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Mar 1, 1999, 4:30am

A Photocopy bot now exists. A demo of its work can be seen in Beta at 60S
85E.

The Bot can examine a large area, and archive (propdump) the info.

It's great for backing up your work in various worlds. A reasonable
anti-vandalism tool.

Then based on the archive, it can re-build enormous areas either in the same
place, or in a different place.

If moving between worlds, as long as the new world supports all the objects,
then
it can move stuff between worlds. Its easy to move stuff off of AlphaWorld
as most
worlds have all its objects.

Now that this bot exists, perhaps some questions.

Is *anything* copyrighted on AlphaWorld? On other worlds? What can and
cannot be copied.
Can people somehow indicate copyrighted work so the bot won't copy it? How?
Is this even
a concern? Will it do any good, as other photocopy bots are sure to follow.
Will this just
ban all bots everywhere?

Should the building capabilities of this bot be tightly restricted in its
distribution?
Citizens only? PS only? Radius? Perhaps making it cost non-trivial
amounts of money?

Am I too worried? The demo in beta was the result to two commands to the
bot.

The first, at GZ was ".remember". Then at 60S 85E ".replicate 150" to tell
the bot to
replicate up to 150 meters out. It did about 5500 objects in about 5
minutes.

AKA Howland

Mar 1, 1999, 2:52pm

The Photocopy Bot is a great idea. And you deserve extra praise for taking its
power seriously. In the wrong hands, a BuilderBot can do great harm; in the
right hands, it is a great tool for virtual architects and building owners, as
you say. If you look around Beta, you'll see buildings built by other SDK bots,
going back to October. Hamfon had a BuilderBot that could archive buildings
before there ever was an SDK. I think everybody held back from distributing them
because it was so hard to control how they would be used, especially in the
public building worlds, where most ActiveWorlds people visit and build.

I guess it is up to the world owners to control runaway construction (the
easiest and fairest way mentioned so far is to put a limit on the number of
cells anyone's bots can build in a day, because you can automate the scan of the
log). So the issue of respect for intellectual property is the one that bot
programmers have to face: till now, anyone could laboriously copy anyone else's
building ideas, and that was a great way to learn; but now, with SDK builder
bots available, anyone can copy whole building complexes in a flash, as you say,
and still know nothing more about models, textures, and animation design.

During the SDK Beta period, I used to get my Beta testers to promise not to copy
anything with their BuilderBots unless they got permission from the owner.
Still, I was bothered by all the same questions you are asking: how can we get
all the incredible benefits of BuilderBots without encouraging the obvious
misuses? Anyone I give a BuilderBot to can give a copy of the program to anyone
else, and sooner or later, somebody down the line is using it to do the worst
kind of things. So, what to do?

Here's the best solution I could think of so far: there's an InventoryBot
program that only surveys the Bot-owner's property; and a BuilderBot program
that only builds surveys made by an InventoryBot. If your friends want to survey
their property with an InventoryBot and give you a copy of their survey, your
BuilderBot program can build that survey too. The outcome is, you can't copy
someone else's property without getting their permission.

And I've got a second idea for encouraging the positive use of BuilderBots. Most
people will want BuilderBots to do certain particularly hard but useful building
tasks, and then those people will take over from there, and put together a
complete site in the old way. I'm going to offer BuilderBot Modules for those
building tasks. Instead of getting a generalized BuilderBot program, people can
get a Module program that builds just one building or just one building part. On
AlphaWorld, citizens can download Modules for flower gardens, fountains,
automobiles, billiard rooms, business offices, homes, patios, etc.; on Mars,
citizens can download Modules for railway lines, craters, glass domes, etc. (You
can see these Modules in Demo form at AW 9876s 5432e 10, and at Mars 23N 500W.)
A Module program contains an edited-down survey of just one building, and can
only build that building. You pick out the building you want from a Building
Yard, download the Module program from a website at the Building Yard, and run
the Module Bot at your own building site. You know you've got a building that
was designed for copying.

[View Quote] > A Photocopy bot now exists. A demo of its work can be seen in Beta at 60S
> 85E.
>
> The Bot can examine a large area, and archive (propdump) the info.
>
> It's great for backing up your work in various worlds. A reasonable
> anti-vandalism tool.
>
> Then based on the archive, it can re-build enormous areas either in the same
> place, or in a different place.
>
> If moving between worlds, as long as the new world supports all the objects,
> then
> it can move stuff between worlds. Its easy to move stuff off of AlphaWorld
> as most
> worlds have all its objects.
>
> Now that this bot exists, perhaps some questions.
>
> Is *anything* copyrighted on AlphaWorld? On other worlds? What can and
> cannot be copied.
> Can people somehow indicate copyrighted work so the bot won't copy it? How?
> Is this even
> a concern? Will it do any good, as other photocopy bots are sure to follow.
> Will this just
> ban all bots everywhere?
>
> Should the building capabilities of this bot be tightly restricted in its
> distribution?
> Citizens only? PS only? Radius? Perhaps making it cost non-trivial
> amounts of money?
>
> Am I too worried? The demo in beta was the result to two commands to the
> bot.
>
> The first, at GZ was ".remember". Then at 60S 85E ".replicate 150" to tell
> the bot to
> replicate up to 150 meters out. It did about 5500 objects in about 5
> minutes.
>
> AKA Howland

Mar 1, 1999, 8:24pm

hehe. Is there a way i can get my hands on a copy of this :)

-iceberg

Mar 1, 1999, 8:48pm

Sure ice, just go to Hamfon's homepage
http://home.sprintmail.com/~ncrowle/hamfon.htm ) and download BuildBot.

-The Paradox

[View Quote]

Mar 3, 1999, 8:34pm

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So far as I'm concerned anything I did as far as building itself goes =
in prime world is fair game... building is for fun... models are =
copyrighted. :)
Myself I'd be flattered to see a dozen clones of Mount Bob floating =
around AW. :)

Rjinswand

--=20

NOW ACCEPTING CREDIT CARDS! WorldOne is a humongous selection of =
models and avatars on cd-rom for one low price. Gandtech and Rjeneration =
have fused forces to bring you everything you need to start (or restart) =
your world. In one box.
http://www.gandtech.com/worldone=20

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<DIV>&nbsp; So far as I'm concerned anything I did as far as building =
itself=20
goes in prime world is fair game... building is for fun... models are=20
copyrighted.&nbsp; :)</DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp; Myself I'd be flattered to see a dozen clones of <A=20
href=3D"http://table.jps.net/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/rjins/teleport.cgi?aw_149s_1=
819w">Mount=20
Bob</A> floating around AW.&nbsp;&nbsp; :)</DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=3D#000000 size=3D2>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <FONT=20
size=3D3>Rjinswand</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><BR>-- <BR><BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; NOW ACCEPTING CREDIT CARDS!&nbsp; =

WorldOne is a humongous selection of models and avatars on cd-rom for =
one low=20
price. Gandtech and Rjeneration have fused forces to bring you =
everything you=20
need to start (or restart) your world.&nbsp; In one =
box.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;=20
<A =
href=3D"http://www.gandtech.com/worldone">http://www.gandtech.com/worldon=
e</A>=20
<BR></DIV>
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Mar 17, 1999, 12:51am

Heres an idear for you guys =)

Have the BuildBot check the objects owner and see if it matches the bots
owner before adding it to the propdump =O

[View Quote]

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