Performance Art

I've been building full time in Openlife for almost three months now and I find myself at a stopping point. I've always said that I didn't know if I was making product or props -- and I still don't know. What I do understand it that it is time to let the world catch up to me.

This isn't an unusual scenario in my life, I am almost always ahead of my time. So, I am going into storage for awhile. There is really no point in paying for a sim I won't be using. I've had a glorious time rediscovering my passion for building -- watching a new world unfold. And I have a chronicle of it all which was much of the point of being here.

Artists have a saying, "It's the process that counts". That has always been true for me. Results are good, but the journey is the important part. The trip with its twists and turns and surprises is what we learn from and what we remember.

I'll still be around from time to time, much like Samara on her 512 that checks in to see what's up in Phil's world. I haven't left the building, I've just gone off to another performance.

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I wrote the post above over a week ago. Since then the smoke and mirrors show has gone into full swing, more friends are leaving, the word elitist would show up in HUGE letters in Wordpress if it was hosting the forums. Some official forum threads are open to only group members (yes the groups are "open" but that isn't going over well with some). Posts are being deleted -- either by a moderator we don't know we have or some odd fluke of the forum coding. People are in hiding as the venom is flying in the forums which is really our only way of group communication.

The world is emptier for sure -- hence stability is up. There are lots of NEW issues however such as a first time occurrence (at least in the three months I have been there) of rezzed prims disappearing from in world. Prims don't always rez - they just fizzle, more inventory loss, prims rezzing 15 meters away and 5 meters up or so from where you told that pesky wand to put it, textures not showing up in inventory or rezzed prims. The list goes on.

There are no pokes and I have sent in NUMEROUS restart requests that somehow never get answered. Sakai is in the US for over a week and the devs are on Chinese New Years holiday it seems. Still the party line is that stability reigns and there have been very few restart requests.

So, I am packing up with a much heavier heart than I would have been true a week ago. Timing is everything and mine is usually pretty good, but I was a bit late on the get go this time. I wanted to believe. Like so many others I needed to believe. The people I trusted the most have left the building or are on their way out.

It's difficult today to tell who is who in the war we seem to be having. Is the enemy of my enemy my friend? Or is it an alt that my enemy made to seduce me into friendship? The Machiavellian dramas are so entrenched in Openlife that there is almost no room for real communication.

I still have hopes that the Phoenix can rise from the ashes. I'll be watching and checking in from time to time as I have observed other "oldtimers" doing. And I'm not sorry I came. It wasn't what I planned, but I can certainly say I was there in the beginning.

The landscape is getting barren with abandoned regions that still hold the names of the departed. It is an odd epitaph -- that empty rolling landscape.

Progress, Promises and Pipe Dreams

I'm busy getting my ducks in a row for a new chapter -- some of you know that. Beginnings oftentimes come with reflections attached and so it is with this one. I've been looking back as well as ahead and then of course there is the middle.

What progress has been made in the three months I have been in Fantastic?

We can now usually log into to world -- sometimes even to the region we are aiming for -- without having to spend a lot of time in the chat room asking which regions are up. We even sometimes get shuttled to an alternate region if the one we are trying to reach is down.

After two plus months, the new forums have been introduced to the website. True, rich text editing isn't there yet and we have lost the ability -- so far -- to send personal messages to each other using the forum interface.

The world is more stable -- at least it seems so from the layman's perspective. We often walk with our feet in the correct angle and on terra firma, on a good day we can get up from our couch (if the script engine is working) and not fly into the ethers.

We have an updated viewer with less intrusiveness and more security.

All good.

A lot of "promises" haven't come to pass.

The Foundation Residents meetings which have been going on since the beginning of Openlife and will continue -- have not. Four no shows in a row by Sakai was enough for some people to leave the world. There have been hastily called "casual meetups" and a few spur of the moment (???) group meetings, but those that chose sims on the mainland especially to be a part of this long time process are still waiting for it to resume. Instead we have P.O.O.L (People of OpenLife) which DOES manage to have two meetings a week. Is it the same? No. But for some people it works.

