News and Commentary: More on The Return of Gachas

 

 It was almost four years ago on August 2021 when Linden Lab announced they were banning the popular method of shopping known as gachas. It was one of the Lab's more controversial moves that had a divided reaction among the residents. For those who don't know, gachas in Second Life refers to a method of selling items, transferable and no-copy, through a machine which delivers one of a set of goods at random, usually a number of common ones, and a few uncommon and rare ones. 

 

It's hard to say when gachas got started in our virtual world, but the method eventually became quite popular. If you got one you didn't like, you could try again and give the first one away, or sell it. There were groups for the purpose of trading gacha items. And there were popular events with hundreds of gatcha items available for sale, such as the Gacha Guild and the Arcade Gacha. 

But gachas were not popular with everyone. Because that what the buyer got was random, there were charges they were basically a form of gambling. And with people wanting that rare item, it wasn't hard to imagine someone spending hundreds, thousands maybe, just to get it. So there were allegations the way gachas were sold enticed people to spend and spend and spend. So there were people demanding the Lab ban them. 

 

Outside events however would eventually lead the Lab to take action. Some games began offering loot crates which could not only be earned by gameplay, but purchase, such as EA's Battlefront II, which soon prompted investigation and calls for action by Government officials. When Linden Lab announced it was banning gachas, it did so citing "a changing regulatory climate." A few days ago, they would say, "regulatory guidelines emerging globally at the time." While there were no complaints from the US Government, or any other government, about gachas, it's likely the Lab's lawyers cautioned them that the way the legal winds were blowing to expect changes in the law. 

The reaction from the residents was divided. Many cheered the Lab, saying things along the lines of "it's about time this addictive practice was stopped!" Others booed it, saying they loved shopping for them and trading them, or just thought the move was unnecessary.. Some builders were saying they depended on gachas to make their living in SL and felt this would cripple them. The two big gacha events, The Gacha Guild and Arcade Gacha, stayed active for a few more years. But the Gacha Guild, later renamed just The Guild, would announce it's closing on Deceomber 2022. The  Arcade Gacha is supposedly still going, but it's blog had it's last entry on Sept 2022. 

But over time, there was change. I began noticing some vendors in which had a selection of items offered at random, including a couple uncommon ones, but the next one after the current one available for purchase was displayed. It was clearly based on the gachas, though not a true one. And finally several months ago in October 2024, Linden Lab announced a partial reversal of it's gacha ban. The catch though was that the items couldn't be transferable. That action was greeted without enthusiasm, gacha fans saying part of the fun was being able to trade them. 

And now, as of Tuesday May 6, the Lab is allowing gachas back in full, transferable and all. 

We are excited to share some important news that will bring renewed opportunities and creativity to our vibrant virtual world.  Effective immediately, Gacha is once again fully allowed as a content creation and sales mechanic in Second Life.

Linden Lab would say, "The decision to prohibit Gacha in 2021 was following regulatory guidelines emerging globally at the time.  We have continued to evaluate what steps we can take to support creative freedom while also ensuring compliance with evolving legal frameworks, which led to the recent changes announced in 2024. Since then, the regulatory landscape surrounding Gacha systems has further shifted to the point where Gacha can be confidently reintroduced under current prevailing guidance."

The Lab has asked gacha merchants to do three things, "Clearly communicate Gacha mechanics and contents," to price gacha items reasonably, and "avoid deceptive practices or 'pay-to-win' designs" that would damage trust of gacha shoppers. 

The subject quickly made the official forums on (this thread), and once again the reaction of the residents was divided, "Addictive gameplay is addictive gameplay." "This is excellent news." It may be this is one subject the residents will never really agree on.

 

But in any event, gachas are back. Now it's up to the residents to vote with their wallets.

 

Bixyl Shuftan

 

Nintendo Sues Palword's Owner Pocketpair, Claiming Game Violates Patent Rights

 

Some of you may have heard about the game "Palworld." Palworld has some survival game elements, such as base-building and weaponmaking. But you also go out and tame critters, and have them combat player-owned critters. That you can arm the creatures has gotten the game the nickname "Pokemon with guns." The game was an overnight success, and brought the small indie company millions. But Nintendo wasn't very happy, and recently announced it was filing a lawsuit, saying the game violated a number of patents. 

Read more in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games. 

Discontinued City of Heroes MMO Private Server Gets Official Status From NCsoft

 

Some gamers, especially fans of superhero comics, will remember the "City of Heroes" MMO. It got attention partially for it's genre, being a superhero game when most MMOs at the time were science-fiction or Medieval fantasy, and partially for being the subject of a lawsuit by Marvel Comics, saying players were creating characters that infringed on it's copyrights. In 2012, it was shut down despite pleas from it's fans that NCSoft keep the game running. 

