Harpo is missing...

It appears that Harpo, my unofficial music source of SL has gone missing. I can't seem to catch him online anywhere. I have had conversations with him in the past and he brought up some interesting topics regarding music and culture in Second Life. 

We of course talked about the ability to play with people from across the world in symphony, and in essence to form a band over the virtual reality of the Internet. We then extended our conversation beyond the social realm into such topics as celebrity, music recording rights and SL limitations. 

I originally held these conversations way back at the beginning of the course in Hyperborea. This is unofficially known as the "academic" area (or one of them) in Second Life. Harpo tells me that is it not uncommon for people who have been on in the beginning of SL to frequent this area. There is a big sand box and there are usually a couple people rezzing and building. It is known as a hang out for intellectuals, and Harpo proved this. He spoke of some artists become celebrities, in a sense, on SL. I cannot recall the names he produced for me since it was before I knew I had to blog about artists. They do exist, however they do not transfer their identity on SL into real life and vice versa. They are strict acts in SL. There are however, DJ's who carry over their DJ name into SL and eventually get jobs playing in clubs and at events. I believe this has to do with the anonymous nature of DJs in that most do not use their real name, but instead utilize a nick name.  In any case, they can build up quite a following.

Music recording rights is another topic we touched on. The rights of music played over Second Life is contested. Who own the right to charge for the music? Who owns the rights to the music? Is performing the music over SL the same as distributing it via CDs or on iTunes?

Other limitations that come form producing music in Second Life are technological. The stream rate is quite low and thus the bit rate of the music being produced is below par. There can only be a small crowd of people to enjoy the performance because the system cannot handle too many avatars in one place. It becomes to big a burden on the system and can cause crashes or lagging.  Despite all of this, a music scene in SL continues to flourish. Harpo states that it is through SL that he is able to communicate and collaborate with other artists, as well as share his musical creations. Second Life makes it somewhat easy to attract the audience which would appreciate the music of the artists.