Ciaran Laval

July 19, 2014

The Mysterious Case Of Inworldz Cash Outs

There’s an odd forum announcement over on the Inworldz forums :

Over the course of the last couple of months or so, it has become apparent that Linden Labs has been tightening the cash outs, or taking longer, etc., thus forcing people to make accounts over here to attempt to cash their L’s out.

For clarification: InWorldz economy stands on it’s own, we are not tied to Linden Lab, nor any other grid for that matter. When you attempt to cash out against our merchants and residents who are growing this economy, while not being a part of it, we will remove the cashout.

From a business standpoint, we are not about to start absorbing a loss for Linden Lab and their cash outs. This would be very foolhardy on our part to even try to absorb those. If you wish to cash out in our world, then you need to be a part of it, otherwise expect us to put a hold on those monies and not cash them out (as this also sets off my fraud flags when I look over the accounts).

If you are encouraging people to bring their cash outs over here, please stop. This is not helpful to our merchants or residents who do normal business daily in our grid. If you know someone who is encouraging others to do this, please let them know to stop or send them to this thread 🙂

Thanks everyone!

The odd part about this is that I’m not sure how anyone is exchanging money from Second Life to Inworldz or vice versa, as far I was aware this sort of exchange ended long ago. In their TOS update thread, an October 2012 announcement stated :

Unfortunately, at this time, our losses due to Fraud have become too high to sustain and we are effectively shutting down any ATM business. Owners that we are aware of have been notified, and we will no longer allow intergrid currency exchanging.

Furthermore the InworldZ TOS states :

InWorldz, LLC further establishes that any service designed to transfer I’z into or out of it’s service may result in account termination. This includes, but not limited to: ATM machines designed to transfer I’z out of InWorldz into other currency, people or accounts created to transfer I’z out of InWorldz into other currency, or any other system deemed by InWorldz staff to be accommodating such transfers.

So I am somewhat bemused as to how anyone is using Inworldz for cashing out, rather than cashing out via Second Life.

Continue reading “The Mysterious Case Of Inworldz Cash Outs”

July 18, 2014

Second Life Improvements And Premium Offer

You don’t need to be a premium member of Second Life to enter a best old person competition. However if you do go as a Dwarf beware that old people sometimes don’t have 20/20 vision, to this end you may be labelled a Gnome! A Gnome! Oh my, the shame of it! Gnomes don’t have beards like this! Anyway, on with the show.

After somewhat berating Linden Lab over the terms of service wiggle they performed, it’s only fair to point out some of the positives coming out of the hard work of the Linden Lab team, including their ongoing improved communications. To this end I will take a look at their blog posts detailing Limited Time Offer: Save 50% on Premium Membership and Get the New Premium Gift Airship! and Upcoming Improvements to Second Life. Yes this blog post comes complete with a two for one offer.

Let’s start with the premium membership offer, it’s the traditional 50% off a quarterly membership, it’s always a quarterly membership for these offers, I’m not quite sure why that is. Here is the important part :

*TERMS & CONDITIONS FOR 50% DISCOUNT
This limited-time discount offer is available only for memberships on the Quarterly billing plan. Discount will be applied to the first quarterly billing cycle only, and all future charges will be at the regular Premium price. To qualify, Second Life members must have an active Basic account or create a new Second Life account. Discount offer begins on Friday the 18th of July at 8:00 am Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) and expires on Monday the 4th of August 2014 at 08:00 am Pacific Daylight Time (PDT).

The one thing that disappoints me slightly, hey I have to be disappointed in all my posts, even slightly, where was I? Oh yes the one slight disappointment is that the blog post states :

As a Premium member, you’ll enjoy rewards like exclusive Resident-created gifts, access to special Premium Sandboxes, as well as Live Chat support. Plus, you’ll get your own inworld home, a L$1000 sign-up bonus, and weekly L$ rewards to spend on whatever you like. You can read more details about Premium benefits here.

Now where this disappoints me (slightly) is that it sells Linden Homes, as in you can get a home, but makes no mention of the fact that you can forego a Linden Home and buy a 512M parcel of mainland instead. I mean I appreciate that a Linden Home is easier to obtain, but it would be nice in many ways if LL tried to point out the alternative option, this is not a big gripe!