 

So what were the players to do? Many went to private servers where the game was kept running for those who wanted to keep heroing. Among these was one called Homecoming. One thing that was different about it was instead of trying to avoid attention from the game's corporate owners, from the start it was making an effort to negotiate with them. Finally on January 4, Homecoming made the following announcement in it's forums:

We’d like to thank you all for your patience over the past few years, and we’re incredibly thrilled to announce that it’s paid off: NCSOFT® has officially granted Homecoming a license to host City of Heroes™.

They went on to say that this meant the player and character accounts were now officially safe, there will continue to be more game content, and the game will continue to be free to those who want to play, "We will continue to be funded entirely through donations."

At a time in which corporations are quick to go to their lawyers, this is certainly a welcome development in the gaming world.

Sources: Wikipedia, Homecoming, Massively, Kotaku, Videogames.SI.com   

Bixyl Shuftan

Looking Back: The End of Ozimals

 

It was five years ago on Wednesday May 17, 2017,  that one of the first breedable pet companies, Ozimals, closed down. They came onto Second Life in 2010. While they were not the first breedable pets in Second Life, they were a breakthrough as they were hardier than the fragile Sion chickens and "the first breedable pet company in Second Life to use a sophisticated system based on dominant and recessive genetics instead of RGB color values as the previous popular breeding pet games." For a time, they were wildly popular, some rare breeds selling for tens of thousands of Lindens at auctions. They even made a marketing deal with Linden Lab.  But the bunny craze soon faded. Shellie Sands thought that the market had become saturated, and when people kept on selling as people wanted to get rid of bunnies they could no longer afford to feed, the price plummeted.

Shortly afterwards, Ozimals filed suit against Amaretto horses, the next popular breedable, saying they had copied sections of their scripts. But after some time, the judge ruled in favor of Amaretto. More breedables entered the market, from dogs to cats and many others. But the Ozimal bunny had a place in Second Life history.

Ozimals continued on, smaller than before, but still going. But behind the scenes trouble was brewing. It seems Ozimals partnered with a "Akimeta Metaverse Development Services" in order to create the scripts for their bunnies, and apparently the partnership for some reason came to an end with no agreement on what Akimeta was owed. What is known is that Malkavyn Eldritch, the owner of Ozimals, posted on their blog that the day before, she had been hit with a "cease and desist" order from a lawyer representing their former partner, and she felt she had no choice to comply. Ozimals was coming to an end as a company.

But it wasn't necessarily the end of the Ozimal bunnies already out there. Malkavyn created for bunny owners "free eternal timepieces and other goodies" that would keep their pets active. Otherwise they would soon go into hibernation without fresh food. Bunnies that were "Everlasting" would go on okay. For a time, the Newser kept a package of these Ozimal goods at the office for anyone who got the news late. There was also a group created, "For the Love of Oz" for fans of the bunnies.

I was recently contacted by an Ozimal fan who asked me some questions about the closing and the goods for preserving and reviving bunnies. So five years later, interest in Ozimals is still out there.
 
Bixyl Shuftan
 

Sansar's Owner, Wookey, In Lawsuit By Former CEO

 

Lately, things haven't been looking very good for Sansar. The "next generation virtual world" created by Linden Lab and going online in 2017, had struggled to find an audience and in 2020 the Lab would sell it to Wookey Technologies. In recent weeks, the place has been described as "on life support" with the workers furloughed and it's Umbra license expired. Then on Dec 22, it was knocked offline for a day. The cause of that has yet to be determined.

As it turns out, this isn't the only problem going on with Wookey. It seems they're in a legal dispute with a former CEO of theirs, John Fried. The "Wrongful Discharge" suit started in April 2020, not long after Wookey bought Sansar. He is demanding one million dollars. As of November, it was headed to a jury trial set for June 27, 2022.

Inara Pey states that the company has a net worth of about 3.78 million, "a judgement made in favour of Mr. Fried, it could put a significant dent in the company’s finances." Needless to say, the future of Sansar is looking more troubled.

Source: Modem World, Superior Court of California

Bixyl Shuftan
 

News and Commentary: Of The Gacha Ban

 
Linden Lab's move to ban gachas has been among their most controversial decisions in Second Life history. Gachas have been a popular way of selling goods. But they've also had no shortage of harsh critics. The ban brought out much criticism to the Lab, "Why shut down these business people?" But it also got a lot of cheers, "It's about time. They should have been gone a long time ago."

The move has been compared to the gambling ban in 2007 when Linden Lab ordered obvious games of chance, at least those that required Linden dollars to play for a chance to get a bigger cash return, taken down. The reasons today are pretty obvious - they were against California law, which Linden Lab falls under. Probably the biggest criticism was that the Lab only gave the operators 48 hours to shut down.

A number of critics of gachas claim they're little more than gambling themselves, that in order to get the prized rare item, people have to spend an unknown number of Lindens to get it. And therefore should fall under laws against gambling. Another comparison is to the "Lootboxes" of various games, among the most infamous examples being the ones on Battlefront II that made the game which already cost money to buy a "pay to win" one. Another example was Overwatch, in which the items in the crates didn't affect gameplay, but critics charged the desire for rare ones would be an incentive for players, notably minors, to spend money to purchase one. Several countries have passed laws or debated proposed laws against them.

