Response to lecture 8: 2nd life vid

In today's lecture we watched a four corners documentary looking at the online game 'second life'. I had been vaguely aware of the game, as having been a previous Sims addict (it's so sad there are no support groups!), it had been described to me as Sims gone viral, but seeing as I barely had enough time for my first life, it never really interested me. The video gave insight into a different aspect of the game, rather then the socially limiting, possibly psychologically scarring effects of having a life online rather then engaging in life hyped by other media. No the focus of this documentary was big business! It described how users had made real life millions off selling imagery property or items in the game. This raised an interesting point to me: ownership on the Internet. In previous classes we had look at issues of creative commons and copy right- issues of ownership of work you publish on the Internet, and how you may give others the right to reuse, edit and broadcast your work. It's interesting to contrast ownership on figurative of a mile of space on cyberspace as in second life, and ownership issues of works you publish on the Internet. In second life, you are paying real world money for imaginary property, ownership is not only stated by Second Life, but it is implied by the fact that you have paid money for something. But does ownership exist on the Internet? If nothing is tangible on the Internet, you can't physically touch or hold your Second Life property, nor can you touch and hold your blog or a paper you have written and placed on the Internet. If nothing on the Internet is tangible then can ownership can ever really exist?



*** Essay update! You have pushed me too far copyright! I found getting my head around the legal jargon on copyright just too difficult without a law degree! Inspired by todays lecture I have switched to the essay topic on whether Reingolds concept of 'virtual community' is useful for understanding todays online activity. I started off by reading his original 1993 work, it was entertaining, and interesting from a historical perspective, in him speaking about his daughter thinking his friends were trapped in his computer (I wonder how a 7yo in how modern society with view his internet interactions?), but Im not sure i really like his definition!
I found a few articles talking about virtual communities (E.g. Wellman, 1996; Erickson, 2002; Gefen & Riding, 2004)
The one I particularly liked was Wellman (1996), who disagreed with Reingolds definition of virtual community and suggested that it may be more useful to view online interactions as participatory genre rather than a 'community'