In fact, if you read the entire thing, it’s filled with a bunch of marketing gibberish that never goes towards answering why the block is there in the first place:

“Everything we do is with an eye toward achieving our long-term goal of maximizing the content you can access as conveniently as possible in a way that ‘works’ for the content owner,” reads the response I received from customer service. “In the short-term that may require us to make some tough decisions, but we only do so when we believe it improves our long-term prospects to build a more enduring, legal solution to that same problem.”

There’s also a lengthy description about the distribution model on how shows and movies are distributed, not that it actually means anything (considering the fact that it’s the content owners that approve the release of the content to Hulu, and browser whether or not on the PC or PS3 is still the same medium). There’s also some discussion about the rise of the web and how it changes the distribution model which is more public relations speak for “we’re not answering this question but we feel like we should act like we are and see if we can fool people into believing it.”

Really, Hulu. You would have been better off keeping silent. The only thing that anyone can gather out of this is that someone at Hulu has no sense of how advertisement mediums work (I actually have looked at a couple things since seeing advertisements on Hulu via my PS3) or someone is in contention with Sony itself. I personally would say that the latter might be the case and perhaps this is some sort of indirect retaliation for Sony not putting up one of the major shareholder’s content on the PSN network or something. Who knows.

Either way? The entire official answer is a joke. Halfsies just doesn’t cut it with the online world. Either become transparent from the public relations standpoint, or take the “no comment” route. From my end, I’d rather know why. At the very least, it creates good will with your viewers which in the end are the people that actually generate your revenue stream.

Ubisoft managed to screw up their product when their DRM refused to let legitimate users play Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2. So in light of not being enough time, or whatever reason, they decided to release a fix called R6Vegas2_Fix.zip.

Unfortunately, someone took a look at the patch in a hex editor and found that it was the same No CD crack released by warez group, Reloaded. Talk about a big “whoopsie” when it comes to all of the anti-piracy messages that we’re brought up on and you get this total screw up for those that actually pay money to buy the game. Not only does it destroy all sorts of credibility on anti-piracy, but it just goes to show that DRM is one big pain in the rear for both the developers and gamers alike and that they’re even willing to go find a pirate group’s crack instead of writing a fix themselves.

Obviously, this is against Ubi’s policies and they’re scrambling to make things right again but the damage is done. While sometimes DRM is transparent to users and it doesn’t bother them one way or another, this is one time that it went to show that when it breaks, it breaks things royally. And while it doesn’t show the extent of the development staff’s potential at Ubi, it does show that either they were too lazy to write a fix, or the guys at Reloaded did a better job at it. Either way, it’s not a good sign and there are many people all over the Internet that are joking about how Ubi should jail themselves for violating their own policies and such.

Having played many games from Ubisoft and some of my favorites series are from them, only one thing comes to mind: “for shame for shame.”

A music simulation game where you play a large plastic guitar. Select a song, and try to play along as best as possible. Score well enough and you may select another song to play.

If you answered Guitar Hero and/or Rock Band you’d be wrong. It’s actually the 1998 arcade game by Konami called GuitarFreaks. They also made DrumFreaks and KeyboardFreaks.

 
Photo credit: Wikimedia

Konami is no longer sitting idly by while makers of Rock Band, Harmonix, allegedly leech off their patents and has filed a lawsuit, says Techdirt:

Once again, this looks like a “losers litigate” strategy. Harmonix has created a hugely successful product in the space — Konami has not. Yet, Konami wants a cut of Harmonix’s profits. That’s not the sort of incentives that should be encouraged.

The Techdirt piece points to the source Wired story which shares the patent PDF links as well as a picture of how to activate bonus point mode (by tilting the guitar upward).

I’m a huge fans of these type games and confused why Konami never ported their __Freaks games from the arcade to any of the systems? There is some speculation that Konami didn’t want to take a chance on charging people $150+ for a home game. With Harmonix competitor Activision about to release Guitar Hero IV with drums, they have already paid licensing to Konami according to Gamasutra. In an official response, Harmonix claims this is “baseless litigation.”

Cue the cowbell for Nazareth’s Hair of the Dog.

