The auction system leverages Second Life Place Pages as the medium for presenting land for auction and for placing bids, together with a new “cover page” listing available parcels up for auction, which can be found at https://places.secondlife.com/auctions.
If you are not familiar with Place Pages, you can find out about them via my Place Pages tutorial. This will be updated to include the relevant information on setting a parcel for auction in the near future, once the service has been confirmed as being “live”. In the meantime, additional details on Mainland auctions can be found in the Second Life Knowledge base as follows:
Fran Swenson with her avatar (in the blue gown) Fran Seranade, and her daughter’s avatar, Barbi Alchemi (image courtesy of image courtesy of San Diego Union-Tribune / Bill Wechter
In 2013, I was able to write about the extraordinary Fran Swenson – Fran Seranade in Second Life – a Parkinson’s Disease sufferer who at the time had seen – and continued to see – something of an overall improvement in her condition, which she attributed to Second Life.
Fran’s story, which was reported in the likes of the San Diego Union-Tribune and Wired and came to be the focus of and one of the earliest editions of The Drax Files World Makers, was the trigger-point for her daughter, Barbara, establishing Creations for Parkinson’s in Second Life, designed to raise money for research into the disease and for a possible cure by supported the work of The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and providing a meeting place for those stricken by the illness and those seeking a sense of community and support. Fran’s response to her condition and Second Life was also the subject of study by Donna Z. Davis (Tredi Felisimo in SL) and Tom Boellstorff (Tom Bukowski in SL).
The avatar represents who I really feel inside. When I look at my avatar, I feel like I’m looking at myself … I’m dancing now and I can run, hop, jump and have fun. I’m not just in my apartment, I have the whole world now. It’s thrilling!
– Fran Swenson (Fran Seranade in SL) on the joy and
freedom Second Life gave her
I met Fran, and her daughter Barbara, on a number of occasions in Second Life in 2013 and 2014, although sadly, I allowed contact with them both to drift over the years since. Throughout those meetings, I was always stunned by Fran’s energy; she always exuded happiness and a sense of fun that was infectious. It is therefore with enormous regret – and following word sent by Draxtor Despres – that Fran sadly passed away at the age of 92 on March 3rd. With her passing, a genuine, warm and caring light has gone from Second Life and we have lost a true pioneer.
Fran was an earth angel whose extraordinary love touched all who met her. From her earliest days, it was her lifelong mission to help people wherever she saw a need. Mom always said, “Love is unlimited. The more you give, the more love there is to give.”
– Fran’s daughter, Barbara Richards (Barbi Alchemi in SL),
remembering her mother
An in-world memorial for Fran is being planned, but will understandably take time to arrange – I hope to help spread the word for all who may wish to attend once the date and time have been confirmed. If you would like to make a physical world donation in Fran’s names to help further the work of The Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, please use the link below, where you will also find a memorial to her.
To Barbara (Barbi Alchemi in Second Life) her brother (AlmostThere in SL) and their family, to all who knew Fran as a friend and an active members of the Creation’s community, I extended my condolences at this time – as I’m sure all who knew Fran and her story do as well.
The Pen – subject of Linden Lab’s new video travelogue series
On Wednesday, March 6th, 2019, Linden Lab launched another new video series: Second Life Destinations, highlighting locations across the grid that residents might like to visit. The series is intended to be issued on a weekly basis and the Lab notes:
In this series, we’ll highlight different places focusing in on the beauty and imaginative possibilities in no more than 60-90 seconds so that you can get a quick peek at the creations and communities inside each virtual space. At times we may even speak to creators of theses spaces so they can shed some light on what inspired them. Look for each new episode on our blog and social media channels, including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
For the first in the series, the Lab visit The Pen, Bay City’s beatnik hang-out operated by Marianne McCann, home to a range of activities include Marianne’s regular “Expresso Yourself” events, where the microphone is opened to visitors to express themselves in words (prose or poetry) or song on the first Tuesday of the month between 18:00 and 20:00 SLT.
