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berto
Post subject: "Second Life", virtual reality & related issue  PostPosted: Aug 11, 2007 - 08:02 PM



Joined: Sep 06, 2006
Posts: 1195
Location: Valhalla Mountains, British Columbia, Canada
Virtual Sex Machine Spawns Lawsuit

Quote:
Kevin Alderman didn’t bring sex to “Second Life.” He just made it better. The 46-year-old entrepreneur recognized four years ago that people would pay to equip their online selves - which start out with the smooth anatomy of a Barbie or Ken doll - with realistic genitalia and even more to add some sexy moves.

Business at Eros LLC has been brisk. One of his creations, the SexGen Platinum, has gotten so popular that he’s now had to hire lawyers to track down the flesh-and-blood person behind the online identity, or avatar, that he says illegally copied and sold it.

The $45 SexGen animates amorous avatars in erotic positions. It is software code, written in the scripting language of “Second Life” and placed in virtual furniture and other objects. Avatars click on the object and choose from a menu of animated sex acts.

Alderman filed a civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Tampa, Fla., last month alleging an avatar named “Volkov Catteneo” broke the program’s copy protection and sold unauthorized copies. Alderman, who runs his business from home in a Tampa suburb, allows users to transfer his products, but prohibits copying.

“We confronted him about it and his basic response was, ‘What are you going to do? Sue me?’” Alderman said. “I guess the mentality is that because you’re an avatar ... that you are untouchable. The purpose of this suit is not only to protect our income and our product, but also to show, yes, you can be prosecuted and brought to justice.”

Catherine Smith, director of marketing for “Second Life” creator Linden Lab, said she knew of no other real-world legal fight between two avatars.

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Rain
Post subject: RE: "Second Life", virtual reality & related i  PostPosted: Aug 11, 2007 - 08:08 PM



Joined: Apr 12, 2007
Posts: 472
Location: NYC
Maybe all these people should just go out and get real lives. It'd be a whole lot cheaper.

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Each of us inevitable; Each of us limitless - each of us with his or her right upon the earth; Each of us allowed the eternal purports of the earth; Each of us here as divinely as any is here. ~ Walt Whitman
 
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berto
Post subject: RE: "Second Life", virtual reality & related i  PostPosted: Aug 11, 2007 - 08:14 PM



Joined: Sep 06, 2006
Posts: 1195
Location: Valhalla Mountains, British Columbia, Canada
No shit -- we can't look after all the homelessness, poverty, deprivation we've got (let alone combatting all the bigotry, hatred, racism, etc.)... and they've got all this time, energy and money to put into a make-believe fantasy?!

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vanrozenheim
Post subject: RE: "Second Life", virtual reality & related i  PostPosted: Aug 12, 2007 - 03:04 AM
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Joined: Aug 26, 2006
Posts: 440

Don't you two be thus much judgemental. Karate

You see, some people take unnecessary medication, others perform Bible studies, some are playing computer games and others are populating certain nationalist forums. Wink There are even some of them who fell pray do multiple vices - and yes, I confess myself being one of them. Embarassed

Years ago, I was so much into playing Sid Mayer's Civilization, that I could spent WEEKS leaving my desk only for the most necessary businesses. Still an addict, but luckily have barely any time for this magnificent game.

The only 2 really important goals in life are:

1) Increasing of pleasure;
2) Reduction of the pain.

If someone has a good job and works all day long earning good money, he can get his pleasures and reduce the pain spending substantial amounts of this money. But what possibilities do the folks have, who posess lots of time but as much as no money? Or those who have no social contacts because of being too old, to ugly or too asocial? The easiest way for them to increase their well-being is to immerse into a non-physical reality: reading books (19 century) or playing PC games (21 century). Them are different realities from the physical ones, but nontheless those are realities for the involved people.
Preaching

Surely, they also could volunteer somewhere to help at some public facility for free, but also the rich ones could donate all their money to some welfare organization. While some people actually do act in this way, most people do not - that's the human nature.

Thus, the gamers are no more vicious than anybody else, leave them alone.
Devil
 
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berto
Post subject: RE: "Second Life", virtual reality & related i  PostPosted: Aug 12, 2007 - 03:41 AM



Joined: Sep 06, 2006
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Location: Valhalla Mountains, British Columbia, Canada
But you can understand, after reading the story above, why people in the developing world think we're all a bunch of self-absorbed, greedy wankers, no?

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Rain
Post subject: RE: "Second Life", virtual reality & related i  PostPosted: Aug 12, 2007 - 04:19 AM



Joined: Apr 12, 2007
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Location: NYC
I read on some site that the energy needed to run an avatar for one round of play on Second Life is equivalent to the energy consumed by the average Brazilian in one day. That's just obscene.