In my opinion, there is another move by Linden Lab that more closely resembles it's gacha ban, it's May 2013 move to shut down independent Linden dollar exchangers. This move came two months following the US Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issuing a statement of guidelines on virtual currency, which were interpreted by one blogger as Linden Lab having to register with FinCEN to avoid steep penalties. To those familiar with the blogger's article, it did seem the Lab paniced and responded with a ban. But to the Lab's surprise, a number of residents outside the US stated they'd have to stop coming to Second Life as they now had no means to buy Linden dollars. So the Lab partially rescinded the ban, and the exchangers willing to be licensed by the Lab could do business again. But two years later, the Lab would once again ban them. This time, they had made it easier for Non-US residents to buy Linden dollars, and so the third-party Linden exchanger ban was for good.

There was a lawsuit by California against Apple concerning games from it's app store in which lootboxes were involved, but it was dropped. So as Second Life is under California law, it's under no obligation legally to drop them. Might access to Second Life be blocked in countries that ban lootboxes? Unlikely as to my knowledge, no country has complained to Linden Lab about it's gachas, including those with laws against lootboxes. So it seems instead of waiting until an actual complaint in which it could either fight in court or comply, it decided to jump the gun and ban the games months, perhaps over a year, before any serious challenge was mounted. Considering that gacha machine owners were given just 30 days to transition, either there's something going on behind the scenes only the Lab knows, or once again the Lab made a panic move in anticipation government actions.

Probably one more distinction between Second Life gachas and lootboxes is that there's no way, at least legitimately, a young child can put cash into an SL gacha. No one under 13 is allowed at all. While 13-15 year olds can come on, they need a sponsor organization and are limited only to the few sims owned by that sponsor. Accounts belonging to 16 and 17 year olds, under the rules they are limited to General-rated sims. If the Lab really was feeling pressured to "do something," limiting gacha machines to Mature and Adult rated sims would have been a much less drastic action. While a minor could always lie about their age and claim to be 18, that's already a banable offense.

Yes, a lot of people hate gachas. There's no shortage of people going virtually broke trying to get that one rare item they want. And if people go onto Marketplace to try to find it, some can only find only a few at huge prices. But there are ways to deal with these problems rather than a heavy-handed ban.

So what effect will the gacha ban have on Second Life? Some of the gacha merchants will do doubt find other ways to sell their products. Some may decide they'll be working harder for less money and close up shop. Two of the biggest gacha events, The Arcade and Gacha have already announced they're continuing. But some lesser known ones may find trouble attracting clients. 

Time will tell.

On a final note, I've occasionally played gachas myself. If I ever got what I didn't much care for, well, maybe someone might like it for a gift. And once in a while the rare items I managed to get became gifts as well.

Sources: Screenrant, Wikipedia, Bloomberg Law, gamesindustry.biz

Bixyl Shuftan

Activision/Blizzard Sued By California, Charges of Discrimination and Sexual Harassment

 

Activision/Blizzard, the company behind some of the world's most popular games, is the target of a lawsuit filed by California. Filed by the state's Department of Fair Employment and Housing, the company is charged with having a "frat boy" culture in which not only are women paid less than men while working similar jobs and promoted less often, but are "subjected to constant sexual harassment."

The allegations are not limited to simple jokes, but include "unwanted sexual advances," being groped at "cube crawls" in which men drink plenty of alcohol then "crawl" their way around cubicles where women work, and more. Activision/Blizzard is described as not investigating the numerous complaints made by women employees, and those who complained were sometimes retaliated against, including being subject to layoffs. The lawsuit also describes, "In a particularly tragic example, a female employee committed suicide during a business trip with a male" who brought sex toys with him.

Activision/Blizzard has denied the allegations, a spokesman issued a statement saying the filing contains "distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard's past." He would go on to say, "Over the past several years and continuing since the initial investigation started, we've made significant changes to address company culture and reflect more diversity within our leadership teams." Blizzard's President sent an email to employees saying he would be meeting with a number of them about the "extremely troubling" charges. Activision's President stated "there is zero tolerance for this sort of behavior." But over twenty Blizzard employees have spoken out against this response, including one lead game designer, "The statements made by [Activision Blizzard] do not represent us. We believe women, and we will continue to strive to do better and hold others accountable. Actions speak louder than words."

Players themselves have responded with actions such as in-game protests in support of the women involved. It is not yet known how many are canceling subscriptions in response to news of the lawsuit.

Sources: PC Gamer, Yahoo News, Aboutlaw.com

Bixyl Shuftan
 

 

Minecraft Classified as an Adult Game in South Korea

 *

The highly-popular Minecraft game is known for being a number of things. Among them it's kid-friendly graphics. But according to an article written by PC Gamer's Mollie Taylor, it's been labeled as an adults-only game in South Korea. 

