Category: Opinion

There has been what can only be described as an ongoing war of words enacted over on the official flogs relating to the use of “Viewer detection systems”. This fight has been focused on the Gemini CDS (Copybot Detection System) and it has people hotly divided for the most part: those who are “pro” the system, those who are “anti”, with a lot of name-calling and aspersion-casting going on between the two.

Essentially, Gemini CDS offers people protection from “copybotting Viewers” by detecting them when an avatar using such a Viewer tp’s into range. It can then either alert the land owner to the individual’s presence or it can boot / ban them – and add their details to a blacklist shared among all versions of the system that have been deployed in-world (i.e. there is a back-end database external to SL supporting the system). Further, the ban remains in place, even if the alleged violator subsequently tries to access a protected sim / area using a “legal” Viewer. To support the network ban list, purchasers of the system pay L$700 a month over and above the initial purchase price of the system.

The system apparently works by using the media streaming capability built-in to the Viewer to identify known “copybot” Viewers and thus take action against them (assuming, I gather, the user has media streaming enabled on the Viewer). There has also been a lot of hype surrounding the ability of this system to somehow automatically ban alts of those found to be using “copybotting” Viewers at the same time as the initial ban is handed out – leading to (unfounded) claims that the tool illegally scans the local computer.

Leaving aside these wilder (and pretty much unfounded) claims of data scraping, Gemini CDS would appear to offer a degree of protection against content ripping. However, having toiled through the seemingly endless flog threads on the subject as well as bouncing around other SL-related forums (where the debates surrounding Gemini CDS are as prevalent), I have serious concerns as to the effectiveness of the system, and something of a niggle relating to its validity.

For a start, the system appears to have been largely deployed by store owners, who give it the loudest praise in the flog. BUT – the vast majority of stores use vendor systems (with some notable exceptions in the furniture and housing markets) – and goods contained in vendors cannot be ripped. Ergo, aside from those who are utterly naive when it comes to content ripping, it is highly unlikely “serious” rippers are going to be plonking themselves down in the middle of stores.

Even the effectiveness of the system cannot be examined; while store keepers may point to the “fact” that Gemini CDS has ejected X people from their store / sim in any given week – this does not automatically equate to said individuals being genuine content rippers nor does it mean content ripping is in any way being deterred (again, because it is unlikely serial content ripping is taking place in stores).

Then there is the question as to exactly how endemic content ripping really is. The flog shows the level of fear / paranoia circulating on the subject, with ugly fighting erupting among content creators themselves. Within the flogs themselves, some store owners openly admit to ejecting people who stand around in their stores for more than a couple of minutes without moving, because they “know” these people are ripping their content (again, unless the content is on open display – such as being modelled – it’s hard to see how this can be the case).

As such, it is hard to accurately assess the spread of content ripping through the use of malicious Viewers simply because of all the FUD that surrounds them; and this being the case, it is fair to ask whether tools such as Gemini CDS actually feed into this FUD, simultaneously feeding on people’s fears while creating a veneer of comfort and sense of protection – while all the time generating a revenue stream for the creators of the system.

One might argue that profit or not, the fact that Gemini CDS gives the perception of being protected against thieves, then it is sufficient deterrent – and I am, after all, one who is pretty big on seeing perception as a motivator, as my comments around third-party Viewers will demonstrate.

But really, the answer to this must be “no”. Deterrence only works when it is shown to deter (prevent / discourage). When one strips away all the hype, arguments, hyperbole and misinformation circulating around Gemini CDS one is driven to a single conclusion: it will have absolutely minimal impact on “serious” content ripping. While store keeper may well feel comforted by seeing this system boot 5 or 6 people a week from their sim and even consider that in doing so, it is enabling them to “do their bit” to stamp out content ripping – the very sad fact remains that ripping will continue unabated elsewhere on the grid  – and probably at levels that have remained more-or-less unchanged for the last several years.

