Smiley+Clawtooth


 * 4/18 - Extra Pictures**

Want some office furniture for your virtual world conference room. You can get it [|here.]

College campuses put up exhibits that you would otherwise not have access to. UK has an exhibit up right now.



People dissatisfied with their figures or features can shop around and find something they like better at a shopping mall. These types of malls are all over the place, but you can visit [|this particular one] if you'd like. You can also pick out some new clothes or shoes while you're looking around.






 * 4/18/08** — **Interview findings**



I talked with a group of people a couple of weeks ago. All but one of them wanted to take the survey and then get more indepth with the topic afterward. The avatars were Be Ewing, Siiri4 Hirvi and Gavril Dryke. Be Ewing said she was interested in patents beneath intellectual property law and implications for inventions designed in SL that are subsequently made in RL. That's a topic our group didn't really explore at all. But it could be interesting if SL ever got big enough that people really wanted to take their inventions and market them in the real world. The other interesting part of that is that in real world, a lot of the stuff that would be invented would be physical property, whereas it is all intellectual property in SL. Dryke said he thought copyright infringement of intellectual property would be hard to prove. We then went on to talk about what is protected and what is not. Here's a short snippet from my convo with Dryke:

Gavril Dryke: if i live across the street from a drive in, and can view the movies from my house..... is it theft? You: haha, good question, i would say no, but some might argue that you owe that drive in some money Gavril Dryke: exactlly Gavril Dryke: so what is the difference in that, or distibuting something already freely available publiclly? You: I don't know Gavril Dryke: thats what needs to be ironed out Gavril Dryke: the argument of " if I can listen to it for free on the radio, why not get it free from the internet". Gavril Dryke: it's a grey zone You: yeah very grey, and a lot of people still don't understand they can be punished for that Gavril Dryke: well most understand that they can be punished, but don't understand WHY they are being punished

Another avatar said he creates and sells motorcycles on Second Life. He makes as much money in SL as he does at his RL job, which has made it crucial to him that his work is protected.



He took my survey and then said I was missing a question — Did you ever have somebody else copy your work in SL? He told me that he found out someone was copying his bikes, although they can't copy his scripts. But regardless, he reported the activity to Linden Labs. Loon said Linden Labs hasn't helped him at all really. They suspended the avatar's account who was stealing, but paid no attention to that avatar's duplicate accounts. This brings up an interesting difference between RL and SL. With the exception of identity theft, people are generally limited to one identity. Anyway, Loon said he is thinking about taking his case out of SL and filing suit, however he doesn't know if it would be worth his time or money. But for him, it's more of the principle of it all. That is another one of the downfalls of SL, he said. If the common man who doesn't have enough money to defend himself in court finds that his stuff is being stolen, he can either put all of his resources into fighting a legal battle, ignore it, or just get off SL all together. Loon said he may choose the latter of those three options if copying continues to get worse in SL. Money is the primary reason he's in the virtual world.


 * 4/18/08 — Copybots**

Check out this article about Copybots from Reuters. It provides some interesting background info for the history of copyright in SL

[|Outcry as ‘Copybot’ threatens copyright protection]

 * 4/13/08 - Interviews**

1. What is your RL age? 36 2. What is your RL gender? male 3. How long have you been using Second Life? 12 months 4. Are you from the United States? no 5. Are you a student? yes 6. Do you use P2P software (such as Limewire, etc) no 7. Have you ever copied a non-copy object in Second Life? no 8. If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life? no 9. If you knew someone was copying objects in Second Life that were designated non-copy, would you report that activity? yes

1. What is your RL age? 43 2. What is your RL gender? female 3. How long have you been using Second Life? 20 months 4. Are you from the United States? yes 5. Are you a student? no 6. Do you use P2P software (such as Limewire, etc) no 7. Have you ever copied a non-copy object in Second Life? no 8. If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life? no 9. If you knew someone was copying objects in Second Life that were designated non-copy, would you report that activity? yes

She has very strong feelings about respecting copyright.

