Cairns Blog

State of Play V: Singapore

State of Play V: Building the Global Metaverse (August 19-22, 2007)

State of Play V: Building the Global Metaverse is the fifth annual State of Play conference on the future of virtual worlds. Organized by New York Law School, in conjunction with Trinity University, with the support of Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, this year's conference invites experts across disciplines to discuss the transnational dimensions of the Metaverse and the impact of virtual environments on education, law, politics and society.

Virtual worlds are crucial building blocks of global civil society. As such, they harbor great potential for relationship-building and cooperation across national borders. We hope you will join us for this important interdisciplinary conversation about the future of the global Metaverse. The conference will be held on August 19-22, 2007 in Singapore.

The conference will feature experts from around the world speaking about:

• Cross-cultural communication and avatar-to-avatar diplomacy
• Strategies for understanding behaviors and values of virtual world residents
• Regulating speech, property, and addiction in the Metaverse
• Building transnational businesses in virtual worlds
• Using virtual environments to teach kids and teenagers
• Space, place and virtual world cultures

We also present two new documentaries about how global virtual worlds intersect with real-world economies and social structures: Gold Farmers  and Ideal World. On Wednesday, August 22nd, we offer several half-day workshops on topics including virtual world journalism, using virtual environments to transform global business, educational applications of virtual worlds, and managing virtual identities.

For conference schedule and registration please visit:  www.nyls.edu/stateofplay. We hope to see you there.

Introduction to Second Life

This captures almost exactly what it's like to be in Second Life so why is it still so much fun????

Virtual Worlds and the Law

http://terranova.blogs.com/ige-classaction.pdf
http://terranova.blogs.com/bragg-edpa.pdf

From the Bragg order:

This case is about virtual property maintained on a virtual world on the Internet. Plaintiff, March Bragg, Esq., claims an ownership interest in such virtual property. Bragg contends that Defendants, the operators of the virtual world, unlawfully confiscated his virtual property and denied him access to their virtual world. Ultimately at issue in this case are the novel questions of what rights and obligations grow out of the relationship between the owner and creator of a virtual world and its resident-customers. While the property and the world where it is found are "virtual," the dispute is real.

More Great State of Play Academy

All you need to do is:
(1) download the software from : http://www.there.com/
(only works on PC or PC emulator-- like Mac running bootcamp)
(2) Register an avatar and upgrade to voice or use a generic one listed at the end of this email.
(3) Log in and IM me and I'll "summon" you to our teaching location
(4) To be able to speak (instead of just type Questions, comments, etc) you need a headset.

Please contact gelman AT stanford DOT EDU if you need help logging in.
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TIMES ARE PACIFIC

Revolving Door No More: Inevitable Disclosure and Its Potential Impact on Technological Public Infrastructure
Tuesday, 8 May (11:30 AM » 12:30 PM)
David Levine

I will argue, in sum, that trade secrecy's inevitable disclosure rule must be narrowly construed in the context of public infrastructure projects, especially if the government attempts to utilize such rights. This controversial rule, which has been rejected in many states and mutated in others, allows employers to enjoin a former employee from working for an employer when such employment would necessitate the revelation of a previous employer's trade secrets. The detrimental impact of the inevitable disclosure doctrine is compounded as government increasingly relies upon private industry to build and operate public infrastructure, especially in the technological sector. Therefore, my focus is the potential impact of this doctrine on public infrastructure projects and the pool of labor available to government and private industry, as well as the perverse incentives that exist when government is thrust into direct competition with private industry and applies intellectual property rights to its endeavors.

David Levine is a Resident Fellow at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School (and a huge supporter of SOPA!) My article, "Secrecy and Unaccountability: Trade Secrets in Our Public Infrastructure," was published in Volume 59 of the Florida Law Review (January 2007). I also host a talk discussion show on KZSU-FM (Stanford) and podcast entitled "Hearsay Culture" where I interview people involved with technology; more information can be found at http://hearsayculture.com. In the Fall of 2007, I will be joining the faculty of Charlotte School of Law.

Indirect Enforcement of the Intellectual Property Clause
Tuesday, 8 May (01:00 PM » 02:00 PM)
Associate Professor Chris Sprigman, UVA Law School

Indirect application respects Congress's lawmaking primacy and its lead role in elucidating the boundaries of its power under the Intellectual Property Clause. But it preserves an important - albeit ultimately not decisive - role for courts in determining what those boundaries are. And most importantly, it allows both courts and Congress to do what they do well. Courts to read and interpret constitutional text, and then announce (or, more precisely, to proffer) those interpretations in judicial decisions. Congress to legislate, based on its own understanding of its constitutional power, but reinforced by courts' contributions.