The Pen was recently the venue for Marianne’s 13th rezday celebrations, and these are the focus of the video, which includes the voice of singer Grace MacDonnogh, a long-time friend who has a wonderfully mellow way with music and lyrics.
As a seasoned SL travel writer (and videographer when my PC decides to behave itself), I admit to finding myself caught between two conflicting feelings regarding this new series. On the one hand, there are a lot of people like me in the blogging community: we may not all focus on blogging destinations (although equally, some do), but considerable effort goes into writing-up places and taking photos / producing videos. Give all that, a series like this might be felt as coming a little close to treading on toes. On the other hand, the series is intended to be limited to 60-90 seconds, and as such it shouldn’t really impact on the work done by videographers and bloggers.
Nevertheless, it’ll be interesting to see how the series develops. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with the first, which demonstrates the potential innocuousness of the series.
Update: There is still time to sign the petition / wrte to MEPs, the Parliamentary vote on the Directive is now set for between March 25th and March 29th, 2019.
There has been a lot written over the last few months about the upcoming European Union Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. It’s a controversial topic. Within it, the Directive is an attempt to reshape EU copyright law for the internet age, and the relationship between copyright holders and on-line platforms.
In short, the core issues with the Directive – which has been under consideration by the EU for the last two years – come in three of its key elements, or Articles:
Article 11, (colloquially referred to as “the link tax”) which could severely restrict how we can share links, and information found on European on-line sites.
Article 13 (the so-called “meme tax”, although its scope is far greater), which has drawn the heaviest criticism, and is the Article I’m focusing on here.
Driven largely out of the wants and needs of big media rights holding corporations concerns about re-use of the media (be it music, film, television, whatever), Article 13 sees a fundamental shift in rights management on the Internet. Whereas currently, the onus is on the rights holders to content to protect their rights, Article 13 seeks to make content platforms responsible for ensuring anything uploaded to their services is not in violation of any IP / copyright – or face severe financial penalties.
Aimed at the likes of Google (including YouTube), Facebook and the like, Article 13 could fundamentally impact any platform playing host to user-generated content (UGC), including Second Life, Sansar and other virtual worlds.
Under the Article, all such services are expected to pro-actively prevent any content that might violate the Directive from being uploaded. They are to do so through the use of “proportionate content recognition technologies” – that is, automated content filtering, designed to block anything that might by in violation of copyright. However, such systems a) may not be affordable to those required to implement them, and b) don’t actually work as advertised (as is the case with Google’s multi-million-dollar ContentID system, which has been shown to be far from successful).
Flaws contained within Articles 3, 11, and 13 have generated global concern from politicians across Europe, government organisations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, businesses Internet experts such as America’s Cory Doctorow and the UK’s Glyn Moody and more.
Tim Burners-Lee, the father of the World Wide Web has been a critic of the proposed new EU Copyright Directive
Even German politician Julia Rada, who in 2014 was appointed rapporteur of the EU’s Parliament’s review of the 2001 Copyright Directive, and whose initial report Cory Doctorow described as “amazingly sensible”, has become a fierce critic of the new Directive.
However, such concerns – and suggestions for improvements to the Directive – have been largely brushed aside by the Directive’s chief proponents, the right-of-centre EPP, which has been vitriolic in its response to public concerns, dismissing them as the actions of “bots”, etc. Despite this, efforts to get the Directive reformed did prevent it being passed in votes held during 2018, and for a time at the end of the year, it appeared that saner heads would prevail, and both Article 11 and Article 13 would be revised.
Unfortunately, this has proved not to be the case. Due to the way in which the EU works, a final log-jam in the wording was cleared at the start of February 2019 when France and Germany – two nations strongly in favour of the Article 13 – reached an agreement. This leaves Articles 3, 11 and 13 fully retained, with Article 13 somewhat worse than previously worded, as Julia Reda explained:
In the Franco-German deal [PDF] … Upload filters must be installed by everyone except those services which fit all three of the following extremely narrow criteria:
Available to the public for less than 3 years [and]
Annual turnover below €10 million [and]
Fewer than 5 million unique monthly visitors.
