Can a plumbing company CEO become a millionaire by selling sex toys in a virtual world? Yes, Kevin Alderman has and earlier this month his real world company Eros LLC, along with Shannon Grei, filed a class action lawsuit against Linden Lab, owner of Second Life.

Alderman, whose avatar name is Stroker Serpentine, sells sexual animations and related objects in Second Life under the trademarked brand name SexGen and are, he asserts, among the most popular in Second Life. Grei manufactures clothing in Second Life.

The lawsuit accuses Linden Lab not only of taking inadequate action against those who violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by copying and reselling merchandise created and sold by others, even when it’s been trademarked or copyrighted, but of actually profiting from the infringements. The complaint alleges that although "Linden Lab may ban a Resident who is observed using CopyBot,… it will not ban a user for simply uploading or even selling copied content. In this case, Linden Lab’s enforcement is limited to that required by the "safe harbor" provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act", which requires filing a real-world lawsuit" and that few businesses in Second Life have the means to file such a lawsuit. The suit alleges that sometimes filing for DMCA protection within Second Life is actually counterproductive because the infringer will file a countersuit. Sometimes in fact, infringers will "threaten rights-holding merchants with the release of their protected assets for free if they file DMCA claims against their infringers."

Software such as CopyBot, BuilderBot, and CryoLife have been problems for merchants and artists in Second Life for some time. What are Linden Lab’s responsibilities, if any, in cracking down on them and protecting intellectual property rights of people who create merchandise and other objects in Second Life? The DMCA provides "safe harbor" status to service providers to protect them against the actions of their customers. Does "safe harbor" status apply to Linden Lab? And even if it does apply, is it adequate protection for those whose intellectual property rights have been infringed? The lawsuit complains that it is not sufficient, because it requires filing a real world lawsuit against the infringer.

Linden Lab has twenty days to respond. We can expect to know more in early October.

You can get more information about the lawsuit from The Alphaville Herald, Wired.com, and FindLaw.com. You can get information about a lawsuit that Kevin Alderman filed in 2007 against alleged infringers at Out-Law.com and you can read the full text of the current complaint against Linden Lab at The Alphaville Herald. As of this writing, Mr Alderman’s store in Second Life and his three websites are all offline, but his merchandise can found at kiosks in several locations in Second Life.

Day four of the Second Life Community Convention began with.Linden Lab‘s Tom Hale (pictured on the right) unveiling new features that are coming soon, and sneak peaks at wish list items we could see over the coming year. These include features such as searchable maps, pre-developed land for sale, a new registration form for new members (thank you, Linden Lab … I’ve had to guide several noobs through the confusing current registration procedure!), a new social website-like dashboard that integrates the various aspects of a resident’s Second Life existence, and a redesigned secondlife.com website. There were also mentions of plans to allow use of allowing the use of mesh for 3D modeling, allowing multiple media textures including Flash, interactive web textures that allow clicking on links, and collaborative text editing.

 

In the afternoon, machinimas from the 2009 MaMachinima Festival were shown. The next two pictures are from two of the machinimas shown. The first is from the machinima Orientation, which was made in Second Life at Virtual Holland by Chantal Harvey, with performance by Arthole (Arahan Claveau and Nebulosus Severine). The next one is from Erlkönig, based on the story by 18th century German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and made in Second Life by Cisco Vandeverre.

According to the Mamachinama website, these machinimas can all be viewed from within Second Life, but when I tried it, the SLURL was for an invalid location. DVDs were handed out to people at SLCC, which is where these images came from.

 

One of the most amazing workshops to me was the one in which Max the Virtual Guide Dog was demonstrated. Most people don’t know that there are blind people in Second Life, who join for essentially the same reasons that sighted people do – to have fun and to meet people. Max allows the visually-impaired to navigate through Second Life and be aware of where they are, where they are headed, and what objects and avatars are around them. You can learn more at the Virtual Guide Dog Project.

This was the fourth and final day of SLCC 2009. You can read about the preceding days of the convention in Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.

"When you are in Second Life, do you pretend to be someone you are not?" This is a question that a college teacher who holds classes in Second Life asks his students. This brings up a hugely important question in virtual worlds and depending on how he meant it, could indicate a fundamental misunderstanding of how virtual worlds work.

When a person adopts an avatar of a different race or gender, or a different persona than how he or she is known in the real world, is it pretending to be someone else, is it exploring different sides of ones’ self, or is it simply being whothe person feels most comfortable being? The question implies that it’s simply pretending to be someone else, but can be far more to it than that. In virtual worlds, it’s common for people to adopt avatars who are very different from their real life identities. It doesn’t have to be pretending to be what they are not.

