it for their use as per DRM. This is more complex issue but needed. What happens when SL loses parts of your inventory? What can you do when stuff you paid for disappears? There should be trusted storage and access to your stuff. You should be able to move stuff without the cumbersome SecondInventory process (but it ain't that bad).

* Content creators need to find other ways to monetize their creations other than digital sales of items. I think there is a greater need for packaging and community connection. We already see that some of the most successful fashion designers in SL have strong connections with their customers and go the extra mile to make great stuff and package it up. They are also in the mix offering customizations and special promotions. So already we are seeing the impact of "service" adding a lot of value to digital creations.

Anyway, we are trying to grapple with these issues now. As the Avatar becomes more important to our online personas, the value of a "virtual world" will become less significant as the movement  between grids increases, but the issues of DRM and assets theft will be very painful to content creators that think they should get better treatment than musicians or movie makers.  So we have the same issues to deal with in the digital realm and the most challenging is how to make some money these days.