Breaking News: Mal Burns (Malburns Writer) Has Reportedly Died

Some sad news for those for fans of Mal Burns, known as Malburns Writer in Second Life. Word has been going around today that he has suddenly passed away.

 

Mal was not known to be in ill health, and last posted on his Facebook in June, his last Youtube being on June 22. As of the writing of this article, his Discord icon shows while inactive, his computer remains on and connected to the Internet. 

 

Mal wrote about Second Life much in the early 2010s, since then moving on to virtual worlds in general, but still occasionally touching on SL. 

 

Stay tuned for more information.

 

Hat tip: Oldesoul Fairelander 

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

 

Commentary: Is Linden Lab Leaving Second Life Behind in Favor of Sansar?

Recently Will Burns, known as Aeonix Aeon in Second Life, took a trip to Linden Lab. He got to meet Ebbe Linden, and they were all to happy to show him Sansar, putting him in an Occulus Rift, and giving him a show. He mentioned one of the areas in Sansar that's been getting the most attention, Ache's Garage of the upcoming movie about virtual reality "Ready Player One." And he could understand why companies such as Warner Brothers would prefer working with Sansar over Second Life as Sansar is more controlled while Second Life to them, in Burns' words, "is like the inmates running the asylum." So he felt both virtual worlds had a place with Linden Lab.

But from his point of view, for all the attention Linden Lab was giving to Sansar, he felt Second Life was being ignored. Or in his words it was "treating it like the wicked red-headed step-child."

While I was at Linden Lab, I definitely got the feeling that SANSAR was the main focus with a near total avoidance of discussing Second Life or its future. It’s technology evangelism at its peak. As far as Ebbe is concerned, he’s all-in for SANSAR while Second Life is … somewhere in the basement level with the engineers. On one side of the equation I can see why Ebbe would be all-in for SANSAR. I’d assume Linden Lab spent a stupid amount of money developing it and couldn’t afford to pull the plug, and so he was likely told to produce an ROI come hell or high water. ...  Right at this moment, he’s showing qualities of Captain Ahab, in the blind pursuit of SANSAR (Moby Dick). But I believe he’s intelligent and an overall great guy. Smart enough not to sabotage his own efforts and company. After all, Second Life is still the goose that laid the golden egg. It didn’t die, it’s just being actively starved and strangled by the aforementioned organizational changes and CEOs. Which is really unfortunate, because I also believe Linden Lab also has some brilliant and creative people there with their hands tied, and who absolutely love Second Life and want to make it better.

Burns would later talk to Hamlet Au, whom later brought it up in New World Notes, "Here's the vibe I get. When I was there, Ebbe was of course wearing the Sansar hoodie, and keen to steer conversation back to Sansar whenever possible. Whenever I did bring up Second Life related things, I got the vibe that he was politely listening and waiting to go back to Sansar discussion and show it off." Burns would also cite the Newser's February 23 article of Linden Lab laying off twelve employees in which one former worker stated, "Company is too focused on its new product; those who work on the mainstay feel set aside and taken for granted."

While Linden Lab is still maintaining and improving Second Life, as Hamlet put it, "the overall shift in corporate cultural focus, away from Second Life and toward Sansar, seems undeniable." Granted it's natural a company would want to showcase it's latest product. But why leave out it's tried and true moneymaker out of any attention and exposure? Could it be the tendency in the tech industry to focus on what's new? Could the Lab think Second Life has been "tainted" by the seedy side of Second Life, the tales of cyber-affairs, flying penis attacks by griefers, and interactive porn? That the streaming service Twitch continues to have the virtual world on it's banned list alongside "Porno Studio Tycoon" is not exactly one of Linden Lab's finer moments. Or perhaps the Lab simply thinks Second Life's time has come and gone?

It's been hinted at before that the release of the movie "Ready Player One" could rekindle interest in virtual reality. But as Burns notes, "opening the floodgates to SANSAR right now ... would be very, very, bad" for the virtual world as it is still in it's early stages and "the public would compare it harshly to other more polished systems." Perhaps Linden Lab could compare Second Life to an early version of the movie's "Oasis," not as flashy as some MORPGs, a little buggy, a little laggy, and often chaotic. But it's got a solid fanbase that uses it in many ways. Some of those ways are truly grand, from great works of art to large online communities to raising thousands of dollars for charity. And that is certainly worth drawing attention to.

Burns' article can be read in it's entirety in his Andromeda blog.

Bixyl Shuftan

Reader Submitted:

 Will Burns (Aeonix Aeon) recently sent us a couple pictures. One was of him in an avatar inspired by "The Nightmare Before Christmas" at Halloween Town.

Will didn't say exactly where this picture was taken. But it looks like he was wondering "Who you gonna call?"