1. What is your RL age? 50 2. What is your RL gender? male 3. How long have you been using Second Life? 4 months 4. Are you from the United States? no 5. Are you a student? no 6. Do you use P2P software (such as Limewire, etc) no 7. Have you ever copied a non-copy object in Second Life? no 8. If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life? no 9. If you knew someone was copying objects in Second Life that were designated non-copy, would you report that activity? no

1. What is your RL age? 31 2. What is your RL gender? male 3. How long have you been using Second Life? 3.5 months 4. Are you from the United States? yes 5. Are you a student? no 6. Do you use P2P software (such as Limewire, etc) no 7. Have you ever copied a non-copy object in Second Life? no 8. If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life? no 9. If you knew someone was copying objects in Second Life that were designated non-copy, would you report that activity? yes

1. What is your RL age? 33 2. What is your RL gender? female 3. How long have you been using Second Life? 1.5 years 4. Are you from the United States? no 5. Are you a student? no 6. Do you use P2P software (such as Limewire, etc) no 7. Have you ever copied a non-copy object in Second Life? no 8. If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life? yes 9. If you knew someone was copying objects in Second Life that were designated non-copy, would you report that activity? no

1. What is your RL age? 19 2. What is your RL gender? male 3. How long have you been using Second Life? 5 months 4. Are you from the United States? yes 5. Are you a student? no 6. Do you use P2P software (such as Limewire, etc) no 7. Have you ever copied a non-copy object in Second Life? no 8. If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life? no 9. If you knew someone was copying objects in Second Life that were designated non-copy, would you report that activity? yes

1. What is your RL age? 34 2. What is your RL gender? male 3. How long have you been using Second Life? 13 months 4. Are you from the United States? no 5. Are you a student? no 6. Do you use P2P software (such as Limewire, etc) yes 7. Have you ever copied a non-copy object in Second Life? no 8. If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life? no 9. If you knew someone was copying objects in Second Life that were designated non-copy, would you report that activity? yes

This guy builds his own motorcycles and has found copies of his out in SL. He said he has filed complaints with Linden Lab, but they don't seem to care. So he's following procedure and filing a DMCA report. I'll post more about his story later.

4/12/08 - Interviews

1. What is your RL age? 23 2. What is your RL gender? female 3. How long have you been using Second Life? 10 months 4. Are you from the United States? no 5. Are you a student? yes 6. Do you use P2P software (such as Limewire, etc) yes 7. Have you ever copied a non-copy object in Second Life? no 8. If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life? no 9. If you knew someone was copying objects in Second Life that were designated non-copy, would you report that activity? yes

1. What is your RL age? 37 2. What is your RL gender? female 3. How long have you been using Second Life? 3 years 4. Are you from the United States? yes 5. Are you a student? no 6. Do you use P2P software (such as Limewire, etc) no 7. Have you ever copied a non-copy object in Second Life? no 8. If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life? no 9. If you knew someone was copying objects in Second Life that were designated non-copy, would you report that activity? yes

When I was walking away from this interview, the guy admitted that he had copied something as an experiment... which means he was lying. But then he said he was just kidding. Maybe he realized I could still hear him. Ha. Just one example of why surveys like this aren't always accurate. People often respond the way you want them to.

1. What is your RL age? 37 2. What is your RL gender? female 3. How long have you been using Second Life? 3 years 4. Are you from the United States? yes 5. Are you a student? no 6. Do you use P2P software (such as Limewire, etc) no 7. Have you ever copied a non-copy object in Second Life? no 8. If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life? no 9. If you knew someone was copying objects in Second Life that were designated non-copy, would you report that activity? yes

1. What is your RL age? 26 2. What is your RL gender? male 3. How long have you been using Second Life? 3 months 4. Are you from the United States? no 5. Are you a student? no 6. Do you use P2P software (such as Limewire, etc) no 7. Have you ever copied a non-copy object in Second Life? no 8. If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life? no 9. If you knew someone was copying objects in Second Life that were designated non-copy, would you report that activity? yes

1. What is your RL age? 32 2. What is your RL gender? male 3. How long have you been using Second Life? 5 months 4. Are you from the United States? no 5. Are you a student? no 6. Do you use P2P software (such as Limewire, etc) no 7. Have you ever copied a non-copy object in Second Life? no 8. If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life? no 9. If you knew someone was copying objects in Second Life that were designated non-copy, would you report that activity? yes

1. What is your RL age? 50 2. What is your RL gender? female 3. How long have you been using Second Life? 10 months 4. Are you from the United States? yes 5. Are you a student? no 6. Do you use P2P software (such as Limewire, etc) no 7. Have you ever copied a non-copy object in Second Life? no 8. If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life? no 9. If you knew someone was copying objects in Second Life that were designated non-copy, would you report that activity? no

She said she was not a "morality cop" so in general she would not report activity. But if someone was in danger, then she would. Interesting response.

