The Drax Files Radio Hour – Terms Of Service May Apply

This week’s Drax Files Radio hour covers a variety of topics, Oculus Rift, SL Go and the Linden Lab terms of service being the big ticket items.

There’s an interview with Dennis Harper of OnLive about the SL Go pricing changes. Dennis explains the reason for the changes, feedback from surveys, blogs and comments suggested that people love the idea, love the concept and are impressed with the technology, but the only really big problem people really had was with the pricing model.

However OnLive went further than people expected with their pricing changes, in the interview Dennis Harper says that the price they’ve announced is around half of what people said they would pay to use SL Go for a month.This suggests that plenty of people said that they would pay around 20 bucks a month for SL Go, rather that the just under 10 bucks a month that has been announced. Dennis also comments on Second Life being free to play and therefore some resistance around paying for Second Life usage does exist, but it doesn’t exist to the extent that some may think. Discretionary spending in Second Life is the big money maker and SL Go fits firmly into that category.

Jo Yardley talks of her personal experience of using the Oculus Rift in Second Life. Jo is impressed by it, although she points out that if using dev kit 1 the resolution is bad, but the experience is still wonderfully immersive.

Jo also points out that use of the keyboard whilst trying to use the Oculus Rift is pretty much impossible for her, which is something that will eventually need to be addressed. However on a positive note, Jo didn’t experience any nausea. Hower Jo makes the extremely important point that people really need to use The Rift before forming an opinion and that’s really the crux of the issue at this stage. Jo’s feedback and the feedback of those who use the device will be crucial to its development, although as in most technological cases, there will not be a solution that pleases everyone.

However the really big interview this week comes with Richard A Goldberg who has done work for Madpea Games in Second Life. The interview is about and Richard’s views on the Second Life terms of service change from last August.

Richard says that the old terms of service document was a very reasonable document for content creators.  Richard points out that under the new terms of service Linden Lab can use your content for any reason in any way and also they keep these terms in perpetuity. This potentially causes an issue for content creators because they may well have trouble selling their product in other venues because yes you still own your content, but Linden Lab could give it away or sell it too.

Richard, like me, doesn’t think Linden Lab want to do this, but what would happen if Linden Lab were sold? This may sound far fetched but the terms of service change raises this as a potential issue for Second Life content creators.

Richard suggests that Linden Lab do not need unlimited usage and they certainly don’t need the terms to be applied in perpetuity. Richard also points out that the wording could and should be changed to fix this, it would mean their legal team taking a few days to get the language right but the language should reflect the fact that Linden Lab need rights for people to see content and that the terms should reflect that. The terms used to reflect this so it remains a mystery as to why Linden Lab have gone down this route.

However terms of service issues do not just apply to Linden Lab, Richard cites Pinterest as a platform he won’t engage with due to their terms of service. Another important point that Richard raises is that content creators need to be fully aware of the terms of service that platforms apply and that it’s a shame that as new markets emerge, these unfriendly terms of service are arising.

There is a lot more in the interview, including discussion on copyright and the history of terms of service issues for content creators. This is a really good interview which highlights the problems with the Linden Lab terms of service change in a calm manner, if you’re a Second Life content creator you really should listen to this.

The terms of service issue should be being discussed, I know some groups have reached out to Linden Lab but so far Linden Lab haven’t budged an inch and they really should. Content creators aren’t asking for anything radical, they’re asking for a sensible resolution, which, as Richard points out, the old terms of service achieved. This really shouldn’t be that difficult to resolve.

All in all this is another excellent episode of The Drax Files Radio hour, if you have a spare hour or so then I highly recommend you listen to the full show, there are issues discussed that I haven’t covered here, great stuff and great discussion.

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