Tag: #LindenLab

Linden Lab adds Phone Verification to Second Life Discord Server Access – A step too far?

I’ve been in the Second Life Discord server for some time now, since I was granted access as an Alpha tester for the mobile app. I was very pleased when they finally made the server public recently. To be able to post any messages in the server you now have to link your Discord account with a Second Life avatar account. I’d say that’s fair enough, it provides a layer of accountability that is reasonable.

That is of course until yesterday someone posted:

I verified with an alt

Which reveals a big flaw in that idea.

So what was the Labs solution? They added the requirement to “Verify Phone”, which is what I was presented with this morning if I wished to post in any Channel in the Discord mobile app.

While I understand they want to protect the server and themselves from misbehaving members, I think the mobile requirement is a step too far.  I think this step may put people off participating. Including myself.

Of course the Lab knows my real life identity, but I don’t think people should have to hand over a phone number to be able to use a Discord server. A well known blogger has the same requirement on their server and I just didn’t join on the grounds of that.

What makes this more of a joke is that today getting a phone number is almost as easy as creating an alt avatar account. Unfortunately Google Voice that offer free numbers aren’t available in the UK and equivalent services are paid for. Adding another security layer, that’s easily bypassed, seems unnecessarily futile and could negatively impact Resident  engagement.

Addition:

First reader comment received directly minutes after publishing:

they tell how much they value being anonymous and then they did that. Pissed me off big time

Second reader comment via Bluesky:

Great… I just joined the server a couple of days ago and now this happens – and I feel like leaving the server again. I honestly don’t want to add my phone number for verification

Third response received directly:

Just saw this – and just left the server. lol

From Bluesky:

I was able to chat 4 hours ;D – than they activated phone verification…. SOOORRYYYYY

Another comment via Bluesky puts a slightly different spin on the topic:

It’s more of a moderation used in and by big server all over discord.

This is to verify the account holder is human and not a throw away account used for trolling/spamming sure the system is not perfect but stops 97%-99% of unwanted behaviour.

Anyway discord doesn’t share this number with third parties

While this might explain things a little, the Lab should make this detail clear in the server description or rules text.

But the discussion continues some time later:

The official Second Life Discord server is so great that I quickly left it. I have no desire to talk to uneducated people who comment on topics they know nothing about. I don’t usually dehumanize, but what’s there is a zoo.

Firestorm Zero!

Tomorrow the 14th of March there’s going ot be a Roundtable about Project Zero (accessing Second Live via a web browser) and it’s roadmap going forward.

Last night there was a Zoom call with Philip Rosedale,Sntax Linden and the Firestorm Viewer development team along with a collection of bloggers.

We will be getting browser access to the Firestorm Viewer.

They hadn’t actually given it a name, because the name “Firestorm” technically belongs to the developers, so Linden Lab can’t call it that. However since both Linden Lab employees and the Firestorm developers have been referring to the project as “Firestorm Zero”, that’s likely what it’ll be.

There is however a catch…250L$ for 5 hours of viewer time. To clarify that’s a “bundle” of time, like mobile phone minutes. The 5 hours can be spread over multiple sessions over a period of time.

So why are they charging, while offering Project Zero access for free? It’s fairly straightforward, they’re matching demand with the Firestorm sessions. There is a capped number of sessions for Project Zero, so you basically have to wait in line for a session to be available. With the paid Firestorm sessions you get a virtual Windows PC, running in the Amazon Cloud, to yourself. Although obviously they may limit the number of passes sold initially to manage load. It will however be operating at a financial loss to begin with. Pricing is being based on what they expect costs to fall to as GPU market costs come down.

I thought the easiest way to demonstrate how well it works, I made a few gyazo video clips:

The blue loading screen took about a minute, the Firestorm progress bar took about 2 seconds.

My Homested, a mainland parcel and a CDS venue:

Cyber Fair:

Warehouse 21 Club:

In a crowded place like that, I’d normally bump at least one or two people on the way out, but that was so smooth, it was frankly better than my hardware. However what happened at the end of that clip was evidently the equivalent of a crash, you’re presented with a download page for the desktop viewer. (Edit 15/3/25: If you get kicked out, your browser will redirect to your Account Dashboard).

It wasn’t all smooth sailing to start with though, this was a visit to the same venue about 12 hours earlier and the login process showed more Firestorm loading dialog:

I described it as “like using SL on my old i5 laptop with 16GB of RAM” in an email at that time, I guess they took the hint and turned up the virtual host PC’s specs!

Tech bits we were told:

  • 1920 x 1080 Resolution video
  • Frame rate 30-60fps
  • Local chat logs won’t be saved, but IM logs will
  • Preferences will not sync from your desktop, (that might not be preferrable anyway on a different system) but any settings you customise on the virtual host viewer will stay for your future sessions. (I didn’t find this to be the case)
  • Login, teleport and loading times are expected to be much faster, but busy locations may still be..well…normal for SL.
  • Snapshots to Disk won’t function because the viewer is running on a remote virtual PC, so people taking photos will have to use “Send to Email” option or other methods instead. (Send to Flickr or Primfeed were mentioned.)