Why designate the child-friendly game as for those 18 and over only? The Republic of Korea has a law banning minors 16 and under from playing games between Midnight and 6AM local time. Instead of going through the expense and hassle of developing an installing a method to keep those gamers in the country from playing their games those hours, Microsoft opted to just limit playing the game there to adults 19 years and older. 

At first the law didn't affect gameplay as Mojang accounts don't need age verification. But that changed in December 2020 as gamers there would need an Xbox Live account to access the game, and in March came a warning that anyone in the country wishing to get the game would need to be 18 or older. The result has been the game having a split age-rating in the country, officially labeled as 12 and up but thanks to Xbox is de-facto limited to those 18 and over. Naturally, the situation has gotten many in South Korea upset, "Korea will become [the only game market] where even Minecraft is reduced to an adult game."

When contacted by PC Gamer, Microsoft responded, "We’re working on a longer term solution for existing and new players under the age of 19 in South Korea and will have more to share on this later this year."

Source: PC Gamer
 

This And That: News in Brief

 There's a lot going on, and only a little time to write about it. So here's a few things that have been going on, but we haven't had the time to write about it in-depth.

With the Pandemic and US Presidential Election in the news lately, something called the CASE Act was almost unnoticed. Tacked onto the Coronovirus relief bill, the act was to "a small claims court-type system within the United States Copyright Office for copyright owners to seek damages under US$30,000 for copyright violations." It got the attention of one SL DJ whom was concerned as it sounded like streaming for public performance would become a felony under the bill.

A residential area, Baja Cove, closed down, "it was a beautiful New Jersey like beach."

Flash is no longer operating for computers, and with it, a number of browser games, and animated files are no longer playing.

We still have yet to write about the Silent Hill "Otherworld" area, an interactive horror area where monsters attack people as they explore an area. For those who can't wait for the article, you can check it out at Chief (42/87/691).

A new kind of breedable pet was recommended  to us to write about. We'll get to it soon.

Second Life's land area grew over the previous year according to Tyche Shepherd, from 24740 regions to 25555, with most of the increase being private sims.

Stay tuned for more on these, and other topics.

Genus Project Wins DMCA Suit, Reopens Today

Things haven't been the best for the Genus Project store this year. Twice this year, someone hit them with DMCA takedown notices, the second just hours after the store reopened. Finally, after two months, the case has been resolved and the store is set to reopen today. So how was the suit pulled off and why did it take time to resolve? The owner of Genus would explain.

Read more in Extra.

Second Life Store Hit With Two DMCA Shutdowns, Second Hours After Reopening

While the Second Life Birthday and the buyout of Linden Lab have been in the headlines, there have been other news stories that might have gotten more attention otherwise. Among the companies making use of Bento mesh is Genus, which has gotten attention for it's Bento heads. But a few months ago, they were hit with a DMCA takedown order, which shut them down for a while. Earlier this month, they reopened, only to be hit with a second takedown order in just a few hours.

Read the story in Extra.

"EARN IT" Bill In Congress Could Mean Bad News For Internet Freedom

By Bixyl Shuftan

There's another Internet bill in Congress that could have potentially dire consequences for privacy expectations people online take for granted. Introduced "to establish a National Commission on Online Child Exploitation Prevention, and for other purposes," the "Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of  Interactive Technologies" Act, or EARN IT, "opens the door for the government to require new measures to screen users’ speech and even backdoors to read your private communications."

According to an article in Bloomberg, "The bipartisan measure, ... would affect a wide range of social media companies, cloud service providers, email and text platforms and other technology services. It could put Facebook in the government’s crosshairs for its plans to encrypt all of its messaging apps and undercut Apple’s refusal to create back doors into its devices and services." The article would go on to say, "The Justice Department has tentatively scheduled a Feb. 19 meeting on the future of the immunity known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act ... The provision protects platforms from responsibility for content posted by third parties. Although the measure doesn’t directly mention encryption, it would require that companies work with law enforcement to identify, remove, report and preserve evidence related to child exploitation -- which critics said would be impossible to do for services such as WhatsApp that are encrypted from end-to-end."

Companies would have to "certify that they are following the best practices set by the 15-member commission." If they don't to its satisfaction, "they would lose the legal immunity they currently enjoy under Section 230 relating to child exploitation and abuse laws. That would open the door to lawsuits for 'reckless' violations of those laws ..."

Supporters of the bill insist the ability to read encrypted messages is necessary, saying efforts to protect encryption, “will make it harder to detect -- and stop -- child abuse and similar crimes." Elliot Harmon of the Electronic Frontier Foundation retorted that if the bill became law, "the Attorney General could unilaterally dictate how online platforms and services must operate. If those companies don’t follow the Attorney General’s rules, they could be on the hook for millions of dollars in civil damages and even state criminal penalties. ... It opens the door for the government to require new measures to screen users’ speech and even backdoors to read your private communications.