Press Release: "The Future of the Metaverse: Blueprints for the Evolution of Virtual Worlds"

CRL-VWIG Meeting for Sunday, September 18, 2016

Noon - 2pm SLT - joint session with ALA Virtual Communities in Libraries MIG:
CVL Auditorium: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Bradley%20University/26/140/24

Speaker:  William Gerard Burns III, Vice-Chair IEEE Virtual World Standards Group

Program:  The Future of the Metaverse: Blueprints for the Evolution of Virtual Worlds

This presentation will provide an overview of the history of virtual worlds and phases of development. Defining the "Metaverse" and a glimpse into the future of virtual worlds will include interoperability and other key elements of design.

Join librarians, educators, and anyone interested in virtual worlds and the future of immersive learning.  The session is jointly sponsored with the ALA Virtual Communities in Libraries

Member Initiative Group.

Interview with Will Burns (Aeonix Aeon) About The ToS Controversy

By Bixyl Shuftan

Will Burns (account name Aeonix Aeon) is a resident in Second Life of a number of roles, including content creator, businessman, and is the writer behind the Andromeda blog under his real-life name of Will Burns, where he writes about Second Life, and virtual worlds in general. Among the articles on his blog was one he wrote in October 2010 following a series of moves by Linden Lab most residents couldn't make sense out of. Will at the time felt he could, concluding the Lab was looking for an investor or a buyer.

So what did Will think of what was going on with Linden Lab now? I talked with him shortly after he had written about the matter. When I questioned him about his comment to Shava Suntzu/Shava Nerad about calling Linden Lab's move part of an exit strategy, he responded, "yes, but not the sort of strategy people think. … The exit strategy may very well be to transition SL into a closed and highly controlled gaming system where they own everything, and it can be offered for resale to indie devs as a service on Desura in order to bolster their other diversification offerings. Either that or to transition it to (possibly) a 'Second' Second Life which could be high-fidelity, or whatever, in which case it still stands that the closed system mentality and control is needed to make sense in the whole for Desura and the closed gaming platforms they are making in an ecosystem."

"It could be a little bit of both, but as it stands - and exit strategy looks a bit toxic from the outside because SL is a wild card and looks like a giant headache for not being able to own the content. In order to alleviate that, they look to be circling the wagons for a transition to another system where they can outright make it closed and vetted only through Linden Lab for user generated content, much like they now do for TPVs, which gives them ultimate rights and control. But it wouldn't surprise me if they offered a content pipeline service to indie devs on Desura in order to make it lucrative for adoption. I wouldn't rule out a future point where they may also say that everything is a review process for import, either. There is a lot of reasons that make sense. But most of them revolve around the end-game or transition."

Unlike most, Will felt the Lab knew what it was doing when it wrote the new ToS, "They couldn't have written it better. Because that's what their intention actually was. If it wasn't they would have fixed it already. … Even if you went to another Grid,  they still have the copies and will continue to have the rigths unless you enforce otherwise. When you delete inventory, you are only deleting the UUID key that you have to each item. But the master copies stick on the server because *other people* might have access to it. So unless you send DMCA or removal requests to LL, all deleting your inventory does is delete *your* own access to those files, but doesn't delete from the servers. If you want them all gone, you likely have to send the DMCA or similar for content removal to get them to remove the *master* copies on the servers so *nobody* in SL can have a copy.  *Then* you can go to another grid knowing you've cleaned your stuff out of SL completely. Otherwise.. just picking up shop and moving to Inworldz doesn't do anything to what is on the server unless they specifically sent the removal request and DMCA type process.

Of course, if you've sold anything in SL, like say.. a brand, if I send a DMCA for removal of content, that means everyone that bought my stuff loses it and you probably owe people refunds out the a**. See the catch 22 LL is betting on? That's why the TOS is written just the way they want it. Even if it's a total rat bastard power grab, still does just what LL wants, unless you take them to court in a class action to reverse the TOS agreement. But I dont see much of anything for a option at all, really. It's a hard situation no matter what. Somebody is gonna lose, and LL is the least of the loser(s), no matter what."

"There is a third option," Will suggested, "make content that requires a 3rd party authentication to be useful, so taken out of the auth situation, would be utterly useless." I asked Will to give an example. He answered, "Sure. That's exactly how 'eureka!' works. It's a front end HUD, but the actual mechanics and such are on a external server which they can't claim ownership of. Same deal with the kiosks - they require the external server to work. Without it, both are DOA, essentially. Kinda like a built in kill switch. You take away the external component and the product becomes worthless, in the sort of manner of like, texture for a mesh shirt is defaulted to something god-awful ugly. But the HUD (connected to external server) fixes that.  I would imagine Meeroos wont work without external servers, etc."

"But the best bet would probably be a legal one en-mass."

It was at this point Will had to depart, and we went our separate ways. He did remind me that he wasn't calling for Linden Lab to be leveled, "Just looking at all angles and possibilities based on a corporate mentality premise."

