Second Life and Virtual Worlds
I see from Inara’s Living in a Modem World that Designing Worlds has a new show premiering today. This show it titled: Project Materials
You can see the showing at Designing World’s theater: Designing Worlds Studio at 2 PM SLT (PDT) today Monday, May 13.
As always you can see it via web cast on Treat.TV (live) at the same time.
Usually a day or two after the premier you can find it in the library of shows.
Maria Korolov over on Hypergrid Business is doing an excellent job of tracking events related to the changes in the Linden Dollar exchanges due to the Linden change in ToS. If you need the latest information, I suggest you follow her blog.
The point has come up that the Linden ToS provides for a 30 day window from the time of a change until the day it is enforced. The Lab is telling third party exchanges they must be shut down by Monday morning (5/13). If they enforce the Monday Morning shut down, that would seem to leave the Lab liable to lawsuits for damages. So, this Monday morning’s shut downs may be a costly mistake.
However, the Lindens do have the capability to shut down non-compliant exchanges. On the Linden side it is just a matter of deciding to and doing it, some clicks on the Linden computer screens.
There is still a huge amount of speculation going on in regard to the ToS change and the Lab’s issuing Cease and Desist emails to those operating L$ exchanges and building viewers that link to third party exchanges.
In one thread over on SLUniverse the participants are trying to figure out why third party exchanges are suddenly illegal. They aren’t illegal. But, they do violate the Lab’s ToS… may be. That is where the confusion is, the ToS.
Is that an obscure enough title? You may have noticed that the direction your avatar faces at Landing Point Hubs has changed behavior since Tueday. Until now an avatar always rezzed facing east. This was a bug. The server is supposed to pass along data to the viewer that specifies which way the avatar faces.
The point was that people could tp in and the land owner could set the Landing Point’s to face the avatar the right, or convenient, direction. See: About Land. I don’t see how direction can be set. But, I am not a land owner. I think it has to do with which way your avatar is facing when you set the landing point.
The recent ToS change left some questions as to whether third parties could continue trading Lindens. A subsequent post on the SL Blog seems to equate “unauthorized” with Not Permitted.
The kicker is the emails being sent to the operators of Exchanges. One German operator (Milz Yue) posted on a forum:
As described on the Second Life blog, updated Second Life Terms of Service disallow trading of Linden dollars (L $) on exchanges other than the LindeX.
As operator of a third party to exchange, You Should cease Facilitating L$ trades on your exchange immediately to comply with the Terms of Service. Any virtual ‘ATMs’ or scripted objects in Second Life that are connected to your exchange should therefore be removed immediately.
Please be sure to read the complete updated Second Life Terms of Service and take the steps Necessary to comply and keep your Second Life account (s) in good standing.
Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
That may not be a perfect translation. But, it seems to make it clear, Linden Lab will be the only currency exchange in Second Life.
Linden Lab’s New ToS, the Bank Secrecy Act, and You – This is an interesting article that may explain why the Linden’s ToS has changed. It mostly has to do with the recent enactment of new rules for the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).