You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April, 2009.
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-4181
If you are serious about a workable solution to the ratings crisis, please vote for my JIRA for a content ratings system at the link above.
Create a content ratings system to prevent offensive content rezzing in sims with the wrong rating
What we really need in SL is a content ratings system.
It is clear to many of us that a land and search rating system, though well intentioned, is not sufficient in any way. Age verification via passports/drivers licenses and other public information has been ruled as insufficient by many countries, and payment information for age check is forbidden by credit card companies, so this idea makes no use of the ideas that have no legal validity.
This idea puts the control back on the sim owners, where the control should always have been. It puts the control to the buyers of content, so they know the maturity level of the items they buy. This is so that content can be sold better, and controlled better by the users of that content. This idea states that Linden Lab has a responsibility to the users, to make sure they have access to the kinds of content they expect to see in their sims, and can screen out what they do not wish to see in their sims that they pay land fees on.
Now. The main issue for sim owners both individual and corporate was the inability to prevent the rezzing of adult and offensive content on sims meant for general audiences only.
Some of these corporations wanted to both keep their local content in, and only allow screened content from the outside in.
It is still impossible in Second Life to truly block offensive and/or adult content before it is rezzed in inappropriate circumstances.
My general idea is as follows:
Second Life allowing avatars to move from grid to grid, and have access to a filtered inventory – according to the filters set by the sim owners.
Create an OPT IN system, allowing content creators to prescreen content into PG, M and AO ratings. This content would be available to the Main Grid as usual, and the option would be to allow this screened and rated content to flow across grids. Say PG could flow into other grids like the Teen Grid, and PG content could flow back from TG back into Main Grid.
Avatars wearing rated content can be filtered. Avs wearing unscreened/adult content will be unable to rez into a sim that bars unscreened and/or adult content.
This should be a system that content creators would have to pay a small fee for – perhaps a percentage of money from each transaction (XStreetSL could be the rating auth, as they have a substantial risk displaying unrated content – ideally it should not display any unrated content at all), but open to other monetization methods.
PG content should be tightly screened under this system, so that it can be bought and allowed across grids and sims without fear, especially to those educational and corporate customers who need strong controls on inflowing content. Ideally ALL content submitted for ratings should be screened.
Unrated content should be treated as it is right now, allowed on the Mainland, but unable to be ported from grid to grid, or to sims that bar unrated content. This is a solution that would restore some greatly needed confidence to the inventory system. It will also lower the costs of Second Life content for standalone corporate and educational customers, who will be able to choose from a competitive market of individual content creators, making Second Life a more attractive platform.
I understand it will not be easy. A big issue will be the permissions system. I believe the permissions system can be handled via the licensing of the standalone platform to customers. (that it will have to be enforced to have access to Second Life inventory services)
If anyone believes this whole nonsense about Second Life adult ratings is about all those corporations and businesses who turned down coming to Second Life, you are believing a spin-doctored half-truth.
How soon we forget the CNet disaster with Anshe Chung.
The problem there was not that there were adult strip clubs dotting the mainland, or Hard Alleys on private sims, although some of these certainly had other issues. Most serious adult businesses made the effort to leave the mainland years ago. When I first came to Second Life in 2006, I had interest, like many do, in the erotic potential of the platform. We are humans after all, and most humans find sex pleasurable in certain circumstances. When I went looking for those products for purchase – I invariably went to those sims which specialised in it. I never found the good products on the mainland.
I found them first in Eros – Stroker Serpentine’s sim, and I found them in Eventide – the home of Xcite, Javier Puff’s sim. And countless other private sims. They had been, for many years now, doing the right thing and self separating themselves out. Not out of any silly idea of protecting the children – but out of the very real need to have more control over the areas in which they sell merchandise. Same reason most merchants end up buying private sims, or renting on one.
Private rental estates generally have rules to keep the sex out of public view. Caledon for instance makes it clear in the covenant that obvious public activity be along PG ratings and in theme, while making no restriction to renters to do in privacy in their homes what they would like on their land. As a bonus, above the 512 meter level – the theme is relaxed, even security orbs are allowed over 512 meters. They were, like the sellers of sex animations and scripted items, doing due diligence to keep sexual conduct discreet.
None of them needed the Lab’s assistence for any of this. And they rightfully see the Lab’s current policy as destructive to their business. Oddly enough, that also means it’s destructive to the Lab’s business, but I digress.
