The debate continues – even in the virtual world

This morning came across an article in NYT – Virtual Estates Lead to Real-World Headaches. At the core, the article is around ‘content ownership’ in the online world. It was interesting and bizarre to see even the virtual world is replicating the real world ownership issues and in the process, creating more complexity and questions. Think for a moment - “The worth of the U.S. virtual goods market is expected to surpass $1 billion this year, according to a report released last month by analysts at Inside Virtual Goods. The global market is thought to be five or six times as much”. These are really staggering numbers so the reason why anyone should be worried about virtual world estate is easy to understand.

The content ownership has become a contentious issue with the rise of cloud computing. The proponents of the cloud computing model tend to downplay the ownership and broader privacy concerns. As the article rightly pointed out – “”By their very names — MySpace, YouTube — companies promote a sense of ownership about content that users create.” It is time to take steps to stop content privacy and hoarding and not get clouded by cloud propaganda. Let the content belong to the creator!