Countless apps and sites that do not meet all these criteria would need to install upload filters, burdening their users and operators, even when copyright infringement is not at all currently a problem for them.
The potential implications of this are huge – and not just for EU-based services. Any service hosting content potentially covered by the Directive is liable to face significant issues, both in terms of trying to implement suitable content filtering and in potential penalties if they are considered to be in breach of copyright. Again, as Julia notes:
Even the smallest and newest platforms, which do meet all three criteria, must still demonstrate they have undertaken “best efforts” to obtain licenses from rights holders such as record labels, book publishers and stock photo databases for anything their users might possibly post or upload – an impossible task.
Nor does it end there. There are significant ambiguities in Article 13 that potentially make the upload of content from EU nations problematic for platforms / hosting services:
What happens to content before a platform receives notice from a rights holder over its use?
How does a platform provider go about seeking this information?
The role of rights holders in producing the required information needed by content platforms to identify their content.
The kind of content that will require a license.
Whether or not there are added legal responsibilities for creators.
There is no “fair use” provisioning (although the concept of “fair use” has never actually been enshrined in any EU law).
The first two bullet points above could result in content having to be blocked simply on the basis that it might be in violation of IP or copyright, while the third essentially puts all the cards in the hands of rights holders – theoretically a good thing, but one fraught with even greater potential for misuse by those rights holders that enjoy significant power.
The issue of the kind of content that will require a license, combined with the first two bullet points above it is particularly problematic where something like SL is concerned. What happens, for example to all the in-world models based on European vehicle, boat and aircraft designs? And what about images uploaded as textures or uploaded audio files, the playing of videos in-world? Such questions barely scratch at the surface of things.
Such are the remaining concerns that already, five EU nations have publicly opposed the current version of the Directive – the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Poland, Italy, and Finland.
The end-result on copyright is a step back for the digital single market. It [the EU Copyright Directive] fails to strike a balance between protecting right holders and the interests of individual citizens. This is why the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Poland, Italy and Finland don’t support the final package.
One of the final phases of this process is a vote on the current wording of the Directive by all 751 MEPs. This had originally been scheduled for March 23rd, 2019. However, in a cynical move aimed at preventing objections from the public being made and considered by MEPs, the EPP has pushed for the vote to be brought forward to March 12th.
This is why it is now vital for anyone in the EU concerned about the potential impact of Article 13 (and the Directive as a whole) to make your feelings known to your MEPs and to the European Parliament. there are two key ways to do this:
By visiting https://saveyourinternet.eu/act/ and using it to e-mail those MEPs from your country who have been in favour of, or have no opinion on, the Directive as it stands.
Because of the accusations that e-mails being received by MEPs voicing concern for about the Directive, it is very important you do not simply cut / paste text into e-mails “as is”, but you take the time to write a personal letter. However:
Glyn Moody’s has provided a blog post which might help in formulating your own blog post.
My own e-mail (sent earlier this year) can be found here – again, please do not simply cut and paste, but use it as a potential guideline for your own e-mail.
When I last spoke to Linden Lab on the subject, they indicated that they were following the progress of the Directive and would review matters once the Directive was approaching legal status. Those of us in the EU, can – and noted – make our voices heard; so please do make sure you take the time before March 12th to e-sign the petition, locate your country’s MEPs and send an e-mail.
Update, March 26th: user-to-user auctions are now live.
Update: Well, an Oopsie from me. Seems the user-to-user Mainland auctions aren’t *quite* live, but still in a testing phase. As such, this article has been revised.
The “new” auction system leverages Second Life Place Pages as the medium for presenting land for auction and for placing bids, together with a new “cover page” listing available parcels up for auction. which can be found at https://places.secondlife.com/auctions. At the time the system launched, it was restricted to land being auctioned by Linden Lab, with the promise (at that time) that Mainland land holders would be able to start adding their own parcels “soon”.