The there is the annoying niggle over the validity of the system. Gemini CDS is owned an operated by individuals outside of Linden Lab. They have no “official” position within Second Life and no sanctioned authority. They maintain the Gemini CDS system under a blanket of secrecy that goes far beyond the need to protect (as they put it) “trade secrets”. There is no oversight as to which Viewer is or is not branded a “copybot”, there is no oversight of their ban list and there is no guaranteedmeans of appeal should someone feel they have been wrongly banned. Indeed, as Mitzy Shino has already found out, the owners of the system are predisposed not to accept appeals and lift bans.

I won’t go so far as to claim Gemini CDS is insidious or a waste of time per se. While the system has been developed by individuals with a questionable past, others have managed to test it to the point where it is not doing anything overtly insidious – my only caveat being that we only have the creators’ word that it is only collecting data related to the use of “copybot” Viewers (although as I use Emerald, I’m in a bit of a cleft stick in this regard). Further, that it does give store owner a naive sense of security – which they are entitled to, having paid for the system itself and continue to do so on a monthly basis in order to retain their sense of comfort – then I’ll grant that is has done some good for them.

But I’d draw the line far short of Gemini CDS being the kind of panacea for content ripping many portray it to be believe. In the wider scheme of things, the best one could say about Gemini CDS is that it is a placebo – :quit! (for those familiar with Copybot “destectors”).

This “little” post has come about as the result of a suggestion from regular reader, Peter Stindberg, which followed the concerns I raised about the “Bye Bye Copybot” prim being circulated by members of the Emerald team, and lauded by  some content creators and others, despite its potential as a ToS violator.

Before I get to the nitty-gritty, I will point out that while what follows is a genuine attempt to timeline events and interrelations of events as accurately as possible, the degree of paranoia and misinformation surrounding content ripping means that a) there is a possibility I may fail to mention some events ; b) some may view things differently (and may themselves not necessarily be correct); c) I’ve confused issues (although I’ve verified as much as I remember over the years with various sources elsewhere) – in which case polite corrections welcomed!

libsecondlife

Up until 2006, Second Life had largely been a closed universe: the code for both the server and client-side software was developed purely by Linden Lab. There had been issues around copying content – tools like GL Intercept, which enabled the likes of avatars to be copied, and basic tools and scripts that enabled textures to be pulled from the local cache. However, these tended to be somewhat obscure as far as the populace of SL at large were concerned, which somewhat mitigated their impact (but didn’t excuse their use).

Then something happened: libesecondlife was created.

libsecondlife commenced, with Linden Lab’s blessing, as group of Second Life residents attempting to back-engineer an open-source version of the Viewer (client-side software).  Today, to avoid copyright issues in relation to the Second Life name the group is now called lib.openmetaverse.org.

CopyBot

As a part of this work, an automated tool was developed – CopyBot that could be used to replicate avatars – bots, and be used as a debugging tool. The original CopyBot required that that target user actively give permission to be copied, and issued a disclaimer (in the form of a drop-down) prior to the copying taking place, specifying the fact that ownership / permissions pertaining to anything worn by the avatar would be lost in the copying process.

The software itself (written in C#) worked by intercepting the communications between the Viewer and server and replicating the information relating to objects (prims, textures). In doing so, and due the the way in which Viewer / server communications had been coded by LL, the copy process would lose the metadata relating to the original creator of the object and all permissions set against it – there was simply no way of including this information in the raw copy process as written in C#.

The original version of CopyBot was published as a part of the libsecondlife library of tools, where it became relatively easy for someone to remove the code asking for the target’s permission to be copied and the disclaimer drop-down, and thus use the code to copy virtually anything in Second Life – with the exception of scripts, gestures and animation (although later iterations of CopyBot could apparently grab animations and gestures from avatars) – completely surreptitiously, giving birth to CopyBot as we know it today.

What made CopyBot different to earlier attempts to rip content was its relative ease-of-use, it’s availability and – inevitably – the notoriety it quickly gained as a result of being made “public”.