.This was only one of a long list of issues raised on day three of the Second Life Community Convention.

 

One fascinating workshop was "Plastic Reality", in which a panel consisting of Kolar Fell, Capn Kurka, Filthy Fluno, Tuna Oddfellow, and Manx Wharton discussed virtual worlds, art, and mixed reality, and showed a video, Synthetic Masquerade, of a mixed reality art exhibit at San Francisco’s Somarts. The video can be seen on YouTube.

One point made by the panel was, "Saying that virtual life isn’t real life is like saying that a phone conversation isn’t a real conversation." The issue of how people outside virtual worlds perceive virtual worlds and their fear and/or misunderstandings were raised in several workshops.

 

Several workshops discussed ways that Second Life is being used for dealing with social issues; one panelist mentioned it being used for treating substance abuse, and two others discussed their work to create tools that will allow the homeless to gain skills using Second Life, and to provide a a place to call home for a person who doesn’t have one.

Two recurring themes of the workshops were of Second Life’s enormous power as a collaborative tool, bringing together people around the world who otherwise could not work together, or even meet, and as an educational tool. Dr Yesha Sivan showed a particularly amazing machinima for introducing students to Second Life that simultaneously shows what can be done in a virtual world and how virtual world concepts might (some would say "will") emigrate to real life in the not too distant future.

The keynote speakers were current and past Linden Lab CEO’s Mark Kingdon and Philip Rosedale, who discussed plans for coming changes in Second Life.

Day two of the Second Life Community Conference went smoothly. Attendees arrived, were issued their badges and SLCC teeshirts, and proceeded to Grand Ballroom for the morning’s keynote speaker, the legendary technology visionary Ray Kurzweil.

However, Kurzweil wasn’t there. At least not in person. He was in Second Life, and delivering his talk via streaming media to the audience assembled in the St. Francis Hotel, who watched his avatar speaking on two large projections screens. He spoke of the exponential growth of technology leading to changes in society that are much faster than the linear growth frequently forecast by economic modelers and spoke about the six paradigms of the grown of technology The First Paradigm began with the 1890 census, the first to be conducted with the then startling new tecnology of punch cards. Kurzweil projects that the current Fifth Paradigm, based on Moore’s Law projecting the growth in power of computers, will end around 2020 and will be supplanted by the Sixth Paradigm, molecular computing.

Kurzweil addressed far more than can be covered here. For more information, go to his website www.KurzWeilaAI.net.
 

 

One recurring theme in several workshops I attended was privacy and whether or not people’s Second Life avatar names and real life identities should be freely linked both in Second Life and on social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Most people at the workshops appeared to be in favor of this, but some people try to keep them separate, for example entrepreneurs trying to maintain a distance between their business and personal identities. There were serious concerns about the privacy we are giving up in so many aspects of our lives, and that there has not been sufficient serious public discussion about how much is appropriate and acceptable.

Another theme was the use of Second Life in education, such as teaching the Native American Comanche language. Another fascinating application was Texas State Technical College, which has AA degree programs in which all coursework can be taken in Second Life. The college also has a YouTube channel.

 

Jeff Barr of Amazon Web Services gave a fascinating talk – ok, fascinating to technical people – about using the Linden scripting language LSL together with PHP to collect data about objects in Second Life.

Wagner James Au, author of the authoritative Second Life blog New World Notes was at SLCC with his new book, The Making of Second Life. I haven’t read it yet but it looks interesting. His long involvement in Second Life gives him a historical perspective that few others possess.

The biggest problem at SLCC on day two was that there were so many interesting workshops, more than than any one person could attend. There are two more days of events – SLCC 2009 continues through Sunday August 16, 2009.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The first day of the Second Life Community Convention was a day of controlled chaos and the halls of the ornate Westin-St. Francis hhandwritten being adorned with signs made from from pages torn notebooks. The chaos was so bad that members weren’t given name badges and weren’t even registered. Anyone could have walked in for free. The picture to the right, of the registration desk, tells is best.

There was only one printed schedule, which a Linden Lab employee was keeping a careful eye on, but at one point a Second Life member, furious at the chaos, took it from her, saying "I paid two hundred dollars and I deserve at least this!"

The two workshops I attended, "Building Community" and "Mixed Reality Presentations",
went well.