Currency, groups and permissions -- all to be fixed "soon" are not implemented. Indeed, they seem further away than when I moved to Fantastic -- or that may just be my more realistic point of view. We were told in November that currency would be online and functional around mid December. It is now the end of January and the next scheduled roll-out is for the end of February ( See this article. )

The article states in part: Steve says that this was decided after a careful consideration: “We found the general consensus amongst users is they didn’t want the implementation of credits to affect the goodwill amongst the grid. One of the mechanisms in place to keep the balance will be the exchange of credits for real dollars only being available to region owners.”

I guess I've missed something along they way or this decision was made long before I came, but there has been a lot of discussion -- as early as November -- about the landowner only clause. I can't say I felt it was "a general consensus" by any means.

It doesn't take too long a stay in Openlife to become aware that things simply don't move as fast as planned / promised / possible. So most of us aren't expecting the currency, groups and permissions to be functional by this next announced target date.

All that is really OK. Those of us here understand it. But what about the people newly joining?


When I came during the first rush ( late October - early November), it took a few days to a few weeks to get your mainland or private cluster land. Most of us assumed the delay was because of the huge influx of people. Hence that 24 hours after set up confirmation note was not correct.

Note: I had a screenshot here, but decided it might be against the TOU to use it, so your just going to have to trust me on this one or go to THIS page.

PCs are still often taking a month to deliver (this from numerous forum posts). 24 hours in indeed a pipe dream. People ARE willing to wait patiently, but not when they are given incorrect information. I can't tell you how many times I have answered a query with the theme of "so sorry but that 24 hours still on the website is incorrect and it is taking up to a month. Please be patient. Yes, they need to change that graphic."

Some people came to Openlife because of the 3D mesh avatars that will supposedly be integrated. That keeps getting pushed back also. There are a lot of things that need to be worked on. There is only so much time in a day and so much knowledge in a mind. There are new devs in the new China office now and hopefully that will spur thing along.

Meanwhile it is good to remember that things move more slowly than "promised", so adjusting your plans with that in mind will lead to YOUR greater stability :D

No Guarantees

The big news on the street is that Linden Labs bought both OnRez and XStreetSL -- the two online shopping experiences for Phil's place. Samara at Phil's will have one new prim for her 512 soon as OnRez will be closing down and her OnRez box can be deleted.

So what does this have to do with Openlife? Maybe not much. Maybe a lot. People are wondering if Linden Labs might buy out Openlife to stop any future competition. Is this a possibility? Hard to say. Would it be a bad thing? For all the folks coming to Openlife to get away from "Linden control" it certainly would be.

If we spin out some possible scenarios we see that this certainly could happen. We have no TOS in Openlife -- a topic I covered with way too much text and an absence of pretty pictures some time ago. The TOS question is being revisited on the blogs and forums. So, there is no "I promise not to sell out" clause anywhere (wink). People who have purchased clusters at a fair number of dollars are the ones with the most to lose of course. And if Linden Labs decided to make Openlife just like SL(R) -- not a stretch by any means -- they could reinforce those nasty prim size limits. If they did that most all of my builds might fall apart or disappear. So content creators could at risk also.

We have no reason to believe a buyout is in the future. We also have no reason to believe it is not. Anything can happen and small companies get swallowed up by big ones every day. In some cases that was the whole point of making the small company in the first place :D

Some folks are a bit trepidacious with this news following on the heels of the 16.2 viewer mandate and the locking down of the grid from Second Inventory. Add to that the vicious personal attacks still going on in the official forums and the atmosphere is a bit grim. Some people still have faith it will all work out -- and it certainly may.

But again, there are no guarantees -- or TOS.

Moderation

There are some people you don't want in your real life.

There are some people you don't want in your virtual life.

At the moment I am out of the maelstrom, but others are still in the whirlpool. Some have left the forums, some have left Openlife. None of this is good.

There are personality conflicts -- and there is overt evil. I have had brushes with both. I have done well. My fear is that others will not.

At Phil's place long ago there was a saying about people with "no payment info on file". You never knew if it was a second, seventh or seventieth persona of someone. When someone uses alts to further their ego, ranking or esteem it is sad. Sad for all of us.

I hate to admit it, but I am now in the beware of new folks without land category. I will treat them politely and answer their questions, but they will need to prove themselves to me. There are too many people in the world who are not what they seem.