“Soon” took a step closer to becoming an reality on Tuesday, February 26th, when a new Knowledge Base article appeared, entitled Creating Your Own Auctions. It is designed to walk Mainland land holders through how to set a parcel for auction. According to Alexa Linden, who contacted me on the matter, the system is still in testing, but will likely be ready t go in the very near future.
The Knowledge Base article outlines a number of requirements for those wishing to auction their Mainland parcels:
The parcel must be owned by an individual resident; group owned parcels cannot be auctioned.
Auctions can only be created by the parcel owner, and the owner must have a verified email address.
Parcels for auction must be set for auction via their associated Place Page.
There is a 15% commission payable to Linden Lab on all successfully concluded auctions.
When you create the auction, the ownership of the parcel is transferred to a temporary holding account named AuctionServices Linden.
You will no longer be listed as the owner and will not be able to edit, cut, sell, or change the parcel in any way once you create the auction.
If you cancel the auction, or if the auction completes without any bids, then the ownership of the parcel returns to you.
Note: it is not clear what happens to any payable tier during this time, but I presume it remains payable until such time as the auction concludes.
Mainland auctions for user-to-user auctions are now very close to being launched
If you are not familiar with Place Pages, you can find out about them via my Place Pages tutorial. This will be updated to include the relevant information on setting a parcel for auction in the near future, once the service has been confirmed as being “live”. In the meantime, additional details on Mainland auctions can be found in the Second Life Knowledge base as follows:
The eight January 2019 start avatars (l to r): Gretchen, Monique, Trixie, Bitsy, Ashton, Leonard, Greg, Monty. Credit: Linden lab
As noted in an official blog post, Linden Lab has issued another set of new Starter avatars.
The eight new avatars are all of the “classic” type, using the basic Second Life system mesh, rather than dedicated mesh body parts (although they have mesh clothing items). Between them, they offer a mix of more “everyday” types – as the official blog post again notes, previous starter avatars heavy leaned more towards the fantasy side of things.
The eight characters are (in the order they appear in the Avatar Picker):
Bitsy (complexity 15,813) and Ashton (17,268): two twenty-somethings(?) with an up-and-coming urban air and style, complete with pet dogs.
Gretchen (complexity 29,332) and Leonard (10,656): two older characters in more formal wear.
Monty (complexity 19,016) and Trixie (14,732): two younger avatars with the look of teens or early twenties, Monty coming with an electric guitar.
Greg (complexity 10,733) and Monique (9,226): two possible ’70s throwbacks.
(Complexity figures include all attachments.)
All are, as per the Lab’s usual procedure, supplied with No Mod elements (although the shapes are Modify). Surprisingly, given recent additions to the starter avatars, no discernible AO are provided (although some have poses that are activated on wearing them), with Gretchen being the notable exception to this approach. This lack of AO leaves the avatars with the horrendous Duck Walk.
I also admit to being a little confused by the promo picture used for the avatars: it shows Ashton with his dog on a leash, but so far as I could tell, the only option supplied with the avatar is a “carry” version of the dog.
The January 2019 new starter avatars are the default choice on the Second Life sign-up page
As starter avatars, these new looks are directly available to new users accessing the Second Life sign-up page on the web. Those already in-world can take them for a spin from the Me (/ Avatar) menu, and then selecting Choose Avatar. This will bring up the avatar picker (shown expanded, below), which will automatically default to the eight new avatar styles, then simply pick on the one you want to try.
The eight January 2019 “classic” starter avatars in the viewer’s Avatar Picker
Selecting an avatar will see it replace your current look (so if it’s a new look you’ve put together and haven’t saved – be sure to do so first!), and add the avatar to your Clothing folder. Or, if you prefer, you can open Inventory and navigate to Library > Clothing > Initial Outfits > then right-click on the relevant folder name and select Replace Current Outfit. This will also cause the look to be worn and copied to your own Clothing folder.
Having a broad choice of starter avatars is a good thing; I’m just a little surprised these come largely sans an AO; in this respect they seem a little at odds to previous classic and mesh starter avatar updates.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 