From the start, the libsecondlife group were fairly unconcerned by the risk CopyBot presented to content creators, demonstrating a “so what?” attitude, supported and repeated by other techies posing as “journalists” as the news broke. Indeed, in one such interview, libsecondlife’s Admin, Babba Yamamoto intimated the issue of metadata loss could have been overcome if the CopyBot code had been re-written in XML (this is in fact how tools such as Second Inventory and Viewers such as Meerkat and Emerald “legally” export content)  – but no-one saw the point in doing so, since the “flaw” that lost the metadata lay with the way LL had originally coded Viewer / server communications, so those in the libsecondlife group felt justified in deflecting anger directed at them by pointing the finger at LL.

libsecondlife did eventually pull the CopyBot branch from their open source library as the wave of outrage reached the level of a tsunami – but again (and to mix metaphors) their action was that of not only shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted – but having ensured the horse had an open-ended ticket to any destination of its own choosing as it left the stable.

Protests and Response

The “revised” CopyBot code quickly started showing up as being for sale both in-world and on SL Exchange and immediately generated uproar as a result. Protests were held, the forums were flooded and people were angry: stores were closed; sims locked down, and calls were made to boycott Second Life.

While the libsecondlife group’s reaction remained pretty much, “so what?”, Linden Lab’s initial response to the protests could best be described as lukewarm, with Robin Linden repeating the assertion that content copying is “not necessarily” theft – a meme initially rolled out by Cory Linden – himself an active supporter of libsecondlife. While the meme is technically true (it should be pointed out that Second Inventory, for example, effectively uses CopyBot-style coding with ownership and permission checking in place, to export objects from Second Life, for example), it was also was somewhat disingenuous to raise it in the context of content ripping.

Many were angered by this reaction from Linden Lab, which gave rise to a further round of protests. Some of these made headline news in the likes of Business Week and  News.com – prompting Linden Lab to take something of a more affirmative stance, revising their policy to make it clear the use of CopyBot and similar tools would not be tolerated. While the move was in some ways welcomed, it was also felt that it was the risk of poor publicity, rather than a desire to help reduce the risk of Copybotting that prompted LL into “action”.

Nor was the revised policy that successful. By referring to the use of such tools as CopyBot, the policy implied that the sale of such tools in-world was still OK – and so people kept right on selling it at up to L$1500 a pop, quite prepared to face the wrath of residents while the Lab again kept quietly to the sidelines.

At the same time as calls for tougher action against CopyBot and it users continued, so to did the counter-argument “that nothing can be done” to stop the matter (an argument still heard today) gained strength among techies. People pointed to the code behind web pages being viewable and therefore copyable; people pointed to the existence of tools such as GLIntercept that could copy avatars, people raised the issue of ripping MP3s over the Internet as reasons why CopyBot was not only “inevitable”, but should be more-or-less accepted.

While such statements are broadly true, they in no way justify the theft of Second Life content – or any theft for that matter. Rather, they deflect discussion from the core issue that Second Life is promoted as a platform of commerce, and as such those encouraged to take up business opportunities on the platform should be offered a degree of protection that appeared to be somewhat lacking on LL’s part.

Promises and Tools

Another reason people perceived Linden Lab as having little concern over the matter was the time taken to develop practical tools that could help in the identification of potentially ripped goods. Conversations around such tools commenced in November 2006, with Robin Linden’s above-mentioned post. However, it was not until April 2008 that the first really useful tool –  the Object Inspector – finally made its debut;  18 months after the initial furore.

Now, there could be perfectly legitimate reasons as to why such a tool took so long to develop and deploy. However, during the 18 months it was in development, Linden Lab was largely silent on the matter of content ripping, giving rise to the perception that they “weren’t interested” in dealing with the issue. Right or wrong, this perception was further reinforced by the fact it was not until August 2009 – nigh on three years after the original protests – that the Lab saw fit to outline updates to their IP Complaints Process, as outlined in their Content Management Roadmap. Even then, insult appeared to be added to injury in that elements of the Roadmap appeared less concerned with the worries of current residents as they did in providing the perception of content protection for “upcoming” users of the Second Life Enterprise product.

In the meantime, CopyBot development continued among known hacker groups – such as the Patriotic Nigaras – who worked to make the tool more “user-friendly” and added further capabilities to it. While the sale of the tool was banned from both in-world and on the likes SL Exchange / XStreetSL, CopyBot does continue to be available through various torrent sites – although I understand (but have absolutely no proof) that many of the advertised CopyBot downloads are, in an ironic twist, themselves riddled with viruses / Trojans.

