“And so with withered hand Mark Kingdon reached for the communicator and spoke into it…”

“Execute Order 7.8″

Now, what is Order 7.8 you ask? It is Section 7.8 of the new Second Life Terms of Service. It reads for those of you too lazy to look it up as the following.

7.8 You agree to respect the Intellectual Property Rights of other users, Linden Lab, and third parties.

You agree that you will not upload, publish, or submit to any part of the Service any Content that is protected by Intellectual Property Rights or otherwise subject to proprietary rights, including trade secret or privacy rights, unless you are the owner of such rights or have permission from the rightful owner to upload, publish, or submit the Content and to grant Linden Lab and users of the Service all of the license rights granted in these Terms of Service.

You acknowledge that the Content of the Service is provided or made available to you under license from Linden Lab and independent Content providers, including other users of the Service (“Content Providers”). You acknowledge and agree that except as expressly provided in this Agreement, the Intellectual Property Rights of Linden Lab and other Content Providers in their respective Content are not licensed to you by your mere use of the Service. You must obtain from the applicable Content Providers any necessary license rights in Content that you desire to use or access.

Linden Lab and other Content Providers may use the normal functionality of the Service, including the permissions system and the copy, modify, and transfer settings, to indicate how you may use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, or perform their respective Content solely In-World. You acknowledge and agree that the permissions system and other functionality of the Service do not grant you any license, consent, or permission to copy, modify, transfer, or use in any manner any Content outside the Service.

You agree that you will not copy, transfer, or distribute outside the Service any Content that contains any Linden In-World Content, in whole or in part or in modified or unmodified form, except as allowed by the Snapshot and Machinima Policy, or that infringes or violates any Intellectual Property Rights of Linden Lab, other Content Providers, or any third parties.

Linden Lab reserves the right, but is not obligated to use technological measures designed to prohibit the copying, transfer, or distribution of Content outside the Service when we in good faith believe that such copying, transfer, or distribution would or might violate the Intellectual Property Rights of our users, Linden Lab, or third parties.

You copy and use Content at your own risk. You are solely responsible and liable for your use, reproduction, distribution, modification, display, or performance of any Content in violation of any Intellectual Property Rights. You agree that Linden Lab will have no liability for, and you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold Linden Lab harmless for, any claims, losses or damages arising out of or in connection with your use, reproduction, distribution, modification, display, or performance of any Content.

These are interesting times in our digital playground my friends. It seems that the Lindens in their as always infinite wisdom wish to tighten down on how we show the world Second Life, and more importantly they wish to control how we use the things we have purchased with our money. In this little rant I will be breaking down 7.8 and will be sharing with you why it is the worse idea since 2.0.

You agree that you will not upload, publish, or submit to any part of the Service any Content that is protected by Intellectual Property Rights or otherwise subject to proprietary rights, including trade secret or privacy rights, unless you are the owner of such rights or have permission from the rightful owner to upload, publish, or submit the Content and to grant Linden Lab and users of the Service all of the license rights granted in these Terms of Service.

You see the Avatar above in the picture? That is the Storm Trooper avatar from Furious store. According to Section 7.8 of the ToS I am not allowed to take a picture of it.  Why am I not allowed to take a picture of it? Because in the folder that came with the purchase there was no mention whatsoever of being allowed to photograph this avatar.  Under 7.8 content creators will have to include a notecard in their items allowing for permission for their items/clothing/skin/hair to be photographed and then published for other people to look at.

You acknowledge that the Content of the Service is provided or made available to you under license from Linden Lab and independent Content providers, including other users of the Service (“Content Providers”). You acknowledge and agree that except as expressly provided in this Agreement, the Intellectual Property Rights of Linden Lab and other Content Providers in their respective Content are not licensed to you by your mere use of the Service. You must obtain from the applicable Content Providers any necessary license rights in Content that you desire to use or access.

Now, copying content and redistributing it is bad. We all know this. But what about backing it up? Should that not be my call since I am the one who purchased it? Are you next going to tell me I can not watch Football on my RL TV that I purchased? We as users of Second Life should be able to back up the things we have purchased. Real money went into these purchases, and let us all be honest here. Second Life’s inventory system has a well documented history of eating everything and anything it wants to whenever it wants to. Also, what about moving an item over to an alt? In theory, since the same PERSON bought the item should I not be allowed to move an item from one of my avatars to another avatar that I still own?

