Remote+Republic

Remote Republic February 18 My journal can finally start because I have found my Red Sox hat. After days of looking for the unattainable hat I learned how to search for places and found Beantown Sports Bar. They have a shop but since I have no money I decided to pick up both the free Red Sox gear and the free Patriots stuff. All of the free stuff was tagged as no copy but some of the stuff was tagged as no copy and no modify. The fact that the free stuff has the actual logos of both teams begs the question is either team reciving money for the use of their copyrighted logos. Jaylan Boomhauer brings up the same point in his February 13 journal entry. There is no way that a business as large as the NFL or MLB isnt aware of what is going on in second life. Does this mean tha they approve of the copying of jerseys, and other logos, I highly doubt it.

When thinking further about the idea of copyrights in Second Life, Lessig's book gives some insight to the topic. In his book he says the law was first written to protect publishers' profits against the competition of pirates, but it has changed to a sword that interferes with any use transformative or not. The jersey on second life could be argued that it is transformative, but more than likley it is seen as a direct copy of the teams logo. The question then becomes is there any profit that the publisher is being cheated of, on one side there is no money to be made because the shirt was designed by a creator on second life and was given to me for free no money being made either way. On the other side of the arguement, I am now wearing a hat and shirt that promotes the logo of a team that might not know the clothes exist. The two sides to the arguement both are valid points but I will have to read deeper and keep searching for answers.

One of the benifits of Second Life is the lack of restraints, and the amount of material that is available. Since there are so few restraints culture should be much easier to access than in the real life. Things such as art, literature, and music should all be to be accessed more freely than in real life. This happens for a few reasons, first and most obvious is that Second Life does not close. In the real world if you were trying to go see a famous work of art, perhaps at the Art Institute of Chicago you would have to go during working hours. Where if you wanted to see the same work of art in Second Life you would just have to find a place that had it and you can access it 24/7. Another restriction is cost, take the same work of art in the Art Institute you would have to pay $12 assuming you are an adult. In Second Life however you would be able to see the same work of art for free.

Another limitation to the real world is location, if you live in the United States you are very limited to United States culture. The only way that you can access other countries culture is to visit these countries, that can be both time consuming and expensive. In Second Life you have instant access to certain information that is completly unattainable to the average citizen, with one teleport you can be in hundreds of countries. Another restraint that exists in the real world is self image. In the real world everone has to think about how others will look at them and what they will think of them. In Second Life you can reamain as anoymous as you want. When people are not going to be identified they will act out how they really are, they will not try and act a certain way because someone is watching. This is why in Second Life there are such crazy things like the sex culture, or the wierd animal things running around. In the real world no one would dress up as an animal and run around trying to have sex with everyone. Second Life is a way for people to be themselves, and when they are themselves they spead their culture to others. I dont know if the real world is necessairly missing anything by not having animal people running around the streets but they are lacking the culture that Second Life can provide.

These lack of restrictions that exist in the real world should allow culture to be created and enjoyed much easier. This is why Second Life is so diverse and contains such a wide variety of culture. With the lack of such restrictions users are free to create their own culture and can instantly share it with millions of other users. Being able to share it with such a diverse community will begin to elimate culture of certain countries, and create a culture of Second Life. Soon it won't Matter what country you are from as long as you have a Second Life account you will have access to culture from millions of people around the globe. The real world is begining to move to more global relationships but it is far from where Second Life is. Second Life already has people from hundreds of countries talking and spreading their culture to eachother. This interaction of countries should help the world on many levels. It will be easier to spread scientific advances...

Because money in Second Life is so "cheap" your avatar can life a life of royality. For a small amount of US Dollars you can get your avatar a nice car, nice clothes, a yacht, a private plane, and anything else you could imagine. Because this is all so cheap it allows for people to expirence a life that they would not be able to explore in real life. With the easily accessible money supply, people in Second Life can expirence what only the ultra rich can. This is another example of how culture is much easier spread than in real life. Another thing that easy access to money allows is people can access the rare culture in Second Life that requires money. If something in Second Life costs money it is much cheaper than it could cost to expirence it in the real life. Take for example The Louvre in France, assuming you find a way to get to France it still costs you $14.38 US Dollars to get into the mueseam and you are only allowed to stay untill it closes that day. Then take the Second Louvre in Second Life, it is completly free and you are able to stay as long as you want. Clearly there are some drawbacks to visiting the Louvre in Second Life rather than in real life. For example you can not say that you have been to the Louvre, also it is not the same as seeing the works of art in real life. Even though something gets lost when flying from art to art it sill allows people the opportunity that normally would not be extended to them.

Over-Proving My Point To travel from Chicago to Paris in May of this year, staying at a hotel for four nights according to Yahoo! Travel would cost $931. This is just the Flight and the Accommodations. Since I am travling abroad I must carry my US passport which if it is my first time getting one will cost $59 plus government fees. Assuming I ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner at McDonalds off the dollar menu spending $5 each meal. It would end up costing $60 for food. Trying to keep my trip as cost efficient as possible I will use public transportation. Paris' tourist website has a deal where they give you a pass for the Paris Metro and the Louvre which costs $21.70, so that will cover transportation and the entrance passes. This is the extreme minimum that it would cost for a trip to Paris to see the Louvre: $1,071.70 plus government fees. To the average citizen like me this is unattainable. In contrast it would cost me $2.50 to get a library card to my local library and get on Second Life...Good thing I cleared that up.

Even the University island is promoting its own culture that comes out of the University. On the island is the new art gallery, in it is paintings and pictures. If this art was not posted in Second Life, and just stayed in the fine arts building it would not reach nearly the amount of people that it could in Second Life. If there was an art lover in another country who wanted to see these works they would have to fly to a major airport then fly to the lexington airport get a cab to the fine arts building so that they could spend an hour taking in the art that is being produced here at the university. However since the art is in Second Life all they have to do is make a Second Life account and visit the art gallery on UK isalnd. Now take this one example and multiply it by millions of users and Second Life becomes a becon for up and coming artists to get their work out there.

Lessig's four modalities of constraint (Norms, Architecture, Market, and Laws) are easily transferd to Second Life. They are Second Life's attempt to control what goes on in world. Second Life tries to use as little control as possible, but there are some regulations and they come in the form of Lessig's four modalities of constraint. Norms is the hardest modality of constraint to figure out in Second Life. There is almost no such thing as norms in Second Life, everyone does what they want and what they think is right. The norm does not exist because people are anonymous so they have no reason to conform to what everyone else is doing. It could be argued that there is some norms in Second Life that most people follow but there are very few. Architecture is a very common control used in Second Life every object has only a certain number of things that can be done to that object. Some objects can be copied, taken, taken but no copy, and so on. Every object can only be used for certain things this is a control in clear form. If someone wanted to display their work of art they would let people view it but not copy it. Elwing has more information on this in his journal. The market is another clear control in Second Life. According to Lessig the Market imposes a simultaneous constraint upon how an individual or group might behave. In Second Life the market is usually used to keep people from doing something. Since everything in Second Life is basically free and only very little has to be paid for the market is a great restraint. If there is a cost in Second Life it will prevent the average user from using that service, whether it be buying a boat or paying to get into a bar. Laws...Are there any?

Some other random thoughts... Why in second life is there a control that lets you ride an escalator when you can fly? Why would anyone make a model of Yankee Stadium? Second life has enough slums already it doesnt need another one. Why would people want a second life?

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