Second Life's Thriving Music Scene : LA Times

Second Life's Thriving Music Scene
By Laura Ferreiro, Special to the Los Angeles Times

Craig Lyons and other indie artists are leading the charge in the virtual online world. It's a way to earn a living, promote their music, expand their fan base and support causes they believe in.



Musician Craig Lyons poses with his avatar from Second Life.

"If I could get some bubbles, I'd be forever indebted," singer Craig Lyons tells the packed house at his Monday night gig. The crowd promptly complies, filling the room with bubbles while Lyons plays his tune "Under Water."

Two nights earlier, the audience made it snow as he strummed the chords to his song "Winter." Strangely enough, the Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter has come to expect this type of supernatural behavior at his shows, which take place several times a week in Second Life, the virtual online world that allows users to interact with one another as avatars.

Despite declining media coverage after a few years of overexposure, Second Life lives on, and within its virtual borders a music scene has been thriving, with independent artists such as Lyons leading the charge. These artists are earning livings, promoting their music and supporting causes they believe in by performing in this virtual space, which has approximately 1 million users each month.

In addition to collecting fees from Second Life venues (there are more than 3,500 known to exist), musicians are often paid handsomely by fans who tip using the Second Life currency, Linden dollars, which is exchangeable for U.S. dollars via a number of websites. Users can buy and sell the currency at a fluctuating exchange rate that usually hovers around 265 Linden dollars to one U.S. dollar.

Lyons typically earns $100 to $200 per show, and he often plays as many as three gigs in one day for audiences logging into Second Life from different time zones. The 3-D virtual world was launched in 2003 by Linden Lab, a company founded by technology guru Philip Rosedale, who was named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world in 2007. In Linden Lab's alternate universe, people can interact with one another, teleport themselves to exotic virtual locales, buy houses, cars and clothing and amuse themselves with countless forms of virtual entertainment.

Lyons, who has released four albums of introspective pop-rock songs that have appeared on "So You Think You Can Dance," "The Real World" and other shows, believes Second Life provides an ideal platform for artists to broaden their fan bases by reaching people around the globe they wouldn't be able to connect with under normal touring circumstances.

"It feels really nice to reach people who wouldn't be able to see these shows otherwise — be it single parents, physically handicapped people who can't get out of the house, or people who can't afford a $15 cover charge and drinks at the bar," he says. The Ohio native's easy charm and charisma heighten his appeal in this interactive environment, as do his matinee-idol good looks, which incite swooning from several fans.

Second Life concertgoers attend gigs as avatars at virtual venues that often resemble "real-life" nightclubs or outdoor amphitheaters. The performances often include live streaming videos from the artists' own studios, while the performers' avatars play on the virtual stage below. During the show, fans mingle and use a local chat feature to applaud, comment on the tunes and even flirt with one another.

It doesn't faze Lyons that the fans filling the rooms are avatars. "Some people are selective about their fan bases. I think that's crazy," he says. "They don't connect the dots and see that they are real people having a real experience." A three-dimensional "widget" on the side of the stage connects fans to Lyons' music on iTunes, as well as his MySpace and Facebook pages — all of which have seen an increase in traffic since he started performing regularly in Second Life.

Helen Harbison, who regularly attends Lyons' virtual gigs, believes the intera
ctive experience that the virtual platform provides can actually surpass that of traditional live gigs. "Gigs in Second Life are a special experience," says Harbison, who lives in Dublin, Ireland. "The interaction between musician and audience makes it special, something that you just don't get at a show in a packed-out venue or bar in real life."

Since Second Life's launch, a handful of major acts, including Duran Duran (Doubledown Edit: Duran Duran never performed in Second Life and press continues to make this error), Suzanne Vega and Ben Folds, have performed or held events in the virtual platform, but none has made a broad impact. "Over the years, Second Life didn't match the hype," says Nelson Gayton, executive director of the Center for Management of Enterprise in Media, Entertainment and Sports at UCLA. "The technology wasn't quite caught up with what people envisioned it to be."

But now, he says, "There's no reason to believe that this isn't a viable platform to experience or promote music. Why not perform in a virtual space instead of going through the challenges of performing in a live space? It's another platform to promote your talent and whatever it is you want to express so people can experience what you have to say."

Missouri indie rockers the Follow, who also perform regularly in Second Life, recognize the convenience these virtual gigs offer fans, and see it as the next logical step in the evolution of social networking. "It's so easy in Second Life — you can teleport your friends immediately, and you don't have to get dolled up," says bassist Amy Rickertsen.

Drummer Mat Matlack adds: "Once people experience Second Life, it will drive people there. The music scene will give them something to do and create an environment for social mixing. It's Facebook on steroids."

Lyons, a self-professed environmentalist, points out another beneficial aspect of this type of virtual gigging. "I legitimately think that it's the most sustainable method of performing for an artist these days, both environmentally — because you can reach the entire globe without burning gas — and financially." Lyons streams most of his Second Life gigs from his Santa Monica home studio using a basic Web cam and a microphone.

He also created an entire music video in Second Life for his ambitious, strings-laden cover of the Beatles' "Across the Universe." The 6-minute video features the avatars of friends, fans and musicians who volunteered their time and talents to create the video.

"Right now, [performing in Second Life] is kind of like the Wild West, but I don't think that will be the case soon," says Lyons. "I think it will be widely accepted and possibly even necessary for any kind of artist in the near future."

calendar@latimes.com

Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

Granny DJ Rocks Paris Clubs - DJ Ruth Flowers

DJ Ruth Flowers just wants the kids to have fun. Flowers is a 69-year-old DJ who spins at the most prestigious nightclubs in Paris.