Linden Lab and other Content Providers may use the normal functionality of the Service, including the permissions system and the copy, modify, and transfer settings, to indicate how you may use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, or perform their respective Content solely In-World. You acknowledge and agree that the permissions system and other functionality of the Service do not grant you any license, consent, or permission to copy, modify, transfer, or use in any manner any Content outside the Service.

This is pretty simple. Basically what Linden Lab is saying here is that everything you’ve ever made in Second Life, is now property of sorts of Linden Lab. You may not under any circumstance bring it to another grid. I am curious though if this includes items that you have made. The wording is a bit fuzzy on that subject. But, Linden Lab does that. They love you, you know? They love you so much it will hurt you.

You agree that you will not copy, transfer, or distribute outside the Service any Content that contains any Linden In-World Content, in whole or in part or in modified or unmodified form, except as allowed by the Snapshot and Machinima Policy, or that infringes or violates any Intellectual Property Rights of Linden Lab, other Content Providers, or any third parties.

You bloggers paying attention to this one? Basically we will now need permission to photograph anywhere, anything, anytime. That will be fun won’t it? I am sure that sim owners, content creators, and everybody else involved in this process is just going to love the time taken up by countless people asking for permission. Jesus, can you imagine the notecards that are going to be pouring in back and forth on Second Life’s already fragile databases?

Linden Lab reserves the right, but is not obligated to use technological measures designed to prohibit the copying, transfer, or distribution of Content outside the Service when we in good faith believe that such copying, transfer, or distribution would or might violate the Intellectual Property Rights of our users, Linden Lab, or third parties.

HAH! That is right fuckers, I said HAH! This is Linden Lab covering their very exposed asses saying they’ll now be guarding and watching for content theft. You know, maybe they’ll increase the time it takes a copybotter to get banned from 4 days to 2 days. (Not that I am holding a grudge you fucking dicks (the lindens, not you kids). Won’t that be lovely? We’ll translate this. “Hey we said in our ToS we’re going to help content creators prevent theft, but in actuality…no”

You copy and use Content at your own risk. You are solely responsible and liable for your use, reproduction, distribution, modification, display, or performance of any Content in violation of any Intellectual Property Rights. You agree that Linden Lab will have no liability for, and you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold Linden Lab harmless for, any claims, losses or damages arising out of or in connection with your use, reproduction, distribution, modification, display, or performance of any Content.

And there it is everybody, the other shoe. While Linden Lab promises to help protect their users from Content theft they are in no way legally, morally, ethically, or financially responsible for your loses  if they fail. If they fail….seems like that is every day in Second Life that Linden Lab continuously fails their users.  Tell you what Lindens, instead of giving us false promises of content protection…go ahead and fix teleports, sim crossings, inventory loss, your servers, and the almost infinite list of issues you’ve had since the beginning. You know stuff you in theory should be competent enough to fix. Also, next time you come up with a content protection policy you may want to hire somebody who makes stuff in Second Life and not a lawyer who has probably never logged in. You have once again clearly shown how completely out of touch you are with your user base. Way to go kids!

Dimitri Out.

Tags: Failure, Linden Lab, Mark Kingdon, Second Life, The Lindens, ToS

So, with my return to Second Life I arrived just in time for Linden Homes to be announced. And I thought to myself “Self, it would be good to have a place to unpack shit and take horrible photographs for your blog of doom and hey, it’s only 10 dollars a month. You spend more than that on way sillier things”. And so I stared at the menu to select one and explored the several different options. In the end I chose the Skylight model in the Meadowbrook theme. And things were good…or so I thought.

The Author Standing In front of His Small Abode.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Linden Homes, Linden Lab, Mainland, Second Life

In what can only be described as an extra helping of stupid on top of the serious case of dumb we’ve already had this week from the “employees” of Linden Lab. Not only do we get to now give LL our hard earned Lindens for hosting our items on the hot piece of steaming mess known as XStreet, and not only are we getting force fed their “protection” via a new plan they somehow thought was a good idea (Hey kids, I’ve been to San Francisco…good times…good drugs….but seriously put down the fucking pipe), they now believe it is gaming the traffic system if you have employees.

This link right here: Ta-Da! It’s correspondence between Linden Lab and a store owner who has done rather well for themselves and is  fortunate enough to be able to provide Second Life residents with jobs as customer service representatives. Apparently, that is not allowed however. In fact, she recently got everybody’s favorite email:

Dear Store Owner,

This email is notification of action regarding your Second Life account,
+++++++++, for violation of the Second Life Terms of Service or
Community Standards. The violation in question occurred on November 10,
2009 in the region of Richfield.