No, what the real problem for the corporate users who turned down Second Life was that anyone could come to their sim, and rez a tubgirl shooting scat, or wear a hud shooting pictures of penises, in any event and nobody could do anything about it *before* the fact. The corporations had no control over your inventory. There are no ratings of inventory, no filtering of inventory BEFORE entering a sim.
The problem remains that anyone can rez anything they like in any area of Second Life. So this great experiment is nothing more than More Mainland Land Sales, with a happy helping of coercion to buy it on the side, aimed directly at their CURRENT customers. It’s not a solution to those potentials who turned Second Life down. I predict they will continue to turn Second Life down, until some fundamental problems are addressed. Which I shall illustrate further, now.
The corporations had another problem, dating from the days of Wells Fargo. (link is dead – check the wayback machine here)Years ago, they wanted to set up shop in Second Life. They wanted to keep their data in, and they did not necessarily trust keeping sensitive information on LL’s servers. This has nothing to do with the adult content question and everything to do with security, just like the adult shopkeepers who moved to private sims. They didn’t have it. Linden Lab turned them down back then. And Wells Fargo voted with their feet. They didn’t stay, and who could blame them?
The real answer for these security-conscious corporations was making a standalone Second Life. Well, LL is doing that *now*. But it should have been thinking about it when Wells Fargo asked for it.
There is another problem, and answer I can supply. The problem is the question of content. Corporations are also attracted to Second Life because there is an abundance of content to purchase for small fees. These stand-alone Second Lifes don’t have access to that vast wealth of content or to a competitive market of content creators. And this is a problem.
There is an obvious solution, and I have been advocating for variations of this solution for quite a long time now. I will articulate it here.
Create an inventory system that can be ported across grids. That is, a Second Life member can still be attached to their Second Life inventory while in a stand alone Second Life sim.
ALLOW content creators to make PG, Mature and Adult rated content that can be rezzed across grids, while preserving the permissions system.
Allow standalones and private sim owners to decide which of this content can be rezzed in their systems.
Make this system OPT IN. Content creators need to *submit* their merchandise for ratings. I will be happy to pay a small fee for this. There is no doubt the Teen grid would love to buy PG rated content from the Main grid too. I am certain many content creators would be FINE with a controlled content system that is cross grid portable, as long as they have the choice whether to participate in it or not.
UNSCREENED content should be allowed as usual, in Second Life proper (the Linden Lab main grid), in Mature sims and up, and also in private sims on the discretion of the sim owners. NOT on standalone grids.
Problem solved.
HAI LL, I HAZ IDEA 2 MONETIZED CONTENT 4 U. Don’t forget to thank me if you use the idea 
I would be DELIGHTED if the Lab used it!
It’s been a problem for a long time – content theft for resale on XStreetSL.
There are many losers in content theft. The original artists, yes of course. But this time it’s not about them.
Other losers I came face to face with very recently. The buyers of stolen textures aimed at Second Life builders, and the estates who rent land to builders who consume these textures unknowingly. The real risk of the banhammer is over their heads, and they are in fact victims. The only winner is the texture thief. Well, and Linden Lab who skims the transactions, even those which are fraudulent.
The sad fact is, there is no good way for an estate owner or an SL builder to be sure where a texture is from, unless they make all the content themselves, as LL is in control of the backend.
Another complicating factor is that we don’t even know for sure if the person who is complaining about the theft is *actually* the original artist. It is far too easy to roll up a character, and attack someone who is using a texture and pretend it is theirs, cutting down competition for a competing content thief so they can pad their sales.
It is far too easy to AR an innocent victim, the builder who bought the textures in good faith, when you cannot ID the avatar who uploaded the textures seen inworld.
I have often had thoughts about how we can extend the model of selling content beyond Second Life, to the burgeoning grids that are founded on OpenSimulator. It is growing clearer to me that a site that sells across grids is going to have to ask for real life identity information from resellers and hold them accountable when theft occurs with full bans. Linden Lab surely has displayed that they are completely unconcerned about it. Well sure! They’re profiting from it, so why not. :/
It’s not perfect, nothing is. But I have seen sites like Daz3d and Renderosity make it for years by pulling vendor accounts who steal and resell content – by making a vendor account a little harder to get. In the case of DAZ, it is *very* hard to get. For content aimed at the grid operator level – which would by necessity have to be full permissions – we may have to start asking a bit more information about sellers and holding them accountable for their actions.
Somehow we have to make it harder for people to sell into grids unscreened content, reselling anything they find on Google search with complete impunity.
Recent Comments