Disturbingly so.


I set a few things in motion today which may help solve some of our world's current problems. May they take root. May they hold.

Knock Three Times and Ask for Joe

It's not often that something with so much potential to cause harm turns out to be so great. I've never been much for secret societies. I would never have done well in the ivy league under the cloak of darkness.

But we are having so much fun! Not everyone is under the spell of our forum guard. Some people like their freedom, their ideas, the belief that they can HAVE their own beliefs without instantaneous and often unwarranted attacks. Some people play the game. Others do not.

Sorry, but you can't just join the club -- and yes, of course it has a name, but you can't know that either. Just like those cloak of darkness tribunals, you have to earn your right to be here. If you have that right, let one of us know. If you have that right, you KNOW who we are. And we are quite a few so you should be able to find us easily.

Knock three times and ask for Joe. You already know the secret password.

Week in Review

Well it is only Monday but it seems like awhile I did this, so let's review.

Notes to Self:

• The update while not great, wasn't as bad as it could have been; I did get a lot of tutorials done. The sim was working OK this afternoon. I didn't TP however.
• People are using the tutorials and writing thank you notes.
• Blog traffic is up .
• I got to work on the biosphere and do some art.
• I survived the onslought of attacks from the ****s and came away knowing that the best way to keep my happiness level up is to simply NOT to read any of their posts. That is working wonderfully and amazingly not difficult at all. And two plus months of attacks is enough.
• My friends list of people I actually AM friends with is growing.
• And the soap opera that is Openlife is definitely entertaining -- sometimes in a comedy of absurdness.

Woot!

10-10-10 Unknown

10-10-10 Unknown is getting to be a way too familiar destination these days.

I got into Fantastic for a very few minutes last night and put out the ice cream cone but forgot the lamp. Since no one can get to Fantastic -- in theory -- it matters not :D

Scripts and animations, at least in the furniture, were working at that brief moment in time so that is a plus. I sent in another "can't access" support ticket, so maybe in awhile I can work on the biosphere. One can hope. Landmarks appear to be breaking regions when used to teleport. I haven't given out many landmarks but people can of course make their own, so that might be part of the problem. Popularity has its costs.

Yesterday was an odd day in many respects. I either spent it completely alone on the sandbox or amidst a knot of people at orientation island. I did manage to help a few new folks while I was there and give away some skins and shapes. So that was something. They were THRILLED to see people as they usually ported into the serene palm trees and no humanity.

I can't remember seeing any "Friend A is Online" type messages at all yesterday when there were tons before. So either friends is broken again or people simply gave up. I have to admit it was a lot of work just to get to a sandbox.

So perhaps a day off which is OK. I have other things to do after all.

And that's the way it was in mid January on the frontier :D

Weekends and Dreams

I finally got back into Fantastic this morning via Openlife Island. Server has been replaced it seems but scripts are down. So I hope to do a tutorial on the sandbox. We'll see how that works.

Happily it is a new day after a great night of dreams that included a cute and charming guy, French pastries and gardens. It doesn't get much better than that. The Universe can be very thoughtful at times.

Thanks to all the folks that sent IMs and PMs about the latest forum attacks -- and those that actually wrote to the forum too of course :D. I'm simply not reading posts by the triad. That solves things for me. I do appreciate your kind thoughts however. No need to stew about it all. I am not.

Onward with the day. Go forth and create!

The Causal Arrow Of Time

Within each moment a future is born -- whether real or virtual. We can glimpse the probable future. We can plan. We can hope. But we are not the only one in charge.

Other forces, other entities push at our own moment in time and the unfolding is sometimes what we never expected -- what we never dreamed.

It is almost impossible to say where you and I and our world will be in a year from now-- in a decade. We can stretch our minds beyond their current grasp and hope to touch a bit of reality, but it often fades into the wind.

So best not to plan. Best to let the future simply unfold.

Did You Know?

I am not a video embedder. In fact, this is my very first. So that tells you how impressed I was with both the message and the medium. Imagine that in the not terribly distant future, things that we only have in our virtual worlds may become part of our real life ones.

