MUV601 - Robin Le Couteur - 2018

Demonstrate your understanding of the need and the means for protecting Intellectual Property in a virtual world. What is intellectual property(IP)? A definition from this site sums it up well: https://m.esa.int/About_Us/Law_at_ESA/Intellectual_Property_Rights/What_is_intellectual_property ”Intellectual Property (IP) refers to the protection of creations of the mind, which have both a moral and a commercial value.” Basically IP is anything intangible that someone has created that has some sort of value. Laws on IP give creators exclusive rights to financially exploit their creations or reap the benefits of their creations in any way. IP laws enable creators to control the use of their creations by only allowing people to use or sell them with their permission which can be granted at a cost or for free in some cases, but generally with some terms of use to protect from unintended use. How does the permissions system help protect IP? In one of my previous blogs I talked...

Second Life Community Standards In this blog I’ll be talking about the Second Life community standards. These standards are clearly explained in this post: https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/403539-community-standards/ The official document containing the SL community standards can be found at this link: https://www.lindenlab.com/legal/community-standards The purpose of these standards is to make sure that everyone treats each-other with respect and ensure that everyone has a safe and fun experience. The post linked above sums it up nicely:  " The goals of the Community Standards are simple: treat each other with respect and without harassment, adhere to local standards as indicated by simulator ratings, and refrain from any hate activity which slurs a real-world individual or real-world community."  If you violate these standards, you can be suspended, and even permanently banned from Second Life if you repeatedly offend. The six communi...

Second Life Permissions Second life has a permissions system to protect intellectual property. These permissions dictate who can do what with the things you make. The following description is from the SL wiki: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Permission “The system is designed to foster the best possible content and sanctify the best possible experience in Second Life. We track four basic permissions - move, modify, copy and transfer. The move, modify, and copy permissions can be applied to four categories - owner, group, everyone else, and next owner. As described above, these permissions can be applied to different groups of people. This means that you can change how your content gets distributed or not distributed. I’ll now explain the four basic permissions: Move This permission controls whether an object can be moved in the world. If a user has been given move permissions, they can drag the object around/change its position inworld. If the user does no have move...

Robin Le Couteur's Permissions Activity Blog In this blog I'll be giving my thoughts and answers for the Permissions Activity Activity 1.  In pairs What problems are you finding? Figuring out how to share to an individual How do you overcome them? By testing out different ways of sharing. What permissions do you need to use? You can go into someones profile and check the 'Edit, delete, or take my objects' box, and that person will be able to edit any of your objects, you can share to a group, so people in that group can edit the object, or you could drag the object to the chat with another person to give them the object. Changing the 'Next owner' settings will change what someone who takes the object can do with it Who owns the final object? Me Who shows as the creator of the final object? The original creator of the object. What permissions does the next owner of the object have? The permissions that the creator set for 'Next own...

MUV601 - Robin Le Couteur - Assignment 1, blog 4 -2018 Blog 4 MUVE Viewers - Alchemy The other viewer I investigated is the Alchemy viewer Alchemy is developed by the following team: Drake Arconis | Project Manager | Lead Developer Cryo  | Linux Developer | Server Administrator Cinder  | Mac Developer Lirusaito  | Feature Fox Electron  | Designer Alchemy has the base functionality of most viewers like Firestorm, and also has the option to log onto OpenSim grids. In fact, unlike Firestorm, Alchemy actively releases updates for OpenSim which is an advantage over Firestorm. When in world all the movement, build, and other controls are pretty much the same, so there's not really any learning curve. the difference is mainly in the menus and UI stuff After using both Alchemy and Firestorm, I felt like Alchemy was easier to use. The interface feels more modern and more comfortable; it's not too cluttered. I found that there was no issues using the in...

MUV601 - Robin Le Couteur - Assignment 1, blog 2 -2018 Blog 2 MUVE Platforms - Second Life The MUVE platform I’ll be talking about in this blog is the MUVE used for this course: Second Life(SL). Second Life was founded in 1999 by Linden Labs. It's a massive virtual world where you can go to a variety of different locations and do various activities.  SL provides a platform for creativity, education, socializing, work, gaming, just relaxing, and many other things.The amount of different things you can use SL for is up to the imagination of the user. Functionality Looking at the functionality of SL, it has a wide range of features.  Avatar First off, lets talk about your avatar. When you first join SL, you chose from a list of default avatars. Once in world, you can then create whatever avatar you want by making your own  body,  clothes, and other accessories. What you can do is almost limited to what you can create so you are free to design...

MUV601 - Robin Le Couteur - Assignment 1, blog 3 -2018 Blog 3 MUVE Viewers - Firestorm The first viewer I will discuss is the viewer we are using for class: Firestorm. Firestorm is developed by The Phoenix Firestorm Project Inc. which is a non-profit organization consisting of about 80 volunteers whose goal is to improve the user experience of people using SL and other virtual worlds like the various OpenSim worlds, by providing users with more features than the basic Linden Labs SL viewer. Functionality Firestorm provides users with the ability to log into the Second Life grid, but also supports OpenSim grids. Because of the lack of users, and difficulty to develop for OpenSim, they no longer actively support it, but it will still work ok with most OpenSim grids. In terms of actual inworld functionality, I found that it was almost the same as the other viewer I tried, Alchemy, and most of the functions are just base features from Linden Labs. When you get in the men...