Top Second Life Designers Express Indifference, Confusion, Annoyance Over Revised ToS - But No Plans to Leave

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

In spite of Second Life's unpopular updated TOS, which essentially gives Linden Lab rights over every piece of content within Second Life, the world of virtual fashion and design keeps marching on. There has been no mass exodus, no strike, no stalling of content; every day there are new releases and new things to spend your L$ on. It's very hard to walk away from a portion of your income (or your entire income) because of something that may never even really affect you, so none of this should comes as a surprise. Just the same, I wanted to find out how top SL designers really feel about these changes. Has it altered their perception of SL as a creative/business platform? They're still customers, but are they happy customers?

I contacted 10 SL designers, all of them extremely successful and well-known in the SL fashion community, and received 6 replies. I promised every one of them complete anonymity, so they could be entirely honest without any potential fallout. Most of them told me that the new Terms of Service has had little or no effect on their business in Second Life, and were downright indifferent when I asked about it; some expressed annoyance at the change, while notably, many told me they didn't even feel qualified to comment on the ToS at all.

Here's what they had to say:

One person I spoke to, who specializes in accessories, was rather pragmatic:

"It doesn't really change my feelings on creating. It's their playground and they're letting us play on it, so it's their rules."

Another longtime designer of everything from clothing to hair had a slightly darker attitude:

"It doesn't affect my work because there aren't any other options for me right now than to continue creating content as I have been. It does affect my faith in LL which had been steadily declining anyway."

At the same time, a pillar of women's fashion in SL shared a perspective that I hadn't really considered:

"I am not too worried since I draw most of my textures, I don't feel like its a huge impact personally. I'm not going to use a texture I made for a [Second Life] outfit anywhere else... I guess I figure I wouldn't have made it if not for [Second Life], so it doesnt really make a difference to me."

One of the most interesting responses came from lingerie maker Roslin Petion, a member of Second Life's fashion scene for many more years than I've even been in SL myself. She decided to buck the veil of anonymity and share the following:

"I’m not someone that makes a living off of content creating and I imagine my views may be different if I made more than pocket change off of my creations. Anyway, here are my thoughts on the TOS changes.

As both a consumer and a creator, I find the  TOS changes disconcerting. The language of the wording is very broad and as I understand it, pretty much gives Linden Lab to the right to do just about anything with my content.

Now, that said, just because they have the right to do anything with my work, do I think they’ll actually do anything? I highly doubt it. I’m more bothered by the principal of it all. LL simply should not have the rights it has given itself.

I also find Linden Lab’s response to residents’ concerns disappointing.  LL  didn’t really make an effort to explain what its intentions are with this new language. It made very little effort to reach out to the community and see how they can improve the language and still retain some of the changes they needed to make.  And worst of all, LL’s response to our concerns basically was, “sorry you misunderstood us” putting blame on the community, instead of thinking about what they could do differently.

I will continue to make content, however, Linden Lab has definitely lost some goodwill with me and if/when there is any kind of reasonable actions to apply pressure on Linden Lab to change its TOS, I will certainly support that movement. "

The most surprising thing to me was that multiple designers told me they didn't really know or understand the changes enough to want to comment on them, even anonymously. Remember that your intellectual property is on the line, and whether you're bothered by the new ToS or not it certainly doesn't hurt to stay informed. If you're feeling out of the loop, be sure to watch this recent panel of RL attorneys discussing the changes and answering questions.

Please share this post with people who like virtual fashion:

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Iris Ophelia (@bleatingheart, Janine Hawkins IRL) has been featured in the New York Times and has spoken about SL-based design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan and with pop culture/fashion maven Johanna Blakley.

Comments

[Pussycat Catnap]

I am least surprised by your last note: that multiples lacked enough info to even comment anonymously.

Just look at who reads and responds here, and who reads and responds on some top fashion or home decorating blogs.

Different worlds.

Read some of the technical blogs about viewers... and some of the blogs about community and drama.

Different worlds.

Those people selling thousands of things per day on MP? They might not even know Hamlet's blog exists. Let alone modemworld, or Daniel Voyager, or others (just to name some I do follow now and then).

