Second Life TOS Update 2013-42

Update: See Strawberry’s Monday Mime.

Last Saturday the United Content Creators of Second Life™ (UCCSL) sponsored a meeting to discuss the Terms of Service (ToS) changes made in August. They put together a panel of attorneys to answer questions. I think it was the Second Life™ Bar Association that provided RL attorneys to form an answer panel. I was able to attend only part of the meeting, but there are audio recordings and Machinima of the entire 3-hour meeting.

A full three-hour audio recording was captured by Toysoldier Thor. You can listen to it from a link on Toy’s blog: Recap & Audio – Inworld Legal Panel Talk on LL TOS. Toy’s opinion is that people should listen to the audio and make up their own minds about opinions provided by the UCCSL panel. I’ll go a bit further and add some opinion.

Inara has a summary of the meeting up. See: ToS changes: Legal panel discussion – audio recordings and notes. She has images of the slides used in the meeting. Plus lots of time marks in the summary. 

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Another Second Life ToS Victum

Ziki Questi just blogged about another artist stopping work in Second Life™. This artist is Johnas Merlin. In the middle of an LEA project (Linden Endowment for the Arts) Johnas has stopped work. The reason given is the textures Johnas was planning on using can no longer be used in Second Life. So, this piece of art is going to remain unfinished.

You can see Ziki’s article here: Quantum Reflections, Victim of the ToS.

More ToS Information

Hamlet Au ran a poll on New World Notes asking if creative types had stopped creating and uploading to second life. Of the 266 poll participants 121 answered they have. There were 32 others that selected the other option. That gives us a total of 153 or about 57% that stopped uploading content to Second Life™.

You can see the poll result here: Linden Lab ToS Survey Results: Majority of Respondents Have Stopped Created/Selling Second Life Content.

As family points out, this TOS change has gone far beyond just drama. We are seeing a change in resident behavior. I have to wonder if this is starting to show up in the stats Linden Lab tracks. This would be a good question for people to be asking of the user group meetings.

Second Life Particle Test Object

For a time I had the Linden particle test object sitting on my porch at my Second Life™ home. It is a nine prim object. So, once I got tired of it I took it down. But, you can still get a copy of it. The Old London Docks blog (written in German) has a link to a copy of the test object.

This is the object that lets you see the different blending modes for particles. You need to be using the SL Viewer 3.6.7 to see the new particle effects. AFAIK, none of the third-party viewers can display the new particle effects. Expect to see that in the next releases.

I’m not that creative with particles, but I expect to see some really amazing effects from people that are. It should be fun.

Second Life Share – Facebook

Well, yesterday September 25, the Lab announced Second Life Share. This is the feature that allows us to easily share stuff from Second Life on Facebook. It’s an opt-in thing.

You can find the announcement here: Introducing SLShare, an Easy Way to Share to Facebook While Inworld.

Torley Linden has a new video out to show you how to use SL Share.

[youtube hAL7Li_h8pQ]

Torley’s pink and green is definitely muted in this video. But, I think it gives you a good idea of what the Lab is after with this feature. They are adding links to the Facebook posts so that people will be lead directly into Second Life. They will be landing on the maps page. If they are curious they will be downloading the viewer and trying to get in.

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Second Life Integrating with Facebook?

Daniel Voyager came up with information about Second Life™ adding more integration with Facebook. Daniel has apparently found some of the leaks I use to learn about what is coming to SL. From what he has found the Facebook Floater is apparently due out in viewer 3.6.6 next week. I’m not so sure it will be next week or in 3.6.6.

Second Life's Facebook Page
Second Life’s Facebook Page

I just don’t think it will happen that fast, but it might. Viewer 3.6.6 is already in the viewer pipeline and you can download a copy from the Beta/Alternate Viewers page*. I’ve been using the Ribbon Viewer 3.6.6 (280938). As best I can tell this feature is not in it. 

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