"EARN IT undermines Section 230, the most important law protecting free speech online. Section 230 enforces the common-sense principle that if you say something illegal online, you should be the one held responsible, not the website or platform where you said it. Section 230 has played a crucial role in creating the modern Internet. Without it, social media as we know it today wouldn’t exist, and neither would the Internet Archive, Wikimedia, and many other essential educational and community resources. And it doesn’t just protect tech platforms either: if you’ve ever forwarded an email, thank Section 230 that you could do that without inviting legal risk on yourself." Harmon would call the bill an attack on Internet Security, entrepreneur innovation, and just plain unnecessary.

Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerburg has stated his company will continue to be “standing up for encryption, against those who say that privacy mostly helps bad people.” Senator Ron Wyden has openly spoken in protest about the bill, "a tired, debunked plan to blow a hole in one of the most important security features protecting digital lives of the American people."

The website fightforthefuture.org/ has a petition calling on Congress to reject the bill. As of the writing of this article, it has over 8660 of the 12,800 signatures it set as a goal.

The Justice Department is currently led by Attorney General William Barr, whom lately has been the target of calls to resign for interfering with the trial of an ally of President Trump.

Sources: Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, Reuters, Bloomberg, Ron Wyden

Bixyl Shuftan

News and Commentary: More on Youtube And COPPA

Youtube has long been a staple on the Internet. It was a place that people could post videos, as long as they weren't porn or graphically violent, for friends and anyone else interested in watching. Over time, there were changes. There were the ads, there was monetization, there were the takedowns of videos that were seen as infringing of copyrights, and others. But one recent change has scared many video makers: the new rules concerning COPPA. Second Life music video maker Nydia Tungsten ended up removing most of her videos as a result, and many others are doing or considering doing the same. So why are they worried? The new rules in question are just too vague to trust.

Read the commentary in Extra.

News And Commentary: Patent Troll Sues Linden Labs

By Cyfir (Cyfiremmerich)

News broke recently over on yahoo!finance that a known patent troll, Worlds Incorporated, has filed a patent dispute lawsuit with Linden Labs for their extremely broad patent on a “System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space.”

In fact they have used this same patent to files a suit against Blizzard all the way back in 2012. In 2013, they were counter sued by Activision when they went after them.

So what is a patent troll you might ask? Patent trolls are often not companies that offer their own services or goods. They are more of a “patent holding company” and they often collect and sit on patents just so they can go after legitimate companies in the future in the hopes of either settling with them or collecting royalty fees for the use of their intentionally broad patents.

In this case, Worlds Inc. maintains a very basic 3D chat client which you can read about here (but be warned this article is very NSFW and that’s not the avatar’s tail). It’s obvious that this service isn’t even looked after. What these patent trolls will do is gather the patent and release a barebones “service” or “product” so that they can prove later on in court that they have been sourcing this “product” or “service.” They are essentially opportunistic vultures who see an opportunity, wait for their prey to get fat (successful), and then strike when the time is right.

This is nothing new and happens all the time in the technology industry. Since it’s so common, the companies that these patent trolls go after tend to pay for good lawyers who take care of these things. Let’s hope that Linden Labs is able to do the same. It’s just a shame that it’s such a drain on resources for these companies.

Cyfir

Image Source: Engadget. 

Editor's Note: According to an article by Engadget, they sued NCSoft and had gone after Linden Lab in the past as well.

It seems among the things that the money coming from Linden Lab's price and fee hikes will be going to is paying lawyers to defend them against patent trolls.

Update on Lawsuit Against Linden Lab

It was on Wednesday July 31st that former cybersecurity worker for Linden Lab, Kavaya Pearlman, announced she had filed a lawsuit against the Lab alleging that they had fired her in retaliation for bringing up multiple security issues concerning cybersecurity laws, and that part of the reason for her losing her job was for being a woman and an ethnic and religious minority. A little more than two weeks later on Friday August 16, Wired Magazine had an article about the lawsuit, which had some more information and a statement from Linden Lab's spokesman Brett Atwood.

“While we will fight her alleged claims in court, we deny any allegations that the company has engaged in any illegal activity. Ms. Pearlman left the company on March 15 only after she was given the opportunity to improve her work performance. We look forward to all the facts coming out in a court of law.”

The article would say Pearlman claimed Linden Lab "was not complying with anti-money-laundering rules," such as required information about the skill game operators. Atwood would respond to Wired over email, "All Second Life skill gaming operators must provide and verify their identification as part of a rigorous application process. We are in compliance with all legal regulations and all skill gaming operators agree to our Terms and Conditions as part of the review and approval process for our Skill Gaming program.”