Viewer Threats

Throughout 2007 and 2008, CopyBot remained an issue. Exactly how widespread its use was was difficult to assess: paranoia meant that many reports of copying came via “friends of friends of friends” rather than first-hand exposure, and the storm was further whipped up by merchants selling “anti-Copybot protection” tools that were little more than scripted placebos. While such tools did little or nothing to stop Copybotting, their widespread proliferation  in stores across the grid reinforced the perception that Copybotting was epedemic in proportions.

Then the landscape started to change. In 2007, the first fully-functional third-party Viewers began to appear. Over a period of several months, a crop of Viewers showed up that offered people a genuine alternative to the “official” Viewer, which was regarded as poorly-written and crash-prone. What was more, these Viewers not only offered improved stability, they also tended to offer features that users has been requesting from Linden Lab without any success. As the popularity of these Viewers increased, so did the likelihood that the Viewer code would be maliciously hacked.

This likelihood became a reality in 2009, when the first of the “CopyBot Viewers” appeared in-world. This did raise content theft to a new level: now it was possible for anyone to grab content (with the exception of scripts) simply by using a modified Viewer – no other tools or add-ins required.

As with CopyBot itself, Linden Lab were initially slow to respond, despite the renewed outcry the appearance of these “hacked” Viewers caused. It was not until February 2010 that their Third Party Viewer (TPV) Policy first appeared.

BuilderBot

In mid-2009 the matter almost took another very nasty turn when Jim Himoff of Rezzable suggested an in-house tool created by his company would be made available to the open source community. This tool was Builderbot. Based on the CopyBot code, Builderbot enabled entire sims to be “backed up”: land, buildings, content, textures – all in a single pass.

Like CopyBot, Builderbot was initially developed with a genuine function in mind: Rezzable had invested heavily in Second Life in terms of sim development and commissioning custom builds they have not only paid for, but have purchased the rights to as well. When they opted to make a move from Second Life to their own OS Grid, they obviously wanted to take their investment with them: hence Builderbot.

However, Himoff’s announcement of issuing Builderbot to the open source community as an unrestrained tool was alarming, and his very public claims that it presented “nothing new” as it was based on “CopyBot” and the “CopyBot was already out there” was an utterly disingenuous excuse. Given the history of CopyBot, any release of an unrestrained version of Builderbot would have been worse than mischief making – it would have been as malicious as pulling the pin of a hand grenade and tossing it into a crowded room.

Fortunately, such was the outcry over the announcement that Rezzable quickly backpedalled away from their stated intent (assuming said intent wasn’t a stunt aimed at raising Rezzable’s visibility and that of their new OS Grid offering), opting instead to develop a version of Builderbot that would include ownership and permissions protection. So far as I’m aware, no version of Builderbot has to date been released.

The Present

Most recently, Linden Lab again caused some consternation with the release of Viewer 2.0 – which had the invaluable Object Inspector completely removed. Why this was done is anyone’s guess, but it lead to some consternation on the part of residents using it – so much so that a JIRA was raised and LL reintroduced it with the first Viewer 2.0 update –  although one has to ask why it was removed in the first place.

We’re still awaiting further updates around the Content Management Roadmap – again nothing has been heard of on this subject since the August 2009 blog post, giving the (potentially wrong) impression that it has fallen of LL’s radar in the rush to get Viewer 2.0 and all things “Enterprise”-related out the door.

Currently, the subject of content ripping remains contentious. Not because it isn’t happening – it is – witness the recent XSL sale of ripped dances and Ishy Wingtips’ highly-literate and thought-provoking flog posting on the subject as it affects the Teen Grid –  but rather because the accepted perception is that copy ripping has reached pandemic levels in Second Life. This perception has resulted in a lot of misinformation to enter circulation – some of it through simple misunderstandings, some of it to deliberately derail attempts to halt the further spread of the problem.

