There are a few interesting projects underway on Democracy Island, a project set up in the virtual world Second Life, but this one is an interesting surprise (I knew I should have attended the opening). From a Democracy Island blog announcement today (Link) :

Zarf Vantongerloo (who’s notary service on Democracy Island we looked at last week) has built a virtual machine that generates official Creative Commons Licenses applicable to the creations of Second Life residents from right within the virtual world.

I’ve mentioned Democracy Island previously (Link) and discussed issues of Reputation – which I consider pretty important to legitimizing virtual worlds – on this blog (Link) and on the Second Life forum, so Vantongerloo’s notary service is something with which I’m very familiar (Link). But what’s particularly interesting to me is that neither the notary service nor this license generation device could have sprung from any other virtual world since Second Life is the only one, of which I’m aware at least, that allows residents to keep the intellectual property rights to anything they create inside the simulation.

Of course, in a “free culture” why bother with owning anything? Kumbaya, brothers and sisters.

via the Second Life Future Salon blog