In Case You Missed it: Second Life Press Highlights from the Week of February 22

In Case You Missed it: Second Life Press Highlights from the Week of February 22

Posted by Pete Linden 

It's been quite a week for Second Life press! The press archive page has been updated with more Second Life press coverage, and below are some highlights from the week.

Viewer 2 launched in beta on Tuesday, with some great press attention. One of my favorite pieces was Robert Scoble's video interview with M Linden, which you can watch over at Building 43. Robert took the time to visit the Lab on Battery Street here in San Francisco last Friday to film the interview, and he and M had a great conversation. Mitch Wagner (aka the Copper Robot) also published a thoughtful review of Viewer 2 (and a follow-up) for Computerworld after having interviewed T Linden inworld. There's so much more good stuff on this topic - including great posts from well-known Second Life bloggers, so please do check out the archive for more. Next week, you can check out Amanda Linden and Esbee Linden on Wednesday's episode of Metanomics, where they'll be talking more about Viewer 2 and the beta launch.
If you're following @SLBallyhoo on Twitter, you may already seen a great CNN Money segment about Second Life DJ Doubledown Tandino as part of their 'Best Job's series. Congratulations on the great coverage, Doubledown!


Buddhist magazine the Shambhala Sun carried an article sharing one Buddhist's experience exploring Second Life. In it, the author (pictured right, from the site) writes that he joined a discussion with about 20 other avatars and says, "For me this was great: I hadn’t met many Buddhists in the real world so it had been hard to discuss things I was curious about." This gets at one of the great things about Second Life - the opportunity to connect with (and learn from) others in a meaningful way that you may not have the chance to in the physical world.

Not Second Life-specific, but interesting nonetheless: this week, the AFP covered research from Stanford University's Virtual Human Interaction Lab, exploring the impact that having an avatar can have on the rest of our lives. You can find the AFP piece over at France24, and check out Stanford University News' coverage of it as well.

Also this week, Ethical Corporation published a post about a new book called The Responsibility Revolution, which will be released on March 15. Linden Lab is among the companies profiled in the book, and some of our internal tools like the Love Machine are presented.

As always, check out the press archive and follow @SLBallyhoo on Twitter for more Second Life coverage highlights - there's more coming!

China Pulls "Avatar" from Cinemas Claiming the Plot Mirrors Land Evictions

China axes 2D Avatar from Cinemas
via BBC News

China has pulled the 2D version of Avatar from cinemas amid claims the plot mirrors forced land evictions in the country.

Authorities insist the decision was a commercial one, saying the 3D version made up two-thirds of ticket revenues.

Critics claim the film's plot parallels the removal of millions of residents to make way for property developers.

The government has also denied reports that a decision was made to reduce competition for home-grown films.  They include a state-backed biopic of philosopher Confucius, starring Chow Yun-fat, which is due out next week.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

All the Rules of the Music Business Have Changed - A World of Megabeats and Megabytes (NYTimes)

A World of Megabeats and Megabytes

By JON PARELES

MY 21st century started in 1998, when I got a new toy. It was the Diamond Rio PMP300, a flimsy plastic gadget the size of a cigarette pack. PMP stood for Portable Music Player. It had a headphone jack, and it played a recently invented digital file format: MPEG-1 Audio Layer Three, or MP3.

The Rio’s 32 megabytes of storage held a dozen songs at passable fidelity. Its sound was clearly inferior to a portable CD player; its capacity was comparable to a cassette or two. But the beauty of it was that it didn’t need any CD or cassette inserted, just digital files — copies of songs — loaded from a computer, to be changed at whim. They might come from albums people owned or borrowed; they might come, even back then, from strangers online. The Recording Industry Association of America sued to have the PMP300 taken off the market and failed — the prelude to a decade of lawsuits trying to corral online music.

It was already too late. For those who were willing to be geeky — learning new software, slowly downloading via dial-up — music had forever escaped its plastic containers to travel the Web. The old distribution system was on its way to becoming irrelevant.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

...Because songs are small chunks of information that many people want, music was the canary in the digital coal mine, presaging what would happen to other art forms as Internet connections spread and sped up. For the old recording business everything went wrong. Sales of CDs have dropped by nearly half since 2000, while digital sales of individual songs haven’t come close to compensating. Movies and television (and journalism too) are now scrambling not to become the next victims of an omnivorous but tight-fisted Internet.

By now, in 2010, we’re all geeks, conversant with file formats and software players. Our cellphone/camera/music player/Web browser gadgets fit in a pocket, with their little LCD screens beckoning. Their tiny memory chips hold collections of music equivalent to backpacks full of CDs. The 2000s were the broadband decade, the disintermediation decade, the file-sharing decade, the digital recording (and image) decade, the iPod decade, the long-tail decade, the blog decade, the user-generated decade, the on-demand decade, the all-access decade. Inaugurating the new millennium, the Internet swallowed culture whole and delivered it back — cheaper, faster and smaller — to everyone who can get online.