The ToS wasn't openly announced. The technie types and Viewer analyzers and LL-watchers found it because they look for these kinds of things.

The people posting on SL Secrets (or whatever its called) don't. They just "play SL".

Folks who make all the fashion and furnishings, they follow their customers and each other. Many likely just clicked 'accept' when that new ToS came out and didn't bother to read it... because "those things are always the same old legal mumbo jumbo"...

So... lack of awareness of this world of SL is no surprise to me...

If for some reason all of their customers suddenly turned into versions of Hamlet and Iris here... they might start following this kind of stuff too... at least as far as it became the 'social gossip' of the scene they were selling to and socializing within.

[M]

LL made sure you know about the new toy called mesh, but has done little to promote their TOS change that took everything from you. Typical.

[coldhardtruth]

Does anyone care at this point? SL is pretty much in the toilet and it's never going to be what it was. Prove me wrong. You can't!

[2013]

@ coldhardtruth, If "what it was" you mean bad textures, bad builds, full bright, glowy, particles galore, system clothes, no mesh, bling, and on and on. You can keep "what it was", if you even play anymore.

[Iggy]

SL does indeed look and behave better than it did in those times 2013 mentioned. But how much longer will it matter? Latest net loss of private estates: 63 in the last 11 days.

Perhaps the LL plan is to have one sim left and charge 6 million dollars US / month in tier. Overhead costs--one server in Rod Humble's basement.

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Part of the SL Deathwatch now, Iggy? There's a land glut you know....if a bunch of regions go...especially if they're not self-supporting...that's a good thing. That also reduces SL's support costs.

I'd lay odds that most of those regions were owned by absent oldbies who finally decided to shut their 2006 vintage region down, or were commercial centric, or had no visitors in years.

But getting back to the original topic, it's like I said. The Fashionistas aren't really concerned...I'm with Roslin on this. I don't like the change...but I don't think they'd do anything that people are claming they'll do. It's just some stupid boilerplate and some cranky oldbies over-reacting...and then LL ignoring the over-reacting. We've seen how the SL community over-reacts to things...that's led to SL ignoring the Residents for the most part. Remember the fuss about how Voice was going to ruin the grid, or mesh was going to ruin the grid, or how basic accounts were going to ruin the grid (which predates my arrival), or the fuss over stipends, or the fuss over the removal of ratings.

LL has simply learned to ignore the userbase...and for good reason. It's often "the sky is falling so everyone to thepitchforks and torches" reactions.

[Oldbie]

In this last round of "omg what now LL" crapfest.
The majority doesn't seem to care about giving their rights away.

SL used to be such a shining star but now their concurrent user base isn't high enough to really give it much attention. SL has been known by many but mostly these days as just as some creepy porn site.

This oldbie is over it.

[Optimist Prime Real Estate]

We changed the TOS to make it easier to move you all to the shiny new grid which is pretty hush hush. Just chill my pixel cousins and make some wonderful new stuff, the fashion and home furnishings market would be nothing without you x

[Oink]

Now you know why you can't accept SL Intellectual Property Piracy... check these

3D Holographic Avatar in Live Concert
http://ht.ly/nOMe4
Innovative performances (Fully Holographic Concert)
http://youtu.be/xWnAIsNYwEs

Linden Lab could make a rock'n roll star out of your digital data!

And even sell 3D print-outs http://www.stemulate.org/?p=337&preview=true

[bits]

...or use it to improve their worth on paper. If it was a mistake, why haven't they fixed it.

[Caliandris]

It *seems* highly unlikely that LL is going to hijack and sell all our stuff... but they have not only taken that right, but also the right to pursue lawsuits on our behalf too, if I understand the lawyers who discussed the new ToS at the SL Bar Association meeting.

I agree @bits... if it was a mistake, why haven't they fixed it to say what they intended it to say. Saying that people are wrong about the intention of the ToS changes but still leaving them ambiguous - or rather not ambiguous, explicitly saying all of your stuffs belongs to us - is wrong.