There is so much happening. We probably think we are paying attention, but I bet you really DIDN'T know :D

Losses in Space and Time

So we have established by now that I like obtuse titles for my posts (wink). They DO make sense eventually. You just have to get to the end of the story.

The official Openlife Forums are back up after a week or so of "coming tomorrows". People seem to be happy they have returned. It is one way of keeping connected with those not in your time zone.

I did note that while the old posts are still available, they are NOT a part of the new system. This most likely has a technical reason or two. I can think of several. We also lost three or four days of posts, however and that seems a bit odd. Amidst these posts (and some of the last on the old forum) were ones about inventory and texture losses and permissions that still weren't working even though the rumor mill had them fixed. In my personally prescribed role as record keeper of both the positive and negative growing pains, I find it a bit odd. Just something for thought.

The new forum style is clean and there are certainly some pluses. We have lost rich HTML, links, pics and lots of features however and posting is not at all friendly in Firefox; the code is asp so that figures. Anyway, I will adjust but may not be there as much. After 220 posts in two months on the old board, I have no giant desire to start over. Still, that super-helpful part of me will no doubt kick in and I'll probably be back sometime soon.

I have no intention in playing the "I can post more than you" game though. I've already be queen of some boards. The first time is always the best? Well maybe the most memorable anyway - LOL

Aloneness - The Empty Map

I don't spend a lot of time gazing at the map of the world, but I was having trouble teleporting and so I thought I would type in the coordinates and see if that helped. It didn't, but in the process I noticed that Nara was EMPTY.

I got Samara into Phil's and contacted Eku there. Long conversation which was private, but she is sadly gone -- at least for awhile. People are coming and going and I suspect that is normal. It's sad to see people that you are used to talking with leave. Even if you aren't the very best of friends, they are part of your virtual landscape.

Take away the people and the world isn't very exciting. Take away the trees and the vista is oftentimes harsh. Take away the oceans and rivers and there is no blue to meet the sky. We are all a part of the world. It hurts to lose a piece.

Note to-from Self :D

Note from Self: "Thanks for making those signs for Fantastic. Now new folks understand (hopefully) that there is no money -- hence no shopping. Good job!"

Note to Self:

People seem to have come out of their apathy -- or maybe it was just a eery quietness. They want to know about their inventory. Mine is pretty much replaced now except for the SKIRT that I so don't want to make over and will no doubt put off -- and off and off -- and hair #2 which I won't miss much now that I have hair #3 which I really like.

I do think the subtle complaints (now) and the more likely rantings (a bit later) are healthier than passivity. We really only have two main choices in whichever virtual world we reside in. We can stay or we can go.

And, right now and for me -- even on a problematic day -- I am for staying. I haven't built all the things I want to build. I haven't used up those 45,000 prims. I'm not sure that is a true goal and they obviously won't all go on the ground unless I REALLY get into jewelry or hair - LOL. Still, I have some interesting ideas for the higher elevations, so we'll see.

I have always been good about paying attention, knowing when I am "on the path" as I think of it. And even though I sigh from time to time and get discouraged when work disappears, breaks etc. , I still really feel like I am "on the path" and that all of this is good in the very long term picture.

And I, indeed, am a long term gal.

Waterfalls and Fireflies

It was a long day on the frontier with textures disappearing and reappearing and way too many caches cleared, gray bodies, missing prims and the like. I did finally get back into my OLD clothes (I really was going to change today, but the asset server had different ideas).

AND I made a lovely waterfall environment. It isn't quite done, but almost. This is a photo taken at night with the glow of the waterlily lamps floating on the water and the fireflies in evidence. It's very peaceful and that is how I wanted to end my day.

It is so fun to look at this and look at my waterfall environment from two years ago. I was SO excited making it and it was very nice for the times, and I sold tons of them. This one, however is leaps and bounds ahead of it. It's nice to know we really do improve.

Tomorrow is my two month anniversary in Fantastic. Yeah!

PS. Note to myself. Make a sign for the shops explaining there really is no money yet and hence the things are not available for purchase. A lot of folks seem to thing that "I" am just not ready (wink). I'm pretty sure I will be when the time comes.

Until then, waterfalls work.

The Grid Came Back ....