For artists of all kinds (with musicians on the front lines) a 21st-century habitat of possibilities and pressures is taking shape — one that demands skills their predecessors forgot or never needed. The art they make can be created, as well as disseminated, faster and more cheaply. But it will also face exponentially more rivals for attention, and many more temptations toward superficiality and sellouts.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

...Ease of consumption is paralleled by ease of production. The computer is the definitive 21st-century studio, now that do-it-yourself musicians can record professional-sounding tracks onto a laptop in a bedroom. The ubiquitous software ProTools offers endless overdubbing and can put errant musicians back on the beat or tune them up, though it’s not always an improvement when dull robot precision replaces individual quirks.

The cut-and-mix, mashup procedures of hip-hop and disc-jockey culture have only accelerated. Beats from old vinyl discs were foundations of hip-hop back in the 1970s. Now no one needs to track down the physical disc because some aggregator or collector has probably put it online...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

...And without being able to depend on album sales, musicians’ job descriptions changed. Increasingly it was up to the performers — not their struggling major label if they had one, not the radio stations that had long treated them as disposable — to get themselves noticed. That could mean making silly novelty videos for YouTube, or it could involve what was once considered selling out: placing a song in a commercial, where people could hear it repeatedly (and then track it down online).
Instead of waiting for royalties to trickle in from sales, musicians were happy to get paid upfront for licensing their music to advertisers and to TV and movie soundtracks. A distracted listener was better than none at all.

In the 2010s musicians can look forward to working harder for smaller payoffs. They’re resuming — if they ever really left it behind — their age-old role as troubadours, touring more frequently to make up for disappearing album sales. (Big stars with expiring contracts went independent instead of renewing their major-label commitments, or set up so-called “360 deals” that depend as much on touring and merchandising as on selling albums.)

There are newer demands on them as well: interacting with fans who never had to accept the top-down, broadcast model of the old music business and have come to expect the individualized tone of the Internet. To perform offstage musicians now hone social-networking skills: mastering the blog post, the semi-candid photo, the not too overtly promotional self-promotion, the guarded personal revelation, the clever Tweet. Those with true star ambitions will also have to manage the meta-careers that a little bit of fame now entails, knowing that any time they show their face in public, it can turn up on a photo blog, any interview can be cross-referenced forever, any live performances or television moment might show up on YouTube. The smart ones, like Lady Gaga, already have their costume changes planned.

Musicians and their managers will also be improvising their own routes amid a wilderness of marketing and career strategies...

...One emblematic album for the 2000s was Danger Mouse’s “Grey Album” in 2004, which backed up a cappella raps from Jay-Z’s “Black Album” with finely micro-sliced samples from “The Beatles,” a k a the White Album. All of its sounds, in other words, were recycled; the musicality was in the cleverness of the cut and paste. There was no permission from the Beatles and no official commercial release. The album simply escaped onto the Internet, where it can still be grabbed, earning nothing but good will for the musicians, but ready to play any time.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE 

Study: 94% of Enterprises Will Invest in Social Media Despite Recession

Study: 94% of Enterprises Will Invest in Social Media Despite Recession
By: Clint Boulton via Eweek.com

A survey of 400 companies found that 94 percent of enterprises plan to maintain or increase their investment in enterprise social media tools such as blogs, wikis and microblogging tools from providers such as IBM, MindTouch, Socialcast, Mzinga and Jive Software. The results seem counterintuitive in light of the recession, but it shows the importance of these tools for social networking and collaboration, and proves that they are not just a fad in the enterprise. Social analytics tools are also part of the trend.

Despite the nagging recession, a new study found that 94 percent of enterprises plan to maintain or increase their investment in enterprise social media tools such as blogs, wikis and microblogging tools.

Deloitte, Beeline Labs and the Society for New Communications Research surveyed 400 companies that have cultivated internal social networks or online communities, finding that only 6 percent plan to decrease their investment in the recession. The communities surveyed ranged from fewer than 100 members to more than one million members.

Ed Moran, director of product innovation for consultancy Deloitte Services LP and one of the report authors, called the results counterintuitive in light of the recession, noting that while IT, marketing and public relations departments are being cut, companies continue to spend on social software for networking and collaboration.

Companies that go against the grain of belt-tightening by spending on social software underscore the importance of these tools, proving that they are not just a hip trend or fad in the enterprise.

"We call it the anti-fad because people have always been social, talking about companies, products and services," Moran said. "They just never had the mechanism for doing it at any kind of scale. This is not going away and it's not just for kids."

Most of the companies Moran surveyed said they are using social media tools to engage with customers, partners and employees for marketing purposes, with word-of-mouth, customer loyalty, brand awareness, idea generation and customer support quality comprising other community objectives. The need to meet these goals presents great opportunities for enterprise social software makers.

Tools such as Twitter and Facebook are so popular that software makers such as IBM, MindTouch, Jive Software, Socialtext and Socialcast have all created comparable tools for businesses.

Instead of going on Twitter or Facebook to talk trash about competitors, or to endorse products and services they like (although people still do that, to the chagrin of employers), employees are using blogs, wikis and Twitter-like status update services their companies purchased for them from the aforementioned providers.

Moreover, Moran said he is seeing an uptick in the adoption of analytics software that tracks both active and inactive members to derive insights, something that was barely mentioned even a year ago. Socialcast, Jive and Mzinga, among others, offer this software.

"The enterprise is waking up to the fact that it needs to listen and that it needs business intelligence" for the communities, Moran said. However, this is happening in pockets and is not yet widescale, presenting opportunity for analytics tools providers.

Those survey respondents that are using these tools are paying attention to non-active users or "lurkers," people who observe the community, but don't participate in the discussion. Thirty-two percent of respondents are capturing data on how these individuals derive value from the community. This points to a maturation of the enterprise's use of communities and social media.

