Dear Second Life: Morphed Avatar Images Have Absolutely No Place on Your Facebook Page [UPDATE: LL Responds]

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

I've said it before and I'll say it again: "Morphed" Second Life snapshots have no business in advertising. They shouldn't be on vendors, they shouldn't be in product ads, and they absolutely shouldn't be on Second Life's official Facebook page. Yet just last week Second Life's Facebook avatar was undeniably a morphed image, and that's a big problem. Here's why:

Morphs, which typically combine the face of an avatar with a real-life photograph, occasionally have artistic merit on their own, but they just aren't an honest representation of Second Life. Generally speaking the only element of the image that has anything to do with SL are the eyes, nose, and mouth -- and those will often be manipulated beyond recognition as it is. It just doesn't give the passerby an honest representation of what Second Life is, in a way that's several times worse than even a standard hyper-polished, post-processed SL pic.

But that's not even the biggest problem, at least not as far as Linden Lab should be concerned. The biggest problem was pointed out by Ferina Manoella in the Facebook comment thread following the avatar change: The morphed image that had been chosen, like the vast majority of SL morphs, was based on a photograph that the Second Life morpher almost certainly did not have the rights to use. A quick reverse Google image search will turn up the original, a photo of actress Diane Kruger in a shot that seems to be part of a Chanel cosmetics advertising campaign. Now if this was just some picture off of Flickr or DeviantArt there'd be a chance that the morpher had permission to use it, but I seriously doubt that either Diane Kruger or Chanel signed off on the morph. I'm no legal expert, but I'm also relatively sure that flipping the picture horizontally and pasting an avatar's face over it doesn't constitute fair use, either. Even if you want to say that choosing this morph as an avatar is meant to highlight community talent and creativity more than accurately represent SL, tacitly endorsing copyright violation is a bad look.

[Update: Yesterday shortly after this post went up, Second Life replied to concerns shared in the Facebook comments thread with the following statement:

At the time this image was selected from the user created and shared images, it was not identified as a morph or copyrighted image. It is no longer the profile pic, and we'll continue to attempt measures to prevent it from happening again in the future. ]

What it comes down to is that it's just a whole lot more trouble than it's worth. There's no shortage of amazing virtual world photography to choose from, and it's easy to spot (and avoid) a morphed picture if you want to, so here's hoping this will be the last we see of morphed images from Second Life on Facebook.

[Hat tip to Gogo for sharing this issue via Plurk]

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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

[Vaki]

I completely support this legal analysis.

[Adeon Writer]

That really is false advertising, no getting around it. And add the double whammy of copyright infringement, oh boy.

So, how did it happen?

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Probably some Linden PR flack who runs their Facingbook saw that image in their submissions or some feed or blog somewher, thought "Ooh pretty" and didn't realize it's a morph.

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Ah, LL has just replied to the comments on the photo:

#################

At the time this image was selected from the user created and shared images, it was not identified as a morph or copyrighted image. It is no longer the profile pic, and we'll continue to attempt measures to prevent it from happening again in the future.

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[Pussycat Catnap]

Their response claims ignorance that it was a morphed image.

Seriously? They need to force whoever runs their Facebook account to log at least 1 hour with their product, if not 100.

But 1 hour should be enough to be able to know - that is no Second Life screenshot...

[Cicadetta Stillwater]

Legal analysis aside, there is a strong tendency for morphs to be creepy as all get out. Just another way to turn away potential users.

It doesn't help that this one in particular makes the base part of the photo look like something out of a JC Penney catalog. Don't get me wrong, I love Penney's, but that was probably not the effect Chanel was going for. Maybe it's the way my eye is drawn away from the Uncanny Valley and toward the RL portion of the portrait…

[A.J.]

In Linden Labs defense, they were probably just concerned that an actual avatar face my scare away new users.

[Kitsune Shan]

So they really though that was actually a SL avatar? I guess they don't play too much their own game.

[zzpearlbottom]

Any can achieve the quality of this image by just taking a raw snapshot inworld, no need to morph, just with a good desktop computer, a brand new line of nvidia graphics cards and good pose and angle (besides a windlight sky sett for the purpose)and of course a good skin, hair and shape.

[Adeon Writer]

I'm the morph in question's defense, it's the first one that hasn't made me run screaming, but I may have built up a tolerance to them by now.

[2014]

It still boggles my mind with all the great photographers and bloggers in SL that take amazing pics, LL will pull something like using a morph.

[Pussycat Catnap]

@zzpearlbottom: I await your posting of an image like this from inside of SL. Post it to my.secondlife.com from inworld so we have a greater chance of believing you.

[The Tier Is Too Damn High Party]

Clearly SL doesn't respect the IP rights of its resident creators, nor the creative control of others "irl" -- at least they are consistent.