The Wired article would state that the lawsuit mentions Linden Lab's fraud team manager "presented information to Linden board members in quarterly fraud reports that acknowledged a high number of such Ageplay [sic] violations were actually occurring on a regular basis each quarter." The lawsuit would also claim the Lab's chief compliance officer at the time, Scot Butler, wrote a memo, "urging compliance with cybersecurity laws consistent with Pearlman’s repeated concerns." Wired would state that "a former high-level Linden Lab employee confirmed the contents of the memo." When the Linden Lab spokesman was asked about the descriptions of ageplay, he responded, "If any such activity is detected, individuals or groups promoting or providing such content and activities will be subject to enforcement actions, which may include immediate termination of accounts (including all detectable alternate accounts), closure of related groups, removal of content, blacklisting of payment information and loss of land or access to virtual land.”

Nothing was mentioned of the contrast between the allegations of Pearlman's alleged ill treatment by the Lab due to being "a minority, a woman, a Muslim woman and an immigrant" and Linden Lab's actions in recent years such as issuing a statement against a Presidential order imposing immigration restrictions, and joining other companies in a statement of support of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered workers against discrimination.

Source: Wired

Hat tip: New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan

Linden Lab Under Lawsuit, Accused of Firing Woman For Raising Security Concerns

As Second Life residents get ready for the Tilia service as part of their online experience starting today, there's an unwelcome development for Linden Lab that's likely to raise concerns by some residents on how safe their data will be. Kavaya Pearlman, a former employee of Linden Lab whom worked on cybersecurity, announced yesterday over Twitter she was filing suit against Linden Lab.

The reason for the lawsuit, Pearlman stated, was retaliation for her "multiple concerns of potential violations (of) cybersecurity laws" during her time of employment. It was also alleged in her Twitter post that the Lab's treatment of her was due to her being "a minority, a woman, a Muslim woman and an immigrant in times where people that do not look like her are being told to 'go back to their country'.” She insisted that during her time of employment, neither Second Life of Sansar suffered any data breaches.

Pearlman's accusations that she was fired in part for her being female and an ethnic and religious minority go against the inclusive image Linden Lab has made for itself over time. In 2017, the Lab made a statement against an executive order by President Trump imposing restrictions on immigration from several countries that critics called a "Muslim ban." In it's newest tweet on it's Twitter page, the Lab stated, "We're proud to join HRC (Human Rights Campaign) and 200 major corporations to send a message that everyone deserves to be protected from discrimination."

Of Tilia, Linden Lab has insisted the service was created "With security and privacy as it's primary considerations."

Hat tip: New World Notes, Modem World

Bixyl Shuftan

Tilia Needed For Second Life Accounts Starting August 1

While the Lindens gave some news of their upcoming plans during the "Meet the Lindens" events last week (many of which the Newser was hoping to describe in more detail in the next few days), there was one that wasn't mentioned: Tilia. On the Second Life blog yesterday, the Lab announced it would be part of "Important Changes to your Second Life Account."

Beginning on August 1, 2019, Tilia will take over certain aspects of the Second Life service. Tilia enables Linden Lab to continue the Second Life service in its current form through enhanced regulatory compliance protocols.  To achieve this, Tilia will assume responsibility for managing your USD denominated account, which will be referred to as your "Tilia Account."  After August 1, Tilia will handle process credit requests and payments made from your Tilia Account.

 

Effective August 1, in order to continue using Second Life you will have to agree to Tilia’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.  A Tilia Account associated with your Second Life Account will automatically be created for you and you will not need a separate username or password to access your Tilia Account.  

 

In order to stay in compliance with regulatory requirements, if you wish to process a credit, we will need certain personal information to verify your identity, including your name, address, date of birth, and social security number (or government-issued identification if you are not a U.S. Citizen).  You may be required to provide additional information to complete the transaction. Tilia will securely store this information so that you should only need to provide it once.

 

Additionally, please note that customers under 18 years of age will not be able to process credit after August 1, 2019 until they reach the age of 18. 

 

As always, Second Life remains free to access and enjoy!  However, if your Tilia Account is inactive for a period of 12 months we will charge your Tilia Account a fee to the extent permitted by applicable law.  If you have questions about the inactivity fee, please see Tilia’s Terms of Service.

What is Tilia? Linden Lab bought the company in late 2015. The name had been registered in 2002, but the business, whatever it's purpose, had shut down. When Inara Pey asked Linden Lab what it was for, the response by their Director of Global Communications was " a subsidiary of Linden Lab, focused on payments and the compliance work associated with operating virtual economies, and it will provide services for both Second Life and Project Sansar." It's also the genus name of about thirty species of trees that are sometimes called "linden trees," which may be why Linden Lab was interested in the name.

The response by the residents has been more than a little confusion, on both various Discord servers and the Second Life forums. The "Tilia Takes Over" thread has already reached 18 pages as of the writing of this article. There were a number of questions such as would people be hit with bills for not buying or selling Lindens? Was this Age Verification all over again? And there were no shortage of comments such as "Linden Labs, I am very disappointed in you. ... Some have accused you of a bait and switch over the Linden Homes and they were wrong. But inducing people to re-up for another year and then springing a change in the terms of service a week later is a true bait and switch."