Moreover, 20 percent of companies Moran surveyed said they have set up "ambassador" programs, which give outsiders preferential treatment in return for being more active in the community.

Despite this maturation in enterprise social media, companies still report having a hard time getting people to join, remain and/or return to the online communities. Few companies are tackling these challenges, paving the way for dedicated online community manager roles.

"New management strategies and practices will be critical, including redefining the scope and role of alliances as well as the overall boundary of corporations," Moran said.

Youtube is Dying - YouTube Exposed!

Thank you Goldbar.tv for delivering this to me
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Police are Now Confiscating DJ Laptops as “Evidence’ for Illegal Parties

Police are Now Confiscating DJ Laptops as “Evidence’ for Illegal Parties-What’s next?
via Davey D of HipHopPolitics & via Joshua Emerson Smith of The San Fransisco Bay Guardian

 
I wanna make sure that every DJ reading this pays close attention and doesn’t dismiss this. Its all about setting legal precedent so police can take things a step further. This is pointed out in the article. 

Every DJ reading this needs to realize that this so-called collection of evidence will eventually start happening when the RIAA and the organizations it backs  (I.e. Music First Coalition, Sound Exchange etc) began tracking down DJs who aren’t paying licensing fees for their music, especially if they are rocking at these ‘underground’ parties. This will really happen if they manage to push John Conyers bill HR 848 and make that into law. 

For those who don’t know, HR 848 is a performance tax they want to charge radio. Play a song on the air and the artist (translation really the label using the artists as fronts) should get some money. This talk about playing songs for promotional purposes has fallen on def ears as far as the labels are concerned. Once this bill passes they will then use this argument of  ’precedent’ and  make the case that since radio is paying a performance license so should deejays and club venues. This argument of ‘precendence‘ is the same scurrilous tactic they are using now to try and pass HR 848, except they are pointing to the highly contested bill that made internet and satellite radio pay similar fees as justification. They are likely to argue that the DJ is making living off the backs of hardworking artists and that there would be no career if it wasn’t for the artist thus an artist should share in a percentage of the revenues.  Keep your eyes open..

Lastly I will remind people if you recall when the RIAA started cracking down on mixtapes being sold in open markets they were able to do something that almost every business I know of has not and can not. They been able to come along with law enforcement on those RAIDS as if they were the police themselves. I also want folks to check to see if some sort of tracking devices or software are not being added to the laptops when they are returned.
-Davey D-

 Controversial tactic of taking laptops even when DJs not charged with crime  reportedly condoned by San Francisco’s new chief of police. EEF attorney steps in to help protect DJs privacy, get computers back.
San Francisco Bay Guardian


Police seize DJs’ laptops
New police chief apparently condones policy that critics call illegal and punitive
By Joshua Emerson Smith
news@sfbg.com
 
San Francisco Police Department officers have added a controversial tactic to their aggressive raids on house parties (see “Fun under siege,” 4/22/09): they’re seizing laptop computers from DJs at the events.

While SFPD officials deny the laptop seizures is a new policy, they admit it has been condoned by Police Chief George Gascón, who took over in August and last month told the Guardian’s editorial board he wants to make the SFPD more transparent and accountable to the public (see “New coach, new approach,” 10/14/09).

“The police chief is aware that officers are being proactive in gathering evidence,” Sgt. Lyn Tomioka told the Guardian when asked about a string of laptop seizures by undercover cops over the last 10 months, most of them in cases in which the DJs weren’t even charged with a crime.
Many of the raids have occurred in SoMa, and were spearheaded by undercover officers who penetrated the parties and were followed by uniformed officers. San Francisco Entertainment Commission member Terrance Alan called the crackdown a “disappointing and dangerous trend.”
Tomioka said it’s a judgment call for officers to seize laptops as evidence of an illegal party, but Alan said the tactic is a punitive measure that proves nothing: “Taking laptops [is] not necessary to prove the underlying crime, and in many cases damages people’s ability to earn a living.”

One of the most recent raids happened on Halloween. It was about 2:30 a.m. and music was pumping out of a warehouse party on Sixth Street. The people throwing the party had hired a doorman, and attendee Eric Dunn was standing in line waiting to get in.

“We were right at the front of the line,” Dunn told the Guardian, when, he said, two plainclothes officers drove up on the sidewalk, jumped out of an unmarked car, and rushed up to the doorman. “[The officers] pretty much started demanding entry right away. The doorman was really polite. He basically told them that you have to know somebody to get into the party.”

Dunn said the officers waited until an exiting guest opened the door from the inside and then made their move. “One guy barged in, and the other guy followed. They never asked permission or received permission to enter the building,” Dunn said.

SF Chief George Gascon is allowing his officers to confiscate laptops from DJs as 'evidence'

Inside, the two undercover officers immediately shut down the event. Justin Miller, a DJ at the event, said she remembers it very clearly. “The cops at that point were telling everybody to leave the party, telling me to turn the music off. I turned the music off. Everyone was quietly leaving.”
But Miller said it didn’t stop there. One of the undercover officers approached her and asked if she had a laptop. She said she did. “I was a little confused at this point because I didn’t know what my laptop had to do with anything. I was playing CDs.” She said she pulled her computer out from underneath a table and unzipped it from a case. The officer then “grabbed it from me.”

