Games
Games
A Cease and Desist Letter about Trademarks in Second Life
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 10/30/2007 - 15:32Back in 2005, Tony Walsh wrote about SL vs. RL IP noting that It's no secret that Second Life is rampant with intellectual-property infringements--it's just ignored. In May, 2007, Benjamin Duranske wrote Rampant Trademark Infringment in Second Life Costs Millions, Undermines Future Enforcement, noting
The dirtiest little legal secret in Second Life isn’t virtual escorts, illegal gambling, ponzi schemes, or even money laundering — the secret is this: misappropriation of major corporations’ trademarks in Second Life is so ubiquitous, so safe, and so immensely profitable, that it has become a wholly transparent part of Second Life’s bustling commercial landscape.
Yesterday, I heard that a friend who runs a successful business in Second Life received a cease and desist letter from a trademark lawyer representing a firm with a similar name and similar business taking place outside of Second Life.
NaNoWriMo Prep
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 10/30/2007 - 12:24Thursday, All Saints Day, I will begin my first attempt at writing a novel. Last year, my daughter Miranda wrote her first novel, Subtle Differences. She has been giving me suggestions in how to approach my novel.
I’ve set up my account on the NaNoWriMo website. I’ve been getting several emails from that group about events coming up. One email pointed me to Typing Test. According to them, I type around 50 to 60 words per minute on my laptop. At that rate, it will take me around 15 hours of typing to write my novel. When you add in ‘think’ time, based on how long it takes me to write a typical blog post, I’m going to guess it will take me 120 hours altogether. I’m not sure where I’ll find the time, but, I’ll work on it. The same email that pointed to the typing test also pointed, here for an activity log to help optimize time.
I was recently in a discussion about optimizing time spent networking, and some people chafed under the discussion. Whether we are socializing, writing, or doing both, we need to have fun doing it. It is in this vein that I’ve been participating in the NaNoWriMo 2007 Group on BlogCatalog.
Word Strumpet runs the group and put up a great discussion starter asking how people are preparing for NaNoWriMo.
I started my comment with
I'm drinking heavily. I figure that in a drunken haze, the story and the characters will reveal themselves to me. Then, I pass out and get lots of sleep. This will leave me well rested for thirty days of coffee and cigarettes as I stare at the half blank screen.
I haven’t spoken about my story yet, but it is going to involve Second Life, and probably the mob, terrorists, Federal agents, and so on. Not the type of novel I ever would have expected to be my first attempt. So, if I wanted to continue on in my Hunteresque style I would say that I’m balancing out my drinking prep work with hanging out in Second Life as well as with as many mobsters, terrorists and Federal agents as I can find.
So, I have a large task ahead. I’m hoping to have a lot of fun writing the novel and hopefully some people might even have fun reading it some day.
SL Risk moves to ACE
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 10/28/2007 - 22:55On October 10th, Jon Desmoulins wrote an analyst report on the World Stock Exchange (WSE) about SL Risk.
SL Risk describes themselves as Second Life’s “First Fully functional Credit Reporting Acency [sic] (Credit Bureau).” They say, “Need to know if an avatar is a good risk for that loan that they applied for? Just grab a complete report from slrisk & you now have a wealth of additional information to base that decision on!”
Unfortunately, Jon was not impressed and listed SL Risk as a strong sell. His target price was L$ .50. SL Risk had traded at L$ .50 as recently as August 30th. It had climbed up to L$ 1.12 on October 9th and traded in the range of L$ .78 to L$ 1.27, closing at L$ .55 after Jon’s report.
On October 26th, SL Risk Investor Whitfield, CEO of SL Risk issued an announcement informing investors of their decision to delist from the World Stock Exchange and list over on the ACE. In the announcement, Investor Whitfield wrote,
At this time when we are posting decent profits and have a viable business model & great response to the credit reporting service - to have a decrease in share price can only attributed to one factor - that is the "Strong Sell Rating" issued by an analyst. Until analysts have some Guidelines set down by the WSE regarding the way analysis is done, I fear that this type of "opinion written as fact" will continue to plague other companies as well.
IntLibber Brautigan, head of ACE wrote in their announcement,
Investor Whitfield, CEO of SL Risk (RIS) has made the decision to relist RIS on ACE. RIS is a profitable company with excellent prospects, whose stock dropped in price only due to an unqualified "analyst" on WSE issuing a strong sell rating on the company without any quantifiable evidence to support such a decision. ACE is bullish on the future of RIS and is very happy to see RIS relist with us.
This move appears, at least initially, to have benefited SL Risk shareholders. SL Risk has been trading in a range of L$ 1.50 to L$ 5.50, well above its range over on the World Stock Exchange.
Halloween in Second Life
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 10/26/2007 - 14:39Let’s imagine you run an online community where thousands of people come every day and dress up however they wish. Some dress up as closely as possible to what they look like in real life. Other people dress up as furry creatures, fighters from some video game, or simply as some fantasy of how they would like to be seen.
Let’s imagine that people in this community make a lot money by selling outfits and accessories to help people dress up however they want. What day would be the most important day not to shut down for five hours to add additional hardware?
Anyone that has been out shopping for Halloween costumes in real life that knows anything about Second Life would likely come up with next Wednesday as the worst possible day to shutdown Second Life for five hours.
Futher reflections on OnRez and CSI
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 10/26/2007 - 13:09Wednesday evening, I wrote blog post about the OnRez Client for Second Life. I like the client and have been using it as my primary client for the past few days. It takes a little getting used, but seems to work quite nicely.
Prokofy Neva responded in the comments presenting a different opinion, and I wanted to look at some of the data and at Prokofy’s concerns. Prokofy starts off by wondering how many new people will come to Second Life. According to recent Nielsen ratings, CSI NY has around 14 million viewers. If one tenth of one percent connected to check things out, that would be around 14,000 new avatars on Second Life.
The last I saw, Second Life had just over 10 million avatars signed up, having broken into that range a couple weeks ago. However, at any given time, the number of avatars active cycles in a pretty predictable sin wave between 30,000 and 50,000 avatars online. Over the past few days, these numbers have stayed approximately the same, with no discernible effect from CSI.
