Arwyn and Vaughan in their TG Days. Image courtesy of Arwyn Quandry

A few days ago, I had the pleasure of having a long chat with Arwyn Quandry and Vaughan Vendetta about the problems that Copybot has caused on the Teen Grid (TG). Vaughan is a current resident on the Teen Grid whereas Arwyn recently came of age and made the transfer to the Main Grid (MG). I asked her for her input as she’s well placed to compare the problem of Copybot between the two grids.

The Teen Grid is estimated to have well under one thousand users logging in on a weekly basis, and seeing as this number will include alts/bots, the actual figure would be much smaller. During the school year, the number drops sharply. The grid co-exists in the same manner as MG though – you still have the same concept of user-generated content, and sim prices/tier are the same as on Main Grid.

So the main differences are that the economy is much smaller, and everyone on the grid can’t legally go out drinking.

So why is copybot so rife on Teen Grid? There are at least 25 active TG businesses that cover the various sectors of the SL market, of which Vaughan estimates up to 75% are selling copybotted merchandise. Some retailers are also taking copybotted material and “Frankensteining” them with their own content. Unfortunately, as Vaughan does not have access to the Main Grid, he has no way of being able to check items which are copybotted without the help of those in MG through the Cross-Grid Copybotted Content Flickr group.

I’ve been through all this before when I wrote about The Forgotten Grid, but on catching up with Arwyn and Vaughan, I’ve learnt that things have only got progressively worse.

A recent comment from Vaughan caught my eye, when he despaired that Teen Grid residents were discussing ways of regulating stolen content on TG. To me, that’s become a completely new problem, which I don’t believe we have on MG.

Copybot happens on Main Grid, but there is sense amongst the masses that it is wrong, and that it’s unacceptable. On Teen Grid, copybotted products have now become mainstream, to the point where most people there will be buying stolen products without realising. Or caring that they have.

Imagine a grid where there’s so much stolen grid, it becomes normal and socially acceptable. That would be what I call a cultural issue – the lines between original content and stolen content are blurred and it becomes impossible to control.

Vaughan explained that many people on TG who are pro-actively trying to stop the import and purchasing of copybotted goods are now feeling despondent. Another factor has been the transfer of many TG residents to the MG this year, which has meant there are less people to combat the theft.

Because of these factors, as well as Linden Lab’s refusal to lower the price of tier on TG sims, sim owners who only support legitimate businesses on TG are suffering with 50% of sim space being unoccupied – would you believe it – because of a lack of legitimate storeowners.

In order to be able to maintain their sims, it was proposed by some sim owners that they start to “regulate” copybotted merchandise stores – essentially taking money over morals.

Regulation would allow a proportion of copybotted content to be sold in stores, but Vaughan explains that this would only open the floodgates to copybotters and would only justify the problem. Once the signal is given that copybot is socially acceptable across TG, the value of all the TG original content would have to drop to match, if be priced at all.

The reality of the problem is that there just aren’t enough legitimate businesses on Teen Grid to keep it sustainable.

Having a smaller concentration of goods on TG makes the copybot problem much bigger than on MG, Arwyn said. She elaborated that Main Grid copybotted content won’t reach many people on the grid, whereas the same content would be gridwide on TG. Again, it’s a scales of economies issue, but a grid is a grid in my eyes, and those who are running it should be taking the responsibility to help combat that issue.

Arwyn tells me that copybotted items are actually a status symbol on the Teen Grid because of the high quality available without having to pay anything. Some people say that copybot is not an issue as the people who support it would never have bought anything anyway. But Arwyn found that the people wearing stolen material had no idea what copybot was, much less that what they were wearing is stolen. So in actual fact, they may have bought something if they’d have been aware of stolen content versus original content. When there’s so much infringing content on a grid, you can’t expect someone who’s new to know the difference.

That said, Arwyn feels the lure of free (stolen) content is too appealing, and that it reflects badly on TG culture and the residents in general. In that sense, she also feels like it’s a losing battle to fight the stolen content on TG.

I don’t think it’s totally worth it.  I want to have a crusade, but people don’t listen.  It really defeats you, makes you think that it isn’t worth it.  Our campaigns were met with total apathy and ignorance.  You can’t teach them.  They won’t learn.

It is also important not to band all the teen residents into the same group. There are people like Arwyn and Vaughan who continue to fight the good fight, and for little reward. It’s not a grid of thieves – it boasts as much diversity as Main Grid does, albeit on a smaller scale. It’s simply become neglected for years, and as a result, the Copybot has become a big issue over there.

And where are Linden Lab? Well normally I support the Lab on many matters, and disagree with them on others. But I’ve been campaigning for many months now for them to pay more attention to the Teen Grid if they insist on continuing with it. And low-and-behold, they have done Sweet F*ck All.

Which shouldn’t surprise me as there are more than enough examples where they’ve done absolutely nothing to fix things, and instead concentrating on creating even more problems instead.

Since my last article on Teen Grid, Linden Lab have shut down the Teen Grid Mentors group, closed down Linden Answers in the SL Forums (which was one of the few portals that TG residents had to get answers), taken Blue Linden off as the Teen Grid’s Linden and not replaced him and whittled down the In-World Linden hours to a single hour a week.

Linden Lab have abandoned Teen Grid and I challenge anyone from Linden Lab to tell me otherwise.