Smiley+Clawtooth+--+Research+Paper

=**Creativity and Control: Permission Culture Within Second Life**=

As [|Christian Fall discussed], privatization has dominated Second Life because of the way the virtual world was constructed. The architecture — Linden Labs as the overseer and everyone else free to create, build and make money at their own will — lends itself primarily to a privatized society. Essentially, Linden Labs set up the market and is now letting the public run with it. It resembles Milton Friedman's approach of letting the market control itself for the greatest prosperity. Second Life’s privatized society has fostered a permission culture where users are looking to protect their work and profit-making abilities. The Internet has changed the way people share information, argues Lawrence Lessig in //Free Culture//. Intellectual property is shared through the Internet and on Second Life at rates higher than they have ever been. “For the first time in our tradition, the ordinary ways in which individuals create and share culture fall within the reach of the regulation of the law, which has expanded to draw within its control a vast amount of culture and creativity that it never reached before” (Lessig 8). This in turn has led to less of a free culture and more of a permission culture in America (Lessig 8). Those same principles apply to Second Life as people strive to create and then protect their work in the virtual world.

Through my research, I found that two major types of avatars intermingled within the Grid — those who join for the social aspects of the virtual world and those who join to make money. Many avatars I talked to said they joined Second Life to meet more people and escape real life. Among those respondents, many of them saw value in some of the places Second Life had to offer. One avatar was interested in the intellectual aspects of Second Life. She said she had a diverse group of friends in-world who liked to have deep, meaningful discussions about a variety of topics.



Second Life affords her the chance to meet these people on a daily basis despite living in different countries. She then directed me to Science Friday, a large gathering of avatars taking part in Second Life's version of the National Public Radio show that takes place every Friday from 2 to 4 p.m. They were primarily discussing environmental issues the day I stumbled upon the presentation. They talked about alternative forms of energy, including geo-thermal and nuclear sources of power. The conversation was also political, with many people throwing jabs at the Bush Administration and its energy policies. This provided a great example of how a group of people who would normally not be able to gather can congregate and have important conversations about real life problems.



One can also find great examples of culture throughout Second Life that would require a plane ticket in real life to experience. For instance, I visited an art gallery in Amsterdam. Looking at art through Second Life is a different experience than actually standing in front of a physical picture hanging on the wall. But for the low price of zero dollars, being able to visit “Amsterdam” and take in some culture is a beneficial feature of the virtual world.



Another sector of the Second Life population that was not really present in Team America: Disaster Capitalists’ research was the sex community. When pulling up the Grid, the largest populations of people were typically centered in or around sexual clubs or stores. These people were typically hard to persuade to take a survey about copyright, although I did find a few who would speak with me. [|Iamfromatlanta Georgia researched sex culture in Second Life], and she wrote in her journal about how people often used Second Life to have real relationships, not just casual hookups. Some even get married in the virtual world. Second Life has a major draw for this group of people and also for those who are on Second Life to leave their real life inhibitions behind. It gives people an opportunity to form relationships that they might otherwise not be able to have in the real world. People can disregard their real life behaviors and appearances behind and start anew.

For those avatars wishing to escape real life, Second Life affords a multitude of opportunities to completely disguise one's self and create a new persona, which fits in with the virtual world’s capitalistic foundation. Spending time on Second Life also disconnects one even more from the actual land, something author Wendell Berry says harms individuals and society in his book, //The Unsettling of America//. Second Life is not restricted to American users, but the same theories can be applied to everyone. In the virtual world, land is unlimited. If you have enough money to purchase an island, you can create a space for yourself. It is quite opposite in real life. Land is limited, and human interaction with the land has real and lasting consequences. Berry writes about the exploitive nature of a capitalistic society, and those lessons certainly apply to the virtual world. Second Life provides another capitalistic community wrapped up in a world focused on creation and profits.“The 'constantly expanding market’ first opened in the New World by the fur traders is still expanding — no longer so much by expansions of territory or population, but by the calculated outdating, outmoding, and degradation of goods and by the hysterical self-dissatisfaction of consumers that is indigenous to an exploitive economy” (Berry 11).

Consumers are dependent on the people who manufacture the goods (Berry 23). Berry ties this concept together with the point that consumers dissatisfied with themselves are more easily exploited. A large population of Second Life users feeling dissatisfied with their real lives falls into this category. Some openly admitted while being interviewed that they created a person that they are more satisfied with in Second Life — almost like a better version of themselves. With that much self-dissatisfaction brewing among users, Second Life business owners have a healthy market of people ready to spend their money on things they can’t get in real life. Many business owners sell attractive products like fancy cars, boats, brand name clothes, furniture, expensive jewelry, more attractive skin, and other items that are not as common or inexpensive in the real world.





The people purchasing these things in Second Life might not ever be able to afford them in real life, again giving them more incentive to spend the Linden dollars. All of this could be viewed as a way to validate their character, both in second life and real life.

