A Roleplay Steampunk Sim Ideal For Machinima Making

Honour Mcmillan blogs about NeoVictoria, an SL steampunk sim operating with a great premise: It's a dark roleplay sim that encourages machinima makers to shoot footage there (as long as you ask permission of any roleplayers you include in the shots.) Think of it like shooting movies in a city where the entire population is improvising -- and the city dwellers are heavily armed and possibly a touch kinky. Read more about it here and click here for a direct teleport to NeoVictoria.

Comments

[Asil Ares]

I'm the owner of NeoVictoria. Thanks for the mention! One small correction: folks who want to shoot machinima in NeoVictoria need to secure permission from me first. No approval is necessary for photos. [We are a private estate, not on the mainland.] Here's a link to the online press release, for folks who want to learn more about the project: http://www.houseofasils.com/neovictoria.html

[anotherdeadavatar]

Permission? If you don't require it for photos, it's not required for machinima. Control freak much? 0_0

[Asil Ares]

@ anotherdeadavatar. Your understanding of the Second Life ToS is incorrect. Linden Labs governs media taken on mainland differently that is does on private estates.

Snapshots
On private islands and homestead properties check the covenant and if it says nothing you have tacit permission to take snapshops. On mainland, there isn't a covenant in the land menu and you are automatically granted permission to take snapshots.

Machinima
On private islands and homestead properties check the covenant and if it says nothing you must still secure permission from the land owner. On mainland (where this is no covenant) you also need permission from the land owner. [The land owner can be found in the “General” tab under “About Land.”]

For greater detail, read the Lab's official policy, here's the URL: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Snapshot_and_machinima_policy

[Jjccc]

I am well known for making crappy videos in second life, if i ask permission to film at your place and dont get, but still film there would you take me to court for disobeying your rules. I am interested because i want to see the tos policy on machinima in sl clarified in no uncertain terms what we can and can not do. Because there are 30,000 sims in sl and some times i feel like i have to bring a lawyer along just to film at a sim some times. From my understanding of the way the internets work if you dont want any one to film in your sim, you should block access to it stop me and everyone else gaining access to it. But you want people to come to your sim and take photos which is ok but it sounds to me like your all take and no give. hey i dont want to start a war with your sim over this as im just venting so dont take it the wrong way

[Asil Ares]

@ jjccc. I don’t think you make crappy videos; I’ve watched a bunch over the years in the SL M.A.G. [http://slmachinimaarts.ning.com] and many are stunning, inventive and clever. What I have noticed is you like to “push the envelope” when it comes to theme and content. ;-)

Linden Labs recognizes people have the right to their intellectual property; the tools they provide to create content (prims, scripts, textures) have their use-rights determined by the resident-creator. They also understand people’s need for privacy and have built access tools into ‘land’ management, so ‘land owners’ can exclude whole classes of people (up to and including everyone but themselves). And, they are one of the few platforms to grant the machinimatographer copyright to what they shoot. In other words, you can take what you shoot and use it in commercial products; you can sublicense it and transfer it. That makes Second Life one of the few ‘game’ platforms which can actually be used by the commercial artist to make a saleable video.

Second Life’s snapshot and machinima policy builds on these themes of respect for intellectual property and privacy by insisting photographers and machinimatographers receive permission from the ‘land owner’ (and principal avatars) prior to capturing images. Some ‘land owners’ will use the land covenant to communicate their desires, but if there is no covenant then the burden falls on the person wanting access to secure approval. This may seem like an unfair burden, however, the people who pay Linden Labs for the right to ‘own land’ in Second Life often expend thousands of real-life dollars/euros/pounds and hundreds of hours to create the environments that you, as the photographer or machinimatographer, want to capitalize on for your own work.

NeoVictoria is a community first. We are storytellers, roleplayers, combat-enthusiasts, costume and set designers, film-makers, writers, scripters and graphic artists, all working together to tell a collective story. When someone makes machinima in NeoVictoria, they are building on, and being supported by, the talents of hundreds of people. You write that we are “all take and no give” because we invoke the right to decide in advance how our community resources may be used. Jjccc, do you really believe people don’t have the right to say “no”?

Before I built NeoVictoria, I did a lot of shooting in other people’s simulations, so I understand the frustration of having to track down the land owner and dialog about the shoot. That said, I found a well-crafted IM and NC which explained the project was the best introduction. Using this approach, of the dozens of SIMs I've shot in, I've only been ignored twice and rejected once.

[spyvpsy]

You do not make crappy machinima Jjccc, but there are some points in some of your work Entirely That I do not agree just for the sake of Principles (and Entirely this is related to the music and used it permission to use behind it, Even When I know and I am sure That you do not use for commercial means).
The rights of transmission / broadcast goes so much in RL as in SL (as we know, in some Aspects). Asil have any reason to speak of the example "permission" is a work based upon the RP / etc storytellers. But that's an assumption on the contents of the SL, after all what is Within this context of the broadcast? When any one of us is to use the viewer, and even in similar forms SIM after you're not doing the broadcast? (Thousand and let people watch, without permission?). I've watched some other behavior similar to that.
and the flood of questions raised about all this, not directly Mentioned, but Also a part of the concern. Despites All These issues, Legal Aspects to the commercial use of machinima for practical purposes with the full permission is validated in a court When there is conflict of interest? (After interest Happened, happen and always happen). That question is though one year LL prized not only to answer "ask your lawyer," oblivious to them (in That Little pea head) That we are talking about across borders Interests and Laws of each country. And to dive deeper in the mud to this crap machinima These Days is seen as a spot for the Lands, (how many exhibitions, contests, etc..) To send the stream of new applications for machinima "the knowledge (content in the They Want basic rule). "Of course it is Their right, but we're on our right to say enough is enough (!) We are not puppets at the mercy of the beggars and will (I do not want to offensive) but rather want more the production of machinima and Its creation of free content by machinimator it (so many requests) but in the meeting of what each one Wants to work at the (in this case your machinima).

The broadcast sense for example? Never read or heard someone talk about the streams, video (sound) radio, audio (deejay). Do we have the right to do it? Of course no one ask permission to stream the radio (even if in the main page if the link hidden (because They Do not Want to share a broadcast link "?"). Or DJ That streams to a number of people (reproduce the music, theme, content to all viewer connected to the SIM). I am not enthusiastic about Laws, just know a tiny part of them (often given the complexity of coherence in some particular aspects). For example;
Everyone that login in a particular SIM will see your content, what you are streaming, what you are typing on public chat (I am discussing more the sense of the broadcast than the SL TOS )..... On the other hand it is Also Necessary even though it is contradictory to preserve or respect the rights of others (taking into account, more severe cases, the contents Can be misused for commercial purposes, without knowledge of the owners created content, right in? ). Perhaps the best choice and option (even by what we have Been talking in group mamachinima), will each create Their content in GRID and film, of course'd have to be the "genius" Both in construction and in shooting / editing, Machinima isn't a way to someones will but rather a way to the producer express himself, except in the real time capture (when machinimator don't have full control at all what is happening).