The question that comes up often about premium membership is, is it worth it? The answer is, it depends. Premium Membership is ok if you want mainland or a Linden Home, you don’t need to be a Premium Member to own a private region, but of course a private region costs more in one month than a Premium Membership does for a year. The weekly stipend comes in handy and if you think you’re going to stay in Second Life, can actually go a long way to offsetting your premium membership costs.

On the other hand, if you’re not looking for mainland or a Linden Home and don’t care about the stipend, it’s not a feature rich solution, you do get better support. I’ve long said Linden Lab should get more creative with Premium Memberships and offer alternative options, but they seem to work in their current form for Linden Lab. One thing to note is that Premium Members get gifts, the blog post informs us about the new one :

jump behind the helm of your new interactive pirate airship, the Linden Marauder. Enjoy fast-action, high flying fun-near-the-sun, or menace the airways with your armament of cannons.

They had me at pirate! Yarr!

The improvements to Second Life blog post builds upon the discussion with Oz Linden and Gray Of The Lab from San Francisco at the Firestorm Q&A about the future of Second Life.

Continue reading “Second Life Improvements And Premium Offer”

July 18, 2014

Why The TOS Remains Problematic

Episode 13 of The Drax Files Radio Hour featured an excellent interview with Richard A. Goldberg. I covered it here : Second Life TOS – Why Bergs Should Collide. I’m not going to go over it all again but Richard made some excellent points on why the TOS was problematic, why Linden Lab should not need all the terms they require, why there should be limitations and he did all this in a very calm and rational manner. Ebbe Altberg should at least listen to what Richard A. Goldberg had to say and then he may understand more of what the issue is.

The Linden Lab blog post on the updated terms of service states :

As part of an update to our Terms of Service today, we have made a modification to further clarify Section 2.3. The updated section still provides Linden Lab with the rights that we need in order to operate and promote Second Life, so you will see that we have retained much of the language as the previous version. However, the updated section now also includes limits that better match our intended meaning, and we hope will assuage some of the concerns we heard about the previous version.

Now the problem arises with the words that have been left in. First of all let’s rewind a little and give Linden Lab some credit for the change they did make, but also let’s rewind further and see what the controversial section said before the changes of last August, a time when it wasn’t remotely controversial :

You agree that by uploading, publishing, or submitting any Content to or through the Servers, Websites, or other areas of the Service, you hereby automatically grant Linden Lab a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicenseable, and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content solely for the purposes of providing and promoting the Service.

I’m struggling to understand why that is no longer suitable, it’s clear, it’s to the point and there’s no ambiguity as to whether it refers to the Second Life service or not. However let’s move on to the controversial TOS and break this down, again, first of all this part :

Except as otherwise described in any Additional Terms (such as a contest’s official rules) which will govern the submission of your User Content, you hereby grant to Linden Lab, and you agree to grant to Linden Lab, the non-exclusive, unrestricted, unconditional, unlimited, worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, and cost-free right and license to use, copy, record, distribute, reproduce, disclose, modify, display, publicly perform, transmit, publish, broadcast, translate, make derivative works of, and sell, re-sell or sublicense (through multiple levels)(with respect to Second Life, Inworld or otherwise on the Service as permitted by you through your interactions with the Service)

Now that’s better than before because of the part about being with respect to Second Life, inworld or otherwise. That’s the big plus point from the change, the problem is with the next part of the TOS, which makes absolutely no reference to this limitation.

Continue reading “Why The TOS Remains Problematic”

July 17, 2014

Second Life v Kitely From A Storyteller’s Perspective

I’ve mentioned before how much I like the art of storytelling, I’ve also mentioned before how I’m surprised there’s not more storytelling in Second Life and how a virtual world is an environment that could allow for a feature rich interactive storytelling experience.

I haven’t changed my mind on any of the above but this evening I read an interesting post regarding storytelling in different virtual worlds : Why Kitely? What about Second Life? The post is from the Seanchai Library website.

First things first, Seanchai Library have been bringing stories to Second Life for over six years now, they are very much supporters of Second Life and aim to continue in Second Life. The post isn’t a bash Second Life post, it makes an interesting comparison between what can be done in Second Life v what can be done in Kitely and points out the cold, hard, financial realities.