The waters have also been muddied by the subject of “copybotting” being used to promote other agendas. Towards the end of 2009, for example, a number of high-profile content creators used the subject of copybotting to float the idea that only a selected “elite” (my term) of content creators should be allowed to operate in Second Life. Among other things, they suggested the criteria by which such creators should be selected should be related to in-world turnover – an idea that found its way into the Content Management Roadmap thus: We are starting the process of planning a content seller program, and we would like your input on possible program criteria. At a minimum, participation in the program will require that the selling Resident…..3. meet a minimum threshold for content transactions.

Quite how limiting the number of content creators to a “selected few” would stop content ripping (given their own content would clearly become the target) has never been fully explained – but the fact that their views, issued under the guise of concern about content ripping, found their way into the draft CM Roadmap is disturbing.

Beyond this, and in part due to the apparent lack of concern from Linden Lab on the matter, in-world tools to “combat” Copybotting have appeared over the years. How effective any one of these tools is, I cannot honestly say. Some appear utterly useless and smack of cynical attempts to cash-in on people’s fears. More recent tools have appeared that seem to offer a degree of protection against the use of “hacked” Viewers, but even these are subject to considerable controversy, inasmuch as a) they have been developed by former content rippers (allowing their potential effectiveness to be undermined using the question of trust), and b) the creators have been so secretive around the tools, entire rumour mills have been created around them- and not always positively.

And so we come bang up-to-date with things, and the post that initiated Peter’s suggestion that I try to summarise (!) things relating to Copybot, etc.

I think I’ve covered all the bases and key events. If I’ve missed anything significant, I apologise, and will attempt to correct any omissions / inaccuracies that are pointed out to me.

Further information on CopyBot and the furore around content ripping can be read at:

• “Copying Controversy” – New World Notes, 2006
• “Second Life Faces Lawsuit Threat” – Mashable, 2006
• “Copybotters, the FBI and Jail Time” – SL forums, 2009
• “The Copybot Witchhunt” – SL forums, 2010
• “A Step forward in the CopyBot Wars” – SL forums, 2010

Note: Revised Mar 26, 2010 01:45 BST to better reflect the situation prior to the advent of CopyBot. With thanks to Tateru Nino for both prodding me in the right direction and for giving further information.

I use the Emerald Viewer. Over the years I’ve used a wide range of Viewers to experience Second Life, from the official Viewer through Snowglobe to Meerkat, Imprudence, Cool Viewer for Windows, KristenLee’s Viewer  – and even Viewer 2.0 and the Snowglobe iteration of Viewer 2.0.

But it is with Emerald I’ve found my “home”; of all the Viewers, this is the most stable for my PC configuration and provides the fastest fps rate of any (although KristenLee’s Viewer isn’t that far behind. Truth be told, if KLee’s Viewer incorporated RLV functionality, I’d swap over in a heartbeat, as her rendering pipe just blows everything else to pieces on a good graphics card).

It is true that Emerald has features that could be a nuisance if incorrectly used: the ability to locate anyone on a sim and Tp right into their face is one. I’m also aware of the claims of data scraping and the like surrounding Emerald and the claims relating to it ignoring permissions (generally made by those who have not sought to actually use the Emerald export tool). But the fact is, Emerald includes much that has been lacking in the official Viewer for general users, builders and estate managers – and these make it a winner.

As such, I applaud the efforts of the Emerald Dev team in building and maintaining a versatile Viewer.

However, even good intentions can go a step too far. Today, members of the Emerald Viewer group received a Notice and attachment I’d venture to suggest is questionable.  The attachment came in the form of a wearable prim. The Text of the Notice accompanying it reads thus:

This neat little prim has certain magical properties about it that causes viewers that do not respect permissions to crash when selecting it.

So in essence, it is a prim that can be worn and which contains a script that identifies malicious Viewers and crashes them.

Now *IF* this prim is for real (there are no visible scripts, so exactly how it detects / communicates with “illegal” Viewers is beyond my ken), then on the surface it would appear to be a neat trick in deterring copybotters. However, *IF* it is for real, the tool raises concerns on a number of fronts.

