Virtual Worlds – Page 178

November 17, 2013

Linden Lab Issuing W9 Tax Information Requests To Some Customers

A thread over at SLUniverse brings to light the issue that Linden Lab have apparently started to issue W9 Tax Information requests to certain customers. The information is patchy but evidence of the form is posted there.

The purpose of this request does not seem to be visible anywhere on the Second Life website, but information regarding the law can be found on the Paypal Website :

“Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Section 6050W states that all US payment processors, including PayPal, are required by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to provide information to the IRS about certain customers who receive payments for the sale of goods or services through PayPal. PayPal is required to report gross payments received for sellers who receive over $20,000 in gross payment volume AND over 200 separate payments in a calendar year.”

Linden Lab must therefore fall into the category of being a payment processor for the purposes of this law and it seems they are now requesting the required information, but there’s confusion as to when a customer crosses the threshold to fall into this category for Linden Lab to issue the request. Some people are reporting that the threshold is much lower than the requirements stipulated by the IRS.

If this is true, Linden Lab would not be the first company to do this, back in 2011 ecommercebytes reported that payment providers were lowballing IRS thresholds for 1099-K Reporting. In response to a seller’s question asking why Amazon had thresholds as low as 50 transactions instead or the required 200 Amazon said:

“The IRS requires that Amazon aggregates sales of sellers with multiple accounts, each of which alone may not meet the reporting threshold. Under IRS rules, the only way to definitively know whether accounts are owned by the same seller is to ask for tax identity information. Thus, we are doing everything we can to meet IRS requirements while still asking the fewest sellers necessary for their tax identity. We have crafted our policy with the help of our tax advisors and the IRS.”

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November 15, 2013

The Herald Of A New Podcast

A few of the more dynamic, entertaining, gruesome and informative sites regarding Second Life seem to have fallen into a sort of slump of late. The excellent Gwyneth Llewellyn seems to have gone into hibernation for the winter, or maybe Gwyn’s just too excited about Cristiano Ronaldo’s exploits for Portugal.

The Alphaville Herald, which was apparently big in Japan around 1984, remains largely unbalanced but has largely left the virtual world of Second Life in its reporting and seems more interested in hackers, the NSA and the rather bizarre spectacle of Pixeleen Mistral interviewing Mark McCahill, actually that’s a really good read. The Herald has always had a bit of an unfair rap because of the vicious nature of some of its posts and comments below the post, but they have also covered a lot of important issues and the NSA issues are important.

MetaReality Podcast has been on vacation but has returned this very evening with an episode full of discussion, giggles and profanity … Gianna seems to have lost the bleep machine. However quite a large chunk of the content is unrelated to Second Life and the three people involved sound a little jaded by Second Life, well Qarl has had enough after the TOS debacle but Gianna sounds pretty fed up too, even more so than before. There’s still plenty of interesting content in the podcast, but they seem to be drifting.

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November 14, 2013

UCCSL Issue Response To Linden Lab Regarding TOS Changes

Over on the official forums there’s a thread which details the response letter from the UCCSL to Linden Lab:

NEW MAIL FROM THE UCCSL TO LINDEN LAB OFFICE AND PETER GRAY

I’ll post the contents of the letter below the cut. The letter is addressed to Linden Lab Office and Peter Gray. Poor Peter Gray, he’s public relations but he shouldn’t be being named like this, he’s more like the negotiator to broker peace talks. I still see him carrying a briefcase, wearing shades, a suit and looking like a character straight out of Resevoir dogs … actually he could be Mr Gray, although Mr Grey works better for me!

The letter makes suggestions regarding the limits or lack of them, in the new TOS, suggests that licences should not be perpetual, asks for limits on sublicences for third parties and suggests that purposes of use need to be limited. The UCCSL are not jumping up and down regarding all aspects of the new TOS and they seem to be focussed on section 2.3.

I still think the root problem is Linden Lab wanting a Linden Lab TOS for all their products, the problematic sections largely arise from the old Desura TOS and as Second Life and Desura are now under the same umbrella TOS, Linden Lab are trying to fit the Second Life square peg into the Desura round hole, which obviously isn’t a sensible fit.