Well, not often, and not like a new resident. Until I created a new character as part of the testing for a client. Starting with a fresh new inventory, I reported on my visit to the Gnubie store the other day. In the Gnubie store, the creators of items make them for the store, and charge $0 or $1 Linden at the most for the items that they sell. It is well organised, and well ordered. You won’t find any creator’s sales items given away free, and notices ask people not to sell the items that they gather there. Gnubie store gets an A+ for honesty, organisation and generosity.

Fast forward to today, and I visited a freebie place which could not be more different….

GamersBrand has a professional logo and a private island and a lot of visitors. The traffic on the island today is 86,514, and that doesn’t surprise me as there were 90 avatars on the island when I visited, all exploring the island and everything it has to offer.

I visited the group website, but I must say that I was still a little confused about what they do. This is what they say about themselves: “GamersBrand Entertainment, LLC is an internet network featuring web service, content, and community websites devoted to the gaming community. We offer a wide varierty of online entities satisfying many needs of the online global market.” So far, so good. A little further down they say: “Our overall goal is to create a variety of entertainment sites to offer a variety of services in order to satisfy the need of an ever growing global marketplace.”

GamersBrand Island in SL consists of walkways linking vending areas containing piles of boxes. It is fairly confusing when you first arrive: some of the boxes have prices on them, and yet seem to be selling for $0 Linden. There is a huge range of stuff… clothes, shoes, jewellery, textures, sex stuff, combat stuff, almost anything that an avatar might need.

I looked into some of the boxes, and they seemed to be giving away full perms merchandise. Now I was already starting to be fairly attentive to the range of material on offer, but what really caught my attention was the fact that a number of items came up with “unknown” creator, and others showed that creations from several different creators had been crammed together in a box.

After some digging around in the boxes myself, IMing people named as creators of objects in some of the boxes, and some pretty long notecard conversations with Doug Pau, who is in charge of GamersBrand island in SL, I discovered that:

- they are selling items such as the infamous sex bed, for free, a bed which has been the subject of repeated DMCA takedowns. To be fair Doug Pau did eventually remove the bed from sale, but the rose rug — which has also been the subject of successful DMCA takedowns — contains similarly illegal animations;

- they are selling items from shop-in-a-box deals, which they may have paid 20,000 lindens for, but which they are selling as individual items for $5 lindens, thus undercutting ordinary residents who have bought the same shops;

- they are giving away items originally from shop-in-a-box schemes, and don’t seem to have much idea about whose IP they are, or on what condition they were originally released. One set of jeans, which were all boxed by the same person, shows an outrageous number of lindens on the box, but is actually free. The jeans inside have a variety of creators including “unknown”. The creators I tracked down told me that they had been chasing down these boxes all over the grid, because the jeans inside were meant to be free, but had been packaged up as part of a shop-in-a-box scheme. I’d hazard a guess that some of the boxes being sold originate here and get sold elsewhere;

(There are boxes and boxes of stuff all over the island. There are shop-in-a-box scams all over SL, involving freebies or a collection of full perms material that people have picked up from yard sales, some of it exploited, some copied outside it’s licence, some just free. Some of these are being sold, full perms here, sometimes boxed up with a price on the box. )

- they are giving away a huge range of items, having received them from diverse sources, and not necessarily the original creator. There are literally *hundreds* of items over the island now, and the IP status of many of them is necessarily unclear. I was told that they do not sell things full mods, but this is demonstrably not true. Many of the items which my alt bought or copied for free, were full perms inside restricted perms boxes. I could pull full perms animations out of the pole dancer poles, for example, too.

I have started the process of tracking down the originators for some of the full perms items, to see if they are aware that their creations are being given away for free, or in some cases, sold when they are meant to be free, and I assume that process will continue for some days over the items I chose to look at. I am also hoping to make contact with the RL company GamersBrand to see what they have to say for themselves.