I will probably stay in SL. But I don't know that I will ever upload any of my original music to SL again until the ToS is rectified and the legalese doesn't give LL perpetual rights in anything I upload.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

@CronoCloud I get a kick out trying to pass the buck onto the "oldbies" comments.

And notice that it's never uttered by newbies.

[Iggy]

I'll side with Dartagan on this issue, CronoCloud. I'm sure many oldbies are churning out of SL and letting their dated regions go dark. But the grid would not be suffering a net loss of 100+ sims per month if it still offered a vital new technology or even marketed itself beyond a few banner ads via Google, right up there with "meet cute boys at IMVU" and "Your 2D princess awaits you, warrior, at Wartune: Male Gamers Only!" and "Check anyone's arrest records free!"

Such company to keep. Deathwatch? Not yet. More like watching General Motors in the 70s, lurch from failure to failure.

Like LL, GM stumbled and bumbled, again and again, after producing some of the most interesting new product in the history of car design (1960s Buick Riviera, Pontiac GTO, revolutionary Chevy C-10 pickup, etc. etc.). Bright lights like John DeLorean (whatever stupid things he did later) were shown the door.

Yet look how long it took that company to fail: 30 more years, and even then it got a bailout.

[2103]

it's called land gluttony

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

@Dartagnan and Iggy

You don't think "toxic oldbies" can be an issue? They are in MMO's, Games, websites, RL organizations...etc etc. Why not in SL as well. We don't hear Newbies saying what I do about oldbies because places like NWN and SLU are oldbie-centric! I've said many a time that to get the zeitgeist of the REAL SL you have to communicate with the masses and ask them about how they feel about these issues that get bandied about here...but very few people are doing that. At least Iris actually communicated with actual Designers who aren't NWN regulars with this post.

Let me give another example...I'm currently running the "ShareStorm" build from SL (which is the same as the current release) ....it has two features of significance (besides what appears to be more levels of map zoom)

1. A Request Teleport feature.

2. The ability to integrate with a Facebook account.

Neither of which has been mentioned on NWN...here it's been all "SL is dying! The TOS is EVIL."

Of course if they were mentioned on NWN, we might see:

1. The Request Teleport feature is EVIL, people could grief you with TP requests! The Sky is Falling. SL will die because of that!

2. Facebook Sharing is EVIL. LL wants to force us to share everything on Facebook and give up our privacy and tell all our RL Friends we're Gorean Mesh Furry Tiny Petite Burlesque Fashionista Catgirl Land Baron Timelord Steampunk FIC. The Sky is Falling!
SL will die because of that!

Yes, I'm exaggerating...but NWN (and SLU) is an Oldbie Echo Chamber...has been for years.

[2103]

golf clap!! well said!

[Dartagan Shepherd]

@CronoCloud: No, I really don't think there is such a thing as toxic oldbies. I think any userbase has a mix of happy and unhappy customers.

I think when the company is doing the right things, that the "toxic" users are just a blip.

Also without real stats to back it up, I'd say that the oldbies are the ones that contribute the most hours, investment and goods to monetize.

If your oldbies are your primary asset and they're disgruntled, then the company needs to turn that around.

If they've lost trust, that's not easy. I like something that Jeff Bezos said recently although I've heard it before, that saying you're building a company for your customers is easy to say, not so easy to do.

The bottom line for this ToS thing to me is that LL doesn't need to make such blanket grabs on those rights, without specifying exactly how they're going to use those rights.

Near absolute rights and the ability to act as my attorney over my goods without specifying that it's only for the purpose of running and promoting SL. Really? And no, they don't need to take people to court on my behalf to protect "their" goods that they're now vested in, and if they did, it would be on a case by case basis.

This really isn't a hard or expensive thing to change to make customers comfortable or disgrunted customers less uncomfortable.

[Kim Anubis]

ChronoCloud, for years LL actively encouraged its users to participate in discussions about features like those. Sometimes, this turned up pitfalls to avoid, or preferences and needs to pursue. It was a conversation, not whining. Anyone who wanted to could speak up about their interests and concerns and suggestions, and have an actual discussion about it with some Labbies.

