What is Digg?9 Comments
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Ah hello... You can't own something that doesn't exist! Virtual is just that virtual. Until we actually live our lives (the real ones) in the virtual world via physiological conduits will anything virtual be tangible. This should come as no surprise to anyone with half a brain.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1One final and blazingly obvious point is that the "Virtual" world doesn't exist. It can be turned off with the "flick of a switch"! The real world can't be turned on, or, off at all. Thereby my definition for "exist".
- PSixtyDegrees, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Well all those things certainly show that "You can't own something that doesn't exist!" is not the case, because you already can do that in countries where such ideas are accepted, like the US. Secondly, intellectual property is virtual in that it is an intangible concept yet can be both owned and transferred to others, regardless of any tangible applicability. And what is applicability anyway? That it can produce something of real value or that it can be reproduced tangibly? If the former, then obviously virtual items can and do have real value, as people are willing to exchange money for them and value them, even though they don't exist in a tangible form.
If the latter, then well...the Digg website exists only in 1's and 0's and disappears when the server operators turn off the electricity. I can't touch it. I can see it with my monitor, just like I can see a virtual house or virtual Sword of Destruction when I play a MMO. I guess I could print a Digg page out on paper, but I can also print a house or sword too, even with a 3D printer which sculpts it. But would someone argue that Digg website is not owned by anybody? My point here is that tangible applicability can be indeed be produced for *any* intangible property, even if it's just a representation of it on a piece of paper, where that paper exists in the real world.
Finally, tangible applicability is not related to property ownership, as is immediately evident at the entire concept of even a trademark. A trademark is nothing more than a symbol, or even a *phrase*. Do you think a phrase - nothing more than a collection of a few words - is really any more tangibly applicable than a virtual store in Second Life?
About the entertainment.. it's not relevant to ownership.... but I will say that some people apparently do use it for uses other than entertainment, whether communication or business.. but don't ask me about that.. I'm not a Second Life apologist by any stretch and won't waste my time trying to hail such "wonderful" features or anything. - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1The Second life issue refers to property or that of virtual land property. Not property like copyright. The site, second life is virtual; copyright, trademark, patent, and intellectual property isn't virtual it has application in our tangible, physical world. Second life has no application here other than for entertainment.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1The Second life issue refers to property or that of virtual land property. Not property like copyright. The site, second life is virtual; copyright, trademark, patent, and intellectual property isn't virtual it has application in our tangible, physical world. Second life has no application here other than for entertainment.
- PSixtyDegrees, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0Well I guess that's fundamentally true. But if I agreed completely with that, I'd have to say that the Internet doesn't exist either, and I really don't feel too comfortable saying such a thing.
- PSixtyDegrees, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Ahh good point.. We should immediately notify all copyright, trademark, patent, and intellectual property attorneys that they're in the wrong line of work before they lose their shirts!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intangible_property - PSixtyDegrees, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0Well all those things certainly show that "You can't own something that doesn't exist!" is not the case, because you already can do that in countries where such ideas are accepted, like the US. Secondly, intellectual property is virtual in that it is an intangible concept yet can be both owned and transferred to others, regardless of any tangible applicability. And what is applicability anyway? That it can produce something of real value or that it can be reproduced tangibly? If the former, then obviously virtual items can and do have real value, as people are willing to exchange money for them and value them, even though they don't exist in a tangible form.
If the latter, then well...the Digg website exists only in 1's and 0's and disappears when the server operators turn off the electricity. I can't touch it. I can see it with my monitor, just like I can see a virtual house or virtual Sword of Destruction when I play a MMO. I guess I could print a Digg page out on paper, but I can also print a house or sword too, even with a 3D printer which sculpts it. But would someone argue that Digg website is not owned by anybody? My point here is that tangible applicability can be indeed be produced for *any* intangible property, even if it's just a representation of it on a piece of paper, where that paper exists in the real world.
Finally, tangible applicability is not related to property ownership, as is immediately evident at the entire concept of even a trademark. A trademark is nothing more than a symbol, or even a *phrase*. Do you think a phrase - nothing more than a collection of a few words - is really any more tangibly applicable than a virtual store in Second Life?
About the entertainment.. it's not relevant to ownership.... but I will say that some people apparently do use it for uses other than entertainment, whether communication or business.. but don't ask me about that.. I'm not a Second Life apologist by any stretch and won't waste my time trying to hail such "wonderful" features or anything. - PSixtyDegrees, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0Wow. This is big. It just happened nearly silently on Friday and not been picked up widely yet by mainstream tech media outlets yet. The ownership issues are one of the main driving force for the immense media hype about Second Life and now one of those hyping points has been put to a screeching halt - much to the dismay of financial benefactors of Second Life, I'm sure. So the CEO and PR machine have been playing fast and loose with their promises and doing an about-face on virtual property.. the question is, what other promises will fall apart under scrutiny, and will users of this service wake up and realize what it is they're actually investing in?
This document -part of the Bragg v Linden case- is a long, boring read, especially for a layperson like myself, but I tracked through it as best I could. Here are the highlights:
In press releases and interviews with the CEO, any time you have seen variants of the word "ownership" or "title" transfer with respect to virtual property, the company now claims these were merely "metaphors." (so for example, when the CEO was quoted as saying if a customer buys land, the title to that land is sold to them, and it's no longer owned by the company, that was merely "metaphors" and they really only rented server space, with everything still completely belonging to Linden Labs...) The company goes on to deny that there was any attempt to fraudulently entice people into thinking you actually owned those things and invest in Second Life on that basis.... You were instead apparently being given a "license right" to use computing resources and nothing more:
48. .... Defendants aver that the references to “selling land free and clear” and selling “title” are metaphors or analogies to the concepts of ownership of real property, as what is “owned” with respect to “virtual land” in Second Life is in fact a license to computing resources. ...
8. ...Defendants deny that Second Life allows for the actual “conveyance of title” in “virtual land,” as “virtual land” is not property to which one may take “title,” but instead a license of access to Linden’s proprietary servers, storage space, bandwidth, memory allocation and computational resources of the server, which enables the experience of “land” and the things that one can do with “land” on the Second Life platform. ...
The company now says it did not try to create virtually property rights after all:
74. Defendants deny the allegations [ that virtual property rights are divisible and severable from the rights of other participants in the game and the owner of the server upon which Defendants' code resides. ]
Now that there is a corporate backlash ongoing, there may even be an average consumer backlash. This has enormous potential to affect the subscription retention, growth, and ultimately the popularity and success of Second Life itself, as many of those who invested time and effort for one reason or another *cough* believed "ownership" actually meant..well.. ownership and they now may be in for a bit of a surprise as news of this spreads...
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