At first glance, you may think that this is no different from a hundred freebie and yard sale places where things that ought not to be given away free are given away and things that ought to be given free are charge for…. But I would remind you that this is a commercial company who wishes to promote online gaming and provide what the player wants. Is this what *you* want? It looks as though they have decided that making a splash in SL and maybe a fast buck too, given the number of avatars on their island, is worth the chance that the odd creator or three will notice them and start to ask questions. Well guess what? I am a very odd creator and I ask a lot of questions when I see something that is this wrong going on.

Now you know, I feel I ought to be investigating everything there, but honestly! I could work at it from now until Christmas and still only cover a small part of what is there, because they didn’t do what they ought to have done. In the end I decided that I couldn’t investigate all … but looking more closely at the big box of textures demonstrates nearly all of the types of situations which arise with the many items on the island.

It’s a BIG box of textures… 10,000 and more it says. It has a price of $499 on it. Bargain! But wait, it is actually “selling” for $0. So… I look at the box and it tells me that lex Fitzcarraldo is the creator. I buy a box. A folder with many boxes opens in my inventory. 302 ultimate interior textures, 100 beverage textures, 100 churches and temples and so on down the folder..

Looking into the boxes, 302 ultimate interior textures all show lex Fitzcarraldo as the creator of the textures in that box – many of them 1024×1024 textures. So … if lex Fitcarraldo intended his textures to be sold for $499 dollars, how come they are set for $0 on GamersBrand?

But wait a minute… here are Linden textures, textures from Gnubie by Jai Nomad, bundled up together in one of the boxes, and without the Gnubie store terms and conditions. The box says $200, although it was inside the box with $499 painted on the side which I bought for $0.

Another box from inside this box… Drift Monde textures – never to be resold, I know, I’ve read the agreement – a whole series of Drift Monde’s textures. So… in one package we have Drift’s textures which she sells full perms on condition they should never be resold or given away… Gnubie textures which need the licence with them… textures that are the IP of the originator of the boxes, which he appeared to intend to sell bundled with the others for $499, but which are huge…. I only opened three of the boxes out of about 30 in the folder. Many have such a lot of textures in, it is quite painful to look at items in the box, and I didn’t want 10,000 extra textures in my inventory.

GamersBrand appear to me to have demonstrated no concern for the right ordering of their business in SL… the impression I get, is that if it looks as if they can attract traffic and do it on the backs of the SL creators, they will. They have not spent the necessary time in ensuring that they are not selling things or giving away things they ought not to. I have emailed the RL company for their opinion on it. When I receive a reply you can be sure I will let you know. Meanwhile, if you are as appalled as I am by what you find on GamersBrand, abuse report any IP infringements but why not email them to tell them how you feel?

Remember what they said about themselves? “Our overall goal is to create a variety of entertainment sites to offer a variety of services in order to satisfy the need of an ever growing global marketplace.” In SL that seems to involve infringing the IP and rights of creators, and promoting poor business practices. Frankly, if Gnubie store is an A+ model of what a freebie store should be, GamersBrand is the Z- what-not-to-do example to us all.

I can’t finish without a word about the lack of protection from Linden Lab of our IP as creators. Some of these items were created by people who have been issued with more than one DMCA takedown notice. Shouldn’t deliberately exploiting someone’s IP in this way be a once a warning, two times you’re suspended and three times you are out sort of deal? And shouldn’t a Linden be taking a very close look at GamersBrand Island for themselves? Is it REALLY necessary to make the individual creators issue DMCA after DMCA to take this company out of business in SL until they can tell a freebie from a full perms object and know how to work out whether something retains full permissions? Can you hear me in Chicago?

While I haven’t resorted to drinking yet, somehow, we have to make ends meet. Unlike other MMOs, there are no monsters to slay for gold and no treasure to hunt. In fact, I remember back in the day when Basic accounts actually had a stipend. It wasn’t much, but it got you around. Now, the poor just get poorer. Sounds a lot of real life doesn’t it? I wonder when we’re going to start inviting those guys in Entropia to come over and do the jobs we don’t want to do. Land of the free right? Well… maybe.

For now, it seems like I’ll be mopping up blood for a little bit of cash. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Don’t be surprised if find me on your street corner panhandling and hoping for just a couple Lindens to feed my new addiction.