 

The "Building Community" workshop presented the experiences in creating communities in Second Life from four perspectives: people with disabilities, a corporate region (Nokia), and two social regions, Dublin (famous for its Blarney Stone pub), and Orange Island. The presenters were Gentle Heron, Han Rambler, Hydra Shaftoo, and Fabian Alexander. Kathleen Linden moderated the workshop.

Gentle Heron pointed out that although Second Life is often referred to as a "level playing field" for people with special challenges, it really is not so much level as more level than real life.

In general, the panel discussed issues involved in creating a successful community, such as having a clearly understood goal and rules, getting people around you whose judgment you trust and to delegate authority to them, and to be prepared for the unexpected.

 

In Kenzo and Rhiannon Chatnoir led the "Mixed Reality Presentations" workshop, assisted by a team in making the workshop itseld a mixed reality presentation. People in Second Life were taking part in the workshop via streaming media and could see us while we saw them on a large projection screen.

SLCC 2009 continues through Sunday August 16, 2009/

Recently I wrote about the Dubai Womens College‘s Second Life campus. Today I’m writing about another Islamic presence in Second Life, Al Haram Al Makki, a reproduction of Masjid al-Haram (the Grand Mosque), the desination of the legendary Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. From all accounts Masjid al-Haram is a magnificent structure. You can see a photograph of it here. Apart from its spiritual power, it’s statistics alone are impressive. It occupies seven acres and can accommodate one million worshippers at a time. Its elevators alone can carry a hundred thousand people an hour.

Non-Muslims can never see Masjid al-Haram in person – it is in the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca, which is closed to non-Muslims – but we can get a sense of it in Second Life. The picture to the right shows the interior of Second Life’s Al Haram Al Makki, on the upper floor, near the front entrance. No picture does it justice, however. The builders have done a remarkable job. It’s one of the most impressive builds I’ve seen in Second Life.

This is Al Haram Al Makki seen from the rear, on the course of a Hajj that can be performed in Second Life. There are notecards along the way, explaining it in a variety of languages, but the English language notecards are not always written clearly. I need to speak with more Muslims to gain a better understanding before writing more about it.

The picture to the right is the interior of Al Haram Al Makkim, where you can hear Islamic prayers in both English and Arabic, and notecards explain the significance of some of what you will see there This may be a virtual construct, but it nonetheless is a sacred place. My real life spiritual home is a Native American ceremonial roundhouse where I expect visitors to be suitably respectful. When I’m in the spiritual home of others, such as this, I show at least the respect I expect from others in my spiritual home. If you visit Al Haram Al Makkim , please be respectful and behave appropriately. I hope to write more about this sim and its Hajj in the near future, after I understand it better.

The Hangars Liquides sim, home of the French music label Hangars Liquides, also known as HL, isn’t yet complete, but it’s already amazing. Djehan Kidd, creator of the sim, describes it as "Post Cyberpunk deconstructions… a huge and tangled cyberpunk city, home of RL avant garde music label Hangars Liquides."

When you first teleport there, you will be in a pitch black room. Before doing anything, look for the floating text "HL readme + free flight assistant". It will give you a notecard with some information about the sim, and most importantly, it will give you a flight assistant. The sim is around 1600 meters above sea level, far above the elevation at which avatars can fly. Immediately look in your inventory and select "Flight Feather" and attach it to some part of your body. It serves two purposes: keeping you from falling when you step over an edge in the darkness, and it illuminates your avatar, a huge help in the darkness that permeates this sim.

One other thing you should do is set your Draw Distance to 512 meters. You’ll find this in Edit/Preferences/Graphics with a checkmark in Custom. Don’t leave it there after you leave the sim, however. It will probably substantially slow down your computer.

If you wander along the dark hallway, you will eventually find yourself in HL’s mysterious city, a place teeming with electric energy yet no life, a haunting place where you can never quite get your bearings. Make sure you have your audio on. HL describes its music as "flashcore"; Wikipedia describes it as hardcore techno experimental music. Their music is an essential component of the experience.

If you don’t wear your Flight Feather, at some point you will walk off an edge or fall through a hole and fall 1500 meters or more to the bottom of the sea, where you’ll find a conveniently located teleporter for easy transport back to the start. This sim is already impressive. I can’t wait to see what it offers after it’s been completed. If you’re a Second Life member, you can teleport there by clicking here.

I discovered Nigeria in Second Life‘s Saminaka sim when CNN‘s iReporter group in Second Life paid it a visit this week. It’s an interesting place that attempts to recreate the feel of parts of traditional Nigeria, the Nigeria that existed before oil, internet scams, and other modern day problems changed how so many view the real Nigeria.

