The next in the Lab’s in-world Town Hall series, featuring Director of Product, Grumpity Linden, Technical Director Oz Linden, and Senior Director of Product Operations, Patch Linden, will take place on Thursday, November 15th, 2018 at 10:00 SLT (18:00 GMT / 19:00 CET). The event will take place at the Town Hall meeting regions, with the landing point URLs as follows:
Selected questions from the Town Hall meeting forum thread (now closed) will be put to Grumpity, Patch and Oz during the session, and there may be an opportunity to ask questions from the audience, if time permits.
All things being equal, I hope to have a summary of the session up after the event, which will be similar in nature to my summaries of 2018 Town Hall meeting – see here for the September Town Hall with Ebbe, as an example.
There are always certain risks involved in on-line living. With Second Life, we’ve all likely seen or heard of various scams and attempts to either data-scrape or gain people’s account details through phishing and other means.
Another area of risk is using viewers from untrusted sources, making a careful checking of linking to TPV sites mandatory (e.g. by checking them through the Third Party Viewer Directory page on the SL wiki) – particularly when they appear in note cards or pop-up in group chat sessions, and so on.
I raise this because Firestorm has been the subject of fake accounts posting links to a completely fake Firestorm viewer website.
Group and individual IMs have been circulating from fake “Firestorm” accounts, pointing to a fake Firestorm website & viewer downloads – with the Windows download link infected
The website – note the addresses arrowed above – is a scam site that is particularly nasty, as the Windows download link is infected – see virustotal.com – and so should not be used.
For clarity, Firestorm’s actual web address is: http://www.firestormviewer.org/ – no “pro” or anything else in the URL. Furthermore, outside of their own support and test groups, Firestorm do not spam other groups or individuals with links for downloading their viewer.
Currently, the Firestorm team is trying to get the false site taken down, and Linden Lab are working with them to ban the fake accounts.
However, if you do receive an IM similar to the one shown above, fielding fake website URLs, or see a similar message in a Group IM or notice, please don’t simply dismiss it. Linden Lab have requested those in receipt on such messages / notices should file an Abuse Report.
When filing a report, make sure you take a screen shot showing the message / notice displayed in your viewer – the abuse report screen shot feature will automatically capture open IM windows, etc. Reports can be filed under the Harassment category.
If you need assistance with raising an Abuse Report, please refer to my Abuse Reports tutorial, written with the assistance of Linden Lab’s Governance team.
I’m “borrowing” the title of this article from a UWA blog post by Jay Jay Jegathesan (Jayjay Zifanwe in Second Life), who also e-mailed me about the forthcoming Eugene International Film Festival and the special place Second Life machinima has within it.
In short, Metaphor, a film directed by Basile Vignes and produced by Jay Jay, has won the Best Animated Short Film at the festival, in a competition that included the internationally acclaimed animated short iRony, which has already won 120 awards world-wide, and has been short-listed for 5 Academy Award Qualifying festivals.
It is believed that no other Second Life machinima has previously won the top prize in open competition against ‘conventional’ animated short films from across the spectrum. As the winning Animated Short Film, Meatphor will be shown at the festival, which takes place over the weekend of the 9th through 11th November, 2018, in Eugene, Oregon, USA, along with all the other selected entries.
Commenting on the announcement that his film had won the award, Basile stated:
I am very proud and honoured that Metaphor won this award for best animation. This in competition with a selection of films each of which could have had the first prize. A big thank you to the jury who chose my film and congratulations for your excellent movie Festival.
Metaphor excerpt
The film, which Jay Jay and Basile bill as French-Australian co-production although Basile is currently based in India, is a story about identity – the faces we wear in life, both public and private, with the synopsis stating:
The protagonist in this film, uses the avatar and handle ‘Fallen God’ when accessing social media and virtual worlds. In his virtual journeys, he comes across the mysterious, beautiful and enchanting ‘Encre’. Will this encounter turn into a relationship touched by the spark of the infinite? This animated French-Australian film, based on true events that happened 2017 explores the many masks we wear along with the question of identity and relationships in the modern world in all its shapes and forms.
Also responding to the award, Jay Jay paid tribute to Basile’s work, noting:
Over the years as Festival Director for numerous UWA machinima film challenges, Basile proved to be among the finest exponents of this genre, along with his chief animator, Tutsy Navarathna, and when the thought came to me to try to take Second Life machinima across the globe on the international film festival circuit, I could think of no one better to partner with on this endeavour.
This is the very first win for Metaphor, and I do hope that it’s not the last. I also look forward to the film’s Australian premiere next month at the Perfect Light Film Festival in Broken Hill, New South Wales.
Congratulations to Basile, Jay Jay and all involved in the project on winning this award.
I’d also like to point out that iRony, mentioned above, is in fact an animated short by Jay Jay’s son, Radheya Jegatheva (it is also narrated by Jay Jay). Radheya is fast emerging as a talented film-maker, and I’ve been fortunate to cover some of his work previously in these pages (see here and here for more). This being the case, I’d also like to pass on congratulations to him on also having iRony accepted by the Eugene International Film Festival and featured as one of its selected films, and on his film having already achieved so much internationally.
On November 6th, 2018, Linden Lab issued a statement on their stance on protecting the rights of creators producing content for use on the Second Life platform.
It would seem the statement has been issued as a result over the ongoing debate around the use of UV Maps in mesh heads, following one designer issuing DMCA notices against a number of competing creators – although it is obviously intended to outline Linden Lab’s position on content protection and their process of handling matters as a whole.
