Everyone knows DRM doesn't work. Tis a scientific impossibility to conceal the content you deliver from the recipient of it when you've erm delivered it and have no control over how they use it.

We know that even when it acts as a deterrent it's often more of an annoyance than a help. Im sure anyone who's had their dvd player region locked for playing legitimate dvds they bought will agree. Pirate dvds don't have that problem (nor do they imply that you're a criminal every time you play them with an unskippable anti-piracy movie.)

We all know that paranoia about copying forces limitation on our systems which reduce their utility and elegance, even when the means to copy already exist. http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-224 for instance. The argument against adding a useful function to LSL is that it will make copying easier, when in reality it is already trivial and denying a useful function reduces the options for designers to create new and more innovative scripted products. Scripts themselves are not currently copyable by the way (as they exist on the server). So reducing the useful functions available to scripters stifles innovation in one of the few areas in SL where the DRM actually still works.

The only solution to copying is for designers to be pro-active about asserting their digital rights, and to continue producing high quality products. Digital products are all development cost, no production cost. If they're priced well so you sell a million for a buck each that's a million bucks ROI (minus the cost of making the sale of course). If they're priced foolishly you won't get rid of many, and pirated copies will be more attractive to the consumer.

It takes effort to pirate products in sl, just as it takes to design them. As your day to day running costs are EXACTLY the same as that of pirates, being the primary designer presents a competitive advantage - you will always be ahead of the pirates at your game.

When it comes to high quality free items released by folk, usually
that's after they have done their run as commercial products. As a designer you have had a LOT of lead time to respond to the market before your competitors leave and free up their resources. If you have ceased to innovate and refine your product then of course free items of a similar quality will present a threat. If you're doing your job right and continuing to improve your merchandise you shouldn't have anything to worry about.

I remember one day when some folk came to me infuriated that somebody had "ripped off my design" for one of my products - a pair of steampunk glasses. At the time I made them there was nothing quite like them in SL, which is why I made them in the first place. I checked it out to see, but it turns out they had just made something better than my originals. I bought them and wear them often. My product after all hadn't been updated in months and I'd already made enough lindies from it to cover the rent and buy a bunch of random lovely stuff. They still sell.

Having said that it is a shame that we don't have better disciplinary procedures for dealing with content theft, or the sale of free items without consent of the owner. Policy is the gap here, and obviously that kind of policing can't go to the lindens alone.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but DRM it is not. Methinks has more to do with residents understanding and asserting their intellectual property rights from the outset. DRM is not enough, as the application of DRM is not a statement of rights - it's a lock. If someone breaks a lock to get into your house and steal something, breaking the lock itself is periphery to the primary crime comitted. We need to focus on the crime itself.