QotW5: One Body, One Identity.

What is an online identity? It is a “social identity that network users establish in online communities” (Online Identity, 2007). For example, in IRC, instant messaging, forums and even online gaming, users have to own an account name to create an identity for others to acknowledge who you are. Usually under such circumstance, a nickname would be used instead of the birth name one is given. Now why would anyone want to do that? Well, sometimes, people like to have a new identity just so that they feel like they can behave differently with that new identity - a start of a new life. That is the advantage of the online community. No one can see who you are, they would not know if the picture you have up is really you or not. All they can do is imagine who you are according to the information you disclose to them and how you behave online.

This is where reputation comes into play. Everyone wants to own a good reputation. It would be crazy for anyone to want a bad reputation. In an online community, once information is provided to those that want to see it, reputation will be increased. This is because you gave the reader what they wanted. Everyone involved builds an opinion based on the interaction of how the other person is like. “Reputation is enhanced by contributing remarks of the type admired by the group” (Donath, 1996).

Currently, the online identity I can relate to most for this entry would be my class blog. The first entry assigned was to describe who you are, your interests and include a picture of yourself. Some may have written a lot about themselves, while some may have written the minimal requirements. Nevertheless, information is still disclosed. This is where readers of the blog can know more about me.

However, with such disclosure of personal information, there are risks involved. Identity theft is one of the major issues of online communities though many do not know that there are such problems. Identity theft is, “the misuse of the identity (such as the name, date of birth, current address or previous addresses) of another person without their knowledge or consent” (Security Report: Online Identity Theft, 2006). There are many versions of identity theft such as:

(1) Bin raiding
(2) Phishing
(3) Skimming
(4) Moving house

How identity theft works for my situation would be that a reader of my blog decides to copy the picture posted on my blog, create an exact replica of my blog and most importantly, because the reader has an advantage due to my earlier entry on self-disclosure. The reader could simply use that information provided to “act” as me. Given such direct information, it is easy for anyone to copy exactly who you are and what you are online because no one really knows the real you online. Here, my reputation could be ruined because I have no control over the information that reader could be providing to others. Wrong information could be provided and thus, my reputation I established earlier on would be destroyed.

In the near future, it is important to make sure that your personal information is kept safely and that no one can steal it so easily.




REFERENCES

Donath, J.S. (1996) “Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community” Retrieved February 16, 2007 from http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/Identity/IdentityDeception.html

Online identity. (2007, February 15). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved
February 22, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Online_identity&oldid=108207999

Security Report: Online Identity Theft. (2006, February). BT Group, Retrieved February 22, 2007, from http://www.btplc.com/onlineidtheft/onlineidtheft.pdf

QotW4: Gifts

Is anyone really willing to give anything without wanting anything in return? In the past, the internet was never thought to gin so much through sharing of information. As stated by Kollock (1999), “given that online interaction is relatively anonymous, that there is no central authority, and that it is difficult or impossible to impose monetary or physical sanctions on someone, it is striking that the internet is not literally a war of all against all.” However, now, a huge amount of sharing and cooperation of information is done over the internet. This leads to the term, gift economy, because it means, “In which help and information is offered without the expectation of any direct, immediate quid-pro-quo” (Rheingold, 1993) - ‘A favor for a favor’. As long as sharing is involved, it belongs to the gift economy, with a bigger emphasis on the word, gift. Also, it can too be called a “sharing economy” (Gift economy, 2007). This is because sometimes people may need information yet not feel the need to return anything at the current situation.



An example of a gift economy that I am familiar with would be LetsSingIt.com - your favorite music community. LetsSingIt.com (LSI) is a music community where information about your favorite artists, lyrics news updates, can be found and shared with others. Every component of this site is for free. To participate in chats, discussions, a membership is required; however, that is free too.

How did LSI come about? Well, here is a brief summary of its history. Raymond Bonsee is the owner of LSI which originally started out as “Ray’s Music Site”. He started this site because he often found it difficult to find the lyrics he wanted. Thinking that others might feel the same way as he did, he created a free lyrics site which allowed easy search either through the artist’s name, or parts of the lyrics from the song, or album name or song name. Once it was created, it drew the attention of many and soon became a forum community made up of many different individuals. Hence, the interests of many were met. (LetsSingIt.com)

Moving on, through the amount of subscribers or people who go to the LSI site for lyrics, a rating poll will keep track of the most frequent searched song and rank the artists by the number of visits. Also, other than just discussions about lyrics and artists, any other topics are welcomed too. Here our world is made smaller through ‘global’ interaction. Thus, “gift economies are driven by social relations” (Bell, 1991).

