On Monday November 11th, Linden Lab issued a Commerce blog post indicating that there were changing the requirements which much be met in order to sell goods via the Second Life Marketplace.
The move, clearly aimed at preventing the ease with which suspect accounts can create a Marketplace presence and start selling goods which may have been ripped from elsewhere was announced thus:
To increase security for Merchants and shoppers alike, all new Second Life Marketplace Merchant accounts will be required to enter payment information on file (PIOF). If you would like to check your account to see if this requirement has been met, please see the Mesh Upload Status page.
Only newly created accounts will be required to meet this requirement at this time, and existing Merchant accounts will not be affected. However, we strongly recommend that all merchants complete the steps necessary to meet this new requirement.
Unfortunately, the announcement was immediately followed by confusion and negative feedback, largely as a result of the system not appearing to work as advertised, and being relatively easy to circumvent.
I contacted Peter Gray, the Lab’s Director of Global Communications about the announcement and confusion, and received the following reply:
Hi Inara,
Thanks for your email. We’ll be adding the below to the blog post on this topic momentarily:
Thanks to reports from Merchants, we have discovered a bug in the system that determines whether an account has payment info on file. We are working now to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and expect to release a fix in the next couple of weeks.
In addition, we have had some questions about the 5-day age requirement for accounts trying to become Merchant accounts. This requirement is not new, and there are no current plans to change it.
best,
Peter
This update has now been appended to the original blog post, and will hopefully help alleviate immdediate concerns, although it may also lead to further questions as to why the update was not more thoroughly tested.
Update, November 26th 2013: The amount payable for virtual land held by claimants meeting the revised criteria of the settlement agreement is L$2 per square metre of land held held. The amount payable for inventory held by claimants meeting the revised criteria of the settlement agreement is $15 USD per account. Claimants may additionally be able to forego the payment if they wish, and attempt to sell their items via the SL Marketplace.
In June I reported on an out-of-court settlement reached between Linden Lab and a number of SL residents in the matter of a dispute over virtual Lab ownership.
At the time it broke, the Evans et al lawsuit against Linden Lab has strong echoes of the infamous Bragg vs. Linden Lab situation of 2007. The action was brought by the plaintiffs after having their accounts terminated and their assets (land, content, Linden dollars) seized, as was the case with Bragg. What’s more, the plaintiffs were represented by Jason Archinaco, who had represented Marc Bragg back in 2007. In a final twist of fate, the matter was initially set to be heard by Judge Eduardo Robreno, who presided over the Bragg case.
As it turned out, the matter eventually came before Magistrate Judge Donna M. Ryu. In November 2012, she published findings on the case, which granted Subclass A of the motion filed by Archinaco on behalf of the plaintiffs whilst also denying the Main Class of the action.
Judge Donna M. Ryu
As a result of this, an initial settlement agreement was executed by the two parties in May 2013. At the time, it appeared as if a settlement amounting to some $172,000 had been agreed, which would potentially be paid out to some 57,000 users who met the criteria of Subclass A, and that the payout would be made in Linden dollars.
However, according to a report published by Top Class Actions on Sunday November 3rd, following a request by Judge Ryu, the initial settlement agreement between Linden Lab and the plaintiffs passed through a series of revisions prior to the Judge granting preliminary approval to it on October 25th, 2013. Under this revised settlement agreement, the Class Members include:
All persons whose assets, including virtual items, virtual land, and/or currency in lindens and/or U.S. dollars, have been deliberately and intentionally converted by Defendant Linden’s suspension or closure of their Second Life accounts on or after April 16th, 2008.
This is slightly different to Judge Ryu’s original findings on the Subclass, which carried no limiting date when published.
Under the revised terms, Linden Lab has agreed to return up to 100 percent of the U.S. dollar balances in the Class Members’ accounts to their PayPal accounts within 10 days of establishing the validity of the claim, and to also return up to 100 percent of the balance of linden dollars by converting them to U.S. dollars and will waive all commissions on the currency exchange. Finally, Linden Lab has also agreed to pay for virtual property and virtual items once the validity of each claim is determined.
Precisely what this means in terms of overall payout is unclear. The next step in the process is for the Class Administrator to notify Class Members of settlement by email. A hearing on the final approval of the settlement has been scheduled for February 27th, 2014.
Back at the start of the year, Simon Linden revealed he’d done some preliminary work on using Leap Motion within Second Life, allowing the former to provide some limited control of in-world avatar actions.