Things have changed, and LL has a problem it created for itself. It gave us the expectation of the opportunity to have our input included by telling us we were co-creating a world, a country, etc. and actually discussing and applying our feedback. They offered tools and meetings and forums for this purpose. Then, once they had us heavily invested, they axed most of the people we'd known and began to behave more like a typical game corporation. Of course some people are unhappy, and of course we continue to give feedback. That was the kind of offer they sold us, and the kind of world we were led to believe we were helping to build, and the sort of Residents they attracted. To some, this feels kind of like a bait-and-switch sort of deal.

You could go on and call people who believed in what the Lab appeared to be doing naive, but I don't think so -- I think most people within the Lab were as idealistic as the rest of us, and I feel trying to do what we were doing then was a beautiful thing, and certainly worth a try.

Mocking people who have been hurt, disappointed, or who have had business losses due to LL's changes of policy and etc. is really not very kind, and I guess you're just venting. You don't really expect to change anyone's views by taunting and mocking and spouting a bunch of ignorant nonsense about a time many of us were around to see? If, as you say, this site is only frequented by a bunch of toxic oldbies or whatever, then so what? If new users (we were Residents) aren't reading this and being affected by it, and we're all irrelevant anyway, you should stop reminding us that we could make more impact by speaking up elsewhere and be glad we are here in a supposed echo chamber.

I get that you are involved in virtual fashion, and that some of your needs or desires appear to you to be in conflict with those of people you try to dismiss as crusty oldbies. But if you want SL to continue to be the crossroads of virtual worlds, it needs to support more than one interest or industry. We should all be working together, not doing a bunch of petty name calling.

For what it's worth, I don't think the Lab is ignoring us. I think they pay close attention to what we have to say, and that they read this stuff here and on SLU. What they aren't doing is discussing it with us or explaining things in the transparent way they once had.

BTW, the sky-is-falling metaphor is cliche and I'm bored with it. Could we please come up with something new?

[Ciaran Laval]

@CronoCloud "There's a land glut you know....if a bunch of regions go...especially if they're not self-supporting...that's a good thing. That also reduces SL's support costs."

That's an odd comment. LL have lost a fair amount of income via regions going offline, that's not a good thing under any circumstances and Islands produce less support costs than Mainland because on Islands it's often the Island owner doing the support and billing instead of LL.

The land glut issue works better on mainland, where people used to pay USD$3,000 - USD$4,000 regularly at auction for new mainland sims and then cut and sell them. Too much land and declining interest burst that bubble many moons ago.

[Iggy]

Kim nails it.

Oldbies recall Town Meetings and Rosedale's talks with real Q&A at Burning Life. The oldest oldies know about the 2003 prim-tax revolt and how LL responded back then. There was a stronger sense of community then, even if much turned out to be smoke-and-mirrors.

No, the sky is not falling if a company has more than 3 million dollars US, monthly, in profits. I've used the metaphor of a listing ship here. It is still floating but taking on water, constantly, as the list increases.

FWIW, we still have newbie educators come to our VWER meetings. We old-farts, burned by the Linden tier decision of 2010 and then reversal this year, after the damage was done, try to be encouraging.

We try outside of the NWN echo-chamber, if that is what this is. I'd say it's more likely the place where folks know the scope of the problem for a technology that could have realized that "I'm building a new country" dream of Rosedale's.

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Just so everyone knows, I joined SL on July 19th of 2006. I have read much of the early history over the years, here and in the various blogs and wiki's. I rememember in my early days going back in the NWN archives and reading that post about the Jessie war featuring Baccara Rhodes and that one about the Penguin and lady sailing the grid, and the ones about the tax revolt. I'm a Premium account holder, and yes, I get the old L$500 stipend. I am not a region owner, and while I do blog now and then, I am not a creator. I am that thing that became more common in the SL of 2006...a socializer/consumer. Which means, I'm no "FIC", I've got no Lindens on speed dial.