That very afternoon :D

Alas, no returned inventory but it was good to be back. I uploaded about 250 textures -- some new and some to replace those lost. Being a gal who has gone through WAY too many inventory meltdowns the last few months, I carefully packed them away in crates (yes really) as I uploaded them.

That was an ohsosmart thing to do as the grid went down after about an hour -- and with it all my uploads. The good news was that I had them all in the crates and simply clicked and said "Open > Copy to Inventory" and they were back. Others were not so lucky.

So in one sense this is pretty depressing as I have been finding (a chore) and uploading textures that I lost in the last melt down (burp - LSD overdose whatever ) of the asset server / database (who know?). The good news is that my plan to pack everything up in prims for safekeeping seems like it might work. I think I mentioned it before, but here's the drill.

Building Tip:

For texture, clothing, notecards, sounds, animations or whatever that you cannot simply place in world for safekeeping -- rez a BRAND NEW PRIM, texture if your aesthetics keep you from admiring plywood and fill the contents with what you want to keep. A prim seems to be happy to hold about 100 things. More than that may be overkill.

Remember we have almost unlimited prims. You can store these boxes at 1000 meter or at 10,000 meters or like I am in a real life storeroom (how quaint).

Don't copy boxes over; don't use items you have previously made like books or chests etc. That SO didn't work at Phil's so I suspect it would be a problem here too.

That's my tip for the night.

May tomorrow be filled with FUN as I am so tired of this work "stuff".

A Sea of Calm

It is day three or so of the Openlife Grid being down for update. Our last poke (status) message was a day ago or so. Sakai is listed on chat so he is-- in theory-- still in the building :D

What amazes me about all this is how calm everyone seems to be. Me included. A couple of weeks ago we had a similar downtime. It wasn't as long and there was a loud outcry -- many outcries. The bottom line was a need for better communication and we seem to have that. There were many announcements about the coming update and until yesterday there were poke notices every now and then so the populous new what was going on.

So we asked for better communication, we got it, and we seem to be getting gold stars for patience. Who'd a thunk it? :D

My next tutorial concerns textures so I don't want to do it at Phil's. I'll wait until the grid is up. Meanwhile, it looks like a good day to work on animations maybe.

Endings and Beginnings - Inventory Loss

Much of life is about ending and beginnings.

I went over to Gembong in Phil's domain today to delete my buildings -- and turn those damn tier post to mute. I had NINE of them writing me once each day with messages both in world and in email. That was definitely too much information even when I was there -- let alone after I had gone. I left a Peace on Earth poster and hunt globe there for the last of the thousands of hunters, but deleted everything else.

It was an eery feeling, that emptiness. I was the second person to buy on this sim well over two years ago. It was empty then too, but empty with promise. Now it may have a second chance at a new beginning, but it may just as easily disappear into the ethers. Only time will tell.

So I am firmly footed in my new world. All bridges burned behind me; a tiny 512 foothold to call home when I am there sorting through textures and scripts and things that might be useful in my new land.

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Things were smoother in Openlife today. No new inventory appeared so I started uploading once again some textures I knew had vanished.

BUILDING TIP:

For those of you that have never lost a bunch of inventory, including textures, the results are odd. Certainly you realize that things are missing, but in the case of textures, it's hard to tell as we usually have hundreds if not more.

Here's what happens. You click on an object you have made -- looking at the texture tab. You might want to change the texture or simply find out what texture was used so you can use it again. Even though you are LOOKING at the object you made WITH the texture on it, the building tool cannot figure out what the texture is because it is no longer in your inventory. The eyedropper will not work either.

If you recognize the texture and have a copy of it on your hard drive -- assuming it wasn't SO long ago that that computer has gone into the recycle system -- you can upload the texture again. BUT, clicking on the same object will still not show you the texture as the original texture on the object was uploaded at a different time and has a different UUID. So, if you want to try and keep consistent and if you believe that the inventory loss won't happen again (wink) you can retexture with the newly uploaded graphic.

In many ways I am lucky. While I lost a lot of textures, they are all on my hard drive as I had JUST uploaded them. I may end up with copies in some cases, but since uploading is free and I am slightly p*ssed (American not Canadian version of the term), I really couldn't care less. I plan to upload new files and ones I have lost. If they miraculously appear in another week or a month, I'll have copies. It is too hard to work without the tools you need.