The undercover police officer — later identified by witnesses and the evidence receipt as Larry Bertrand — instructed Miller to follow him down to the street to get a property receipt for her laptop.
At this point there were uniformed officers on the scene as well. Miller started to cry. “I begged him. I said, ‘This is my livelihood. You’re talking my laptop. This is my livelihood. I hope you realize that.’ He said, ‘This is how you’re going to learn then, I guess.’”

Miller said Bertrand (who did not return Guardian calls for comment) then told her he was “going to take it upon himself to shut down every illegal party in San Francisco.”

She said he then opened the trunk of his car, revealing several other laptops. A person at the party pointed out that one of the laptops belonged to a friend of his, and asked if he could get the property receipt for the laptop. Miller said Bertrand turned to the inquiring person and said, “You will never see this laptop again.”

She continued: “He then looked at me and said, ‘I’m going to make sure your paperwork gets so tied up that maybe you won’t see this laptop until December, January, February, who knows when.’ I felt so violated.”

Miller has been working as a DJ in the Bay Area, under the name DJ Justincredible, for more than 10 years. She says she’s never had any of her equipment confiscated by the police before. But at that party, three DJs had their laptops confiscated, even though none were charged with a crime.

Shortly after the Halloween incident, Miller and the two other DJs who were at the party contacted the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy group specializing in technology and privacy issues. Jennifer Granick, a civil liberties lawyer with EFF, said most people haven’t heard about this because few of these DJs, if any, ever get convicted of a crime.

“DJs and the police department know that sound equipment and laptops are being unlawfully seized. But the public and the courts haven’t heard much about it because every time a DJ asks for a hearing, the cops just give them their property back rather than show up and defend the practice in open court before a judge,” she said.

Sean Evans has been working as a DJ in San Francisco, under the name DJ 7, for more than 10 years. He said that over the summer he had his laptop seized by police during an after-hours party in SoMa. He was given no property receipt, and his case was dismissed. But it took him three months to get his computer back.

“To lose our sole means of income, it’s a huge setback. It puts us out of work. In this recession, we’re struggling, and we need our laptops to get by,” he said. Evans grew up in the Bay Area and he said has never had anything like this happen to him before.

Granick argued it is illegal for police to seize property without issuing citations or arrests. She also said there are serious privacy issues at stake. “If we were to find out that the police were doing something else with the laptops, like searching through them or copying the data, we would definitely go to court,” she said.

SFPD Sgt. Wilfred Williams said he could not say what was currently being done with the laptops. In general, he said, private events that emit “extraordinary amounts of sound” need permits. And if they don’t have the proper permits, he said, property can be seized as evidence, “be it the speakers, be it the laptops, be it a mixer.”

Both Tomioka and Williams say the seizures aren’t a new policy. “If you look back in time, laptops haven’t been used for music,” Williams said. “There used to be old types of equipment that was taken in the past. But now laptops are being used. So yes, today, laptops [are] being seized.”

Entertainment advocates have called on Mayor Gavin Newsom and Gascón to come forward with an explicit policy concerning these raids and seizures. The Mayor’s Office did not respond to Guardian inquiries. Critics of the policy say it’s having a chilling effect on nightlife in San Francisco.

Metaworld (24/7) and Metaverse Week in Review (Sundays 12pm SLT)

METAWORLD: Public Service Broadcasting for Virtual Citizens: News, views and events from the metaverse and dimensional web. Metaworld2 welcomes "Metaverse Week In Review" with Mal Burns and Tara Yeats (plus many more live guests) weekly on Sundays. Noon SLT.

There is always a lot of news programming and 24/7 videos from V-worlds & social networlds so you can enter and check out current news and video shows from the metaverse. (Archives of past shows are available by clicking the “On Demand” button on the Livestream viewer.)

Real Virtualities- livestreaming video


http://www.livestream.com/metaworld1
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http://www.livestream.com/metaworld3
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• All Shows
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November 5th: A Reminder to STEP UP! Against Content Theft in Second Life

Step UP! Make your voice heard about Content Theft

For more information on Step UP! SL please visit our blog:
http://stepupsl.wordpress.com/

You are also invited to join our Step UP! Ning Group:
http://step-up-sl.ning.com/

 November 5th – Guy Fawkes Day or Bonfire Night in the UK.

Action:
a) On this day – 
no-one uploads textures to the grid.
This should show the economic power of people acting together, without harming content creators. We want Linden Lab to see the power of the feeling about the problem of content theft – and to discuss urgently strategies for tackling it.
b) As many people as possible wear an orange ribbon as a sign of support for creators. And creators can design these – they can be lapel ribbons, they can be arm bands, they can be tee-shirts … the idea is to make the orange ribbon the theme of the day. And everyone who gets a free orange ribbon gets an information sheet – explaining what content theft is, what they can do about it etc. And they also get an information pack that they can give to their friends (which also contains an orange ribbon for their friends). Why orange? It’s been used before, but has no overwhelming association (unlike pink or red ribbons). It’s a bright, noticeable colour. It suggests explosions and colour …
And it’s an opportunity for stores and content creators to become involved too.

Celebration:
The day ends with parties. Bonfire parties. That means that all around the grid, people have parties. We’re not going to be trying to stage Big Events that maybe only 60 or 70 people can cram into. Instead we encourage every club to hold a Step Up! party. We encourage every musician to play Step UP! events. Everyone on the grid has a part to play. Everyone can take part.

ACTA - The Internet Illuminati Planning a New World Order?!