Philip Rosedale was a pie in the sky dreamer, grid love him, who should have had someone with a bit more common sense tell him to not use so much of that better world you-are-residents-not-customers stuff the early adopters lapped up in the early days.

I suppose it did sound good to a bunch of technophiles that had read Snow Crash and similar works a few too many times, and it led to SL existing. But it made you all feel more invested and in control than you should have. SL isn't a new frontier or country...it's a service...like an ISP, or MMO. We're Users, not Residents. IMHO they NEVER should have referred to us as Residents, that was a bad idea from the start. SL is not a democracy but a privately held company. They simply don't have to listen to us anymore than my ISP does. Do you think my ISP calls me up for my opinion before a TOS or service change? No, they just do it...and if I don't like it...I can quit.

Besides...the SL of Today has a LOT more people in it than the SL of 2004. And a lot more diverse kinds of people. Yeah, the majority of the SL of 2004 was Snow Crash reading we-want-to-make-a-better-world technophiles....but in the SL of 2013 there are plenty of people who have never even heard of the book. Heck, I've not read it, though I had heard of it before I joined SL.

So in an SL that has over 20X as many people logged in at once....do you think the old style Town meetings are actually feasible? And if they did have them, you KNOW what would happen. "You Know Who" would say that the attendees were wanting to become a new FIC. That sort of thing is already said about what some call the "office hours cliques". Other people would say that certain groups were being favored whether it be Goreans, Fashionistas, Furries or Educators. And how would they decide whom to listen to.

By having that kind of interaction they created expectations that they simply could not maintain or scale as SL grew. Do they have 20X the Lindens they did in 2004? Do they have 20X the support staff. I believe they simply do not have the time or resources to interact the way they did.

And with such a diverse group of users, often with diametrically opposing views, they simply can't make everyone happy. One group likes the Community Gateways, Another thinks it's creating a new FIC. Immersionists don't want voice chat, augmentationists do. Universities want a discount...folks like me think that what are essentially for-profit institutions who just bring new-media/web 3.0 classes in (who have to PAY for the classes) and who don't provide services to SL users...shouldn't get a discount.

That's right Iggy, I'm was/am diametrically opposed to universities getting any discount whatsoever.

And yes, I don't like the TOS change..but we're Users...they don't have to listen to us. We can leave....Opensim/Kitely/Avination/Spoton3D are right outside the door. But they have the same weaknesses SL does becuase simply put...they ARE SL, just rebranded. Sure, if they've only got a hundred users logged in they can offer cheap land...no users to support...but imagine if they had 3000, or 10000...imagine those users expecting 24/7 service...frequent viewer updates with new features, new features in the service, customer support....that costs people. Programmers, HR people, support staff for those people, secretaries, call center people, IT people. People cost money.

Look at us, we complain (yes, me too) about SL and I know some NWN regulars have opensim/small-grid realms...but we're still here...talking about LL...because LL is the Big Kahuna...the Major Leagues, The Big City, the Queen of Virtual Worlds. It's survived all comers...There, Blue Mars, Kaneva, ActiveWorlds, dotsoul

In fact, it's really only got two competitors, one being Cloud Party, the other...is itself. Because all of those "little grids" are based on it's code and architecture. And those aren't it's equal in features or community...not yet anyway.

So yes, they've got us by the horns...they know it...they simply don't have to answer to us as much as we might like them to. And yes, I wish they'd be more communicative too...but again...they don't have to. I really do hate saying that.

That doesn't mean I don't feel for the 2004 era oldbies...but that SL isn't coming back...we have to deal with the SL we have...as Users.

