[intern/teen/tsl] Media Piracy Fireside Workshop!
On Monday of this week, I hosted the second monthly Fireside Workshop of the month surrounding the topic of Media Piracy. Many of our interns showed up to participate, as did a few other residents. After introducing myself and the workshop topic, I asked the participants to head over to our very popular "Human Barometer" platforms to begin the first activity. During this activity, I presented the group with a series of 3 statements and then asked that they move to the platform which best showed their personal opinion on the topic. The options, if you aren't familiar with the barometer activity are: agree, disagree and not sure. The statements I presented were: Downloading licensed & copyrighted music without purchasing it is ethical, It’s ok to share files of TV shows with others, given that networks air them publicly anyway, and Downloading licensed & copyrighted movies without purchasing them should be legal.
We received some really interesting responses to these different statements, most of which were leaning toward the view that media piracy is not something that is ethical and should remain illegal. It would be interesting to know how many of these teens actually *do* download music illegally, however. That question still remains!
The next activity was centered around the definition of media piracy. As a group, we broke down the meaning of media and then piracy. Afterwards, I asked the group to define the phrase media piracy, which they all defined correctly and immediately grasped the meaning of. During this portion, I asked the participants to pre-type what they thought the definitions were and then press enter when I said to do so. This was really effective and allowed the group to compare their results at the same time. It also helped to garner results at quicker pace.
The final section of the workshop was the longest. I briefly discussed intellectual property safeguards with the group that are built-in to certain items and used Second Life's permission system as an example of that. I also touched on Second Life specific intellectual property rights that residents are entitled to. After doing so, I presented everyone with the same scenario and asked them to present a solution as either an object, texture, snapshot, clothing, or notecard.
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The notecard scenario:
You are the CEO of a popular content development company that has established a strong brand and presence within Second Life over the course of 3 years. Your company is one of the oldest and most renowned content development companies in Second Life. Your company’s annual net income is $1,000,000, with your average product selling for $1. One day, someone discovers an exploit, which allows anyone to copy content your company has created and resell it or give it away to others for free. Someone informs you of this exploit a couple weeks after it is discovered and you have to respond immediately. How would you respond to such an exploit?
(Things to think about)
How much of an affect do you think such an exploit would have on your sales?
Do you feel that your long-time, dedicated customers will continue to purchase your items instead of receiving them from someone else for free? How about purchasing them from someone else for less?
Would it make a difference if the person copying your content were selling it for more or less than you charge?
What are your legal options, and are they worth taking?
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We received some great solutions, but the winner was Mariel Voyunivef, who Rafi and I thought most effectively resolved the problem presented. Mariel chose to exercise both social and legal action against the person(s) illegally copying her content. She created a notecard to further explain..
This was her resolution:
"I would notify the Lindens in order to identify the criminals and be able to take legal action against them in court.
At the same time, I would try to get the customers involved with the problem by being open about it - in other words, just explain what has happened, making sure to let them know it's from my viewpoint.
I would tell people that, to fix this problem and other related ones, everyone must cooperate. I'd encourage them to buy my products from my store and not from the others by openly asking them to do so and by showing my appreciation in a way that benefits them, like lowering the prices of the products that have been already made, giving some away as freebies and holding lessons on building/texturing/whatever my company does for those who'd like to learn.
I'd prepare for the obvious economic losses by finding other ways to make the needed profit, like advertising, etc. "
Mariel would also provide a notecard giver in her store that would send out the following text:
"IT'S TIME TO TALK.
It has come to our attention that someone has found a way to distribute our items illegally. The Lindens have been notified and in-world and offline legal action will be taken against the people who are related to this activity. However, to solve this problem, we need your cooperation.
We ask you to please take into consideration the effort that had to be made in the creation of each of the products before you buy them at a cheaper price. It's not only illegal to buy them elsewhere - it also affects content creators all over the grid.
To show you how much we appreciate your cooperation, we have decided to discount 20% of the cost of the products that have been made so far, give some as freebies and hold building/texturing lessons for free for customers who may want to start creating content of their own.
Work towards a fair grid!"
What a wonderful event this was! After announcing the winner and congratulating everyone on a job well done, I handed out free pumpkin heads to everyone just for participating!