However, nothing is perfect and yes the gift economy too has its ups and downs. With such free and easy discussion forums, it is normal that some ‘hooligans’ would see the need in wrecking the peace of a nice on-going discussion. There is no reason as to why they would want to do such a thing but we know that such people do exist. That’s why in LSI, they wrote a claim stating that if unacceptable conversations are going on, they will have the right to remove any particular conversation. (LetsSingIt.com)

In conclusion, after knowing what a gift economy is, that it runs with the concept of reciprocation instead of a ‘since I gave u something, you have to give me something else in return’, we know not to take it for granted. Not all the time would someone actually give anything in return but it’s what goes on in the forums that help. Should we not greatly accept what we have been given and work towards helping such forums is better than to bring it down. With relation to LetsSingIt.com, it is one of the many forums online that works as a gift economy because people come in to share anything though mainly about music.


REFERENCES

Gift economy. (2007, February 4). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, retrieved February 9, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy

Kollock, P. (1999). 'The Economies of Online Cooperation; Gifts and Public Goods in Cyberspace" Retrieved February 9, 2007 from http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/kollock/papers/economies.htm

Rheingold, H. (1993). The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. New York: Addison-Wesley.

http://www.answers.com/topic/letssingit-com

http://www.letssingit.com/

QotW3: Compromising.

Music, dramas, movies, all plays a major role in the entertainment of our life. Is it possible to own almost every song album out there in stores? Of course it is not possible. Not unless I have a lot of money. In this paper, I will explain how without money, we too can still get music that we want, what copyright stands for, the “remix culture” and how should the content creators and the consumers compromise for the benefit of both parties.

“File sharing is now one of the most common on-line activities” (Oberholzer-Gee & Strumpf, 2005). Napster, a peer-to-peer (p2p) program allows files of the user to be shared and downloaded by other users. Napster is a free program so it is more convenient for those that want to find a particular song yet at the same time cannot afford the album. “In 2004, there were more than nine million simultaneous users on the major peer-to-peer (p2p) networks” (Oberholzer-Gee & Strumpf, 2005). Hence, this gave the recording industry an opportunity to blame the p2p programs for their decline in sales.

Once a file is shared, more information is shared amongst the users. “Alternatively, file sharing allows users to learn about music they would not otherwise be exposed to” (Oberholzer-Gee & Strumpf, 2005). Now, is that a bad thing? I do not think so because without file sharing, do you think people in Singapore for example, would be able to know more about the music in other countries? I am pretty sure not much genres will be exposed had it not been for the help of file sharing apart from the MTV channel. Also, by knowing more about music that the consumer has not heard before and if the consumer likes it, a purchase could be made if the album was available. This in a way is like an advertising medium for artists. “This learning may promote new sales” (Oberholzer-Gee & Strumpf, 2005).

Here is where the copyright law comes into play. Copyright allows content creators to have some privileges, where no one else other than the content creator is allowed to publish the material. In order to obtain such rights, the content has to be “original, creative and fixed in a tangible medium” (Ovalle, 2005). To me, it is just like an idea, “fresh from the oven”. For example, in school, we are often assigned research papers where citations are necessary because we need evidence and support for our content. However, those evidence and support found are not carried out by us. We only use that information to help make our research paper credible. Thus, it is right that we acknowledge the content creator for our provided information. If not, what would be special about researching and coming up with answers to share if you are not acknowledged for your capabilities? Recall the word privileges to describe the copyright law.

Moving on, the “remix culture” is “a culture which is dominated by amateur creators” (Martin, n.d.). For example, the incident where two DJs remixed the band Green Day’s American Idiot album and changed it the American Edit album. This album was up in the net for free and apparently was liked by the listeners. Here, an idea has been taken but edited to form a new creation. As said, “To cut, paste, sample of jam with content, in order to produce something which is distinctive of their own social and creative innovation” (Martin, n.d.). This led to the application of Creative Commons (CC) which “provides legal forms that allow creators to stipulate how their work can be used” (Martin, n.d.).



Therefore, as a solution, compromise should be made between both parties comprising of the content creators and the consumers. To make this work, the copyright law should be stated clearly, to avoid confusion. The content creators allow only a certain percentage of information to be shared and the consumers towards creating new ideas would be sparked off for new improvements. In this way, both parties would benefit since creators could be treated as the “example” for consumers to follow part of their idea.


REFERENCES

Oberholzer-Gee, F, & Strumpf, K (2005). The Effect Of File Sharing On Record Sales.
Retrieved February 1, 2007, from
http://www.unc.edu/%7Ecigar/papers/FileSharing_June2005_final.pdf.

Ovalle, C. (2005). “What is copyright?”. University of Texas at Austin, Course INF 312. Information in Cyberspace. Retrieved on January 31, 2007, from
http://sentra.ischool.utexas.edu/~i312co/3.php

Remix culture: a rights nightmare. (n.d.). ABC: Catapult. Retrieved January 31, 2007, from http://www.abc.net.au/catapult/indepth/s1645533.htm