[Iggy]

Actually, ChronoCloud, I think you nail it, too. We dreamers were wrong to see SL as a potential utopia. It was just another computer game where we could make our own stuff, but Rosedale and his Alpha Team didn't market it that way.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Peter Gray's response to the UCCSL group:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-tt7l89N_zBOGtQLTlwNjBmUWs/edit?usp=sharing

Merchant discussion:

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Merchants/PeterGray-LL-Responds-to-UCCSL-RE-LL-TOS-Concerns/td-p/2286363

[Kim Anubis]

Back in 2004 (or maybe the first month or so of 2005), I sat down at a RL table with Robin Linden and told her that they were setting up some unscalable expectations. She and others at LL felt that was not a reason to compromise, but to instead find a "visionary" solution. They sure tried, too, and did remarkably well for a long time. They kept trying in a big way to continue communications beyond just making announcements until a while after Rodvik took over. I thought that the big change would happen immediately when he came in, and the fact that it didn't kinda threw me a little curve at first. But, oh well, he really is doing what I figured he'd do, and the SL we see today was what I gave a presentation about back when SL put on that big content creator event during M's time. I even brought a giant scripted crystal ball ....

Much of what you, CronoCloud, said here about SL being a business, with its business interests paramount, I posted myself many years ago -- unfortunately initially in an exasperated way similar to some of your posts (to those who recall it, I'm sorry, and older and kinder now). I get it. I really do. I worked professionally in online community management before I got here, so I understand that side of it, and being able to relate to the Lab in a B2B way took me far. But SL really WAS different from most other game companies years ago, and reading about the early history of SL isn't the same as having been there when LL actually was sponsoring experiments with things like Resident governance.

I always thought Cory was more of an idealist than Philip. Anyway ...

You are right, the old SL we came for is gone. The sky already fell. I posted that, too, when I realized it, and I cried a lot that day. I don't find SL much fun anymore -- some of the parts that were important to me have gone missing, and many of my friends. It isn't what I wanted. I can still make money from it, but I didn't come here for money. Money is, however, why I am for business reasons concerned about the TOS change, particularly because it is retroactive.

I came here for the so-called better world, and when I did start to make money, I worked pretty much exclusively on educational projects instead of corporate projects peddling shoes or other more-profitable things, because I was trying to do something good. Of course I disagree with you about the educator discount. Beyond my business interest, I value educational projects in SL both for the press and gravitas it brings SL, and for the contributions of culture and interesting people it brings to the community. Some of us would rather go to a museum or an area where we can learn about a language or aerospace or something than hit the shops and pursue fashion, that's all. I get a huge kick out of an avatar that looks like me waltzing with "Abe Lincoln" at an accurate and educational period White House event. Had to make my own gown, too -- fun! There's less of that sort of thing when the educators go.

My company began working in OpenSim some years ago. For a while, I felt like a bit of a traitor, and that and a client with an NDA kept me pretty quiet about it. But the country I was being loyal to is gone now. You're right, OS started as just reverse-engineered SL. However, it has begun to offer more things that SL doesn't, and it has already siphoned off a lot of the educational community (those who stuck with VR instead of moving on to more of-the-moment tech, like mobile apps). One company has Pathfinder, familiar to edu-oldbies, another has a different billing scheme and an interesting new shop for hypergrid travelers. There are other wholly new things in the works, too, and friends of mine who once made a living in There.com have been able to return and get back to business since that world was resurrected. It isn't as bleak a playing field as it was, and some of us -- often necessarily -- have gone on to get our toeholds in these other places.

But like you said, right now the most action is still in SL. And, like I said, a lot of us have a lot invested in it -- more than money. I don't cry when I lose money.

You are right -- it isn't going to ever be the same. The world we loved is gone. The Lindens we loved are almost all gone. So that makes it just business for a lot of the people posting here. Some are only just coming to feel that way now, with the new TOS. In view of how horrible I felt when I came to the realization, I expect to see plenty of confusion, upset, and some people still hoping it was all a mistake. I went through that, too. In the middle of this sort of discussion, where a lot of people are feeling loss and are worried about the future, that's all expected.

Maybe you are doing something very valuable, CronoCloud, spelling it all out for those just now ready to read it. It just hurts me every time I think of it.

It is painful for me, often labeled FIC and etc. because I did do business directly with LL, to write these things. I was a true believer, and I still am, but it seems the people within the Lab who were have mostly gone or don't have power anymore. I think Iggy's car company metaphor is a better fit than a falling sky.