However Linden Lab have suggested that they are moving towards opening more windows of opportunity for content creators across their range of products and this is really what Linden Lab should be discussing, rather than getting sidetracked with trying to right the new TOS, they should be explaining why they need these terms to open those windows.

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November 13, 2013

Hi Fidelity – More Ready Player One Than Snow Crash?

Philip Rosedale’s Hi Fidelity project has largely gone dark, well in terms of blog posts anyway, there hasn’t been one since May. There are some funky features on the website though, more on that later.

However today, Hamlet Au over at New World Notes has posted some thoughts from Mr Rosedale: Philip Rosedale on Connecting High Fidelity’s VR Tools With Second Life — and When We’ll Get Those Tools to Play With

I’m not into spoilers, but the answer probably isn’t going to satisfy people, although it does keep the intrigue going. However Hamlet also links to a very interesting post from the Singularity Hub where they talk to Philip Rosedale. Now some interesting ideas emerge from this interview:

“While body tracking may make for more realistic and intuitive avatars, High Fidelity’s other big idea will power the world they live in. In exchange for virtual money, virtual citizens will assign their computer’s unused processing power—when they’re sleeping, for example—to construct High Fidelity’s world in exquisite detail.”

This isn’t new, it has been mentioned regarding Hi Fidelity before but it’s good to see the idea mentioned again, the interview makes the point that Second Life runs on 40,000 servers, imagine a world running on millions of machines and how that processing power can be harnassed to deliver the needed results.

The interview also suggests that the new Virtual World of Hi Fidelity will replace the inspiration of Snow Crash with the inspiration of Ready Player One, to quote Philip:

“I’d love to see us build something quite similar to what [Ready Player One] describes, but probably with less central agency. A global virtual world seems very likely to be (un)governed in a manner similar to the internet itself.”

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November 13, 2013November 17, 2013

Sunday Night At The Movies – Machinima Expo 6

Machinima Expo 6 will be taking place on Sunday November 17th from 10am – 4pm. Familiar names to some in Second Life circles will include Draxtor Despres, Pooky Amsterdam and Hypatia Pickens amongst others. However this is not just about Second Life and machinima made on other platforms will also be showcased and up for awards. The event does however end with a party in Second Life.

I’ll post the official press release, schedule, include a reel featuring Draxtor Despres and Jo Yardley and embed the official trailer below.

The official press release informs us:

November 13, 2013

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT PERSON: RICKY GROVE

grovericky@gmail.com

MACHINIMA EXPO 6 SET TO OPEN THIS SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17TH

Los Angeles, CA. – The sixth annual Machinima Expo will take place this Sunday, November 17th, from 10am to 4pm (PST). The Expo is a virtual film festival dedicated to the art of machinima, a digital-born 3D medium created inside of a virtual world or game engine. Machinima (a combination of the words “machine” + “cinema”) came originally from game hackers, but has evolved into a unique contemporary digital art form with an international community. The Machinima Expo is designed to bring this community together for a virtual film festival which will feature over 6 hours of machinima film screenings, programming and an awards ceremony.

“We created the Expo to share the best machinima submitted to us from all over the world and to inspire the community to tell their own stories using this unique digital medium”

Ricky Grove, Executive Producer, Machinima Expo 6

Since the Machinima Expo is a virtual film festival (it takes place on the internet) all anyone needs to attend the Expo is an internet connection and a web-browser. The Expo will stream the festival via their Ustream page which is embedded on their website (www.machinima-expo.com), their Facebook page, Twitter page and at Ustream itself. Live chat will be available right next to the streaming video screen.

Expo 6 sponsors include Reallusion (www.reallusion.com), makers of iClone and CrazyTalk, and iPi Soft (ipisoft.com), a company dedicated to creating “motion capture for the masses”.

To find out more about the Machinima Expo 6 or to view any of the 50 machinima films being screened for the festival, visit www.machinima-expo.com

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