We have grounds to hope that the outcome of this dialogue may, as a consequence of the differences between the legislative and adjudicatory process and the cultures of legislatures and courts, produce outcomes that are more fully theorized relative to what we would likely obtain from a one-way model of deference in which legislatures act and courts submit.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=969999&high=%20sprigman

Chris Sprigman is an Associate Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, where he teaches intellectual property law, antitrust law, competition policy, and comparative constitutional law. His scholarship focuses on how legal rules affect innovation and the deployment of new technologies. Sprigman received his B.A. with honors from the University of Pennsylvania in 1988. He attended the University of Chicago Law School, graduating with honors in 1993. At Chicago he served as an editor of the University of Chicago Law Review. Following graduation, Sprigman clerked for the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and for Justice Lourens H. W. Ackermann of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. Sprigman also taught at the law school of the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, South Africa. From 1999 to 2001, Sprigman served as Appellate Counsel in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on U.S. v. Microsoft, among other matters. Sprigman then joined the Washington, D.C. office of King & Spalding LLP, where he was elected a partner. In 2003, Sprigman left law practice to become a Residential Fellow at the Center for Internet & Society at Stanford Law School. Sprigman joined the UVA law faculty in 2005.
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Information on how to log in available at: http://stateofplayacademy.com/

You will need to download the There.com software onto your computer (PC/PC emulator versions only available) before the class.

Try a free avatar--  All you need to do is download the software from There.com and log in using one of these avatars:

Avatar: studentone
Password: studentone

Avatar: studenttwo
Password: studenttwo

Avatar: studentthree
Password: studentthree

Avatar: studentfour
Password: studentfour

State of Play Academy

State of Play Academy in There.com, a project of the Institute for Information Law and Policy at New York Law School under the direction of Dean Lauren Gelman, has an exciting roster of classes this term:

We are offering conversations in three tracks:
* Paper Workshops- presentations by scholars of papers related to law and technology.
* Issue Conversations- group discussions of current events and emerging issues in law and technology.
* How-to's- practical advise on all sorts issues that confront ordinary Internet users.
More information, including how to log on and participate in SOPA classes at: http://stateofplayacademy.com/

We will be adding more classes as the semester progresses. You can also join our mailing list to get regular updates to our schedule.
http://stateofplayacademy.com/mod/resource/view.php?id=20

Please let Lauren know if you are interested in leading one of our conversations this semester as there are some slots available.

Hope to see you in There!

Foundations and Virtual Worlds

A few months ago I attended a meeting convened by an important “real world” foundation.  The question at hand was how a major philanthropic institution that addresses serious world problems might use the affordances of virtual world technologies to support new modalities of social action.  Might this technology help to create new philanthropic activities and engage people in doing good?   How might it change the way foundations work?  What might it mean for an institution such as a foundation to operate and have a presence in a virtual world?  How might it go beyond the mere building of an edifice?  Should “serious” institutions work on such “fun” projects?

To my mind, there are five reasons why virtual worlds merit this attention or why foundations have a reason to educate themselves about virtual worlds and visual technologies.  This is, by no means, a summary of the meeting or reflective of any consensus among the attendees.  It’s simply a few of many possible reflections on the issue.

Bad Idea - Congress, NSF and Virtual Worlds

The American Anthropological Association has sent out a request to protest the NSF Authorization bill for FY2008, which is scheduled to come up for debate today on the House floor.  This bill includes a specific request to de-fund a grant on "individual vs. group play" that could have  repercussions for virtual worlds researchers.  Am trying to learn more about this.  More info, if anyone has it, would be welcome.

Here's what the AAA says:

 

According to AAA's Government Relations group: "Two proposed amendments – introduced by Reps. John Campbell (R-CA) and Scott Garrett (R-NJ) – would prohibit funding of nine already funded National Science Foundation grants in the Social, Behavioral and Economics Science Division based on their “silly” titles.  Five of the nine grants targeted fall under the anthropology or archaeology portfolios.  There are also amendments being considered to reduce NSF’s overall authorized funding level.  The amendments and links to the abstracts of the nine grants follow below.  The anthropology/archaeology grants are noted with an asterisk (*)."

Remix Room

  For the RemixU project, our group is working with the MacArthur Foundation to develop a program that allows the appropriation of copyrighted material for an educational purpose.  The Fair Use act allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the copyright holders for use in scholarly or educational pursuits.  Because the Internet is a bastion for illegal copying and remixing of copyright material, we have decided to design a program that may shape the future of copyright material online in that it appeases the user, software provider, and copyright holder (usually a recording studio).