You will buy the bundles of time from your Account dashboard on the Second Life website and will have a link to where to log in from wherever you want. The passes are expected to go on sale on Friday 14th.

The question of whether access bundles may be included as perks with paid subscription plans was raised, it might be possible in the future. A question that I thought of and have emailed to Philip, is whether the bundles will have an expiry period in which they must be used. It’ll be interesting to see what gets announced at the Roundtable.

Community Roundtable Announcement post

Firestorm Zero Annoncement post

A Message to copybotters and Second Life Content Thieves

There was another Zoom Call with Linden Lab yesterday. This one was a little different though, since it wasn’t just the Blogger Network this time, it was Creators as well (90+ attendees). What’s so big that they want to tell all of us at once? Well, Content Protection apparetly:

This call will bring together bloggers and creators to focus on a crucial topic for the Second Life community: content protection. Protecting the integrity of creator work is at the heart of our platform, and we want to share updates and gather your feedback on this important issue. This session will focus on our commitment to and actions in protecting creator content in Second Life, including legal enforcement efforts, advancements in tools and processes, and our ongoing collaboration with the creator community. While challenges remain, we are dedicated to transparency, continuous improvement, and working together to shape a safer, more supportive environment for creators.

(quoted from invitation email)

What does it mean?

Well it means, lookout copybotters and other content thieves. The below doesn’t just apply to objects like mesh clothes or bodies, it’s any content such as animations that are included as well.

In the past Linden Lab hasn’t pursued instances of content theft, beyond a stern letter and a DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) takedown order. Which obviously isn’t much of a deterrent.

That’s about to change. Dramatically.

From now on, if you’re found to be creating copies of other creators’ items, you won’t just get asked to take it down. Your Account will be Shut Down. You may have a store with a thousand items that you genuinely made yourself, it won’t matter. It will ALL go. That DMCA letter will be accompanied by a Cease & Desist. Meaning you will now incur liability for anything you do after that date.

They’re going even further though. If you are teaching people how to illegally copy Second Life content, the Lab will be after you too.

If you’re one such fraudster you’re probably thinking “I’ll just create another account”. But did you cash out some of those ill-gotten gains with any of your avatars? In which case the Lab knows your legal identity (required to process the transaction) and will go after the Individual person, not just the Avatar.

Here’s the contentious part of their change of approach; If you knowingly buy copied stuff (to maybe save a few L$) you could be in trouble too, potentially losing your account.

So the key points here are:

  • Linden Lab will now consider such practices as theft from the original creator and act accordingly
  • If people are creating, teaching others to, or buying copied content the Lab will be after them.
  • Account and all content will be deleted, even any legally created stuff.
  • Focus on the legal individual, not just the avatar account.
  • Action will be taken against websites hosting any copied content
  • If you upload Second Life content that you didn’t create, to another platform or game, you’re accountable not the platform and will be legally pursued
  • There will be a new category of support ticket added for reporting alleged instances of content theft
  • Open Source viewer doesn’t mean an Open platform
  • Action will have an “Immediate and Chilling effect” (Philip Rosedale)
  • Action from the Lab will be “egregious*, don’t be the one I find first” (Brad Oberwager)

*Extremely bad in a way that is noticeable

How are they going to know? Well if I told you their intended methods, they wouldn’t work.

Of course these things are complicated and there could be issues, but the key point for content thieves is this:

THE LAB IS NOW ACTIVELY LOOKING FOR YOU.

Speaking your Mind, a conversation with Brett Linden

Sometimes speaking your mind can land you in a lot of trouble, or it can get people to listen. My post “Not very early (or equal) access“, was one of those times. I had bloggers giving me positive feedback, that I’d said what they were thinking, then folk saying on social media I might have upset people.

My thinking was that someone had to say it and what’s the worst that could happen?

Fortunately in this case, it got someone to listen. This was not just anyone though, it had Philip Rosedale, Brett Linden and Brad Oberwager listening.

On Tuesday night (4pm SLT, Midnight for me) I had an email from Brett Linden inviting me to discuss the contents of my post in a Zoom call.

Obviously I replied immediately with my ascent. I knew if I left it until my morning, it’d be another 18-24 hours before it might get looked at, and this is part of the issue that needed discussing.

Brett had reached out to discuss further the points I’d raised in the post, which I was pleasantly surprised at. The main issue was that a couple of prominent bloggers appeared to have got early information about Project Zero, Second Life in a web browser. This as you can imagine, annoyed every other blogger in the Blogger Network and outside of it. I had it confirmed by Brett that, yes, they got an embargoed “advance briefing” before Christmas, but they didn’t have early access to the browser platform. Now rather than me trying to pick through facts made available to me, I’m going to quote from a follow-up email:

We try to engage and respond to all bloggers who reach out to us directly and we do separate meetings and outreach all the time to other bloggers either proactively or in response to their inquiries. Both Inara and Hamlet do in-depth daily “news”-style reporting on Linden Lab and as a result we are in frequent communication with both of them since they are publishing almost daily to a fairly large audience. While they did get (and honor) embargoed advance access to “Project Zero,” that was not meant in any way to disrespect or diminish how we view the importance of the larger blogger community.