To this end, and rather than obfuscate with subjective commentary here, I’m including the entire text of the blog post below, for ease of reference.
At Linden Lab we appreciate and support the creativity of our community – a community based on the very idea that the only limit to your creativity is your imagination. That is why we feel it is important to clarify our stance on and process for the protection of community-created content. Our goal is to nurture the overall creative and competitive ecosystem that enables each member of our community to prosper — even when that means making difficult determinations in disputes between our Creators.
While we cannot comment publicly with a definitive analysis of any one case or dispute, we want to reassure our community that we closely consider all perspectives (and applicable law) before arriving at any dispute determination. When there is disagreement in our community over the integrity of a creation, we strive to be fair in our review of the facts. In particular, we do not take actions for or against any Creator lightly as we know that our Creator community is passionate about and protective of their work.
So, why make this statement now?
Due to the size of the Second Life economy and its user base, there will always be Creator conflicts and complaints under review. Recently, there’s been some debate about one of the more esoteric aspects of content creation, which impacts many in our community. For example, one high-profile complaint under review deals with a fundamental question about whether UV mapping can be considered proprietary and protect-able or part of the public domain.
Linden Lab recognizes that there are passionate arguments to be made on both sides of this and similar discussions. However, the determining factors are quite nuanced and not easily assessed without a closer review of the facts in the context of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (or DMCA).
Ultimately, Linden Lab will always comply with the DMCA process, and continue to determine the validity of each DMCA notice (and any counter-notice) on a case-by-case basis. That is precisely why we have a team dedicated to reviewing all properly submitted IP claims and determining the fairest outcome within the guidelines of the policies and laws governing the process, which is described in the Intellectual Property Infringement Notification Policy.
We are ever-amazed by the ways this community utilizes the Second Life platform for creativity. Keep innovating – you make Second Life even better as we roll out new features and tools to create with — and keep supporting your fellow Creators!
Linden Lab will once again be hosting an in-world shopping event over the holiday period, and are inviting applications from merchants
Since 2017’s SL14B celebrations, seasonal shopping events hosted by the Lab have become something of a popular thing in Second Life, with events being held over the winter holiday period in 2017, and earlier in 2018.
Popular among creators and shoppers alike, these events so no sign of stopping, and on Tuesday, November 6th, the Lab blogged about the winter / Christmas 2018 event, with a call to merchants who may wish to apply to be a part of it.
We realize many of us are still recovering from the Halloween holiday, but the truth is – the rest of the year will creep upon us like the creepiest of Halloween creatures. Winter is coming…and that means it’s time for cheerful greetings, the spirit of giving, and lots of festive music!
Like last year, we’re winding up for a winter in-world shopping event – and we’re now looking for Merchants who would like to participate!
– Xiola Linden, blogging on the winter shopping event
The shopping events take place across a multi-region environment, offering plenty of space for merchants and shoppers alike
The winter 2018 event will run from Monday, December 17th, 2018 through to Tuesday, January 4th, 2019, inclusive, with Xiola further noting:
This event … is an opportunity to bring a ton of new customers to your brand, offer some of you best items, and celebrate the holiday season in a huge shopping event across several Regions.
We are looking for merchants willing to offer a discount on some of their items (think after Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday deals!) and provide a small non-exclusive gift to holiday shoppers.
Those merchants and designers interested in participating in the event are invited to complete the application form (embedded below, and also available here, for those preferring the direct link). Note that submissions must be made no later that Tuesday, November 27th, 2018, with the cut-off for applications at 00:01 SLT on Wednesday, November 28th.
Graph showing “normal” log-ins over the course of a day compared with Sunday, October 28th. Credit: April Linden
In my week #44/1 User Group update, I noted that April Linden had indicated the issues Second Life users experienced with the platform on Sunday, October 28th through Monday October 29th, 2018 were the result of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack.
April has now issued a blog post expanding on her original forum comments, with the full text of her post reading:
Hello amazing Residents of Second Life!
A few days ago (on Sunday, October 28th, 2018) we had a really rough day on the grid. For a few hours it was nearly impossible to be connected to Second Life at all, and this repeated several times during the day.
The reason this happened is that Second Life was being DDoSed.
Attacks of this type are pretty common. We’re able to handle nearly all of them without any Resident-visible impact to the grid, but the attacks on Sunday were particularly severe. The folks who were on call this weekend did their best to keep the grid stable during this time, and I’m grateful they did.
Sunday is our busiest day in Second Life each week, and we know there’s lot of events folks plan during it. We’re sorry those plans got interrupted. Like most of y’all, I too have an active life as a Resident, and my group had to work around the downtime as well. It was super frustrating.
As always, the place to stay informed of what’s going on is the Second Life Grid Status Blog. We do our best to keep it updated during periods of trouble on the grid.
Thanks for listening. I’ll see you in-world!
April Linden Second Life Operations Team Lead
Shug Maitland kept an eye on the ups and downs of log-ins during the DDOS attack via https://etitsup.com/slstats/ through Sunday, October 28th, 2018 and into the early hours of Monday, October 29th, sending me the above screen capture
There not a lot more that can be added – DDOS attacks are an unfortunate fact of life, and while the Lab has learned to try to deal with them without impacting the normal flow of activities for Second Life users, it’s also unfortunate that at time this cannot always be the case.
Thanks once again to April for the update on the situation.
Just a quick reminder.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 