Strangely enough -- and I am surprised -- there are very few comments about our still lost inventory on the boards and forums. I can't be the only one missing things. I can't be the only one keeping track of what they uploaded, so why isn't there a bit more frenzy? There was plenty last week and now it is all quiet. That puzzles me in a sociological way and puzzles are good. They keep us thinking.

I did do some building today and will share that along with a project very soon -- tomorrow maybe. But its past my beauty sleep hour and time to retire.

I wish you all sweet dreams.

TOS and the LCO Drama

I guess I went over to the that double Aquarian anarchist place tonight. I read on the Lindenland fashion feed about Legend City Online stealing a bunch of content and that didn't sit well for me. So I posted the question about Openlife Terms of Service (which seemed lacking and which people had asked about before on different posts and blogs) on the official forum. Luckily, Sakai answered right away and of course I replied to his answer. Here is the reply.

If nothing else, I learned a lot including that no one that was complaining about LL losing ALL OUR STUFF in the inventory had any right to complain as we had somewhere along the line click through on a new TOS (oh my I am guilty too) LOL. So THAT was good to know and I'll pass that along.

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Sakai Openlife wrote: Actually Terms for the use of the Openlifegrid.com WebSite & Virtual World have been available since conception and can be found at the footer of every page of this site. (see down the bottom click terms.) or if you feel like being scrolless ->http://openlifegrid.com/Main/tabid/36/ctl/Terms/Default.aspx

Thanks oh great leader but aren't those mostly the terms of USE for the webpage? I did find those as mentioned above. That looks very much like the "standard" webpage terms of use and it doesn't say anything about Terms of Service which is confusing to a lot of folks and was not where I was sent a month or so ago :D (That could have been in error of course). There is one section that seems to relate to what people are asking about.

Here is the part that seems to relate to the grid and content creator rights if I am correct: (my bold)

MATERIALS PROVIDED TO Openlife Grid OR POSTED AT ANY Openlife Grid WEB SITE & VIRTUAL WORLD

Openlife Grid does not claim ownership of the materials you provide to Openlife Grid (including feedback and suggestions) or post, upload, input or submit to any Openlife Grid Web Site & Virtual World or its associated services (collectively "Submissions"). However, by posting, uploading, inputting, providing or submitting your Submission you are granting Openlife Grid, its affiliated companies and necessary sublicensees permission to use your Submission in connection with the operation of their Internet businesses including, without limitation, the rights to: copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, translate and reformat your Submission; and to publish your name in connection with your Submission.

No compensation will be paid with respect to the use of your Submission, as provided herein. Openlife Grid is under no obligation to post or use any Submission you may provide and may remove any Submission at any time in Openlife Grid's sole discretion.

By posting, uploading, inputting, providing or submitting your Submission you warrant and represent that you own or otherwise control all of the rights to your Submission as described in this section including, without limitation, all the rights necessary for you to provide, post, upload, input or submit the Submissions

If in fact those are the Terms of Services, doesn't it say that you (company) can "take our stuff" which is pretty much what people are worried about ? :D

However, by posting, uploading, inputting, providing or submitting your Submission you are granting Openlife Grid, its affiliated companies and necessary sublicensees permission to use your Submission in connection with the operation of their Internet businesses including, without limitation, the rights to:

copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce ...

I am just the designated messenger. People are asking these questions.

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This is the VERY disturbing text from LCO:

b ) You agree that any content downloaded into or created items in world give Legend City Online automatic rights to use, produce, and or distribute within our services and this content is royalty free, worldwide and carries no balance for fee. Furthermore, you agree that you have the right and are authorized to grant us such content under these conditions).

I think it would be a good idea (IMHO) to have a Terms of SERVICE page separately and, if it still isn't working, to get the link you click on when signing up to go to the appropriate page and not a 404.

I'm not sure that I personally feel a whole lot better after reading that statement. No reflection on you, personally, of course.