And in case anyone was wondering… that pool of blood was a couple casino owners jumping from a highrise. Yeah, it’s a sad day today. Oh, so very sad.  If you’re waiting for me to sell myself, give me a couple days.  I have to get used to sleeping in a cardboard box, and begging from Evansmom for scraps.

My prediction?  Next on the list to go is the sex world of Second Life.  Hipihi here we come.   We’re not all that far from it really.   And if that’s the case, then count on me to be on the first wave of the mass exodus from this virtual world to escape into another.

Who needs voice chat and all those features?

Not I.

Not I.

I’m busying mopping up the blood.

Due to the new LL policy, ALL-IN will be closing effectvie immediately. It is unfortunate that it had to happen but it is beyond my control. Since vendor spots have been gratis for awhile, all items will be returned later tonight.

Immediately I checked out the SL blog to get the pulse on this. According to the most recent post which rehashes current SL policy on wagering:

It is a violation of this policy to wager in games in the Second Life (R) environment operated on Linden Lab servers if such games:

(1) (a) rely on chance or random number generation to determine a winner, OR (b) rely on the outcome of real-life organized sporting events,

AND

(2) provide a payout in

(a) Linden Dollars, OR

(b) any real-world currency or thing of value.

This includes slot machines and similar games of chance.

Back in April of 07′ there was a post regarding how the Lindens would (or would not) handle advertising for SL based casinos.

This is getting quite interesting. Maybe the F.B.I. is breathing harder down the Lindens back. Maybe they ALREADY know what is and isn’t considered gambling with the currency that ‘has no value’.

We’ve been watching this rather closely here at VTOR, and frankly I’m not totally surprised. But I am bummed about the entire thing. SL shouldn’t be known as ‘that game’, when it has so much to offer. What will happen to the value of the L$ ? What will happen to the value of the land?

The Lindex as of this writing is holding between 266-276/USD$1

As for me, I think I’m off to play in other worlds for a while…

As I traveled around this morning to check out what type of animated beds are now available in Second life. I was able to find several that in one way or another was infringing on the Sex Gen Brand.

On Tuesday he (in the name of his company — Eros) filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court claiming the avatar known as Volkov Catteneo has violated the trademark on one of his devices called a Sex Gen. Stroker is claiming Volkov had copied the Sex Gen scripts and selling it for profit.

Stroker has filed a suit and is asking the judge to order subpoenas for Linden Lab and PayPal to force them to turn over records showing Volkov’s real life identity.

I am all for protecting your intellectual property rights, but I was wondering if Stroker is reaching outside the box– I have tried to conduct a small bit of business with Stroker and found him to be an unreasonable grouchy individual who seemed rather full of himself. Full of himself or not, if someone is “stealing” from him — he should be able to protect his property. I met with Stroker for a few minutes this morning and found him in a helpful and concerned mood…. I am leaving the Strike thru area, because early last year in a very short conversation that was the way I felt about him… Maybe it was just a bad day for him that day.

In a statement to “The Tampa Tribune” Stroker stated:

Volkov Catteneo is not the only avatar who has done him wrong. “A lot of people copy me, copy my work, copy my ideas.

Because it’s an anonymous platform where you’re an avatar cartoon character, as opposed to a real-life person, people think they can operate with impunity.

This brings us to the point of asking, is what Stroker is seeking relief for actually an infringement on his intellectual property or simply someone that is “bottling another cola?”

Upon speaking with Stroker this morning I mentioned to him that I just looked around and found there are a lot of “sex gen” knock off in Second Life now a days… Why is he picking this particular person?

Blatant disregard–basically said “Try and stop me”. It wasn’t an easy decision, I hate lawsuits. You spend enormous hours pouring over Poser/Photoshop just to have someone copy it and profit [from it]. This has been a long time coming…the majority of Merchants here are fed up with being ripped off.

Stroker is hoping to make an example with this lawsuit. “We’re doing the best we can to protect our product, our income, our intellectual property,” he stated to the Tampa Tribune’s Elaine Silvestrini. “We’re hoping that this is going to send a message to quote unquote hackers and anti-establishment types that just because it’s a virtual platform, we’re not going to sit idly by and let you rip us off.”

