The animals of second life: A look at Amaretto Breedable Pets

Do a search of the word Amaretto in second life, and you will find the latest craze in-world.  Amaretto makes virtual animals such as dogs and horses, which act as fully functional pets.  These animals come in all manner of colors and textures, ranging from the realistic to the fantastical.  They range in price from approximately 500 linden dollars to 20,000.  Each animal has a number of stats, such as hunger, happiness, and energy.  Pets must be given adequate food, rest, and attention in order to maintain these stats.  Amaretto sells many toys and food items to assist with maintaining a pet's health and happiness, such as food, salt licks for horses, and balls for dogs to fetch. In addition, pets have a stat called fervor, raised with a special type of food, which determines when they can breed.  Breeding animals with different characteristics can create children with different combinations of those characteristics.  Age is measured in days, with animals becoming adults 7 days after birth, and eventually growing too old to reproduce.  Animals that are not fed can even grow sick, requiring medicine to heal them.

     It is interesting to note that while many residents seem to enjoy buying Amaretto's creations, given the glut of ranches devoted to the task of selling and housing them, they don't seem to spend a lot of time caring for their new pets.  A cursory inspection of many ranches will find an abundance of unhappy, neglected animals, and virtually no residents to speak of.  This is not too great an issue, as pets do not die, regardless of how sick they are.  All things considered, it seems like a pretty good deal.  You get all of the benefits of a virtual best friend, minus the dying, the housebreaking, and the waste disposal.  If this sounds like fun to you, check it out at your nearest amaretto seller today.

Rivers Run Red: Still Runnning (Red?)

 Rivers Run Red, the Webby Award-winning development and marketing firm that is known for its groundbreaking work in Second Life, has officially left Second Life. In the context of the internet this is old news, but the past few years of quiet and the shut down of the Immersive Workspaces project in Second Life stirred some questions this February when Rivers Run Red announced that they had moved their services and clients after using Second Life for nine years. Justin Bovington, the CEO of Rivers Run Red, says that Rivers Run Red has been silently busy, working behind the scenes to stay ahead of the game.

Rivers Run Red has been planning for the future. According to Bovington, the decision to leave Second Life was primarily a financial one. "We just couldn't justify it. The clients were saying they loved it, they really enjoy doing it, but it was a real sticking block going forward in terms of the costs." Instead, Rivers Run Red is moving to the more affordable Kitely. But the price isn't the only benefit of Kitely. Companies in Kitely are able to have their own private region, and unlike Second Life there's no focus on the commercial marketplace. Rivers Run Red didn't need the marketplace, but instead wanted a private area where companies can run securely. Kitely provides that security, and allows companies to create a space that feels like their own, rather than a small piece of someone else's product. Additionally, Kitely allows Rivers Run Red to back up their clients work. Since everything is created by Rivers Run Red's internal design team, there's no reason clients shouldn't be able to do so, but it was never an option in Second Life.

Kitely is only a small piece of what's ahead for Rivers Run Red.  Bovington anticipates that we'll see "the link between physical and virtual getting closer," and Rivers Run Red is planning on it. In response to this prediction, Rivers Run Red is working to allow clients to connect to Immersive Workspaces via tablets or even smart phones, as well as computers. Bovington suggests that the massive success of Facebook indicates a move toward text-based worlds, which will run more successfully on tablets and smartphones that don't have the graphics cards needed to run worlds like Second Life. Bovington said that Rivers Run Red is "looking at tablets to be the next level of immersion. I think we're going to find that proximity based systems like tablets will become part of the virtual experience because we can all bend information between those systems quite successfully." He also emphasized that the Immersive Workspaces project isn't dead. Bovington argues that it's still relevant and useful, but that it needed a new platform after the Second Life Enterprise platform was discontinued. The relevance, immediacy, and security of private worlds that can be accessed by tablet will provide a better system for clients to work together virtually.