1. What is your RL age? 28 2. What is your RL gender? male 3. How long have you been using Second Life? 1 year 4. Are you from the United States? yes 5. Are you a student? no 6. Do you use P2P software (such as Limewire, etc) yes 7. Have you ever copied a non-copy object in Second Life? no 8. If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life? yes 9. If you knew someone was copying objects in Second Life that were designated non-copy, would you report that activity? yes

1. What is your RL age? 34 2. What is your RL gender? male 3. How long have you been using Second Life? 8 monts 4. Are you from the United States? no 5. Are you a student? yes 6. Do you use P2P software (such as Limewire, etc) yes 7. Have you ever copied a non-copy object in Second Life? no 8. If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life? yes 9. If you knew someone was copying objects in Second Life that were designated non-copy, would you report that activity? no

1. What is your RL age? 30 2. What is your RL gender? male 3. How long have you been using Second Life? 2 years 4. Are you from the United States? yes 5. Are you a student? no 6. Do you use P2P software (such as Limewire, etc) no 7. Have you ever copied a non-copy object in Second Life? no 8. If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life? no 9. If you knew someone was copying objects in Second Life that were designated non-copy, would you report that activity? yes

1. What is your RL age? 55 2. What is your RL gender? male 3. How long have you been using Second Life? 4 months 4. Are you from the United States? no 5. Are you a student? no 6. Do you use P2P software (such as Limewire, etc) no 7. Have you ever copied a non-copy object in Second Life? no 8. If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life? no 9. If you knew someone was copying objects in Second Life that were designated non-copy, would you report that activity? yes

1. What is your RL age? 37 2. What is your RL gender? male 3. How long have you been using Second Life? 18 months 4. Are you from the United States? no 5. Are you a student? no 6. Do you use P2P software (such as Limewire, etc) no 7. Have you ever copied a non-copy object in Second Life? no 8. If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life? no 9. If you knew someone was copying objects in Second Life that were designated non-copy, would you report that activity? no

1. What is your RL age? 42 2. What is your RL gender? female 3. How long have you been using Second Life? 1 year 4. Are you from the United States? no 5. Are you a student? no 6. Do you use P2P software (such as Limewire, etc) no 7. Have you ever copied a non-copy object in Second Life? no 8. If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life? no 9. If you knew someone was copying objects in Second Life that were designated non-copy, would you report that activity? yes


 * 4/11/08 - Interviews**

1. What is your RL age? 56 2. What is your RL gender? male 3. How long have you been using Second Life? 9/18/2007 4. Are you from the United States? yes 5. Are you a student? no 6. Do you use P2P software (such as Limewire, etc) no 7. Have you ever copied a non-copy object in Second Life? no 8. If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life? no 9. If you knew someone was copying objects in Second Life that were designated non-copy, would you report that activity? no

1. What is your RL age? 45 2. What is your RL gender? female 3. How long have you been using Second Life? 1 year 4. Are you from the United States? yes 5. Are you a student? no 6. Do you use P2P software (such as Limewire, etc) no 7. Have you ever copied a non-copy object in Second Life? no 8. If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life? no 9. If you knew someone was copying objects in Second Life that were designated non-copy, would you report that activity? yes

1. What is your RL age? 44 2. What is your RL gender? female 3. How long have you been using Second Life? 1 year 4. Are you from the United States? yes 5. Are you a student? no 6. Do you use P2P software (such as Limewire, etc) no 7. Have you ever copied a non-copy object in Second Life? no 8. If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life? no 9. If you knew someone was copying objects in Second Life that were designated non-copy, would you report that activity? yes

1. What is your RL age? 23 2. What is your RL gender? female 3. How long have you been using Second Life? about 6 months 4. Are you from the United States?no 5. Are you a student? yes 6. Do you use P2P software (such as Limewire, etc) no 7. Have you ever copied a non-copy object in Second Life? no 8. If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life? no 9. If you knew someone was copying objects in Second Life that were designated non-copy, would you report that activity? yes

1. What is your RL age? 39 2. What is your RL gender? male 3. How long have you been using Second Life? 3 years 4. Are you from the United States? yes 5. Are you a student? no 6. Do you use P2P software (such as Limewire, etc) no 7. Have you ever copied a non-copy object in Second Life? no 8. If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life? no 9. If you knew someone was copying objects in Second Life that were designated non-copy, would you report that activity? no

A side note: One avatar who declined to do our survey said SL logs all of the chat conversations. He was having trouble receiving a card from me and didn't want to answer the questions through chat in case SL went back to look up his answers. I didn't realize they recorded all of the chats... that's a lot to keep track of. But interesting. It's like the ultimate censorship being able to go back and see what anyone has ever said during their time on SL. I'll have to look into that and make sure he was right.


