You’re preaching to the choir, but after having taken what was once a commons and commoditizing it, isn’t this more about who has the rights to use virtual and real aspects instead of protecting things?

I’m no anthropologist, but I have dealt with indigenous peoples around the world and there is one common thing that people – including anthropologists – tend to forget: People don’t miss something until they don’t have it anymore.

I think there’s a danger in assuming we know what is best for Indigenous people, even when our intentions are good. This is a key point to the discussion about the paternalism of the NT Intervention we’ve been having on this blog. One of the major problems with the government policy is that there is virtually no consultation with Aboriginal people themselves.

So in relationship to the Second Life case, we might also think that their culture is ‘opposed’ to making money, or ‘opposed’ to technology, but that says more about our assumptions about Aborigines in general rather than the desires of this group of Aboriginal people in question. Anthropologists who have looked at these sorts of questions often find that Indigenous people can have very surprising (to us) views on the appropriate use of technology, and can employ it in unexpected ways. This is one of the reasons that ethnographic studies, which attempt to find out what people themselves think and do about these issues, are so important.

Digital culture is constantly at odds with the concept of ownership. The only reason Big Pond would keep it is simply to get press. It is a shame that the press would even be considered more valuable than the wishes of an indigenous culture.