Thanks for the superquick reply :D

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OK. In the interest of really doing my homework (which I try to do), I went back over to Phil's and looked through there PAGES of TOS. Along with a very disturbing paragraph that says, "we can delete you stuff and any time -- HOHO with no recourse by you" (paraphrased), I found THIS:

3.2 You retain copyright and other intellectual property rights with respect to Content you create in Second Life, to the extent that you have such rights under applicable law. However, you must make certain representations and warranties, and provide certain license rights, forbearances and indemnification, to Linden Lab and to other users of Second Life.

Users of the Service can create Content on Linden Lab's servers in various forms. Linden Lab acknowledges and agrees that, subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, you will retain any and all applicable copyright and other intellectual property rights with respect to any Content you create using the Service, to the extent you have such rights under applicable law.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, you understand and agree that by submitting your Content to any area of the service, you automatically grant (and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant) to Linden Lab: (a) a royalty-free, worldwide, fully paid-up, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to (i) use, reproduce and distribute your Content within the Service as permitted by you through your interactions on the Service, and (ii) use and reproduce (and to authorize third parties to use and reproduce) any of your Content in any or all media for marketing and/or promotional purposes in connection with the Service, provided that in the event that your Content appears publicly in material under the control of Linden Lab, and you provide written notice to Linden Lab of your desire to discontinue the distribution of such Content in such material (with sufficient specificity to allow Linden Lab, in its sole discretion, to identify the relevant Content and materials), Linden Lab will make commercially reasonable efforts to cease its distribution of such Content following the receipt of such notice, although Linden Lab cannot provide any assurances regarding materials produced or distributed prior to the receipt of such notice; (b) the perpetual and irrevocable right to delete any or all of your Content from Linden Lab's servers and from the Service, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and for any reason or no reason, without any liability of any kind to you or any other party; and (c) a royalty- free, fully paid-up, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to copy, analyze and use any of your Content as Linden Lab may deem necessary or desirable for purposes of debugging, testing and/or providing support services in connection with the Service. Further, you agree to grant to Linden Lab a royalty-free, worldwide, fully paid-up, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, sublicensable right and license to exercise the copyright, publicity, and database rights you have in your account information, including any data or other information generated by your account activity, in any media now known or not currently known, in accordance with our privacy policy as set forth below, including the incorporation by reference of terms posted at http://secondlife.com/corporate/privacy.php.

You also understand and agree that by submitting your Content to any area of the Service, you automatically grant (or you warrant that the owner of such Content has expressly granted) to Linden Lab and to all other users of the Service a non-exclusive, worldwide, fully paid-up, transferable, irrevocable, royalty-free and perpetual License, under any and all patent rights you may have or obtain with respect to your Content, to use your Content for all purposes within the Service. You further agree that you will not make any claims against Linden Lab or against other users of the Service based on any allegations that any activities by either of the foregoing within the Service infringe your (or anyone else's) patent rights.

You further understand and agree that: (i) you are solely responsible for understanding all copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret and other intellectual property or other laws that may apply to your Content hereunder; (ii) you are solely responsible for, and Linden Lab will have no liability in connection with, the legal consequences of any actions or failures to act on your part while using the Service, including without limitation any legal consequences relating to your intellectual property rights; and (iii) Linden Lab's acknowledgement hereunder of your intellectual property rights in your Content does not constitute a legal opinion or legal advice, but is intended solely as an expression of Linden Lab's intention not to require users of the Service to forego certain intellectual property rights with respect to Content they create using the Service, subject to the terms of this Agreement.

We all know I'm not in the Phil camp. I closed my half sim main store and sattelites there last week. Their text does seem to be a bit -- clearer?. It is very interesting to note that is says in here too, that if they loose things, too bad. So the people complaining can't really complain as loudly I guess. :D I simply left! LOL

Smiles.

EDIT: Here is the reply to my reply which happened while I was posting this:

i perhaps a little plain english can help here.

Obviously even more than the just the text above the example will be how the provider uses such a disclaimer and that's most likely the real proof in the pudding so to speak.

