Comments on: Terry Furey's Lectures

I thought Mr. Furey's talk on the uses and implications of genotyping and mapping the human genome was very interesting. From his lectures, I learned about the various businesses that you can pay to genotype you to say your probability of contracting certain diseases or conditions. However, right now it seems that tracing your family's history is a more effective (and much cheaper) way to determine your susceptibility to diseases. One thing I found particularly interesting was the issue of who owns your DNA. I cannot believe that some companies are actually patenting part of my DNA sequence. According to Wikitionary, a patent is a "declaration issued by a government agency declaring someone the inventor of a new invention and having the privilege of stopping others from making, using or selling the claimed invention." Under this definition, its very hard to believe that governments actually let people patent our DNA. These people did not "invent" the DNA in are bodies, it is natural. They were just the first people to try to claim rights to it. The idea of patenting DNA and holding sole rights to "its use" is like the idea of patenting an eagle and holding sole rights to how people may want to use an eagle. It is a part of nature, not some man-made object. Now, I could understand if they wanted to patent a way to read a DNA sequence or a medicine meant to help a condition caused by a DNA sequence, because a company could invent those solutions. But the idea of a company having the sole rights to anything done with a certain DNA strand is preposterous--the company doesn't own it, it is in the "public domain" of nature, and every individual has their own copy.

Another interesting issue was about what rights people have to be protected from discrimination based on DNA. One law, the Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act, makes it illegal for insurance companies to deny insurance based on genetics, and employers to deny employment based on genetics. However, going in to the future, is this really something we can enforce? For one, companies could simply say they are firing you because of another reason, when in reality it is because of your DNA. Also, eventually it could become very easy and fast to read and genotype DNA, and companies could secretly test you to determine if they want to hire you or fire you. Its next to impossible to hide your DNA. People lose hair and skin cells naturally every day. All a company would have to do is find a stray hair or bodily fluid and then they could see exactly what your strengths and weaknesses are, as dictated by your DNA. Another issue around this is the question of is hiring on the basis of genes actually bad? Really, your DNA is just a bodily resume of your strengths and weaknesses as a human, and companies choose on the basis of resumes, and strengths and weaknesses, all the time. Companies are always looking to hire the best person for the job. Wouldn't a paper resume and DNA test be the best determiner of how affect you could be at your job? Also, should people who apply for jobs that could be dangerous to people with certain genetic conditions have to be tested for those genetic conditions? Not only would these people be ineffective at their job, but they may get very hurt by doing it. For example, should construction workers be tested for genetic signs that would say how likely they are to have a heart attack under physical stress? Yes, DNA testing as part of a job application seems like an invasion of privacy, but don't we, as determined individuals, want the best for our companies so we can provide the best products and services? And don't we want to make sure no one could put themselves in harms way by doing a certain job? DNA testing would allow us to make sure we are hiring healthy and effective people, just as the required resume, physical examination, and health disclosure forms do in today's workplace.

SL Commercial Enterprise: 777 League

777 League (http://slurl.com/secondlife/2raw/117/92/22) - This island contains a community for virtual racing that includes one of the longest, most elaborate racing tracks in Second Life. They also have tons of really cool looking cars you can view in the showroom. This business allows you to look at the cars in the showroom and watch races for free, but in order to participate, you must pay $10 to buy a car, and a small fee to partake in a race. The company also comes out with new "updated" models of many cars over time, so people are inclined to keep purchasing the newer cars because they might look cooler or have better stats. The island also has a club for racers to hangout in, and a biker club for bike racers. The clubs are free to enter and free to attend events.

The target customer of this business is people who enjoy watching races, car-afficianatos, and people who enjoy racing video games, because this business revolves around creating a pay-to-play version of "Need for Speed" or other racing games in Second Life. Racing games are very popular on computer and video game consoles, so they will probably also be popular on Second Life. Also, because this island has one of the longest, most elaborate racing tracks in Second Life, as well as many live performances at its clubs, it is a unique combination of large scale racing, lounging, socializing, and dancing. The live performances attract people to the island, and while there, they see all the racing stuff the 777 club has to offer which makes them want to buy a car and race too.

Comments on Smith and Jenkins Lectures:

After hearing what Mr. Smith and Ms. Jenkins have to say about intellectual property and copyright law, I have come to the conclusion that copyright laws are so strict toward protecting the rights of current intellectual property owners that digital creativity is being stifled in the rest of us. Because IP owners have so much control over where their content is used, copied, and extended upon, most people are afraid to be creative for the fear that they will infringe on content someone has already copyrighted. Because so many ideas are copyrighted, it is hard to create unless you want to work from complete scratch on something, or want to track down whether what you want to extend is in the public domain, and if it is not, track down who owns it and ask permission. Both of these directions can be a long and arduous process, so many people choose simply to not even attempt to create because they don't want to deal with these complexities. Also, people who aren't aware of these complications and do create something that includes someone else's copyrighted content either get sued or have their content destroyed if the person who copyrighted it didn't approve it. This sadness someone feels after something they worked on for such a long time is destroyed is more than enough to deter the person from ever trying to create something unique again.

This is evident in the movie "Be Kind Rewind," where people create parodies of popular movies without permission, and end up having countless hours of work completely and utterly destroyed. I have also had this happen to me, personally. My senior year in high school, I decided to create a highlight tape for my high school wrestling team. I video taped it, edited it, and put it together myself. Then, to top it off, I put it to music -- specifically the song "Click, click, boom" by Saliva. Proud of my work, I posted it on Facebook. A week later, I received an email from Facebook saying they had removed my content because it infringed on copyrighted material -- the music was copyrighted. I was very distraught that after all my hard work, I couldn't show it to my friends and family.

However, I didn't give up. I posted my video on Youtube. Youtube has made a deal with iTunes to handle copyrighted content a different way. My video is allowed to remain on Youtube as long as there is an advertisement in the video to buy the copyrighted music I used. While I was able to publish my video, it was still frustrating that I pretty much didn't have any rights over the property I created to choose whether the ad displays or not. Even though the music is someone else's, I created all the video on my own, and it is my creative property. But in order to show it to the world, I had to give up my rights to it because someone had already copyrighted the music. This was especially annoying because there ws no goal to make money off this, I was simply a harmless high-schooler who wanted to show what I had made to the world. Because of how frustrating the whole process of publishing my work was, I am now much more hesitant to begin any more creative projects for fear that I will lose my rights over them, or they will not be viewable at all because they partly infringe on someone else's copyright. The video is viewable here, the ad can be scene 10 seconds in.