• CNET News.com, Friday, November 17, 2006 9:45 AM

Second Life's growing virtual economy is being sabotaged by a new program called CopyBot, which allows users to copy any object in the game. The controversy surrounding the potentially detrimental program gathered steam as content creators in the game (not the game's developers) protested the program's distribution. Objects from clothing to furniture to houses are the lifeblood of the game's nascent economy. Some people even make a living selling these virtual wares.

Problem is, it's not clear yet if there's anything game creator Linden Lab can do to stop people from using the bot. Linden Lab said Second Life content creators who had their wares stolen had few immediate options for stopping the thefts and that the best recourse for them could be to file a Digital Millennium Copyright Act complaint--in the real world--against offenders.

Right, then wait for over a year until the problem is resolved--long after going out of virtual business.

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