I would like to call to Stroker’s attention that imitation is the greatest form of flattery. If this Guy/Girl has actually copied your animations and scripts, I hope you are able to hang his/her ass out to dry.

This, to the best of my knowledge, is the first attempt at a real world lawsuit attempting to protect virtual intellectual property, and it probably won’t be cheap. I asked Stroker about the expense:

Those that know me…know my motivation is not primarily profit….I probably give away more than I sell, and many [merchants] that I know are single Mom’s and stay at home parents who can truly benefit from the ability to create an income here [Second Life]. I have 3 very close friends who depend on SL…its the perfect scenario…they can stay at home with their elderly parents and/or disabled children and STILL earn a living… that [lack of concern for others work] is what pisses me off most…no consideration for the livelihood of others.

Stroker and his attorney, Frank Taney or Thunderclap Merlin in Second Life, are working on a tutorial-esqe blog that will give step by step instructions on how to protect your IP and do it cheaply. (Should go live in the next couple weeks… I will post about it when it does)

“Did you know that you must have a copyright registered to file in federal court? asks Stroker… “it only costs $45 to file and soon it will be $35 for an online registration. Registered copyrights entitle you to triple damages and recoup of attorney’s fees.”
“All the precedents to acquire personal info are out there–set by RIAA and others,”
Stroker Serpentine tells me. “You really are not as anonymous as you make think.”

How do you think it will go? What is your opinion?

Y’all know I am a simple country boy so the first thing I had to do was put Bragg’s complaint and Linden’s answers on the same page to see just exactly what was being admitted and denied. That wasn’t as easy as I was expecting it to be because the only copy of Bragg’s complaint I was able to find are scanned copies, so no cut and paste. I had to type the body of the complaint out, and since I have done that I figure I may as well post it here and let you have a look at what has been admitted to or denied. You can take a look at Bragg vs. Linden Saga Continues and read it yourself if you would like.

Most of it is a waste of time and doesn’t get to interesting until the counter suit is reached, but there are a couple of things that we should be aware of. The first being that Linden Lab deny that Second Life is a massively-multiplayer-online-role-playing game, but admits that it does share certain characteristics with such games.

Bragg’s complaint draws heavily on using Philip Rosedale’s own words and marketing strategy and his often use of the terms “buy” “sell” “own” virtual real estate. In Lindens answer to Bragg’s complaint Linden Lab is posturing to be more like a “hosting” company by stating that “virtual land” is not property, but “a license of access to Linden’s proprietary servers, storage space, bandwidth, memory allocation and computational resources.”

I have to say that Bragg probably has caused this shift in the “often stated virtual land stance” as it was never talked about before as a hosting service. Now the “official” word is analogous [Similar or equivalent in some respects though otherwise dissimilar] to ownership in “virtual land.” I would say we all pretty well knew we weren’t buying LAND, but that is exactly how it sounded when you heard Philip talk or read most anything about land ownership on the Second Life website. But Linden Lab is now having to change their story in an attempt to defend a legal position in a “real world” court system.

Another interesting aspect is that Linden Lab’s “legal eagles” are still calling heavily upon the Terms of Service agreement, including areas which the Honorable Eduardo Robreno has already decided are unconscionable and “unenforceable.”

Where this really got interesting to me was the counter suit filed by Linden Lab.

LINDEN RESEARCH, INC.’S COUNTERCLAIMS
AGAINST PLAINTIFF MARC BRAGG FOR:
1) FEDERAL COMPUTER FRAUD, 18 U.S.C. § 1030
2) CALIFORNIA STATUTORY COMPUTER FRAUD,
CAL. PENAL CODE § 502
3) BREACH OF CONTRACT
4) BREACH OF THE IMPLIED COVENANT OF GOOD
FAITH AND FAIR DEALING
5) CALIFORNIA STATUTORY UNFAIR COMPETITION, CAL. BUS. & PROF. CODE § 17200
6) DECLARATORY RELIEF