Via BoingBoing
by Cory Doctorow
Secret copyright treaty leaks. It's bad. Very bad.

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says:

• * That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.
  
• * That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet -- and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living -- if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.
  
• * That the whole world must adopt US-style "notice-and-takedown" rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused -- again, without evidence or trial -- of infringing copyright. This has proved a disaster in the US and other countries, where it provides an easy means of censoring material, just by accusing it of infringing copyright.
  
• * Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose (e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival preservation; because you own the copyrighted work that is locked up with DRM)

The ACTA Internet Chapter: Putting the Pieces Together

[FULL ARTICLE HERE]

-----

via Michael Geist
The ACTA Internet Chapter: Putting the Pieces Together

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotations continue in a few hours as Seoul, Korea plays host to the latest round of talks. The governments have posted the meeting agenda, which unsurprisingly focuses on the issue of Internet enforcement. The United States has drafted the chapter under enormous secrecy, with selected groups granted access under strict non-disclosure agreements and other countries (including Canada) given physical, watermarked copies designed to guard against leaks.

[FULL ARTICLE HERE]

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Via EFF.org
Leaked ACTA Internet Provisions: Three Strikes and a Global DMCA
Commentary by Gwen Hinze
 
Negotiations on the highly controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement start in a few hours in Seoul, South Korea. This week’s closed negotiations will focus on “enforcement in the digital environment.” Negotiators will be discussing the Internet provisions drafted by the US government. No text has been officially released but as Professor Michael Geist and IDG are reporting, leaks have surfaced. The leaks confirm everything that we feared about the secret ACTA negotiations. The Internet provisions have nothing to do with addressing counterfeit products, but are all about imposing a set of copyright industry demands on the global Internet, including obligations on ISPs to adopt Three Strikes Internet disconnection policies, and a global expansion of DMCA-style TPM laws.

[FULL ARTICLE HERE]

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Via Huffington Post
Transparency of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)

The letter below reports the views of several groups and individuals concerning the lack of transparency of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). This is something that is so obvious, it should not require comment, on a policy that is completely indefensible.

The. U.S. and 39 or more countries are negotiating a new global agreement on the enforcement of intellectual property rights, and everything so far is secret from the general public. The main topics are civil and criminal rules, such as injunctions, damages and third party liability from infringements, searches of Internet transactions, border measures affecting the import or export of various consumer goods from medicines to cell phones, and a host of other issues. All 40+ countries in the negotiation have access to the proposed text. And, there are processes for just about any corporate lobbyist with ties to the Administration to see proposed texts, if they sign tough legally binding non-disclosure agreements. So why is it secret from the public?

[FULL ARTICLE HERE]

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Via GamePolitics
Letter to Obama Seeks ACTA Transparency

As the 6th round of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations get underway in Seoul, Korea, a dispatch has been sent to President Obama expressing concern over the “lack of transparency and openness” surrounding the initiative.

The letter notes that “Unlike nearly all other multilateral and plurilateral discussions about intellectual property norms, the ACTA negotiations have been held in deep secrecy.”

While a curious mix of entities have been allowed to see ACTA documents, after signing a non-disclosure agreement, the letter states that “there were no opportunities for academic experts or the general public to review the documents,” adding that “very few” public interest or consumer groups were included as well.

[FULL ARTICLE HERE]

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Via Freakbits
Obama Petitioned to Reveal Secret Anti-Piracy Agreement

ACTA is a mysterious thing that no-one is really certain about. That lack of certainty is because of the lack of transparency around the negotiations. KEI wants that changed, and with an open letter-cum-petition, is calling on President Obama to stand up to his election promises, and make ACTA public.

There has been a lot of controversy over the ACTA treaty. Mostly over the the scope of the treaty (which could see iPod searches at borders for illegally downloaded music) but there has also been a fuss over the way the negotiations have been conducted. Negotiations have been conducted in secret over the past two years, and the Executive Office of the President (Office of t he US Trade Representative) has denied Freedom of Information (FOI) requests earlier this year from FEI, citing Executive Order 12958 – referring to Classified National Security Information. In January, just before the Bush Administration left office, they made similar claims to EFF FOI requests.

[FULL ARTICLE HERE]

Blog Love - Pixels and Policy with Max Burns

Pixels and Policy has burst onto the virtual world news, info, and opinion net scene.  Run by Max Burns

Pixels and Policy

Uncovering the ways virtual worlds change our politics, policy, and culture.

Home
Archives
Profile
Subscribe

I highly encourage to you to read & follow the blog covering so many important virtual world issues of the present day and the future to come.

DIGG IT:
http://digg.com/people/Pixels_and_Policy_Blog_about_Virtual_World_Issues

--
(no relation to Mal Burns, who is also an excellent virtual world media expert and journalist)

 

Step UP! Make your voice heard about Content Theft

via:
Step UP!  Make sure to visit and spread this link --  http://stepupsl.wordpress.com/

Make your voice heard about Content Theft

In the wake of the wholesale theft of sims and content over the weekend, like many people we wanted to do something about it --and also about all the other content theft that we have been fighting for so long -- in the Content Creators Association and in magazines and on TV shows. Th Step Up! campaign is centred on a special day of action that everyone can become involved with, and that can empower and inform people.

Step UP! kiosks are now available on XStreet

 kiosks available on XStreet.and you should find them at tinyurl.com/ydlpely, or you can search on Step UP!  They are, of course, free.

Step UP!

Make your voice heard about Content Theft

• About Step UP!