Violation: Community Standards : Gaming Traffic Violation

As of the 1st May 2009, the use of bots or camping to game
Traffic values will be considered a violation.

Whether a landowner uses Bots or Camping Chairs, or Camping
Chairs with Bots in them, the effect is the same – the
traffic value for that parcel is inflated unfairly (and
therefore Search rankings).

Attempting to gain an unfair Search advantage, by the use
of Bots or Camping to inflate the Traffic for a parcel, will
be considered a violation. This policy applies to both
Mainland and Private Estates as both are represented in
Search.

If you continue to violate this policy, your account may be
suspended and the parcels relating to the violation maybe
removed from Search listings altogether.

For further information, see the following blog posts
http://tr.im/sl_camping and http://tr.im/sl_bots

If you are using bots/scripted agents on your land, please
look to self identify these accounts, for further
information please see this blog post
http://tr.im/sl_agentstatus

If you are going to have avatars as models they must be registered as
scripted agents.

Action:
No additional action is being taken at this time.

Appeal Process:
The decision to suspend your Second Life access was reached after
investigation of your use of the Second Life software and service. If you
would like to appeal your suspension, you may contact Second Life Support,
in writing, at the address below:

Second Life Support
Linden Lab
945 Battery Street
San Francisco, CA 94111

You may also appeal electronically by filing a support ticket at
http://www.secondlife.com/support For more information on this process,
please see this KnowledgeBase article http://bit.ly/hBIjz

Please provide relevant information that you believe would explain the
above violation.  Linden Lab reserves sole discretion in considering
whether to take any action on an appeal.

Please note that for electronically submitted appeals, due to the nature
of the ticket, it may take upto 72 hours to receive an initial decision on
your abuse appeal.

Sincerely,
Linden Lab

Seriously? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? So, we can’t actually have employees. But we can register bots and that’s okay? You’re anti-bot policy is now: Real People Bad Fake People Good?

So the store owner  replies and asks some rather important questions.

Did you check the Knowledge Base?:  Yes, and I have further questions
Preferred Language:  English
Details:  As far as I was aware paid models doing a job were allowed onto a sim? I just received an account suspension warning for campers/bots…. I have NO campers or bots. The items returned to me are model stands, that the models have to be assiged to a group via invite only, they are asked to fill out job application forms, they have tip jars, they are modeling my clothes that I made at my store and are there to help my customers. They have rules stating they are not allowed to be away from the keyboard for any period of time. So we are not allowed staff now??? Can someone please clear up for me what the differance is between paying staff for doing a job and camping? I know of plenty of other stores with paid models and campers and bots and I really start to feel like you target me.
Can you please tell me why I am not allowed paid staff??
I need my staff there to help and guide customers, so why am I not allowed them or not allowed to pay them?
Thank you.

Makes sense. Staff make the shopping experience more enjoyable for the average consumer. They are there to answer questions and they keep people from constantly bugging content creators. It makes sense, less stressed creators equals more products, happier customers equal more money spent. Kind of win/win isn’t it? I mean I’m sure the money grubbing monkeys at the lab will even get their piece of the action due to it.Apparently……not.

Hello, Store Owner:

Thanks for contacting customer support.  Model bots are allowed however each bot is required to be identified as a scripted agent: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Scripted_Agent_Status. This is so traffic results will not be affected by these bots.  You run a risk of further disciplinary action against your account because can not view someone else’s scripted agent status however any model bots on your land must have this setting enabled.  What you may do instead is subdivide small parcels for the model bots to be on that have About Land > Show Place in Search disabled.

Regards,

Frontier Linden

I enjoy watching the Lindens respond to emails. It gives you that warm fuzzy feeling inside your chest like when you finally realize that no, the person is not actually reading what he is responding to, and did indeed copy paste that shit straight out of the manual he lives and dies by.

So the store owner, obviously frustrated decides to check to see if good ol Frontier has bothered to read the original email. (My guess is no.)

Reopened  +++++++ Can you please re-read my email to you, they are NOT bots!!
The models were real live people there to help customers, earning a base rate of pay, they have to fill in application forms, have knowledge of my store and products, not go afk, be in the correct group.
Why am I not allowed paid staff????