Their Preliminary Statement left me scratching my head and wondering just what Bragg actually did to “scam” their system. Here is the Preliminary statement:

This Counterclaim arises from a fraudulent scheme perpetrated by Marc Bragg and persons acting in concert with him to obtain money through a scheme and artifice involving unauthorized access to Linden’s proprietary computers that host the online digital platform, or virtual world, known as “Second Life.” As more fully alleged below, Bragg – who is a licensed attorney – and his confederates, knowingly and with intent to defraud, without Linden’s permission, obtained, used and altered data and computer software in a deliberate exploit to gain unauthorized access to Linden’s server software in order to manipulate and subvert Linden’s standard system for making so-called “virtual land” available to its users through its land auction system. Linden sells rights to such “virtual land” – which are equivalent to access rights to a designated and dedicated portion of Linden’s hosting servers, computational resources, and memory allocation – through auctions that are open to all residents simultaneously, with a set standard minimum bid of U.S. $1,000.00. The objective of Bragg’s scheme was to obtain access to “virtual land” that was scheduled to be auctioned by Linden in the future and thus before it was available to any other users, and to acquire it for as little as one U.S. dollar rather than whatever winning bid (in excess of the minimum opening bid of U.S. $1,000.00) might have resulted from a legitimate auction. After acquiring the “virtual land” through this fraudulent scheme, Bragg intended to subdivide it, sell it to other Second Life users, and potentially obtain thousands of dollars in U.S. funds in ill-gotten profit. Prompted by the fortuitous discovery of Bragg’s and his associates’ anomalous auction transactions, Linden personnel investigated, and placed Bragg’s Second Life account on hold before he was able to profit from the scheme. When Linden told Bragg that it had placed his account on hold pending their investigation of his activity, Bragg threatened to sue Linden, in an attempt to dissuade Linden from continuing its investigation into his fraudulent scheme. When Linden did not capitulate in response to Bragg’s threats and remove the hold on his account, he immediately retaliated by bringing suit and – incredibly – demanding that Linden refund him his “expectation interest in the profit” he hoped to gain by reselling the fraudulently-purchased “virtual land.” Linden brings these counterclaims to recover the losses it incurred as a result of Bragg’s scheme, and to ensure that Bragg is appropriately punished and forever barred from Second Life.

There are several thing in this counter suit that has me lil mind a spinning — I think I will tackle it tomorrow

Yesterday I found a comment on one of my several posts — which I started to answer, but decided to bring the whole thought out as a new post. A plea, if you will, to you the readers.

Government is an institution that guarantees that rights are enforced and legally demandable. Its sovereignty dependent on it’s territory (region marked off for administrative or other purposes) or jurisdiction (area within which power can be exercised) .

Let us examine that word sovereignty — it is used as a noun– (a derivative of the word sovereign — {the ancient Greek concept for Sovereign is Basileus (original meaning was chieftain) The first known usage of Basileus is found on the baked clay tablets which date back to the 15th century BC} definition: A nation’s ruler or head of state usually by hereditary right) which makes sovereignty’s definition: Royal authority; the dominion of a monarch.

Today sovereignty is accepted as: the exclusive right to exercise supreme political (e.g. legislative, judicial, and/or executive) authority over a geographic region, group of people, or oneself. A sovereign is the supreme lawmaking authority, subject to no other. wikipedia

It has been suggested to me that cyber-worlds crosses these boundaries by merging such territories. I disagree. I do not believe that territory (region marked off for administrative or other purposes) or jurisdiction (area within which power can be exercised) should overlap. I believe that “the powers that be” would like it to be overlapped because they do not want changes to their power structure.

If the idea of “We the people” actually start heading back to meaning WE THE PEOPLE, it would scare the hell out of “the powers that be” around the world.

Ideally laws are rules which are made by agreement, but we know that is not truly the case. Today in the real world, through lobbies and greed, laws are bought with little or no thought to the good of the mankind, but for the profitability of the corporations or the extremely wealthy. Corporations have no rights! Therefore, the invention of corporate law. “The corporation being an entity bound by rules separate from the individuals that comprise them. Corporate law is what binds rights and their demandability or enforceability.” Ever wondered who came up with that idea?