If you want to find out more about Step UP! … CLICK

The start of Step UP!

We are aiming for a day that draws together action, education and celebration. We want a focus that empowers people – and rather than dictates to people, allows them to express their own creativity in a variety of ways. It also draws attention to the strength of feeling that there is here on the grid.
2) We need to make people feel empowered by what they do. And, because we are hardly the most time-free people on the grid – we need something that they can largely organize themselves!
So these are our thoughts: We are nominating a day as Step UP! Day – which will be  
November 5th – Guy Fawkes Day or Bonfire Night in the UK.

Action:
a) On this day – 
no-one uploads textures to the grid.
This should show the economic power of people acting together, without harming content creators. We want Linden Lab to see the power of the feeling about the problem of content theft – and to discuss urgently strategies for tackling it.
b) As many people as possible wear an orange ribbon
as a sign of support for creators. And creators can design these – they can be lapel ribbons, they can be arm bands, they can be tee-shirts … the idea is to make the orange ribbon the theme of the day. And everyone who gets a free orange ribbon gets an information sheet – explaining what content theft is, what they can do about it etc. And they also get an information pack that they can give to their friends (which also contains an orange ribbon for their friends). Why orange? It’s been used before, but has no overwhelming association (unlike pink or red ribbons). It’s a bright, noticeable colour. It suggests explosions and colour …
And it’s an opportunity for stores and content creators to become involved too.

Celebration:
The day ends with parties. Bonfire parties. That means that all around the grid, people have parties. We’re not going to be trying to stage Big Events that maybe only 60 or 70 people can cram into. Instead we encourage every club to hold a Step Up! party. We encourage every musician to play Step UP! events. Everyone on the grid has a part to play. Everyone can take part.

Education:
This is going to come in several forms.
1) Info pack
These will be given out with orange ribbons in stores and at parties.
2) Media
Audio and Visual service ads. The Press. The Blogsphere – everyone can play there part in getting out the message that we have had enoufgh, and we have chosen to Step UP! against content theft.
3) Video
Short informational films – tutorials about content theft.
On the Designing Worlds shows we’ve talked again and again about the need for a social shift – so that people see content theft as socially and morally unacceptable. So … let’s go for it!
Watch this space for more details on how you can become involved, and how you can share with us your plans for Step UP! Day.
The concept originates with a small group – Angie Mornington, Gabrielle Riel, Gwen Carillon and Saffia Widdershins. But more and more people are now becoming involved. And you can too.

by primperfect

• Related:
  
  
  
  
  • If you want to find out more about Step UP! …
  • Step UP! kiosks are now available on XStreet
  • Join the new Step UP! inworld group!
  • Step UP ribbons, information packs and kiosks now available!
  • The start of Step UP!
  • Getting Step UP! stuff
  • Step Up! Campaign
  • Step Up! Day
  
  
• Content Creators Association
  
  

Obama Trying Out Social Policies In 'Second Life'

Obama Trying Out Social Policies In 'Second Life'
September 25, 2009 | Issue 45•39

WASHINGTON—According to White House sources, an increasingly cautious President Obama has begun testing out parts of his executive agenda on the 15 million citizens of the online world known as Second Life. The commander in chief's avatar—an attractive African-American man with two more years of senatorial experience than the president—has already dedicated 3.5 billion Linden dollars to developing sustainable green energy in the virtual community. "After what happened when he expanded the Peace Corps, we're anticipating a large portion of the program will be cut," one unnamed administration official said. "I saw the screencaps myself. There were thousands of arrogant, college-age avatars just camping out, being of no help to anyone. It was awful." After moderators confirmed Monday that the virtual world is in no danger of terrorist attack because there is no death in Second Life, former vice president Dick Cheney reportedly canceled his recently opened account.

Doubledown Tandino's Diggs of the Week - Iran Election & Social Media - June 2009-3

This past week's news was filled with Iran election & revolution coverage (or lack there of). We also witnessed a revolution in social media.

I pulled several interesting article links from the past week. These articles are about the massive role social media played rather than news about Iran:

#IranElection Crisis: A Social Media Timeline - One of the striking aspects of the #IranElection crisis has been the heavy use of social media. Iranians have relied on it to spread information on protests and to communicate their situation to millions of concerned people worldwide.

How (Twitter and) I* Crashed Iran's Propaganda Web Sites - A top new-media activist looks back on his role in the Twitterati's rise to power this week — and why it didn't stop Ahmadinejad's. *"I" is Josh Koster , Raph Koster's brother.

What the World Didn't See in Tehran - Iranian state television yesterday broadcast the soap operas and covered the news about Rafael Nadal's withdrawal from Wimbledon and Pakistani operations against the Taliban as if they were the most important stories of the day...

Tools to Undo Censorship in Iran and China. USE THEM - Web censorship has once again become a huge issue, due to two unrelated events: China’s Internet blockade due to the anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, and more recently, the controversial Iran elections which have resulted in new oppressive measures, implemented by the current country leaders, to shut down free speech in the country.

Iran, Twitter, and The American Information Elite - Over the weekend, Iran hurtled into political upheaval, and America's 24-hour cable news networks hardly noticed. Mark Ambinder explains the role Twitter played in Iran.

Doubledown Tandino's Diggs of the Week - June 2009-1

Doubledown Tandino's Digg It Favorites of the Week:

20+ best sites to submit your news | INDEZINER - Every webmaster knows that site promotion is vital on the internet. There are many ways to do that. One viral marketing technique is also public news promotion. We searched for you and find out some great websites that are featuring community news.