Please do not tell me about bots, I have NO interest in bots, I don’t use bots and I never will. I need real staff on my land which you are saying I can not have? Not one single bot could have been on my pose stands, I know this as everyone has to fill in forms and tests with basic questions before being invited into the group.
So please tell me why am I not allowed staff?

Seems fairly reasonable. Upon talking with the store owner, the models/CSR’s have very specific rules. They are encouraged to interact with customers and are paid through pose stands spread throughout the area. These are not bots. These are RL people who earn money to buy stuff in Second Life by doing this.

Frontier replies. As you can guess it’s mostly the same old song and patterned response tap dance.

These residents may not be bots however traffic calculations are still being artificially inflated.  In order to avoid further disciplinary action in the future, these options are available:

- They should have their scripted agent status set to true.  Please keep in mind you will not be able to confirm that they have done this.

- Create a separate parcel of land and disable About Land > Show Place in Search.

This will allow you to have paid staff without inflating traffic results by mistake.

So, the anti-botting policy now covers actual people. And the solutions make me giggle.

Solution 1: Create a separate parcel to house said real people and have it not show up in traffic. Great idea! (no not really)

Solution 2: Have the real people set themselves to appear as bots. So…about that logic. Or maybe the lack of it. I can’t really decide on this one. Of course, you can’t actually check to see if your employees do this.

The traffic is not being artificially inflated. In that logic lies idiocy. Those are real people doing what they are paid to do. Artificially inflated traffic? Try actually busting down on those pathetic BIAB owners who bot the hell up and then create a new account when suspended. Until then, Linden Lab? Seriously? Shut the fuck up.

The store owner responds over and over again, asking for clarification and gets stonewalled by a case of dumb the likes of which I have not seen since the “boycott”.

This idiot policy calls into question the ability to have employees for anything. What about ye olde local SL strip club? No hosts? No DJ’s, No dancers? Those are all paid employees. Do they not increase traffic? How long am I the store/club/whatever owner allowed to stay there. Am I not increasing my traffic?

Why not actually take the time to come up with a bot policy that is actually understandable and works. Or better yet, blanket policy. No more registering bots for second life. Instead let us just remove all of them. No bots at all. Want to have models and what not? Actually help the economy in Second Life by hiring people like this author did.

These policies stacking up are going to lead to several things. The big stores will fail thanks to Linden help while the small stores will continue to do so-so. Less people will cash out (which is what LL is hoping for). And somehow the Lindens will post happy things about it. Followed of course by their resident cheerleader Torley. (Seriously? After you fucked us on XStreet and everything else you’re going to send Torley out to talk to us like we’re 5?). For some though, they’ll get it. And instead of writing in chalk outside Linden Lab at the next SLCC, there may be more people doing this.

Tags: Dumb, Linden Lab, Second Life

In only what can be described as S-Week (S stands for Screw by the way) Linden Lab has felt the need to drop multiple bombshells on its patrons (read: employers).  The news quite frankly is not good. In fact it looks much like a Abe Vigoda/Bea Arthur Sex Tape.

We’re going to start with the oldest and work our way to the newest. I am going to give you my honest opinion on what exactly is wrong with what they are saying and exactly how they can fix it.

Pink Linden wants to know what we’re feeling. Wants to know what is on our mind.

In fact she sent out a survey asking us what we thought about some ideas in order to…..actually it’s not very specific. I would venture to guess help curtail content theft. Let me check here one second…

Okay I found it. Basically they’ve come up with these vendors. You put your wares into said vendors for sale. LL takes a 10-15% commission for said sales. Also, for the low low price of 5-10USD per item it can be cross listed on XStreet (would they make the listing for you? It’d almost be worth it if they would do that so you didn’t have to deal with the mess known as creating a listing on XStreet) and you would get “premium” listings . Oh and there will be a Merchant program to give us tools to sell our stuff. The cost? Only a measly 10USD to 100USD depending on the volume of our sales. Also if we’re willing to “donate” 30% of our sales to the Lab, and pay all the other fees. We can indeed have a free spot in the mall! Isn’t that fantastic? I’ll tell you what, makes me happier than Glen Beck snorting cocaine off Sarah Palin’s ass. Now then….

A few points.

