Thoughts on Archiving...

I’ve often lamented that Linden Lab does not provide a means for us to archive our creations in Second Life™; that is, take a copy of our sculptures, builds, land, etc. en masse to our hard drive for safe keeping. Over the years, I’ve seen many great sim spaces and their contents disappear forever when their creators/owners have had to downgrade or change their SL status. Wouldn’t it be nice to legitimately store a copy of these creations offline for future resurrection at a different time or place? To me, this is what legitimate archiving should be, and a tool like Rezzable's BuilderBot could serve that purpose.

I can’t necessarily fault someone like Rezzable for pursuing a means to mass archive their hard work. Taking items into inventory piece-by-piece, bit-by-bit is a pain—it’s like packing up a moving van. But I can’t help but think that BuilderBot’s potential for good will be corrupted as a means for wholesale stealing, particularly from SL to other virtual worlds. The onus is on Rezzable to ensure that their brainchild is marketed, distributed, and/or sold as a means for legitimate archival purposes only. It is disingenuous to front an attitude of “we can’t control what others do with our powerful, god-like, copying device” as preemptive absolution from its near-certain abuse.

It’s too bad Linden Lab hasn’t prevented this potential Pandora’s box from being opened in the first place. We have the (albeit imperfect) permission controls Modify, Copy, and Transfer. Why not develop a permission called “Archive” that allows creators/owners to decide whether or not they wish to allow their possessions to be archivable in the first place, and then provide them with a tool/function to legitimately archive? Leaving this choice unaddressed only forces others to take matters into their own hands, as Rezzable seems to be doing now. Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, there is no simple way to put it back without making a huge mess…