While some expressed worry, others such as Becky Nosferatu stated there wasn't much for most residents to worry about. Some however would be paying more.

This took me nearly 20 minutes to figure this out. For those who are in the know, there is a new law and a new ISSUE now, involving the way Linden Lab works with real-world money.

When you buy or sell Lindens, you have a middle ground where the Lindens goes to. So think of that as your virtual wallet. This money just sits there until you cash out (send to Paypal) or your buy in (convert it to Lindens).

Now, what the above means is if you have 0.00 in that "wallet" let's call it, it will do nothing to you. You won't get any fees, you won't be charged, etc.

For people who DO cash out or in, if you have money IN that wallet, and you LEAVE IT THERE FOR A YEAR, they will count that as being inactive and start hitting you with fees. It will take from your "wallet" until you either cash it out or use it, or until your balance reaches 0.00.

Everyone, unless you are under 18, are required to pony up your valuable info IF you want to use the cash out/buy in feature to get Linden dollars. This is EXPECTED of you. As of August 1. this new system will take effect. They're already making a new account for everyone on SL.

What it also means though, if you are over 18 and want to cash out, you must offer up personal info, including your social. A ton of people are not cool with that concept, but trust me, they wouldn't ask for it if they didn't have to.

Why are they doing this? There is a new law in place that affects US and international citizens. This new law means that if you are working with crypto (virtual) currency, you CAN NOT hoard this currency for "better prices" before you cash out, because that is LAUNDERING and that is a big no-no. It's like if you get word fhe stock market is going to crash, you pullout all your funds from said stock and sell it. That, my friends, can net you prison time.

If you don't ever cash out or buy in? You don't have to worry about this at all. You are completely immune and nothing will come of it for you.

If you're like me, however, you are subject to fees when you cash out; Linden Lab's fees, and whatever Tilia's going to charge as well. Nothing we can really do about it.

Becky cited an article in Coindesk.com, referring to a statement from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

There's plenty of information and more than a little legalese to go through. But it seems Tilia being put into action isn't just for the Lab to put up more hoops for residents to jump through and another fee to pay (and maybe higher tier prices from landlords having to pass down feed imposed on them to break even). It appears Linden Lab is doing this due to wanting to avoid legal trouble from the US Government.

As Second Life has adapted technically to change to fit with the times over the past sixteen years, it seems it has to adapt to changes, or at least greater enforcement of, laws dealing with the Internet and commerce as well.

Source: Modem World, Wikipedia, Coindesk.com

Bixyl Shuftan

News in Brief

There has been quite a bit going on lately in Second Life and the Internet. Too much to go in-depth for all of them, and some have been around for a few days. So here's some of the stories, in brief.

Facebook Hacked: Last weekend, Facebook announced fifty million accounts had been exposed and vulnerable by a "security issue" due to a "vulnerability" in the social media app's code. Although Facebook's owner Mark Zuckerberg insisted the problem was fixed, others such as Virginia Senator Mark Warner called for increased regulation to protect the public's privacy and security.

BBC, Mashable, Mark Warner Twitter

Net Neutrality Lawsuit: The US Federal Government filed suit against California earlier this week over the state's Net Neutrality law. Despite 200 businesses and trade groups asking them not to do so, last December, the FCC voted to scrap Net Neutrality protections. Several states responded by setting up their own net neutrality protections, California's being among the toughest. In the lawsuit, the Justice Department charges California's actions are a violation of the Constitution. In response, one of the people who wrote California's protections charged that the state's law was written in response to the Federal Government abandoning it's obligation to help protect public access to the Internet.

Petition at Change.org , ars.technica, Washington Post , The Verge, 

Internet Throttling Has Begun:  Adding fuel to the fire behind the efforts of California and others trying to bring back Net Neutrality protections was a report written about last month that confirmed major Internet Service Providers were already throttling Internet traffic through Youtube, Netflix, and other places. Verizon is already in trouble for throttling the communications equipment used by California firefighters while they were working to stop wildfires.

The Humanist Report , Bloomberg , The Guardian

Leaving Behind One's Avatars In Their Will:  Blogger Ryan Schultz, who writes about Sansar and other virtual worlds, recently announced that he might have cancer. In response, he says he will be putting avatars he made in his will so they can still be used after he dies. While people interested can contact him inworld, he doesn't plan on leaving avatars that took a lot of time, sometimes money, to make to just anyone. (first update) (second update) (third update)

Hat Tip: Hamlet Au

Star Trek RP Worries: A virtual recreation of the USS Enterprise from Star Trek: The Next Generation was ordered taken down by lawyers from CBS, prompting worries from New World Notes' Hamlet Au that they might go after Star Trek roleplays in Second Life soon as well, despite an agreement several years ago.

