General News

Drax Files Radio

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Drax Files Radio
Drax Files Radio

A new Internet type radio show is coming. Inara Pey is involved and promoting the show on her blog. I gather from her articles she has been instrumental in getting Drax and Jo to go ahead with this project. See the latest here: The Drax Files Radio Hour blog launched. The original, I think, announcement is here: Drax Files Radio Hour launches in January.

From Inara we learn Draxtor Despres, of Flufee and World Makers fame, and Jo Yardley, creator of 1920’s Berlin in Second Life™, will be hosting the show. Both Drax and Jo are pretty much pro Second Life™. So, I see the coming of this show as a balance to the negative energy of the Metareality’s podcasts.

I think people have always needed multiple sources of information. Humans tend to be biased, prejudiced, and often have an agenda. That is not necessarily a bad thing. But, it does make it hard for us to see things without our particular colored glasses. Between Metareality and Drax Radio we can probably get a more accurate picture of Second Life. I am looking forward to how this goes.

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Taxes Closing Regions?

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I saw a discussion on SLUniverse about a number of regions closing without notice. The discussion centers on the closing of Beach Front. See: Beach Front Realty Closed?

It seems the land owners collected the month’s tier from tenants and then closed the regions. Correspondence with Linden Lab revealed the closing was ‘deliberate’. I suppose that means the region owner contacted the Lab and scheduled the closing. Not having seen the actual correspondence I cannot tell if the phrasing is nuanced spin that might indicate the Lab closed the owners regions for some reason.

The tenants may be able to get their money back via PayPal. The Lab generally considers these things a resident-to-resident matter and stays out of them. 

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Second Life Tier – Again?

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Hamlet has an article on New World Notes about the loss of revenue we think the Lab is experiencing. See: Second Life’s Private Sim Revenue in 2013 Forecast at $48M, Down From $61M in 2010. Hamlet points to an article by Ener Hax: Second Life’s private sim watch, which is based on Tyche Shepard’s Grid Survey.

From the information we have it is pretty easy to surmise that 2011’s revenue from private sim leasing was about US$60 million. Using the same type of data we can surmise that 2013’s revenue is about $48 million. This is only region leasing fees income. That is a loss of about $12 million per year or about a 20% loss. Do you think management might notice that? For sure.

There are some other factors to consider in the overall equation. Wizard Gynoid points out in Ener’s article’s comments; in 2009 the Lab’s income was US$80-100 million with a 50% profit margin and roughly 2/3’s if the income was from region leases/tier. 

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Second Life Taxes

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The Second Life blog now has a post from the Lab regarding tax reporting issues. See: Required Tax Documentation.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requires Linden Lab to collect and retain Form W-9 (for U.S. residents) and Form W-8BEN (for non-U.S. residents) at certain transaction volumes. If you reach the transaction threshold and we do not have your completed and signed W-9 or W-8BEN on file, we are required to withhold funds from your account (at the current rate of 28% of your gross amounts received). Additionally, for U.S. residents with 200 or more transactions with a total amount in excess of $20,000 in a calendar year, we are required to file a Form 1099-K with the IRS reporting those transactions for that year.

If you are required to submit a W-9 or W-8BEN form to us, we will email you before the end of the year with instructions on how to do so. Please follow the instructions to complete and submit the required Form W-9 or W-8BEN within thirty (30) days of receipt. You will only need to complete this paperwork once unless your information changes from year-to-year. If you do not receive an email from Linden Lab, we do not need you to complete these forms.