Philip and his friends only built this world initially as a tool for a different project, realized it was pretty cool by itself, and they ran with it. For years, the investors/board members have apparently been trying every which way to figure out ways to monetize it. They've jerked us all back and forth many times, making some of us sort of virtual collateral damage in the process. I don't think they will let SL go down -- I think if it came to it, they could again be bailed out with another cash infusion. The board has its own goals, and sometimes it's hard to tell just what they're thinking. Sometimes I think about that one guy there who is pinning his hopes for immortality on being uploaded, and the importance he might place on finding various ways to keep an expensive content-rich virtual world project viable. Maybe it just needs to keep breaking even and swimming forward, for his purposes? Maybe the TOS change is just to allow them to move the mesh they've pushed so hard over to High Fidelity? Heck if I know ... my crystal ball is inworld, and I'm not logging in today.

The good folks of the SL Bar Association and the UCCSL (I think I have that right?) have done a valuable service for us, and I suggest that everyone have a look at their video, despite its length. They have a reasonable approach in mind that is far more likely to be effective than anything else in which we can participate.

The thing is, I don't think everyone will watch the video -- most won't. Many people view their SL business as a game, as Pussycat said, and watching a three-hour lawyer video is no fun. That's hard to argue against. Others feel that to question the Lab puts their real-life living at risk. But you know what I think? I think if LL is a company you can trust enough to do business with, it has to be a company whose policies you can discuss in public without fear of reprisals. I've always told the Lab what I thought, through more discrete channels than this whenever they have asked -- but I have never kept my mouth shut. If anyone feels they can't speak up, or that they are trapped, I hope they are making a fallback plan.

Sorry about this rambling post -- this is the sort of stuff I think about, but rarely discuss. And as for concerns about drawing accusations of FIC-dom or any sort of reaction from "You Know Who" ... Her belief in that myth, and how long she has held onto it, only indicates that she drank a pretty big cup of the Kool-aid herself.

Diamond Age was a better book than Snow Crash, IMHO.

[Ciaran Laval]

Some really good posts here from CronoCloud and Kin Anubis.

@CronoCloud on educational discounts, it's the way of the world, Microsoft do it, Adobe do it, LL were silly to stop doing it.

[joker]

Activeworlds predates SL by almost a decade....

[elizabeth (16)]

in the beginning times we loved SL with a passion

and we hated and raged on Linden whenever they did things that interfered with our love

now we are indifferent. like we don't even haterage on Linden hardly at all anymore. just shrug and go oh! well

we all out of passion seems like

[elizabeth (16)]

in the beginning times we loved SL with a passion

and we hated and raged on Linden whenever they did things that interfered with our love

now we are indifferent. like we don't even haterage on Linden hardly at all anymore. just shrug and go oh! well

we all out of passion seems like

[bits]

Well said Kim. Hit home for me. I stand in the vast emptiness not completely alone, and ponder what is next for me. Not this, I am just plain tired now.

[bits]

Peter Gray made the mistake of saying in his last letter that LL customers should avoid debate on the subject. They are a company who is over reaching their place now. I think they need to be reminded SL is optional for most.

[Kim Anubis]

bits, I know just how you feel. I actually put my SL business into hibernation for a while and walked away to rest and fume because I just couldn't do it anymore.

But I am not advocating, "Screw this, let's just all take a hike." I'm saying, make a backup plan, and stand up and speak up -- if you're fed up enough or disillusioned enough to leave anyway, you might as well. It feels better to stand up and say, "Hey, that hurts, stop it!" and just maybe it will do some good. The stuff we created ourselves IS our world, our imagination, and we should protect it.

[Kim Anubis]

Oh yeah, and watch that video. The info in it is useful to creators on any platform, and there are folks involved with a much more nuanced approach to this situation than my reminiscences and outpourings. See the video before you make any decisions.

[Cyberserenity]

Yesterday i tried to find a designer i love. But could not so i suppose she left SL. But i still have her clothes in my inventory. There must be tons of stuff out in SL where the creators have left SL.
To keep using it i suppose legally Linden lab must be co owners. If you delete it from the servers because the copyright owner have left i would be out of stuff i did pay for. It is tricky.