The post talks about the possibilities of immersive storytelling and why Kitely may be a more attractive proposition for that sort of storytelling :

As we continue to explore creating increasingly immersive story experiences – an opportunity in what we do that several of us are very interested in – we run into immediate limits in Second Life. Those restrictions are, to be blunt, money and prims. A build like last year’s Dickens’ Project takes nearly 3800 prims (incomplete, by the way) and the space to manage them, none of which comes cheap in SL.

This is a reality that many a venture in Second Life has to face, be it storytelling, art, roleplaying, money and prims quickly become an issue. When you’re looking to tell an immersive story, it becomes more of a challenge. The room to expand and contract, to rebuild, to have space to manage the operation. Kitely offers a cheaper alternative. However that doesn’t always make Kitely the better option, it’s going to depend upon what you want to do.

The post compares the way different storytelling styles can work in both platforms :

Most of what we now produce in SL is fairly presentational: people sit in rows of seats inside of an environment and we stand (or sit) before them and present the literature. That is certainly one way of bringing stories to life, and one that we have been very successful with. But could there be another means of becoming transported into the story without shifting completely over to role play? Imagine you were wandering through the different environments visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past and Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol while listening to the original text, presented live. Imagine exploring an ancient Irish tower house while listening to Gaelic folk tales. Imagine poking around 221B Baker Street while listening to a Sherlock Holmes adventure. As long as the environment engages you within voice range of the speaker, you can wander, explore, sit and experience the literature just as you do in a more traditional audience-performer setting.

The potential to get more immersive leans towards Kitely due to its lower costs, but traditional sit around the storyteller style storytelling can happily thrive in Second Life. Both are decent ways of telling stories.

Continue reading “Second Life v Kitely From A Storyteller’s Perspective”

July 17, 2014

New TOS Fallout – CG Textures Still Say No

Yesterday’s Linden Lab blog post about the new TOS has unsurprisingly generated a fair amount of discussion. I’ve looked again to see if I feel any different about the changes in the cold light of day and the answer is no. I still feel the TOS goes too far and asks for too much.

Over at Insert Funny Name Here, Second Life user and real life attorney Vaki Zenovka posts on the issue and summarises :

They moved “sell, re-sell, or sublicense (through multiple levels)” from the beginning of the list to the end of the list. And then they added a totally unclear parenthetical: “(with respect to Second Life, Inworld or otherwise on the Service as permitted by you through your interactions with the Service)”.

That is all.

Vaki also pokes Linden Lab about their use of parenthesis in the new terms of service and points out that it’s unclear whether “(with respect to Second Life, Inworld or otherwise on the Service as permitted by you through your interactions with the Service)” applies to sublicense, re-sell and sublicense or everything before the phrase “(with respect to Second Life, Inworld or otherwise on the Service as permitted by you through your interactions with the Service)”

In their blog post Linden Lab state :

First, the modified version limits our rights with respect to user-created content in Second Life by restricting our use “inworld or otherwise on the Service.” Additionally, it limits our right to “sell, re-sell or sublicense (through multiple levels)” your Second Life creations by requiring some affirmative action on your part in order for us to do so. This language mirrors the corresponding User Content License currently in Section 2.4, which has been part of the Terms of Service for years.

This is all still very muddy. However have the changes convinced the likes of CG Textures to reconsider their decision to forbid new uploads of their content to Second Life or any other Linden Lab product? Jo Yardley asked CG Textures whether their stance had changed in light of the new TOS and the answer was still a no :

I’m afraid this does not change the situation for us. The new ToS still contains the words:

.. and otherwise exploit in any manner whatsoever, all or any portion of your User Content (and derivative works thereof), for any purpose whatsoever in all formats, on or through any media, software, formula, or medium now known or hereafter developed, and with any technology or devices now known or hereafter developed, and to advertise, market, and promote the same. ..

I can’t say I’m surprised about this as CG Textures are an outside of Second Life venture and therefore not as tied to the platform as many Second Life content creators.

Continue reading “New TOS Fallout – CG Textures Still Say No”