Even beyond Kitely and tablets, Rivers Run Red has created a mystery gadget called the MELUX, and is looking to expand into Unity 3D, an engine which allows for the creation of games. Bovington expects that they will remain quiet for a while, but indicates that they're looking to truly take advantage of the niche market of virtual worlds. Rivers Run Red has battled through rumors of failure and cronyism, and their fair share of bad press, but in the end it really comes down to one thing for Bovington: "We are just very enthusiastic entrepreneurs who are trying to create cool stuff."

Internet Laws

            During class this week, our main topic of discussion was the laws and jurisdiction of the Internet and how it is difficult to actually govern and have set laws. One reading in particular stuck out more to me. Written by David Johnson and David Post, Laws and Borders: the Rise of Law in Cyberspace touched on many subjects that are quite relevant to today. They mainly touch on subject of the “new rules [that] will emerge, in a variety of online spaces, to govern a wide range of new phenomena that have no clear parallel in the non-virtual world.” Basically, cyberspace is an entirely new place that cannot abide by all of the rules of every country or nation that uses the Internet. Post and Johnson claim that these new rules “will play the role of law by defining legal personhood and property, resolving disputes, and crystallizing a collective conversation about core values.” They claim that cyberspace should be considered to be it’s own place and therefore should have it’s own rules.

            I cannot really think of many examples that I ran into/experienced while playing LOTRO that would be considered relevant to our readings. I have not run into players breaking rules, exploiting or attempting to use cheats. I didn’t even run into any trolls while playing the game. This may be because I have not reached a highly populated part of the game quite yet. But there is an issue that is relevant both to our readings and to some current events. These “current events” would be the attempt made by the House of Representatives and the Senate to pass both the SOPA and PIPA bills. They were created in an attempt to “eliminate” copyright infringement on the Internet. In short, SOPA (aka Stop Online Piracy Act) allows companies to remove websites if they contain anything that is copyrighted or hyperlinked to copyrighted material. PIPA (aka Protect Intellectual Property Act) is very similar to SOPA, but it deals with foreign websites and attempts to stop them from hosting things like television shows, movies or anything else that would be considered copyrighted material. If these bills were to pass and eventually become laws, many websites would be shut down. Not only would websites be affected, but also many companies would most likely be destroyed in the process.

            The House of Representatives and the Senate honestly has no business meddling in laws and matters that deal with the Internet. There are multiple, logical reasons why they have no business in dealing with anything Internet related. Some of these reasons include but are not limited to the basic fact that the House of Representatives and the Senate are in no way experts on the Internet and do not know how or why it works the way it does. Both Johnson and Post would agree with me on this topic. Because the United States government attempted to treat the Internet as a something under its jurisdiction rather than a new place, their actions went the exact opposite direction of what Johnson and Post were trying to promote. Johnson and Post explain that “Internet has created jurisdictional problems” due to its lack of boundaries. This supports the idea that the Internet should be considered it’s own place. Too many problems arise when multiple different governments (including both state and country) have different ideas about how the Internet should be run. No two governments would have the same ideas and standards. Like Johnson and Post said, it would be much easier to consider cyberspaces its own, separate jurisdiction. Because PIPA and SOPA are an attempt to regulate the Internet, Johnson and Post would never support either bill.

             Many things could (and more than likely would) go wrong if the government was allowed to interfere with creating and enforcing Internet law. Recently, a “blackout” was held Wednesday, January 18^th, in protest of both SOPA and PIPA. Sites such as Reddit and Wikipedia (along with multiple other websites) went dark for 24 hours. For one day, many Americans struggled to complete many simple tasks that only took seconds to complete the day before. The blackout attempted to mimic what the Internet would be like if SOPA and PIPA were passed. This is why the House of Representatives and the Senate needs to become more educated on both the Internet and how cyberspace should be considered a new place. And because it would be a new place, laws created in cyberspace should be treated as valid and the United States government should respect cyberspaces jurisdictional authority. 