Eurogamer, New World Notes, 

Second Life Sims Still Growing: In late August, the Newser noted that five of the past seven weeks then had seen an increase in the number of private sims. According to Tyche Shepard in Sept 23, the increases have been continuing "an additional 45 regions since 31st Dec 2017 , a 0.3% growth and overall the Total Grid has regrown to the the size it was in April last year." But a week later, he stated five sims had closed, bringing the growth back down to 40 sims and 0.2% .

Source: Virtualverse  Hat Tip: Daniel Voyager

Gossip/Slam Blog Owners Banned: New World Notes reported a couple weeks ago about the owners of a blog called "SL Secrets." The blog allowed anonymous users to make all kinds of claims about those they didn't like from copybotting to fat-shamming to catfishing to ageplay. From the point of view of content creators, it was a potential cause of lost revenue through charges of ripping off others in which the accuser would be completely unknown. The two co-owners were reported to have been banned by Linden Lab from Second Life citing violations for several sections, including 5.3 which Hamlet Au called "the nuclear option," stating, "We may terminate your Account if we determine in our discretion that such action is necessary or advisable to ... protect the rights or interests of Linden Lab, the Service community or any third party." More recently, the owners have decided to remake their blog to cover territory beyond Second Life, called "Virtual Secrets." The co-owners insist they're doing so to expand their coverage and not because of a lawsuit by Linden Lab to remove the "SL" part of their name.

Source: New World Notes

New Avatar Review Website. Some fans of furry avatars may remember "Second Life Avatar Review Files," or SLARF. It used to have a large database of reviews of furry avatars, but stopped updating in 2015, and is now accessible in the Internet Archive after being taken down from the net. Blau Rascon is now doing a new blog of avatar reviews: The "Second Life Avatar Index." Already, there are several reviews of recent furry and feral avatars.

Leading Youtube to Music File Conversion Website Shut Down By Music Industry

In a development that's clearly of interest to music lovers, youtube-mp3.org, once the top website for converting Youtube videos into MP3 files, was shut down earlier this month following an out of court settlement between the site's owner and the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA. The website www.youtube-mp3.org had been one of the most visited websites on the Internet according to an article in Torrent Freak magazine. But checking the location only shows a dead link, the site having been taken down.

About a year ago, Philip Matesanz of Germany and PMD Technologies UG, the owners of the website had been sued by a number of record companies, charging that the "Defendants are depriving Plaintiffs and their recording artists of the fruits of their labor," while raking in money from advertising. In the agreement between Matesanz and the companies, the domain had been handed over to RIAA and it's owner making a payment of an undisclosed cash settlement,  the recording labels agreed to halt further prosecution, and the defendant accepts the blame of the charges against him.

While this is the end of www.youtube-mp3.org, these music companies feel the problem of "stream ripping" shouldn't have gotten so far to begin with, complaining that Youtube needs to take more responsibility in trying to stop them.  As it turns out, Youtube did threaten legal action against the website, as well as the video downloader TubeNinja.

For those whom had been depending on youtube-mp3.org for their music, such as possibly some Second Life DJs, they will now have to find another way to get new music.

Sources: The Next Web, Torrent Freak

Bixyl Shuftan

Linden Lab Updates Terms of Service, DMCA Process Stricter

Linden Lab recently announced that there will be an update to the Second Life Terms of Service, which will take effect on July 31. One noteworthy change is that concerning DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) notices, in Section Twelve, Part Two, at the bottom of the ToS page, or their "Intellectual Property Infringement Notification Policy."

To begin with, the Lab will not respond to any DMCA requests made inworld. Anyone interested has to either fax them, at, (415) 520-9660, or send a "snail mail" letter.

Linden Research, Inc.
945 Battery Street
San Francisco, California 94111
Attention: Intellectual Property Team

Then there was the following:

Please be aware that under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f), you may be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys' fees incurred by us or our users, if you knowingly materially misrepresent that material or activity is infringing.

Looking up this law, it basically states, "anyone filing a claim they either know is false or unsure whether it's true or not may be taken to court." Or as Hamlet Au not so delicately put it, "If you waste our time with frivolous claims, we may just sue your a**."

Hamlet Au got several responses to his article, all positive. One responded, "This is a good thing. I know two recently who have had DCMA filed against them out of jealousy of (a) better product. " Another commented, "This change has been a long time in coming - many genuine SL merchants do NOT have the finances required to mount a defence on every claim no matter how frivolous, which has been one of the weaknesses of the DMCA with regards to SL. The threat of actual blowback in the event of malicious claims should also cut out some of the adventurism in this regard. It's one thing to write a policy and another to enforce it, though. Let's see how it affects things when it finally goes into effect."

So it seems Linden Lab made a move that, for a change, is getting approval from the residents. As one stated, it remains to be seen how it changes things.

Hat tip: Hamlet Au

Bixyl Shuftan