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vanrozenheim
Post subject: Re: RE: "Second Life", virtual reality & relat  PostPosted: Aug 12, 2007 - 05:02 AM
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Posts: 440

berto wrote:
But you can understand, after reading the story above, why people in the developing world think we're all a bunch of self-absorbed, greedy wankers, no?


People in the developing world are no less a bunch of self-absorbed, greedy wankers, too. You shall not assume that someone in those countries wastes much thought on how much water, energy or nickel the people in the industrialized societies are consuming. On contrary, the folks in the developing world desire to achieve the very same high levels of consumption by themselves, too. Also, they only in average do not spend as much energy and ressources as the "Westerners" - within their countries they have all the luxury, too - availavble for a smaller number of people. The only serious reason why folks in developing countries could justly dislike a certain imperium and it allies is the habit of interfering with other peoples' business.

Rain wrote:
I read on some site that the energy needed to run an avatar for one round of play on Second Life is equivalent to the energy consumed by the average Brazilian in one day. That's just obscene.


All this Weltschmerz you fellows tend to, is of little use to them. The basic reason why an average Brazilian consumes so little energy, is because so many Brazilians have no electricity at all - that's a statistical effect. The average Brazilian living in an urban area spends most assuredly a comparable amount of power as we do. Now how would your pulling the plug help that poor Brazilian in his country? Think of it. What they need are more nuclear power stations, and much, very much concrete to build up the infrastructure.
 
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Rain
Post subject: RE: Re: RE: "Second Life", virtual reality & r  PostPosted: Aug 12, 2007 - 05:15 AM



Joined: Apr 12, 2007
Posts: 472
Location: NYC
I object to Vicky using this:
Preaching

If you were a good santero you'd have an emoticon killing a live chicken.
 
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Feral
Post subject: RE: Re: RE: "Second Life", virtual reality & r  PostPosted: Aug 12, 2007 - 05:40 AM



Joined: Sep 06, 2006
Posts: 1754

Yes, please. Or some nifty voudon veves. Twisted Evil

In any event, I know well that people will "pay" for genitalia and (good heavens... sex) in Second Life. I know a certain way-too-hot blonde go-go boy who spent altogether too much time shaking his money-maker in virtual bars to "pay" for such things. Then he discovered that it was but a chat room with pictures, and an ill-populated one at that.

I like chatrooms -- communication is a good thing. When there is a certain critical mass of it going on, strange and wonderful things start to happen. If adding moving pictures makes a chatroom worth chatting in, then let there be moving pictures. As usual, I recommend foam parties, glitter, baby-oil, and considerably less wardrobe. (Really... what is the point of a virtual baseball cap when you already have twenty of them? There are genitals and sex acts to purchase with your imaginary money.)

The Gay presence in Second Life, as frivolous as it is, is a good thing. That the Gay presence in Second Life is more or less separatist in character is also a good thing.

While the story has it's titillation value (since it involves sex) and it's intellectual value (albeit not too much -- the interface between the virtual and the real is about as stimulating as international finance), it is basically an intellectual property case -- one which rests on fairly well-established law. "What are you going to do... sue me?"


Why, yes... in federal court.

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Rain
Post subject: RE: Re: RE: "Second Life", virtual reality & r  PostPosted: Aug 12, 2007 - 05:53 AM



Joined: Apr 12, 2007
Posts: 472
Location: NYC
Foam parties, foam parties, foam parties, foam parties. Did I say foam parties...yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! Feral's here!

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Each of us inevitable; Each of us limitless - each of us with his or her right upon the earth; Each of us allowed the eternal purports of the earth; Each of us here as divinely as any is here. ~ Walt Whitman
 
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Feral
Post subject: RE: Re: RE: "Second Life", virtual reality & r  PostPosted: Aug 12, 2007 - 06:07 AM



Joined: Sep 06, 2006
Posts: 1754

Have I mentioned recently that the phrases 'foam party' and 'go-go boy' immediately bring to mind the song "This is How You Go-Go" from Jonny McGovern's NYC Mixtape? I don't think I have. Anyway... 'tis so. Call it an earworm if you will.

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Rain
Post subject: RE: Re: RE: "Second Life", virtual reality & r  PostPosted: Aug 12, 2007 - 06:13 AM



Joined: Apr 12, 2007
Posts: 472
Location: NYC
George Michael in white poom poom shorts singing "wake me up before you go go...." ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...that boy's ass was the source of many, many trips to the laundromat when I was a teen. My mother just couldn't explain the stains on my bedsheets.
 
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