1. Let’s be honest with each other shall we? This is going to happen. Yes I know you made another blog post detailing how this was all just information gathering but really now, who exactly do you think you’re fooling? I mean yes, you were information gathering. But in the whole “Hey, we’re going to do this. I wonder how bad it will piss them off” sense.
2. Just so I am clear. You actually won’t take a proactive stance towards content theft. However, you’ll be happy to have us register and essentially pay for your protection. There is a word for that. Let me find my dictionary one second……..oh I found it. Extortion
3. At this point, I would go ahead and change your motto. It’s no longer “Your World You Imagination”. It is now “Welcome to Second Life: Arbeit macht frei”

The XStreet “Free Ride” is OVER!

Yes that is right boys and girls. As of 1:53PM today the gig is up according to Colossus Linden. Coming soon to everybody’s favorite merchant website will now be charging you. For what you ask? I will break it down by the magic of copy pasting.

Monthly Listing Fee for Freebies of L$99:

• Listings for free items will now be treated as a marketing/promotional tool and thus will have a price.
• L$99 is the price of our least expensive listing enhancement and so we will start there.
• Depending upon desire for this marketing opportunity and perceived value given such demand, we will adjust the price as necessary to maximize this value and keep the freebie listings from becoming bloated again.
• Expected Delivery: 30 – 60 days

Minimum Commission of L$3 on all items priced L$1 or greater:

• We will enact a minimum commission of L$3 on all sales of non-freebie listings.
• Since Freebie listings are now considered marketing and are charged as such, they will not incur this fee.
• A L$3 commission will raise the commission on all listings under L$50.  This was a range suggested by residents, but it turns out that this is the price range where there is a very high transaction volume and low commission income which combine to cover the costs of those transactions.
• We may adjust this minimum commission as we see its effects on the marketplace.  L$3 does not cover the full cost of a transaction, but the goal here is first to manage freebie growth first.
• Expected Delivery: 30 – 60 days

Monthly Listing Fee of L$10 for all items L$1 or greater:

• All non-freebie listings will now be charged L$10 per month to remain listed in the Xstreet SL Marketplace
• Currently, less than 20% of Xstreet SL listings make at least one sale per month.  This displays just how much clutter of unsold items exists on Xstreet SL.
• Doing this will provide an incentive for merchants to remove listings which are not selling, while keeping this fee low enough to have a minimal effect on listings which are selling and are desired by shoppers.
• By reducing the overall number of listings on Xstreet SL, the shopping experience will drastically improve which will please our shoppers and be a boon to the business of all of our merchants.
• Expected Delivery: 60 – 90 days

Separate freebies into their own category:

• There is already a freebie section on Xstreet SL.  This section will become the place to browse for new freebies.
• We will remove free listings from the browsable categories and keyword search results on Xstreet SL.
• Expected Delivery: 60 – 90 days

That’s right! Want to list a FREEBIE on XStreet? That’ll be 99L. Why? Because XStreet is currently a fat bloated slow moving pig. And of course! The only solution is to charge. For everything! Yes, if XStreet has LESS listings it will make more money for you and it will run smoother.

I swear to god the baby died from impact before the bathwater even touched it.

So let me get this straight. You’ve already ruled out the following solutions to the XStreet Problem.

• You’ve obviously cleared out all of the content that violated copyrights correct? If I type: Coke, Nike,Miller, Coors, or anything like that it will come up empty yes?
• You’ve upscaled in correlation to the growing demand on your servers.
• You’ve learned how to make and run a database
• You asked one of your investors (E-BAY) how to do this correctly?

You’ve done all those things? Well I guess the obvious solution is to of course charge your residents an arm and a leg for the use of something that you took money for anyways. Will putting an item up be any easier? Will you get us our money in a timley manner with this change?

I am going to shoot straight here for a moment. Lindens, were you any of the employees I have under me in the company I work for and you came up to me with these great and innovative ideals….well

I hear you meet the most interesting people in unemployment lines.

But I am leaving out an important part here. In these trying economic times, when belts are tightening are you helping the people responsible for your paychecks? Are you making things easier for those who use Second Life as a supplemental income to help with food, bills, rent, etc? No, you’re not. You are finding new and innovative ways to milk more money out of us. And for that, Shame on you Linden Lab.

Also I am going to verbalize what a whole bunch of people are thinking after your announcements. Fuck You Linden Lab, Fuck You Very Much.

Want to make a difference? Pull all of your stuff off Xstreet and check out these alternatives:

Slapt.me

Meta-Life

Metaverse Exchange

Tags: Jumping The Shark, Linden Lab, News