Will Burns' articles about the ToS controversy can be found on both Andromeda, and his Google Plus page.

Bixyl Shuftan

Opinions About the Content Creators Rights Controversy

By Bixyl Shuftan

As the fallout from Linden Lab's change of the Terms of Service concerning content creator rights continues, more people have expressed comments about the issue. Some, such as Mona Eberhardt of the Living Virtually blog, feel the Lab is in the right, residents should stop worrying about being ripped off, and criticism should be muted otherwise the Lab will just stop listening.

It is obvious that this revision of the ToS was, to say the least, short-sighted and ill-advised. But it is not obvious to the Lab. Now, contrary to what is claimed, LL does not claim ownership of anyone’s intellectual property and all such talk needs to stop now, because it’s not only counter-productive, but also harmful. ... SL content creators need to understand that the new ToS do not constitute an appropriation of their intellectual property by Linden Lab and all such wording needs to be removed from blogs, in-world “grassroots” groups etc. Why? Not only because it’s factually wrong, but also because it sets the entire discussion off on the wrong foot: with wording like this, the other side in this discussion (i.e. Linden Lab) will perceive it all as “yet another round of false accusations” and will simply not bother to listen to even the calmest of voices, especially given that LL doesn’t face any real competition. ... So, if this screaming, shouting and yelling continues, LL will be very well inclined to adopt a “f**k you” attitude, reassured in the “Catch-22″ situation users are currently in.

Hamlet Au of New World Notes talked to a lawyer knowledgeable on IP rights, Agenda Faromet. She felt the Lab's actions were from trying to "consolidate its many new services under one set of policies," and compared it to similar actions by Google, which eventually got it in trouble with the Federal Trade Commission. She called Linden Lab's move "tremendously short-sighted ... Linden Lab's refusal to understand the needs of its customer base is far more troubling to me than its poor contract drafting." She felt all the Lab needed to do was just make a change of ten words, "All they need to do is limit their license to uses within the scope of their business purpose. People might still be mad, but then it isn't nearly as stupid a license grant."

Aeonix Aeon (Will Burns in real life) also commented on the matter. In his article, he compared it to the owners of a warehouse where publishers go to store their books claiming equal rights to the contents. The slogan "Your World ,Your Imagination" he felt no longer accurately applied to Second Life. So what was going on? Aeonix could only guess, but he had some ideas, "in most technology companies, there is a very high expectation of (an) Exit Strategy from investors, and your subsequent board of directors." And the "end game" is usually either public offering and stock (like Facebook) or acquisition, being bought by a bigger company (like Tumblr). In the case of Second Life however, it wasn't large enough to offer stock, and not bringing in enough bucks to attract a buyer.

Aeonix's article seemed to express the opinion Linden Lab was beginning to move away from Second Life, " … unfortunately Rodvik does not comprehend Second Life as much as he insist he does. … Desura is the content distribution platform for games because Linden Lab doesn't think that Second Life is that platform. Therefore, Desura is your replacement. Rodvik, for all his Pedigree, is thinking like an EA Games executive."

... your content isn’t of use to a AAA developer but it’s a goldmine to indie game developers. If Linden Lab refuses to “work within the system”,  they are going outside of it to a place you have no control over and can’t compete with them at. Linden Lab cannot compete with the community in Second Life on their own terms, even when arbitrarily poaching everything you are already offering and have been for ten years. So if they can’t win in Second Life, they’ll just change the game to something they have the complete control over and you have no manner to compete with.

If you believe that the assets in Second Life aren’t worth anything to Linden Lab, then guess again. Figures in the industry would say that an estimated $1.5 billion dollars each year is spent on virtual goods, and while you may believe that only applies to in-world transactions, this can just as easily be applied to those same assets outside of the Second Life ecosystem. People will pay good money for all the stuff you’ve created, and if they wouldn’t than most of you would never be setting up shop in Second Life to begin with.

Just moving to other virtual worlds wasn't an effective solution, Aeonix reasoned, as the Lab would still have the content, and a mass exodus would simply speed up their plans. A letter writing campaign might not do much good, "We all know how much the Lindens tend to converse with the community these days …" So what would get their attention? A class action lawsuit.

Ironic that a TOS that was likely written to avoid such legal issues would instead raise a veritable legal-storm of apocalyptic proportions. But it wouldn’t be just a lawsuit on behalf of the content creators alone in Second Life, but one that encompassed all of the third party content services like CGSociety and Renderosity. It would include the bigger names as well, vouching that their content which entered into the system under limited license has been misappropriated and revoked without their consent or authorization. Under no uncertain terms can the licensing for content have the terms changed or stripped retroactively by Linden Lab for personal or commercial gains, immediate or potential, as defined by the new TOS clauses.