WIO (World Internet Organization)

There has been a lot of talk about governance in Virtual Worlds during the term. Whether or not there should be a governing body that dictates what goes on, on the internet, or not? With real-world commodification becoming more evident in virtual worlds the means for governance is obviously starting to enter real-life court. Issues such as these are typically stated in the TOS or EULA’s of games on where (which state or country) to handle them. A lot of games are based out of California and many users are directed to handle virtual world disputes in that state, but if a game is based out of Sweden should I have to travel all the way across the world to handle a dispute? And If I don’t want to deal with travelling, should I really just give up my rights and let it go? This is a huge injustice that gives more power to the developers and creators of these games. The following is my theory for a solution.

It is not foreign to us that issues have existed between governance that crosses geographical borders. War crimes, economical crimes, personal crimes etc. have all previously been committed overriding country borders. That is why organizations like the EU, UN, or NATO have come into existence. Not only have such crimes existed, but also, media crimes such as pirating films or p2p sharing of music. The organization Interpol exists for certain issues that pertain to these types of crimes. My point is clear here, issues of legality have previously been handled when it comes to crimes that go beyond geographical boundaries. Also issues that arise when there is no one particular means for governing these. A coalition or an organization is formed in order to handle such problems. Thus, an organization should be formed to govern the internet.

An organization like this would definitely have some issues considering everything we have examined throughout this course; particularly arguments in readings by authors Lastowka, Castronova, and Post/Johnson. The issue of virtual justice, governance, and jurisdiction are major issues. The answer is to form an organization that allows the freedom of the internet to remain fair, whilst handling issues that for example are too hard for either party involved addressing through courts in their particular area. This organization will also dictate what is legal or not. For example all things that currently exist: child pornography, fraud, theft etc. will obviously remain illegal while certain issues such as intellectual property will be handled by the organization. When governance of virtual worlds comes into mind this organization can see over the TOS’s and EULA’s to perfect any issues that can become iffy. The key here is to create a sort of mediator of all the things that can arise as an issue online or in virtual worlds, this way confusion would be eliminated. One may argue also, it is not even clear what should or should not be governed in real life. That is exactly what an organization such as this one will do.

An organization such as this would cause much controversy to arise about the freedom of the internet. With an imperfect world though there will always be imperfect answers or solutions. All we can do is to try and limit the amount of problems that currently exist or that will arise in the future. The internet is so broad no one person can know all of its capabilities, which is both a good and bad thing. All one can hope for is to allow us humans our freedom and to protect us against those trying to limit that freedom; which would be the main goal of an organization like this.

Virtual Worlds in a Global View

Regulation of virtual worlds has been a very controversial subject in later years. With the increasing importance of virtual worlds in everyday life it is becoming much harder to separate our real-life from our virtual lives. When there is so much time, money, effort, and commercialism involved in virtual worlds today, the need for regulation and protection of our rights is in much higher demand. Much effort has been put into the regulation of these virtual worlds and particularly many virtual worlds that started in the United States. Many EULA’s nowadays deal with the fact that disputes may arise from users in the games, and have specific instructions on how to deal with a dispute. Typically disputes are handled in the state of which the game originated. But do all these dispute policies work merely for Americans? What happens if a dispute must be handled with a game from a foreign country? Or the laws of a foreign country apply to disputes arising from a foreign game?