To be clear, our outreach strategy on any news and information that we release will not always be the same – bloggers will frequently get early access but there will be times that we do not pre-announce some news and/or a major media outlet (e.g. New York Times, etc.) might also be the first to break a story.  I want to also acknowledge that as a business we make decisions that not everyone will always agree with – but I hope that the big picture and context of our commitment to more and frequent open communication and transparency isn’t lost in translation. In the last three months, we’ve made progress in holding more community meetups and direct one-on-one meetings, and we have several more lined up for 2025 — so this is an evolving process and we are learning as we get feedback 🙂 We will continue to try to be better at communicating and so I appreciate your candid thoughts on how we can do better.

It was a good conversation and I came away feeling that they really are trying to be better and their hearts are in the right places.

Something I learned is how many Lab employees make up the Marketing team, which includes all the Labs socials. I’d pictured something like the scene of a corporate office block, a sprawling mass of cubicles covering a whole floor, with Strawberry in a corner office. It’s actually just two of them; Brett & Strawberry and they’re only human.

If you think back a year or even just six months, these things didn’t happen. If you told me back then I’d have a one-to-one call with Linden Lab Marketing, I’d have been very skeptical indeed.

There’s a saying that comes to mind here “To respond is to give importance”. The fact they reached out and responded to me, a small blogger with minimal reach compared to others says a lot about their commitment to improve.

So the way I see it now, they’re making leaps and bounds in their communications with the community, there’s just been a couple of stumbles along the way. Which, after yesterday’s call, I’m more than happy to forgive them for and give them a hand up. Especially since the other stumble (the early release of financial numbers while the bloggers were under embargo) wasn’t actually on them.

With that out of the way, onto what else he had to say. With Philip now back at Linden Lab, 2025 is going to be focussed on “Putting the Lab back into Linden Lab”, as in a testing and experiments place where you try stuff to see what happens and if anything goes BANG or not. So far we’ve seen two ventures that are part of this initiative; AI Character Generator and Project Zero browser access, with varying results. (When a friend gets ejected and banned from a store group and region, because of the actions of their AI bot, in their absence, I’d call that a BANG for sure.)

There is another forthcoming Zoom meeting that is apparently going to be something big, because it’s not just the bloggers that are being invited. So anyone reading this, that’s previously received an invite to a Zoom call with the Lab, don’t ignore the next one.

Not Very Early (or Equal)  Access

Last night, Thursday 2nd January, there was a meeting between members of the Second Life Blogger Network and Linden Lab executives. I didn’t attend this meeting(although I did get an invite), but I’ve heard enough that I didn’t really miss much (apart from watching Philip Rosedale almost dancing in his seat with excitement apparently). This wasn’t because the topic of discussion (browser based access to Second Life) wasn’t interesting, more due to the fact there was a public announcement barely hours later.

When Bloggers are promised early/advance notice on upcoming features, maybe that notice should be more than a matter of hours? What good is advance notice if they have no time to prepare content before an almost immediate official announcement?

If I’d attended the meeting, it’s quite unlikely I would have got a post prepared with proper test screenshots and meaningful comment, between the time the meeting ended and the public announcement was published.

This brings up a equality (or favouritism) issue among the bloggers. It’s my understanding that at least one prominent blogger had published their post on the subject (which was quite lengthy and included screenshots) while the meeting was still in progress, strongly suggesting they *did* have much earlier knowledge than the others at the meeting.

It makes me again question how much respect the Lab has for the Blogger Network, or understanding of fast moving social media.

During the Zoom meeting held on 6th December we were told about the financial investment amount that the Lab had put into Second Life and were told categorically not to disclose those numbers, to my knowledge no-one did. We were led to believe there was going to be a “big reveal” of the numbers in the New Year, I also thought maybe it was a test to see if we would keep quiet/could be trusted. However on the 19th of December these figures became public, primarily via a store owner creator releasing it everywhere after a meeting with the Lab. The next day (in my timezone) we were emailed to say “yeah, you can talk about it now”, a bit late maybe? Were we an afterthought? At 4.46pm SLT, probably. Since Second Life is a global community, spanning many timezones, I have a suggestion:

If you have some news to be shared, specify a date and (crucially) a time at which the news can go public and also when the related public announcement is going to be made. The details of which should be communicated to all parties at least 72hrs in advance. Doing that would get around the issues mentioned and we could all be co-ordinated in our posts and announcements.

I believe Philip said they will look at a discussion on the platforms use of social media, but since I wasn’t present I don’t have an exact quote. I look forward to seeing what comes of that.