Second Life’s Nigeria is a place of sandy beaches and a baked, cracked mud interior. One of the features is a walled village of round structures, with washing drying and a steamng laundry scrubbing bucket, picture to the right.

	Just up from that little village, nestled in a secluded pond at the foot of a waterfall, you’ll find this pier. In the bamboo growing around the pond there is an impala drinking and this kingfisher with a fish squirming in its beak.
As you walk up from the pond towards the commercial area, you’ll pass through some examples of Nigerian wild life: an ant hill with what might be thousands of ants streaming in and out, and two peacocks, including this one who struts in circles, occasionally spreading its tail as its doing in the picture to the right.
	The sim also contains a number of shops where you can buy African-themed items that include furniture, avatar skins, jewelry, clothing, and arts and crafts including what’s in the picture to the left, a shop that contains both traditional and contemporary African art. Second Life members can go there by clicking slurl.com/secondlife/Saminaka/123/142/31

An old fashioned, rickety wooden roller coaster in Second Life? Yes. It’s the "Mighty Atomic Mine Buster" in the Venusian sim. I’ll confess upfront that I’m not a roller coaster fan, either in my first or second lives, but I do appreciate the attention to detail that’s been taken in constructing this 800 meter, rather elaborate roller coaster. The wood is well aged, giving the thing a feeling of danger, as though it could collapse if the coaster cars ever went too fast. Part of it is shown in the picture to the right.

Of course, they don’t go too fast, and in fact if lag is too bad they don’t go at all, as happened in one of my visits, but it’s nonetheless impressive. The creator, Atom Burma, has modeled it on Coney Island’s 1950s Cyclone rollercoaster, and has not only included a roller coaster soundtrack – before riding it, be certain that your speakers are turned on – but also provided animations for the riders.

This picture shows the avatar animation as you’re riding the Mine Buster. It’s part of a much larger amusement park, the Carnivale Amusement Park, which has over a dozen rides, including two water rides, a spider, a ferris wheel, bumper cars (which I couldn’t get to work on any of my visits), and a tram that gives an aerial tour of the park. An unusual feature of the park that you certainly won’t find in real life is that all the rides are for sale or rent. Want to give a party on your land? Rent some rides!

A new feature that won’t fully open until August 2009 is "Emerald City", a game based on the "Wizard of Oz". Before you enter, you are given the opportunity to watch a video, pictured here, of a highly condensed version of the story. There’s much more there. A lot of attention has gone into constructing it. On my last visit there, I even saw what appeared to be a hooker (not affiliated with the Park). In my experience, mornings are the best time to visit. The one time I visited in the evening, the lag was so intense that the rides were unusable. Second Life members can go there by clicking slurl.com/secondlife/Venusian/88/32/40.

Not all war heroes carry weapons and wear a uniform. A few work quietly, behind the scenes, in nondescript offices, where they work to save lives knowing that every day that today could be the day they pay for it with their own life. This is how it was for Swedish diploment Raoul Wallenberg. Stationed in Budapest, Hungary during the Nazi occupation there, he worked tirelessly to save the lives of thousands of Jews at the risk of his own life.

Sweden’s Virtual Embassy in Second Life has recreated Raoul Wallenberg’s office, seen on this picture, as he left it the day he was captured by the Soviets in January 1945 The office is furnished sparsely, with the only decorations a photograph of Wallenberg at three with his mother, Swedish King Gustav V, a map of Budapest on the opposite wall, and a Budapest tourism poster, the only item of color in the office and also the only item hung crookedly..

The entrance to Raoul Wallenberg’s office is suitably somber. You enter from the brightly lit, modern Swedish Virtual Embassy but walk through a room that is totally black, taking you back in time to the siege of Budapest. Be sure to play the streaming media in the office. You will hear the sounds of Soviet and German forces battling over the city. It was a long and bloody battle, 102 days long, and left 38,000 civilians dead. The picture on the left shows the view out the window over Wallenberg’s typing table, showing shattered and burned buildings.

Wallenberg saved thousands of Jews from German concentration camps, but when the end came, it was the Soviets, not the Germans, who captured him. After capturing Budapest from the Germans, the Soviets seized Wallenberg and placed him in Lubyanka Prison. He was never freed, and disappeared into the Soviet penal system. The Soviets announced that he was executed in 1947, but there were claims by Soviet prisoners of seeing him alive as recently as 1991.