Openlife Grid does not claim ownership of the materials you provide to Openlife Grid (including feedback and suggestions) or post, upload, input or submit to any Openlife Grid Web Site & Virtual World or its associated services (collectively "Submissions"). However, by posting, uploading, inputting, providing or submitting your Submission you are granting Openlife Grid, its affiliated companies and necessary sublicensees permission to use your Submission in connection with the operation of their Internet businesses including, without limitation, the rights to: copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, translate and reformat your Submission; and to publish your name in connection with your Submission.

I think from the above statement it's important to note the first opener 'we do not claim ownership of the materials you provide'... This is important it's user generated content and needs to be received in that context, including to a non creator.

The second half about things you input or submit let's take the example of a texture is also important... 'copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, translate and reformat your Submission'...

Because we need to retransmit this data to other users, ie someone comes into your region and views a texture. First you uploaded it, at that point we did the 'reformat' part of the statement, and stored it in our database, without the other mentions just listed we wouldn't be able to provide it to other users.

I hope that information helps, basically our Terms of Use are pretty vanilla and nothing out of the ordinary, including when compared to almost every website you visit on the web today. We haven't asked for a 3rd mortgage or your 2nd child, just to be able to conduct the world in safe & legal manner.

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I did get a laugh out of that which was good. Do I feel "safe and secure"? Not so much. This isn't a safe a secure world after all, but it was good to bring it all up and see where things landed. We have it for posterity now. Let's hope it holds.

Community

I just wanted to make a quick post this evening. People often ask what the difference is on the Openlife grid. Why should they come? What is better than some other grids? You get the idea.

The BIG answer is that the Openlife isn't for everyone. It is new, it is buggy, it is an adventure and you are often ecstatic if you can log in and doubly so if your script engine is actually working.

What is DOES have -- for better or worse -- is a fairly close knit community. It is much like living in a small town. I've always liked small towns and I live in one now. Really small :D What comes along with that is recognizing names from the forums, meetings and casual get togethersl; running into the same people on the sandbox whether you were PLANNING on going to the sandbox or orientation island or not (wink), and knowing your neighbors.

Today I was having trouble with the script engine being down again. This is an ongoing problem for me and Sakai wrote to validate my suspicion that it was "my neighbor". Now I have no idea who that neighbor is, but I know which ones it isn't as their sims stay up when mine crashes - LOL.

The whole script engine scenario doesn't matter all that much. What matters was that the head of the company actually wrote to me. This is not the first time that has happened. While communications are still a problem, there is definitely a more intimate sense of connection to the powers that be and the tech team.

And THAT is one reason why the Openlife is "better".

Lovely Lindens - $$

After a comment from Mac I decide to see if I could get more info on the misty area of using Lindens for Openlife purchases. I am still waiting on a chat window with Frontier Linden :D It's been about a half an hour now and when I went to try and get another operator in another chat window, I again get Frontier so that wasn't too helpful.

Meanwhile I started reading the headlines of all the support entries under "legal" and "linden dollars" and did find this, which seems to imply that it is OK to use Lindens.

So I thought I would post it here as I doubt I will hang around this support portal much longer (yawn) and since we have lots ofpermissions issues to deal with before it is safe to sell anything (this from Sakai yesterday) it is sort of a moot point.

Anyway, here is some info from the Support Center at LL.

I want to sell real-life items through Second Life.

Consider the following scenario:

Bob Avatar encounters, inworld, a store called CompuBuyPlace selling computer equipment. He finds a kiosk with a picture, taken from real life, of a nice wireless optical mouse, which he decides to buy. The Kiosk asks him to pay L$1,000,000 and supply his real-life address. Bob Avatar pays the million Linden Dollars and enters his address. Sure enough, two weeks later, a box arrives at Bob Avatar's real-life apartment from CompuBuyPlace containing the nice wireless optical mouse.

Can this actually happen?

Nothing in the Terms of Service prohibits this, but you should be aware that Second Life generally isn't designed to be a platform for "real world" business transactions, as Linden Dollars aren't designed as a "currency" or currency substitute. You therefore take these steps at your own peril, including potentially subjecting yourself to potential fraud (such as fraudulent L$ exchange), and subject to any relevant tax, licensing or other laws. Further, Linden Lab doesn't own, operate, or insure third parties like the one described above, and therefore will be unlikely to be able to resolve any disputes that arise. If you have any other questions, you may wish to consult an attorney.