Many games originate in the United States and in the United States there are currently laws to help regulate what goes on in these games and in virtual worlds. As many games start becoming a part of our everyday lives the need for regulation in them becomes increasingly important. Jack Balkin says, “ In the future, virtual worlds platforms will be adopted for commerce, for education, for professional, military, and vocational training, for medical consultation and psychotherapy, and even for social and economic experimentation to test how social norms develop” (2044) This is a very true statement that corporations like IBM have already proved, for example in the game Second Life, where they conduct business meetings already. If disputes arise with IBM in the virtual world, they can be handled through a United States courtroom. What if a dispute happens in a virtual world from another country for example Minecraft of Sweden? In their EULA the authors keep it simple having only one rule and mentioning that your personal information is covered by the Personuppgiftslagen of Sweden. If you do not speak Swedish it is hard to know exactly what the outlines of this law mean to you. Therefore you just click yes, you agree, and do not think twice about it. One reason Minecraft’s EULA is so simple is the fact that the game itself is very simple and allows the users to have a lot of freedom. But also deputes regarding games in Sweden rarely occur, it is not common in Sweden that people enter into a lawsuit to take care of conflicts and as for personal information in Sweden people are very open about theirs, for example your social security number consists mostly of your birth date.

Balkin describes that many of the issues with virtual worlds today involve your First Amendment rights and are handled under the laws of the United States First Amendment. Now, not all cases involve your First Amendment rights, Balkin states that, “important aspects of the freedom to design and the freedom to play are concerned with freedom from state regulation of game spaces” (2052) This means that each dispute in a game that cannot be taken to court against your First Amendment rights or other federal rights, have to be settled within your statutory laws on game regulation. Given proof that it is already problematic to deal with disputes within the United States, one can only imagine how hard it would be to start handling a dispute in or with a foreign country. If we take Minecraft for example, the first step is to try and resolve the issue with the creators/administrators of the game (which in most cases works but takes time). If not satisfied with that the next action would be to contact the Swedish law authorities or your local American embassy to see what rights you have in the country you are seeking to take legal action in. These first two steps alone are very time consuming and difficult, especially if you do not want to use a lawyer whom you must pay thousands-plus dollars to. Obviously this all sounds very discouraging and in most cases people just cut their losses.

It is not always futile to handle disputes with international game creators/administrators though. As an American citizen your intellectual property within a game can be protected by the United States law and even abroad. In most games from foreign countries the EULA’s do not prevent you from seeking protection for your intellectual property within the game, therefore you are free to do so within the confinements of the United States law. These are points on how you can protect your intellectual property within a game/virtual world that applies both in the U.S. and abroad (unless otherwise prevented by the EULA of the game):

· In the U.S., patents may be available to any person who "invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof." Patent protection must be sought by application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

· Trademarks protect words, names, symbols, sounds, or colors that distinguish goods and services from those manufactured or sold by others and to indicate the source of the goods. Registration with the USPTO is not required, but does provide certain advantages.

· Copyrights protect original works of authorship, including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic and certain other works, both published and unpublished. In the United States, the U.S. Copyright Office handles copyright registration that, although not required for protection, does confer advantages.

http://www.stopfakes.gov/sf_how.asp#q2

Obviously the downside of this entire thing still is that it takes a lot of time, effort, and money to pursue action. One other thing to also take into account is that the laws of a foreign country may not always be as forgiving as the laws of the United States, when it comes to taking legal action in those countries. An example of this would be a U.S. Marine who was convicted of spying for the CIA. The marine was sentenced to death in Iranian courts for using video games to manipulate public opinion about U.S. military in Iran, Iraq, and around the world. Great advice to attain from that is to use caution when handling disputes abroad.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/01/global-conflict-on-computer-games.html

As virtual worlds continue to grow and affect real-life, real-life will also affect these virtual worlds. The freedom virtual worlds have provided us with through time might start to diminish as they slowly turn into more of a reality. It is inevitable that games and virtual worlds will be regulated more strictly in the future by laws all around the world. As there are global organizations that regulate interactions between different countries within commerce, currency, and crime there may soon be an organization to regulate virtual international interactions. Balkin puts it perfectly when he says, “Precisely because virtual worlds are fast becoming important parts of people’s lives, and because they are likely to be used for more and more purposes in the future, legal regulation of virtual worlds is inevitable” (2045). This quote puts it best and as “real-world commodification” continues to increase, intellectual property continues to become more real for every individual, as will the consequences of our actions in virtual worlds. For every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction.