[Iggy]

@Ciaran & ChronoCloud, as much as I appreciated the educational discount, it was not essential if a school had more than a few faculty using an island. With one or two, it was too expensive even at $150 / month.

Since the discount ended, there has been a lot of land-sharing by educators who remain in SL. Now that it's back, there has not been a new land-rush, as far as I can tell from our group. Folks are instead setting up OpenSim servers locally or experimenting with Unity 3D. There's no longer the trust for the Lab or its product, which had a tawdry (perhaps undeserved, but still tawdry) rep among educational technologists.

The damage done by the Lab, as with this TOS business, came from a lack of communication. LL rolled out the tier-change, without discussion among its customers, in the midst of an academic and fiscal year. Budgeting for us in education works like this: I've already put in plans for a virtual machine in our server cluster for next May or June, and we had to have a meeting with five folks months ahead of the decision on the $1000 funding for the VM and daily backups. That proposal then goes to a committee for a decision to be handed down in a month or two.

Given that sort of planning process, there was no way that most schools could pivot with a few months' notice to pay double their tiers. Thus in 2010 LL ruined trust with the educational community, for folks who have to already jump through hoops, all in the name of accountability, in the face of I.T. departments that saw SL at best as a poorly made game, at worst as a sex site.

Content creators don't have the options we educators had--we are not out to make even hobby income from SL. Yet the damage done, in terms of trust, is real and consistent with earlier blunders.

We'll see how it goes in a year, or 18 months, no matter whether the socialites and consumers of SL notice the TOS change or not.

[Kim Anubis]

Iggy, the correspondence between the UCCSL and Peter Gray gives me hope that the TOS situation may be worked out. I'd work real hard here to write something about SL and education, walking a fine line and being all diplomatic and etc., but I am already running late to volunteer for a community pumpkin carving at the local library. We really should get together and talk sometime, though, Iggy!

Anyway, I think I'm going to wait and see what the UCCSL and Peter come up with, and go empty pumpkin-slop bowls and keep some kids from running with carving tools. :-)

[Kim Anubis]

Ah heck, I can't just leave you with that lame reply, Iggy.

LL axed a bunch of programs and a bunch of Lindens. I don't have the info to know if they made the decision about the edu discount very quickly without much lead time themselves, but the other cuts make it seem possible. And if you cut the people who head these programs, the usual points of contact, it wouldn't be surprising if communications break down. Regardless of how it came about, though, it was a real blow for the educational community and those who served them, as you described. I don't assume the Lab has bad intent -- the people I have worked with there have usually been really good folks -- but the results can still be bad.

And now, off to the pumpkin carving!

[Renmiri]

"there is no sense in deleting what we have already created and uploaded to SL. We can continue to reap any benefit from that content, and we don't have much recourse on it."

Anyone - myself included - who didn't delete their content after the new TOS came into effect is SOL for taking that content down. Linden Labs can just retrieve a backup from the day before you erased it and you have no right to complain. They own the rights to what is on their server under this new TOS, as much as you do.

But the thing is content isn't a static thing, it needs to be created nonstop or it loses it's "freshness" and it's value. So even though LL owns all that is there now, you have a choice where to develop your new content. On a place that did this to you, or on a platform where you retain ownership of what you create.

I am a minor content creator but I am a shopper. I know what this TOS will do to the artists that created the content I enjoy. I have decided to not invest any more on SL, personally, with my region and my sims and with my little store. But most importantly, I am putting my energy and money on alternatives. Kytely or Cloud Sim might not be the next SL but SL is definitely not the old SL, let alone the next SL. It is a dead end platform at the hands of a company trying to cash out on it's end of life cycle. Anyone who ties their professional or personal future to a dying brand is foolish and I'm not one of them.

All your 500 hair styles won't amount to a hill of beans when LL or whoever buys the dying brand pulls the plug. You might as well save them to floppy disks, or 8 track tapes. They are and will be just as relevant in a few years.

But meanwhile, you can still have fun with the old content. I will. It belongs to LL now for all intents and purposes, so might as well log into sl for free and enjoy it. While it is still free...