Oops! I am getting off on a tangent.

In an earlier time, when people formed a belief different from the sovereignty they packed up and moved, or were run out, to a new world where the new beliefs were out of sight and not flaunted in the old sovereignty’s face and the laws were difficult to enforce due to distance.

In the United States, our founders believed so strongly in that very principle that the separation of State and Federal powers was the  second most important, and almost a deal breaking aspect of forming the United States of America, and second only to the importance of unity of the states to fight deal with foreign governments.

“I believe the States can best govern our home concerns, and the General Government our foreign ones.” –Thomas Jefferson writing to William Johnson, 1823

Each state was to be allowed to determine its internal affairs and in turn that right passed on down the line to local areas of each state. In theory, this allowed the individuals to find an area where the “laws” (rules by agreement) were within their belief system. This was also a major reason for the rapid expansion of the country.

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That “all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.” To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition. –Thomas Jefferson: National Bank Opinion, 1791

Often these new ideas were able to grow to the point that they affected how the belief of individuals from the old area viewed them, thus creating some change in the old beliefs.

Virtual worlds create new places for people to go with their ideas and beliefs. With “tools” to separate those areas of belief, there are boundless opportunities for those with differing beliefs to be participate. People offended by those beliefs, when they are found, could simply limit themselves to not enter or even “see” (as in a search results or ability to get to) those areas.

You would think as intelligent people we could respect the desire of people to be different and have their own belief systems, but history says different. There is always someone who wants to control other’s beliefs… regardless of whether they are right or wrong, (and who determines that?) but most often there is the opportunity of profit at the root of those control issues.

On to the issue of governments having jurisdiction because a server is located within the physical area of a sim “land” they claim to “own” control.

Why should any one other that the actual owner of that sophisticated off/on switch have dominion to determine what takes place inside that piece of electronics, which is only the direction signals are being directed. The ideas happenings action is truly taking place inside the minds of those participating viewing the results of those electronic switchings. Since when have we began allow external thought control?

My thought is, as long as due diligence is used to prohibit access to minors, if it can be conceived (even by the most warped mind) it should be allowed in virtual worlds. No matter how popular or disgusting an individual perceives it to be. If there are others around the world Universe with similar ideas — a virtual community will form around those ideas or beliefs; if not eventually it will fade away.

The fact is in a virtual world you can not be forced to do anything. No one can actually be harmed in a virtual world any more than they can be in a movie theater, or by reading a book. Worst case scenario you can always turn off unplug the computer.

The trouble is that governments do not seem to want allow ideas, thoughts, or beliefs to foster which differ from the ones that established them into power. Those ideas may take root and become accepted by their populace and challenge their power structure.

The world could not have reached this enlighten era without civilization coming together and forming groups to protect their beliefs. Where would the world be if that little tea party in Boston had never occurred? I can’t answer that, but I am pretty sure there would be considerably less freedom in the world. The American Revolution has stood as an example of what can happen when colonies of different beliefs come together to stand up against an injustice.

If we allow any belief, idea, or thought to be squashed without it having a chance to take root, grow, mutate, and mature; who knows what advances to society will be missed?

We have the opportunity to be the leading edge of the advancement of society by virtually allowing a nursery for ideas, belief, and thoughts to have a chance to be planted, take root, grow, mutate, mature, and be harvested — judged by society by either being accepted to the point of being adopted into real life or ignored.

Unfortunately, I got ejected from the group today. So did many of my friends, some of whom were active in the group and others that were not so much. All were against bots in general and thus we all joined the group as promoting that we were against this practice. So I IM’d Rosetta Bisani and here’s the full dialogue for disclosure:

[6:24] Rosetta Bisiani: (Saved Mon Jun 18 08:02:06 2007) You have been ejected from ‘Bot Patrol’ by Rosetta Bisiani.
[6:36] Darius Sartre: huh? why?
[6:37] Darius Sartre: why’d I get ejected?
[7:08] Rosetta Bisiani: do you use this group? I havent seen yourname in a long time
[7:08] Darius Sartre: I don’t hang in the same casinos as such. I got reports from several friends that are very much in the group too that got ejected.
[7:09] Rosetta Bisiani: sry
[7:09] Rosetta Bisiani: i left a mesege about not being active
[7:09] Rosetta Bisiani: where have you been camping??
[7:10] Darius Sartre: Al, Amiya, Fiona, all came to me with a wth. Was going to go write a SL media article about it, but I figured (Amiya said you were US based) that I’d give you some time for resolution before I went and wrote it.
[7:10] Darius Sartre: Sunshine Park and Spinach Games mainly.
[7:10] Darius Sartre: most people on Bot Patrol are LV/GR.
[7:10] Darius Sartre: I haven’t been around those in a long long time.
[7:11] Rosetta Bisiani: you were not helping in the group to find seats
[7:11] Rosetta Bisiani: sry
[7:12] Darius Sartre: then I want my $5L back pls. The fact that you charge for enrollment, and I was paying is backing the principle of it.
[7:13] Rosetta Bisiani: whos ur alt in this group,anyone/
[7:14] Darius Sartre: no.
[7:14] Rosetta Bisiani: when have you imed this group?
[7:14] Darius Sartre: I don’t have alts in the group.
[7:14] Rosetta Bisiani: ur name has not been in an IM at all to tell others of open seats..only to take a empty seat
[7:14] Darius Sartre: it doesn’t say in the charter that you have to talk in it. and when I’m on, no one asks about chairs. that’s not my problem.
[7:15] Rosetta Bisiani: ok,well i did leave it in chat
[7:16] Rosetta Bisiani: read it again
[7:16] Darius Sartre: I can’t read it. I’m not in group. *sigh*
[7:16] Darius Sartre: thus, if I close my client, I don’t get to open the chat anymore
[7:19] Darius Sartre: either way, I’m just giving fair warning that I’m writing an article about it. I’m against bots as anyone else, but since there is nothing that says you must chat, then you can’t hold me to that. It’s the same as any other legal charter.
[7:19] Darius Sartre: Either way, it’s your group, do as you wish with it. Thanks for at least IMing back.
[7:20] Rosetta Bisiani: ok,thanks and have a good day,bye bye

Here’s the issue with this whole thing. The charter states:

Ever have our camp chair stolen by a Bot, or you tired of wondering around casino after casino for hours looking for a place to camp for the night? This is a group of friendly people dedicated to putting an end to the ugly take over of bots in SL. We use this group chat to tell members of free chairs or pick a name from online members to TP to a chair you are about to give up. Join now and get a free Tee Shirt to Let Bots Know we wont give up…..lol

What’s interesting about all of this is the mismanagement of terminology. Nothing in the charter states you must be actively chatting. It does say what they use the group chat for, but that’s it.  Apparently from those that I spoke to about the issue, while Rosetta claims she has told people in chat and in IMs that they need to do this, I nor anyone else have any IMs logged of this particular conversation on the mandatory contribution chatting.  At all.  Not a single person.  Nor was there a refund for the fee even though in all technicality, there was not a violation of charter and thus the ejections were out of bounds. Abuse of power? By any other legal means, definitely.

It’s just principle that a refund is in order. Yet, no one that got ejected got one and everyone got the same speech as above. Even those that were actively participating in the group itself got the same thing. Very strange when you figure that the point was to fight bots, and not kicking people out that actually want to be part of the fight.

Gauging from the chat I had with the founder of Bot Patrol, it personally makes me weary of doing any business with her or any associates. Maybe some others from BP have better luck but currently my circle of friends have all but been ejected and without due reasoning or principle. As I’ve stated in the chat log to Rosetta, it’s her group and she can do with it what she wishes, but someone once taught me that your reputation is the only thing that you truly own in life. It’s fragile, and easily broken, but it’s also one of the things that you can build to mean something. Maybe this incidence has soured me on the founder’s reputation, but I’d be curious as to whom would come to the defense of these actions? Either way, today’s ejection has left a sour taste in both my and many others’ mouth.

And to top it off: Bots win again. What a way to start the week.