Governance of the Internet

Much controversy has arisen over internet governance and how uncontrolled it is. The fact that the internet has no physical location makes it hard to govern what is shared online. Information can be shared from computers all around the world almost instantly, that is the great thing about the internet, and it brings the world together. But if any information can be shared, then good as well as bad information can be distributed. For example, personal information about anyone can fall into the wrong hands because there is no governance and who is there to control the consequences of your personal information being exploited? The answer right now is no one.

Because there is no physical location for the internet or cyberspace, territorial based governance and control is not applicable with internet cases. In an article by David Post he states, “Cyberspace has no territorially-based boundaries, because the cost and speed of message transmission on the Net is almost entirely independent of physical location: Messages can be transmitted from any physical location to any other location without degradation, decay, or substantial delay, and without any physical cues or barriers that might otherwise keep certain geographically remote places and people separate from one another”. Post is saying that there is no physical address for these computers that are transmitting information across the internet, just IP addresses. This is the problem with controlling what these computers share. Even if you are to find the physical location of the IP address, by the time you get there the person using the computer could have moved anywhere, still online though carrying on with their business. Without being able to completely control and dictate what is shared on the internet governance over it becomes futile.

One country that has been pretty successful in governing their internet is China. The Chinese government has successfully blocked citizens from numerous user generated websites, according to ABC reporter Emily MacDonald, “When you try to access Facebook in China, an error message appears saying “Network Timeout.” This means that Chinese residents are without Youtube, Twitter, and other sites where content is predominantly user generated”. Even though there are Chinese equivalents to these websites the Chinese have successfully blocked the access in order to stop international criticism. Sites in China such as Google that have not been blocked are still closely monitored by the government. When you search for something via Google that has to with for example the riots in Urumqi, Xinjiang, which is bad publicity for China, the search engine will abruptly stop working for a while. This is all in effort to censor negative Chinese media, and it works.

The way China deals with their internet would not work for every country in the world though. In the United States this oppression would be considered against our constitutional rights. In many other countries the effort to block international criticism is not nearly as important as it is in China. Though, the issue of governance of cyberspace and the internet remains an issue for everyone. There are so many possibilities with the use of cyberspace and computers, if it is not regulated somehow vital information could fall into the wrong hands. If something like that would happen a so called “fire sale” (as seen in the movie Live Free or Die Hard) could be possible and would be able to destroy the world as we know it today. A “Fire Sale” is an assault against the government, transportation, and economy by computer hackers. This could put the world into chaos in a very short period of time; this is why the internet needs a better governance system and laws before it is too late.

Extra Blog Post

As I sat down in my room to decide what I wanted to write about for my extra blog post, it hit me almost too perfectly.  I leave my TV on a lot, and the Simpsons came on.  In this particular episode, Marge sits down to play an MMORPG similar to LOTRO, with a medieval theme.  First, she goes through the EULA, which a gamelike character tells her to ignore and click "agree."  Within the game, Marge meets the toons of the other Simpsons characters, including, Moe, Principal Skinner, Apu, and Mrs. Krabapple.
Marge gets so involved in the game that she ends up playing for over a day at a time.  This humorously illustrates the intense dedication some people hold.  She goes through quests, collaborating with other players, and earning gold.  She continues to enjoy the world, until she is unintentionally killed by Bart's character.
During the course of her gameplay, Marge also encounters a griefer.  Shadow Knight, a character all others fear, turned out to be Bart's character.  Bart and Marge engage in quests and end up in Bart's trophy room.  Marge changed all Bart's skulls and weapons to Hello Kitty themes, which Bart goes around destroying, proceeding to inadvertently killing Marge.  Marge is so upset, she gets angry with Bart in real life.  Bart makes it up by pressing alt + f5, sacrificing two thirds of his power to revive her.  Bart's griefing ways come back to haunt him, however, as the other characters band together and kill the Shadow Knight in his Dungeon.