Now none other that our own Draxtor Despres has been trying-out the Leap Motion, and has produced a video of his experiences and some notes on using the kit with Second Life. It’s an informative piece which includes playing Loki Elliot’s The Well.
Drax uses GameWAVE to configure his leap Motion device, and the video shows he gains a reasonable level of control over avatar movement, and GameWAVE has the potential to add control beyond that demonstrated within the video.
For those into compiling their own viewers, Simon’s code is still available in the viewer-rabbit repository, but please read his notes in his original blog post.
Designing Worlds has announced a special programme to discuss the recent Linden Lab Terms of Service changes. The changes, which first appeared on August 15th, have led to concerns over the extent to which they require the granting of non-exclusive rights over content uploaded to the Lab’s services, as listed in Section 2.3 of the updated Terms.
The Design Worlds programme will be recorded on Tuesday October 29th, and will feature a special panel of representatives from across the creative sphere including artists, writers, designers, the legal profession and representatives of the United Content Creators of SL.
Not all of them may necessarily hold the same views – as Designing Worlds points out, while some see the changes almost entirely negatively, others see them as perhaps opening the door to potential new markets for their digital creations, and believe that the Terms of Service (possibly in an amended form) are the way forward. So the debate may well be interesting in the spread of views and comments.
As a part of the programme, Designing Worlds want to hear from the greater SL community. It doesn’t matter if you’re a creator within SL or a consumer (or both). If you have a question about Section 2.3 and how it may affect your business or your in-world time in general; if you’d like clarification on what it all means or how and where you might be affected; Designing Worlds invite you to e-mail them with your question, or leave it as a comment below the programme announcement on their website, and they’ll endeavour to put it before the panel.
Update October 26th: As noted in the comments, it appears that the new client may be using the OnLive streaming service / application. This has been reported in a recent comment on the forum thread linked to in the article, and also in a further thread on the subject.
Linden Lab has been issuing an e-mail to a limited group of users inviting them to sign-up to be a part of a beta test for a Second Life client for mobile devices.
The e-mail, which has been popping-up in user’s in-boxes for the last day or so, reads:
We’re looking for enthusiastic beta testers to evaluate a version of Second Life designed for mobile devices.
Sound interesting? Then simply…
Visit [link removed] to create a FREE account with <link removed to be safe>, then
Visit [link removed] to complete a 5-minute questionnaire
You have to finish both steps to be considered for the beta.
We’ll email those selected when the program begins and check in periodically over the next couple of months to get their feedback.
This is your opportunity to be among the first to try a new mobile version of Second Life, and we hope you’ll help us to make it a great product with your input.
Thank you for your consideration!
Linden Lab
Some concern had been raised on the SL forums as to whether the e-mail was genuine or not. While some were able to confirm it was indeed genuine. However, just to be clear, I contacted Peter Gray, the Lab’s Director of Global Communications, and to ask whether the Lab would be prepared to point to any specific platforms they’re looking at (iOS, Android, Windows Mobile, etc). He replied saying:
The email you’re referencing did indeed come from Linden Lab. The originating address is related to the system used to send the messages out, and there was initially an unfortunate problem with links, which has since been resolved.
It’s too soon to share details about this service that would bring Second Life to mobile devices (as you can see, we’re beginning a limited beta test), but we’re hoping that with the help of some enthusiastic beta testers, things may progress to a point where we can share more information with the community at large soon.
Do note that the beta programme is via invitation only; there is no public sign-up page available – so don’t go looking for one! Also, not all of those responding to the e-mail will necessarily be selected to participate in the programme.
Lumiya for Android has been the ground-breaking mobile client for Second Life and OpenSim since its launch at the end of 2011
Getting SL onto a mobile device has been a much demanded option. As I reported in April 2012, Comverse had a stab at getting SL onto the iPhone back in 2008, complete with graphics. Back then, it required an intervening server in place and didn’t get too much further than an initial proof-of-concept.
However, mobile devices have come some way in terms of power and capbilities, although until now all moves in the mobile arena have been left to third-parties, with text-focused clients such as LittleSight and Mobile Grid Client on the Android platform, and Pocket Metaverse on iOS, and of course the incredible Lumiya for Android with its rich graphical capabilities and which I routinely cover in these pages.
It’ll be interesting to see exactly what the Lab have put together, and the code they’ve used – home-built, or perhaps using something like Unity3D? Time will tell!
Update October 28th: Transcripts from the panel are now available on this blog.