Aeonix and I later talked. He stated, "I'm just taking educated guesses. (I) Don't want people thinking I'm calling for Linden Lab to be burnt to the ground or anything. Just looking at all angles and possibilities." Later on, he would write again about what he called a "Migration Solution."

What if Kitely could automate the validation of receipts from #SecondLife  to carry over the content to pre-existing customers in a usage transfer? That way whatever I've bought in SL from content creators, if the content creator moves their stuff out of SL into Kitely and Hypergrid, I could validate the same pre-existing purchases over there and reclaim the inventories for HyperGrid and Kitely without making people repurchase the items they already have bought. This would create a massive incentive to move over everything and leave SL without creating the situation of nullifying content with refunds in SL - so the content creators aren't in a hostage situation and the people who bought those items won't lose them entirely and would be able to reclaim them in Hypergrid as an automatic voucher without having to repurchase the items. This would flood Hypergrid and Kitely with content and an incentive for users to migrate over outside of SL.

In the meantime, the controversy continues, with no sign of Linden Lab backing down.

Sources: Living Virtually, New World Notes, Andromeda 

Bixyl Shuftan

SL Video: "Arcade Series III In SecondLife "

From Aeonix Aeon of the Andromeda Media Group, his latest series of video arcade games, "A quick video showing off the Arcade Series III arcade cabinets in Second Life. Only Polybius is available on Marketplace, but I'm willing to trade it in-world for the others. Some are playable in-world while others are just videos on the screen. All have outbound playable links for your browser. Marketplace Listing: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/... All arcade cabinets are modeled in mesh with an average Land Impact of 8. Realistic dimensions and cabinet plans were used, as well as extensive work for the graphics. Currently, they are being prepared for a free-play arcade soon to open in Second Life, recapturing some of that 80s arcade feel when opened. A custom building is being created for this purpose and is current a work in progress. For more information or the current Series III Arcade list, contact Aeonix Aeon in Second Life. Custom orders and projects are also considered upon review."

Behind The Rumor About Microsoft Going After Linden Labs

Some of you may have heard something about a rumor flying about Second Life, that Microsoft was making a deal with Linden Labs to acquire them, if the deal hadn’t already been done and they were just waiting to announce it. My reporters and I heard about it to, but the decision was made to not say anything until rumor became fact.

As it turned out, Microsoft was making a deal for a virtual world, but it wasn’t Second Life. It was Vivivaty, a competing world which went out of business in April, which was bought up by the computer software giant. Supposedly, Microsoft may not stop there. And there are people guessing they want a virtual world for it’s X-Box game to compete with Sony’s own virtual world for it’s Playstation game: Home. But these are just guesses.

I spoke to my friend Aeonix Aeon of Pixel Labs a little about this. He told me he hadn’t thought too much about the rumor in itself. On the other hand, he thought that the rumor had a strong ring of truth to it. The way Linden Labs was acting, he felt they were looking for someone to buy them out.

Aeonix had also put his thoughts down in an article online on the Andromeda blog. He had been thinking since April 2010 that Linden Labs had it’s eye on an initial public offering or a buyout. He observed Linden Labs was exhibiting the “telltale signs” of it.

Linden Labs, he stated, was “reaching the end of an investor lifecycle ... Essentially, Linden Lab is at the end of that lifecycle of investment and for those of us who are knowledgeable on this, we also know what sorts of things to expect in the actions of a company in this position.” Aeonix wrote this observation was partly from being in this kind of position in the past.

For a company such as Linden Lab, one can expect that at the end of the lifecycle they would begin acting in (what would be seen by an outsider) very nonsensical manners, with massive layoffs, external office closings, and liquidation of assets in an attempt to bring the company into a leaner and more profitable state. This behavior is also a telltale sign that reorganization in the company is to position that company for the exit strategy of IPO or Buyout from a bigger corporation.

Back to the conversation, Aeonix thought, “ I believe that Philip (Linden) is weighing both sides for the benefit of both himself and investors, as well as the existing community. Which means, there will likely be concessions on both sides. ... Second Life will evolve, and on an increasingly rapid pace. We'll look back and see SL 1.0 and think ‘Wow.. it’s so different than what we have today.’ There may be new rules in place, depending on how things evolve out. ... Of course, long time users will scream bloody murder. We already saw that with V2. ... evolution.”

Aeonix concluded his article, “keep in mind that regardless of the outcome of this rumor, Linden Lab knows that it’s time to pay the devil its due. Whether or not we find that the devil we thought was behind it is truly the devil or just a lower demon compared to the bigger devil of Microsoft, has yet to be confirmed. Let us hope that they aren’t looking to sell all of our souls in the process.”

For Aeonix Aeon’s article: Click Here.

Sources, Andromeda, Virtual Worlds News

Bixyl Shuftan