[Tesla Miles]

Hahah, what a joke! There are so many talented photographers in SL vying for attention with their beautiful images of genuine inworld content, and the LL's PR department had to pick a morph, and a badly made one at that. Whoever is selecting the user images needs to spend more time in SL, looking beyond the mainstream and popular representations. Yes, there are people who live their SL lives like they're in a Chanel ad, but the majority of people are in SL to escape the mundanity of RL.

[Pussycat Catnap]

@The Tier:

On flickr there is one group that has a rule that all content posted to it has been submitted for use by LLs.

You have to intentionally join that group and post to it to get your images into it. Once you do... you run the risk that they might take you up on the submission and actually go an use it.

They still don't seem to be able to tell what their own platform's avatars look like... but the poster of this morph likely gave them permission to use it.

[Jaqua]

I see a lot of hyper realistic avatars from various programs, I think it is safe to say that most people seem to be tired of the Jason Brooks cartoon sketch type Avie and want a more photorealistic representation with the same level of customization.

[Batters Box]

All those top placed locations in destinations guide promoting tribute bands and selling fashion most likely "inspired" from real life designers with no shortage of creative photographers visiting them and posting to flickr will become more selective...LOL

[Vanadis Falconer]

Unscrupulous skin-vendors use similar manipulated images to promote their skin. Those who do not try a demo first becomes really cheated

[Pussycat Catnap]

@Jaqua: "I think it is safe to say that most people seem to be tired of the Jason Brooks cartoon sketch type Avie and want a more photorealistic representation with the same level of customization."
******************************

Actually it is anything BUT safe to say that.

Current trends seem to believe the exact opposite.

MMOs like EQ Next and Wildstar went cartoony precisely due to the failure of hyper-realism in prior MMOs, like EQ II, and the success of cartoonism in competition such as WoW and Asian offerings.

Video games like MineCraft, Blocksworld, and Sims have gone cartoon as well

Read Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics and you see a lot of the reasoning behind this.

The less realistic, the more a verity of users can identify with your avatars / icons, and the less risk of uncanny valley issues.

Inside of SL you can see this reflected in the popularity of some furry brands like Blue Galaxian, Apez, Vizz, and Orange Nova. You can also see it with the new mesh 'child avatars' that have so rapidly taken over the child AV scene.

That might sound odd coming from someone who always pushes correct proportions - but if you know art you'll know that's a different topic. Achieving proper 'iconification' in a cartoonish representation REQUIRES good proportional structure... or you instead create alienation.

This is why I may be for cartoonification, but against the distorted stretched out spider-leg and t-rex avatars common in SL.

[Cali Karsin]

Morphs have NO place in Second Life. Down with morphs! Great article. =)

[Ciaran Laval]

There's nothing wrong with morphed images as long as it's pointed out, you will see many a game trailer alongside "Not actual gameplay footage" warning.

Blizzard do absolutely awesome trailers for their games, they advertise the product but not the reality of the game.

[Shockwave yareach]

By this logic then, there shouldn't be a SL at all, since the very nature of the program is to let a person be something they aren't in a place that doesn't exist. If too good to be true is wrong in advertising for VR, then what about VR itself?

Adverts have always been about making people want a product by lying through the teeth about it. Photo manipulation is but one arrow in that quiver. And considering it is fantasyland itself being advertised -- and about time too -- an ad with photoshopped pics bothers me as little as ads featuring girls from the council of Wyrms.

[Lixena Lamourfou]

I am glad that everyone shares my biggest pet peeve about SL photography. I never liked MORPHs from the beginning. It to me was always an indication of a person who was so connected 'appearances'. A person who cannot find beauty in an virtual appearance and must take it a step further and morph that representation, that is someone who has self-identity issues.

[Cheesecake]

Almost every picture added on SL official page is not an honest representation. They all have photoshop on them. Any picture added on a photo contest is inmensly photoshoped. I really don't use photoshop for that, not even in RL. What I say is real, is not fake.
People who doesn't have skills in photoshop have no chance in thses contests, people that want to see how SL is all about, when in world, they get a surprise.
Even tho this article is old, people keep morphing. I was the other day in blueberry and I liked the skin the models on the pictures were using. I asked what skin was, and they say it is a morphing. I felt lied at.
Copyright issues are just another problem that has nothing to do with SL true representation, and not the big issue why this has to stop.
SL made that statement because they were cought. They have no problem with morphing, or copyright whatsoever, because MANY MANY merchants sell illegal products taking from RL, and they know it. Skyrim is one of the many that are use and because it is an open source VG so that many modders can make stuff that are 100% free for anyone to take (instead of what's happening in the greedy grid) many merchants are using it to steal stuff and sell it. They gain money, not the modders or the company that owns Skyrim (Bethesda).