Update: The slides for Agenda’s presentation are now of a much higher quality (with thanks to Agenda in making them available outside of SL), and there is a link to a higher-quality video now included in the Related Links.
On Saturday October 19th, a panel of legal experts – real-life attorneys – sat down at the Rose Theatre, Angel Manor in Second Life to discuss the August 15th changes to the Second Life Terms of Service, address questions on the matter and remove some of the FUD which has built-up around the subject.
In attendance were Agenda Faromet, who in real life is an attorney specialising in privacy and internet law operating out of San Francisco, Tim Faith (SL: Yoss Kamachi), a Maryland attorney with a strong background in IT and who deals with matters related to copyright, IP, trademark, etc., and Juris Amat, a Massachusetts bar member who runs the Virtual Intellectual Property Organisation (VIPO). All three are members of the SL Bar Association, based in-world at Justitia.
In all, the session lasted just under three hours, with initial presentations by Agenda Faromet and Tim Faith (Juris Amat had difficulties attending the first part of the session). Tis was followed by a question-and-answer session moderated by Maxwell Graf, with Kylie Sabra relaying Juris Amat’s replies via voice.
A video of the session is available on-line, and there will be transcripts made available through other channels. What follows here are a series of audio files, which have been broken down from the main meeting for ease of listening, together with accompanying notes.
Agenda Faromet – Presentation (14 minutes)
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Slideshow created from images courtesy of Agenda Faromet
Tim Faith (26 minutes)
Tim provides an overview of the SL Bar Association, before going on to talk about his own background. He then discusses copyright law and the concept of moral rights, both with regards to the United States and the rest of the world, providing an overview of terms such as “original work” and “exclusive rights” in terms of copyright, some of the general limitations on copyright exclusivity, how creativity itself can generate exclusive rights. He explains some of the natural and unavoidable complications of dealing with copyright in Second Life due to the nature of the platform, where almost every interaction impinges on matters of copyright, and why both Second Life could not exist if exclusive rights were absolute and why exclusive rights are limited through the likes of fair use / natural expiration.
He then covers why most licences used within Internet-based services are two-way, and need to be, and how Second Life might be said to differ from other on-line services such as Facebook, due to the ability of users to conduct user-to-user business. Finally he explains why people need to understand what their rights under copyright are, and to understand what might be being signed-away in accepting any contract; statements like “I clicked without reading” aren’t a defence – the legal system isn’t going to coddle people for not knowing their rights.
Looking at the Law (8 minutes)
Agenda and Tim discuss concerns arising from the Section 2.3 call by Linden Lab to “otherwise exploit in any manner whatsoever, all or any portion of your User Content (and derivative works thereof”, and the concerns that people have that this might allow the Lab to claim rights over such derivative works, whether or not they have been uploaded to Second Life. Includes a discussion unconscionability (procedural and substantive) and contracts of adhesion, and how they might apply to the ToS, together with and overview of changes to Californian law relating to arbitration agreements which may limit legal recourse.
Question and Answer Session
This has been broken into four parts for ease-of-listening. Questions for each part are given in text together with a times stamp for when they are asked / answered. Kylie Sabra substitutes for Juris Amat (who was unable to use voice) during the answers.
The Q&A session is split into four recordings, again for ease-of-listening. Each is given with the questions asked in the recording (and as entered into local chat during the meeting), so that readers can ascertain the order in which they’d like to listen to proceedings, should that have particular questions to which they’d like to hear answers.
Questions – Part 1 (23 minutes)
If the licence to LL stops being perpetual and irrevocable, wouldn’t that break people’s inventories and even content?
Is the ToS an attempt to place all of LL’s services under one document? Is this wise, given Google’s failure to do the same?
Has anyone talked directly to Linden Lab about its desire to expand licensure to other virtual worlds explicitly?
Does this not seem like a preparatory move prior to some kind of large-scale shift, either part of an exit strategy, a selloff or transfer of content (such as from marketplace to Desura)?
Are these current terms not technically illegal from a federal and international perspective, if for no other reason than the agreement was done under a certain amount of duress?
[11:10] Why shouldn’t creators be freaked-out by the “sell / resell”? – Includes discussion of the Visual Artists Rights Act.
[21:12] Does the new TOS apply only to items uploaded after you agreed to it? Or all your items from before also?
On Monday November 11th, Linden Lab issued a Commerce blog post indicating that there were changing the requirements which much be met in order to sell goods via the Second Life Marketplace.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 