Another large segment of the population revolves around those wanting to make money in the virtual world. One avatar said he was on Second Life solely to supplement his real life job. Second Life has a real economy, using real-life money where people can make substantial profits. The Linden dollar is the virtual world currency. Currently, $1 dollar of U.S. money equals about $183 in Linden dollars (Economic Statistics). In March 2008, 348,772 customers spent money in-world. The total transaction count was 19,253,122. ( Economic Statistics ). Real business is taking place among real people disguised as avatars. As long as the virtual world continues operating as it is now, protecting copyright will remain an important security measure for business owners and operators. Two or three different avatars approached for research purposes said they make just as much or more money in Second Life as they do at their real life jobs. One avatar I spoke with designs, builds and sells motorcycles. After taking our survey, he emphasized that product stealing is causing many problems among businesses in Second Life. In his case, his motorcycles are made partially with scripts that cannot be copied. But he has seen replicas of his bikes out there that have clearly been copied or modeled off of his original creation. The avatar said he immediately contacted Linden Labs, who then suspended the offending avatar’s account. But after a couple of days, that avatar was back on the Grid along with other accounts he had created. “If you report it to Linden Labs, they will usually slaps the offenders over the wrist and tell them, ‘don’t do that,’ perhaps suspend their account for a few days,” the avatar said. “The only way to make Linden Labs take any real action is to file a DMCA, get a lawyer and be ready to go to court.” Going to court is a lengthy and expensive process that many people cannot afford. This particular avatar said he is going to file at least one Digital Millennium Copyright Act against the offending avatar to try and stop the stealing. He will continue building bikes and selling them on Second Life as long as he can find ways to protect his work. “The day the thieves figure out how to copy sculptures and scripts is the day I close my business and leave SL,” he said. For creativity and business to remain lucrative, creators must protect their work.



The motorcycle designer is relying on the architecture and laws of Second Life right now to protect his creation. Architecture and law are two of four modalities of constraint outlined by Lessig. The others include market and norms. Norms are determined by the public and its line of thinking in regards to copyright. In real life, the growth of the Internet and copying technologies has blurred the lines of copyright regulation. U.S. culture in real life boasts the norm that much of what is copyrighted today, especially music and movies, should be free. Creators have caught on to the social norm and added architectural constraints that ideally will prohibit people from acting illegally. This works for some, but many people have developed ways to escape the copyright laws and download material regardless of architectural constraints. They develop technology that can circumvent material wrapped in Digital Rights Management, also known as DRM, getting around the built in system established to make copying difficult. In Second Life, Linden Labs has taken similar approaches. The Second Life controllers and avatars themselves have made it very difficult to copy non-copy material. Many avatars explained that they did not know how to copy a non-copy object when I spoke with them about my research topic. Non-copy objects in Second Life can be considered another form of DRM. Out of the 13,303,303 users registered on Second Life, it is likely that the majority do not have the skills to break copyright laws (Economic Statistics).



But given time, people will start cracking codes and discovering new ways to get around paying for the things they want. While conducting surveys, some respondents asked if I knew how to copy non-copy items, and if I would show them. This led me to conclude that there are a number of people on Second Life who, if given the right tools, would violate copyright laws. One avatar I spoke with said he gets frustrated with Linden Labs for allowing tools in-world that facilitate the copying of non-copy items. “Linden Labs know about the tools, but will not ban them - or even make it hard to people to use them,” he said. “They say: It's ok to own these tools... ok to use them too (if you only copy stuff that you made). But it's silly. Why would anyone copy stuff they made themselves? We can copy our own stuff without the use of any tools anyway.” People use these tools to perpetuate the social norm. Feeling like one should not have to pay for intellectual property found on the Internet has been and still is a norm that is transferring from real life to Second Life.

All property in Second Life is considered intellectual property. One can buy a boat, house, land, clothes, jewelry, hairstyles or furniture. But ultimately, none of these objects are tangible in real life. Operating in a virtual world means that everything created, whether it would be physical property in real life or not, is considered intellectual property. Lessig argues that intellectual property does not fall under the same category as physical property. The rights that protect physical property do not protect intellectual property, and Lessig thinks claims made on behalf of protecting intellectual property are extreme and often harmful to the public good (Lessig 8). That thinking is clear when applied to real life. But it becomes grey when applied to Second Life. People invest time and skill into making their objects better than others’. When it comes time to sell it, the less available and more specialized the product is, the more the item is worth. Second Life operates under very similar economic principles as the real world. Creators have a legitimate reason to be upset about copyright infringement. When the copybot scare of 2006 came along, business owners and creators knew that their products would drop in value once they were copied and sold for lower prices. Copybot software allows users to reverse engineer Second Life code. It was developed by libsecondlife, an open source project supported by Second Life. On the surface, open source software seems to fit in well with Second Life’s stated mission of encouraging innovation. But by late 2006, many Second Life users were more worried about protecting their creations from unwanted copying than creating an entirely open world where people could copy whatever they wanted (Reuters). Instead of being open source, Second Life has a set of copyright laws that mimic those of the real world.