• At the very least, it would appear to violate the Terms of Service, to whit, Section 4.1, which includes the statement: In addition to abiding at all times by the Community Standards, you  agree that you shall not: (v) take any actions or upload, post, e-mail or otherwise  transmit Content that contains any viruses, Trojan horses, worms,  spyware, time bombs, cancelbots or other computer programming routines  that are intended to damage, detrimentally interfere with,  surreptitiously intercept or expropriate any system, data or personal  information. Given this prim has the ability to crash suspect Viewers, it could be argued that it is a form of Trojan horse  / time bomb intended to detrimentally interfere with other systems
• While copybotting is a major concern, and it could be argued that Linden Lab should be doing more to control / eliminate the worse cases, this same argument does not entitle users and /or content creators to undertake what amounts to be vigilantism in lieu of firmer action on the part of Linden Lab (and I say this as a creator of content myself). Two wrongs simply do not make a right
• There is already a degree of controversy surrounding the Gemini CDS system marketed by members of the Emerald team – not in terms of whether or not it hack people’s computers (it doesn’t) – but rather in the number of “false positives” it has been reported as giving. Can we be sure this tool is actually foolproof, even if vetted?
• What gives a group outside of LL the right to determine  which Viewers should or should not connect to Second Life? LL themselves are already in the process of rolling out their Third Party Viewer (TPV) Policy. While it has a number of flaws within the revised wording, it is nevertheless the official means be which the use of malicious Viewers is to be contained. What gives one or two developers who have no direct accountability to Linden Lab or anyone else the right to take matters into their own hands?
• The means by which Viewers are added to this tool (assuming it is going to be maintained) is far from transparent. While the best of intentions may have been behind its creation, it is therefore open to potential abuse
• What happens should a rogue coder decide to retaliate?  If this tool can be developed to target “illegal” Viewers, how hard would it be for someone to target a specific Viewer – the one supported by this tool’s creator(s)? If the tool can be worn, it can be rezzed in-world as a mass griefing tool. Do we then enter a war of escalation?

I’m genuinely curious as to whether anyone in authority at Linden Lab was consulted during the development of this tool or prior to its release. I’m also very interested to see how they respond to its presence on the grid.

Again, I have little doubt the intentions behind the tool were good. The major problem with good intentions is the manner in which they invariably pave all the roads leading to hell….

In June last year, people logging-in to SL and who hung around while the progress bar was displayed caught a rather unusual Message of the Day (MOTD), thus:

(with thanks to Ciaran Laval for this image)

At the time it caused a mix of teeth gnashing and speculation. When pressed, there were mutters from some inside the Lab that the Azure MOTD was a “pilot” (or “beta” or some such), and that others would get the opportunity in “the future”.

Well – it seems the future has arrived.

On the surface, it comes across as a reasonable idea – those running businesses in SL can have the opportunity to reach a wider audience by having their very own Message of the Day displayed on people’s Viewer log-in screens. Of course, there have been the inevitable howls about “more advertising” in response to this post – but lets be honest here; LL have taken something of a shellacking of late for the manner in which they’ve used the MOTD to promote their own in-world content (vis-a-vis Linden Homes, etc.) – so one might argue that this is an attempt to redress the balance and put residents on the same footing.

Well yes. Apart from one small detail. Anyone wanting to use this “service” is going to have to shell out a minimum of $1500 for each 11.5 hour block of advertising space they want to book – with the “peak” rate (07:00-18:30 PST) being hawked by the Lab at a staggering $4500 per 11.5 hour block.

(Technically, each block is 12 hours – but LL “reserve” 30 mins in each block for “administrative purposes” – which suggests your MOTD may not be actually displayed during this period.)

Ciaran Laval has rightly called out Linden Lab over these charges from the perspective of the more modest estate owners in SL – as it is fairly obvious that the rates are only likely to be within the reach of the largest land barons. However, and while acknowledging Ciaran’s call on behalf of the smaller estate owners, I’d say the matter goes further than just the ability of estate owners to use the MOTD as a channel to market – the pricing structure virtually excludes all content creators from any participation.