 * 4/11/08 - Science Friday**

I stumbled upon Science Friday in SL. It was pretty awesome actually. More than 100 avatars were in deep debate about corn production for biofuels. It's one of the first really beneficial things I've witnessed in SL. Here is a picture from the event.



They talked a lot about alternative forms of energy, including geo-thermal and nuclear sources of power. The conversation was also pretty political, with many people throwing jabs about the Bush Administration and its energy policies. This was one great example of how a bunch of people who would not normally be able to gather can get together and have important conversations about RL problems.


 * 4/4/08 - Copyright sign on Advertisement**

So in SecondLife do you have to have a copyright mark on your product if you want it to be protected? Is anything assumed to be protected? In the picture below, there is clearly a copyright mark at the end of the name. But I've seen others that are similar lacking the trademark symbol. This might be a really basic question, but I'm not sure so I thought I'd throw it out there.




 * 4/4/08 - Some SecondLife Copyright Information**

I thought I should put the copyright rules of SecondLife up here somewhere. Copyright infringement cases translate into RL. You can the copyright policy and process at the policy and guidelines section at the bottom of the SL homepage:

"Linden Lab will respond to allegations of copyright violations in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA provides a process for a copyright owner to give notification to an online service provider concerning alleged copyright infringement. When a valid DMCA notification is received, the service provider responds under this process by taking down the offending content. On taking down content under the DMCA, we will take reasonable steps to contact the owner of the removed content so that a counter-notification may be filed. On receiving a valid counter-notification, we generally restore the content in question, unless we receive notice from the notification provider that a legal action has been filed seeking a court order to restrain the alleged infringer from engaging in the infringing activity. //Please note that these notifications and counter-notifications are real-world legal notices provided outside of the Second Life environment. Linden Lab may provide copies of such notices to the participants in the dispute or third parties, at our discretion and as required by law -// //the privacy policy for Second Life does not protect information provided in these notices."//


 * 3/28/08 - Interview at the University of Louisville**
 * [[image:UofLinterview_001.JPG width="647" height="391"]]

I met with the Web Accessibility Coordinator at the University of Louisville's island [|http://slurl.com/secondlife/The%20Ville/128/128/0]. After a couple of unsuccessful interview attempts at other locations, I decided to focus on college campuses. I first went to Vassar, where everyone I talked with was on their way out. But at UofL, this lady agreed to do our survey. She was new to the virtual world, which made her responses interesting. Basically for her, she is so new to SL that she found it hard to even think about anything other than just navigating around and asking people her own research questions. Kind of reminds me of what we've been talking about in class with Maslow's hierarchy of needs. She can't think about copyright questions until she's figured out the basics, such as flying, teleporting, etc. Her research was focused on how accessible SL is for people with disabilities. I answered some questions for her, including if I thought sight-impaired people or hearing-impaired people would be able to use SL. Here are her answers to our questions:**


 * 1) **What is your RL age?** 45
 * 2) **What is your RL gender?** Female
 * 3) **How long have you been using Second Life?** One month
 * 4) **Are you from the United States?** Yes
 * 5) **Are you a student?** Part-time student
 * 6) **Do you use P2P software (such as Limewire, etc)** Occasionally
 * 7) **Have you ever copied a non-copy object in Second Life?** No, don't know how
 * 8) **If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life?** I doubt I would ever have the need
 * 9) **If you knew someone was copying objects in Second Life that were designated non-copy, would you report that activity?** No


 * Her answers were a bit more in-depth than yes or no, which I guess is something I need to specify next time. But I think ultimately the interview was worthwhile because she was mainly saying that because she doesn't know how to copy a non-copy object in SL, and because she wouldn't know if someone else was doing it, she responded with no. I think we should make a note of the people who use ignorance of the technologies as the reason why they wouldn't break the rules.**


 * 1/30/08 - Smiley Clawtooth**

Considering I spent at least an hour trying to figure out how to get off UK Island, I was happy when I finally managed to teleport myself to Amsterdam. I've always wanted to visit The Netherlands, and this city seems especially exciting. I walked around the city hoping to see bustling streets and lots of culture. I found some culture, but didn't find anyone to talk to. After looking in store windows and different buildings for a bit, I cam across an art exhibit by Jip Rakels / Marinus. I especially enjoyed the human garden section of the exhibit. Here are some of the portraits I found:
 * 1/30/08 — Amsterdam**



I'm still trying to figure out how all this Second Life stuff works. But I think for my first time exploring, coming across this area was pretty exciting. I'm going to come back at night and see if more people are hanging out in some of the bistros, clubs, streets, etc. Beyond just talking to people, there's a lot of potential for exploring different places and times that I would can't experience in the real world (at least at this point in my life).