The virtual world outlines its copyright laws online. Linden Lab adheres to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. With this act, copyright owners can notify an online service provider, in this case Linden Lab, when they feel someone has infringed on their copyright. After Linden Lab receives the notification, assuming it is valid, it will take down the alleged content and contact the owner of the removed content to see if they want to make a counter-notification. The counter-notification gives Linden Lab the right to put the content back up, unless it gets notice that “a legal action has been filed seeking a court order to restrain the alleged infringer from engaging in the infringing activity.” ( DMCA ) “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" ( DMCA ).



Abuses taking place in Second Life where Linden dollars are concerned must be taken to real life if one wants any legitimate restraint imposed or monetary compensation. Linden Labs functions as the overseer of the virtual world, but beyond taking down questionable material and maybe suspending a user’s account, it does not want to get involved any further. This was a key point of frustration for some of the avatars on Second Life who felt they had been wronged by the system. They thought Linden Labs should provide more helpful service when it came to copyright infringement because it is the mastermind behind the system.

Avatars in Second Life must protect their intellectual property for the same reason people protect their property in real life — money. But what is the drawback of limiting the sharing of ideas and creations? Lessig argues that it stifles innovation and creation (Lessig 8). Open source could serve as a “major apprenticeship platform” (Lessig 46). This platform would lead to creativity and teaching methods that would transform the real world, as well as Second Life, if applied. Second Life’s sandbox is one example of it commitment to creativity. Another example is UK’s island, which has exploded with creative ideas, innovative designs and new features for users since it was first purchased. Over the course of three or four months, many people got involved in the creative process, trying to get people in real life working with the Second Life campus to make it more appealing.



Second Life wants its users to build, think outside of the box and invest in things that they help create. But the ability to shape and work with objects that have already been created, which is a primary way of progressing society, is increasingly prohibited because of copyright laws (Lessig 47). Linden Labs describes Second life as a world that “has a fully-integrated economy architected to reward risk, innovation, and craftsmanship.” Second Life is slowly starting to resemble real life in the sense that business owners are increasingly wary of people stealing their creations. The general public is looking for ways to get around the imposed copyright laws that come with enhanced technology. The objects therefore become increasingly “read only” instead of modifiable objects that can then be expanded upon and used to create something new. This creates an interesting dynamic where copyright owners feel wronged and users paying for objects they cannot fully use feel shortchanged. “Free cultures are cultures that leave a great deal open for others to build upon; unfree, or permission, cultures leave much less. Ours was a free culture. It is becoming much less so” (Lessig 30).

Prices of Second Life objects have not risen high enough yet to dissuade enough users from simply buying the rights to use an object. During my research, people often expanded on the question, “If you had the technology, would you copy a non-copy object in Second Life?” Some said that they would simple pay for an object instead of trying to illegally copy it. A couple of respondents brought up Microsoft when trying to explain when they would copy a non-copy object and when they would not. About five of my 25 respondents said that they had no problem illegally copying Microsoft products because they hated the corporation and the monopoly it holds in the computer business. But instead of finding illegal copies of that, they often chose to use Linux or another open source operating system that provided the same benefits while not contributing to a corporatist organization. One avatar said she respected copyrights, but not patents. I thought that was an interesting response. Then she went on to say that when she uses open source code, she doesn’t delete the author’s copyright out of respect because she can use it for free. But what does frustrate her is when big corporations like Amazon or Telekom try to patent things such as the one-click shopping or use of the color “pink.” I did not pay much attention to the business models set up in Second Life while doing research, so I am not sure if any one organization has a monopoly over a product or service. But in a capitalistic society monopolies are sure to arise. Once that happens, people will start trying even harder to copy things for free and get around paying the major corporations. In addition, if things continue as they have in America’s real life economy, the price of using copyright materials will rise and punishments for copyright infringements will become more severe. These consequences all lead to the demise of Second Life’s original goal of rewarding craftsmanship and stimulating creativity.

The privatized nature of Second Life, both as a social network and economy, lends itself more toward a permission culture rather than a free culture. The privatized economy works because consumer culture has translated from real life to the virtual world. Consumers want to get the latest and greatest whether they are in the real world or a virtual world. Second Life’s innate ability to give users an opportunity to remake themselves creates an environment where capitalism can thrive. As people continue to invest in Second Life, copyright laws will be heavily enforced and violators more harshly punished. Some users will continue looking for ways to circumvent the copyright rules, while others will stop creating out of fear and anger at the system. If the virtual world follows a pattern similar to that of America — the permission culture will discourage creativity and harm the overall health of its economy and society.