Given this, one can only assume one of three things; either:

1. LL is increasingly playing to a minority within SL, or
2. LL is indeed in financial difficulties, and this is an act of desperation to generate income, or
3. The offer has been skewed by LL’s continued belief that the future of the platform is inevitably tied to the use of the platform by “big business”, and as such, the rates have been set in a belief that they’ll be seen as a “serious” “opportunity” for “big business”.

Inevitably, most will go with (1.). But the FIC theory is all too often rolled out in response to LL’s actions whether or not they make sense.  (3.) has merit in that those who consider themselves “serious” businesses (aka the GSP group) pushing for the ability to market themselves “professionally”, and LL seem to determined to tie aspects of activities on the large grid into their SLE offering.

(2.) Is also possible – and certainly, if one leaves out (1.) and (3.), the “offer” does have more than a whiff of desperation about it.

As I’ve said elsewhere, I’m going to be very interested to see just who takes up the offer.

Trends are interesting things to observe. Sometimes you can learn a lot from them – other times, you can end up looking a complete twit for ever getting involved.

I’m really not sure which way this will go, but I’ll mention it anyway, given I’ve already posted on the SL blogrum.

There has been a lot going on around the subject of SL and RL identities of late – almost all of it initiated by Linden Lab. Vis:

• Drawing ever closer to Facebook
• Wallace Linden’s utterly mishandled posting on the subject of aligning rl and online identities
• Running a Valentine’s day “scavenger hunt” in which the main prize can only be won by those prepared to “out” themselves on Facebook
• The arrival of Viewer 2.0 with the Profile section rearranged to place rl information right below SL information
• Running an advertising competition that encourages residents to reveal their rl selves in return for some unspecified prize…

And now, to add to the list, we get Lexie Linden initiating a conversation on residents meeting up in RL (which, at the end of the day, is the most intimate means of linking one’s rl and SL identities).

Leaving aside my astonishment at Lexie initiating a discussion, rather than stomping on one (oh, me bad!), as far as I’m aware, she’s not come anywhere near starting a discussion on anything up until now.

So I can’t help but feel that her choice of subject is not entirely…random, shall we say?

Given the trend demonstrated to date, I cannot help but put “ulterior” and “motive” in the margin alongside Lexie’s thread. After all, if people indicate that, under the right circumstances (such as at events like SLCC, etc.), they’d be prepared to reveal their rl identities, might this not be seen by some in LL as a sign that closer in-world linking of rl and SL selves would be acceptable…?

Or should I simply lay off the cheese late at night?

Linden Lab seem hell bent on making XStreet as merchant-unfriendly as possible.

First we had the Freebie and listing commission debacle. Yes, freebies can be a nuisance – but no more so that low-priced goods, and freebies all too frequently serve a constructive purpose. However, the issue here was not so much the road LL decided to take in order to “handle” freebies and “reduce clutter” on Xstreet, but in the fact that any attempts to discuss the matter was met with a flat-out “no” from the likes of Pink and Colossus Linden (both going so far as to warn people attending Commerce Office hours that attempts to raise the issue of listing fees, etc., could lead to people being ejected from said meetings…).

Then we started having issues around customer service – this is one among many complaints.

Most recently, we had the stunning situation where ripped content (animations) not only got to the number 1 sales ranking on XStreet – but LL allowed the goods to stay on sale for several days (including a weekend), despite protests.

None of the above are liable to inspire trust or confidence.

Now it seems as if one of the most useful tools at a merchant’s disposal has gone: the ability to send your own items as gifts.

Why was this useful? Simply because it presented a merchant with the ability to deal with customer issues quickly and easily when unable to get in-world to handle problems. Customer failed to receive an item purchased via an in-world vendor? Send it to them via XSL. Customer has problems with an item received? Send them a replacement via XSL….

And now the function is gone. What is more, it has gone without any warning or discussion.

Surely LL cannot be so desperate for income they begrudge merchants occasionally slipping an item out of XSL that avoids the commission it would otherwise have earned LL had it been purchased?

A jira has been started to get the function restored. Merchants and customers should vote for this. LL should consider it carefully and ensure the function is returned.

Either that, or face the fact that this move give us all yet another reason to simply drop XSL altogether in favour of Metaverse Exxhange, Apez, Slapt.Me and the rest.