            Our project calls for a private space to be created in a virtual world, such as Second Life.  In this space, dubbed the "Remix Room", users will have the ability to learn how to and perform as DJs. Within this space, two areas exist- the performance area and the producers corner.  The space will contain videos and tutorials that teach novices the basic tenets of media remixing.  In the performance area, DJ’s, artists, rap battlers, and performers will have the chance to display their product in real-time. Ultimately, experienced remixers will be able to create their own "stations" on Second Life where they can broadcast their creations to other users, much like DJ’s spread their remixed as long as not for profit. Their works will be required to be sufficiently transformative. Copyright holders will be appeased by the online space, as it exists within the walls of Second Life and will not be exportable outside of the software.  Users must be fully registered to access the space, thus giving Second Life and copyright holders to terminate user accounts should they violate the terms of service agreement that must be signed to access the Remix Rooms.  Ultimately, we aim to create a space where users can share and remix copyrighted content (currently a major interest online), that gives software providers such as Second Life new marketable features, and copyright holders the ability to monitor and control how their content is used.  We believe such a product will be both profitable and marketable and will latch on to a growing interest of Internet users.

Moving beyond the performance area, the producers corner will leverage open source technology and standards to make online music collaboration a possibility in real-time. The corner facilitates collaboration between artists, engineers, audiophiles, and producers by using standard formats and open-source audio editing software to bridge the creative talents of many parties. There are a number of open source audio editing/recording platforms available for download on the Internet. The most popular, Audacity, is distributed under the GNU GPL and is supported by Mac, Windows, and Linux operating systems.  With Audacity, users are can record live audio, cut, copy and splice sounds together, and add effects to their compositions.  Ensuring that one DJ or remixer could continue the work of another is a major issue that the Remix Room would need to take into account.  With Audacity, DJ’s in the Remix Room would be able to save their mixes in a number of common file formats including wav and the ever popular mp3.  Though the .wav file format provides better quality audio, it comes at the expense of much larger file sizes. Therefore, users in the Remix Room would most likely utilize the DRM free mp3 file format because of the compressed file size and corresponding ease at which remixed files could be distributed within Second Life.  Users will have the choice of which tracks to download from other DJ’s.  Selecting which components of a song to download before working on it increases the speed at which users can immediately work with the material and diversifies remixed content. The final vision for producer’s corner is a thriving community of individuals exchanging tracks of music as old dj’s used to swap records.

The Remix Room would be a paradigm shifting technology, because it would open the gates of proprietary music production. Operating as islands, the way music is currently produced is a detached, hierarchal process based heavily on social networks. Remix Room would allow any level of music producer to collaborate in the process because it solves two problems with the current industry. One) Closed standards of proprietary formats. Producers use a range of audio editing suites, so defining an open standard that marries the formats of all the various suites would resolve the software gap in music production. Secondly) Not having access to strangers’ works leaves music to be produced through the current system of social networks- to the benefit of some and the detriment of many. Creating a space that incentivizes collaboration and performance will open up the process to outside contribution. The goal is to make music collaboration an open process with the fewest disincentives to create and share.

-Mark, Chris, Desiree, and Shane

Virtual Embassy

For those who hadn't seen this yet, Sweden has gotten a jump start on foreign relations in the virtual world by announcing plans to open the first Embassy.  "The facility will not deal with passports or visa applications like a normal embassy, but rather acts as a marketing outpost for Sweden designed to reach the digital generation. The idea is being developed at Swedish Institute instead of the Ministry of foreign affairs." LInk to the original story (in Swedish).

Electronic Expectations of Privacy

When I was working as a journalist, I would occasionally scan blogs when I was assigned “man-on-the-street” opinion articles. Usually, I would contact the blogger that peaked my interest and ask for an answer to a direct question, and then use that procured quote in my article. Sometimes, however, if the blog snippet was exactly the insight that I needed, or if I tried to contact the writer and either didn’t get a response or didn’t get a response in time for my deadline, I would just lift the blog quote directly and credit it to the blog persona. This didn’t bother me at the time, but after reading the disclaimer on LambdaMOO, (“Notice for Journalists and Researchers: The citizens of LamdaMOO request that you ask for permission from all direct participants before quoting any material collected here”), I wonder whether my occasional practice should have bothered me then, and if it bothers me now.

            Lifting the blog quote is not falsifying an opinion, so I do not believe that integrity of the research is an issue. Neither is it an issue of invasion of privacy; the person’s opinion has already been willingly entered into the public domain. Additionally, I thought then – and I believe now – that many bloggers have a desire to have their thoughts disseminated as far as possible. Being published in a hard-copy paper, then, was just another avenue to have their views expressed.

            What I failed to consider is the impact of moving people’s ideas between the virtual to the actual worlds without express consent. This is a problem because some people may feel that the criticism or perspective that they levied in the virtual world was not applicable to the physical world, thus warping the comment by forcing it into an inaccurate context. Further, even if an individual felt comfortable expressing their views behind the comfort of a computer screen, they may have felt uncomfortable and violated if they encountered their own words in the real world.

            I wonder whether it is reasonable to believe that there should be an expectation of privacy when an opinion has already been published (albeit, in an electronic form.) It is hard for me to understand how someone can request something be “off the record” when it is already on the record for the millions of people who can access a blog or other electronic interface. Perhaps those who choose to interact in an electronic public domain should simply accept the fact that online activity may not be as detached and anonymous as they may like it to be.