Metaverse Week in Review | Live Show about Virtual Worlds - Metaverse Week In Review airs live right here every Sunday, starting at 12 pm SL time/8pm UK time. Archives of past shows are available by clicking the “On Demand” button.

Avatars United | www.AvatarsUnited.com | world MMO community - Welcome to the world’s open community for MMOs! Register today, hook up with your friends and improve your virtual life… one application at a time! " It's like Facebook for your virtual personas.

LIVE. Music electronic on USTREAM, most-popular Live Streams - Electronic Music Ustream Shows Broadcasting Live including electronic music DJs mixing live online.

ARhrrrr - An augmented reality shooter - ARhrrrr is an augmented reality shooter for mobile camera-phones, created at Georgia Tech Augmented Environments Lab and the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD-Atlanta). The phone provides a window into a 3d town overrun with zombies. Point the camera at our special game map to mix virtual and real world content.

Case Studies Real Organizations Find Success in Second Life - Real Organizations Find Success in the Virtual World There are hundreds of organizations currently in Second Life, including many Fortune 1000 companies and government institutions.

Marketing and Networking in the Second Life Art Scene - In this article, we’re going to explore some ways you’ll be able to hit the ground running with marketing yourself in SL’s virtual art scene. There are many similarities to real life when it comes to presenting yourself to the inworld audiences of curators, collectors and other artists.

RJDJ Scripting reality – music is everywhere… Dizzy Banjo - RjDj is an amazing iPhone application which creates mind twisting hearing sensations by weaving your environment into reactive music. Voices, cars, your walking speed.. these and many other things can be used to shape your experience. If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, try it!

SelfControl - Program to block internet distractions - Is email a distraction? SelfControl is an OS X application which blocks access to incoming and/or outgoing mail servers and websites for a predetermined period of time. For example, you could block access to your email, facebook, and twitter for 90 minutes, but still have access to the rest of the web. Hope you enjoy my selections.

- Each week I hope to bring you some interesting stuff for my Doubledown Tandino's Digg It Favorites. Make sure to DIGG the articles that interest you and make sure to connect with me on Digg & on Twitter : @Doubledown_inSL @Ravelong

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Doubledown's Note about Digg: I have been heavily using Digg (http://digg.com) for my daily website surfing and bookmarking. It's been useful to me in three ways:

1) Any website I come across that interests me, I want to save & share, I'm now using Digg to bookmark the site instead of saving the link to my web browser's bookmarks. Going to my own profile to see an easy access list of links I wanted saved has been working well.

2) Digg has a great community of site sharing people. I can go to Digg, without having something specific I'm looking for, and find interesting news and articles just by parusing the digg site.

3) Digg and Twitter combo with these tools: http://twiggit.com and http://twitterfeed.com
my Digg submission feed is: http://digg.com/users/BradReason/history/submissions.rss
(You are more than welcome to set your twitterfeed to send my digg links through your twitter if you enjoy my selections.)

See ya around Digg: http://digg.com/users/BradReason

Metaverse Week in Review - Live Show about Second Life and Virtual Worlds - Sundays 12pm (slt)

All you avatar heads and metaverse hoppers, on Sundays, the thing to do is
Metaverse Week in Review - http://www.metaverseweekinreview.com/
The Live internet Show about Second Life & Virtual Worlds
Sundays 12pm (slt)

Metaverse Week in Review is a live videocast co-hosted by Mal Burns and Tara Yeats every Sunday. Presented at Livestream, this live show looks at events and news from the week in Second Life and other developing virtual worlds. Mal & Tara are joined by an assortment of guests from the metaverse.
Bios of Mal & Tara, plus info about semi-regular guests will appear here whenever we get around to writing it.

NEED A SHOW REMINDER?

We have a “Subscribe-o-matic” notices option! List of our current Second Life kiosk locations to subscribe plus RSS feed info - details here!

SHOWTIME

Metaverse Week In Review airs live right here every Sunday, starting at 12 noon SL time/8pm UK time. Archives of past shows are available by clicking the “On Demand” button on the Mogulus viewer below.

NOTE ABOUT VIEWING PREVIOUS SHOWS:

Prior to our permanent move to Mogulus in March 2009, we broadcast from Blogstar, and prior to that from Operator11. While there are imbeds in the archives here for pre-March shows, changes in Blogstar’s server organization has trashed these links. You may be able access pre-March shows in the Blogstar show archive. Regretfully, our older Operator11 show archives from Fall 2007 thru Fall 2008 have become completely inaccessible.

CURRENT SHOW @ Livestream

You can access shows since the end of March 2009 by clicking the “On Demand” button on the Mogulus viewer below. This includes archives of extra “Metaworld Live” shows.
Email: info(at)metaverseweekinreview(dot)com
Other Important Links:

• 
  

  Mal's Links

  • Inworld Bulletins
  • Machinima Choice
  • Mal Burns Metaverse
  • Mal Burns Network
  • Mal’s Annex
  • Mal’s Videopod
  • MalBurns @ Twitter
  • Metajams TV
  • Metaworld
  • Metaworld2
  • Second Destinations
  • Second Life Buzz
  • Second Space
  • SL Education & Tech
  • SL Undercurrents
  • Tara Incognita
  
  

DIGG IT

Inworld Crowd Recession? (Part 2) - A Round-Up of Insightful Thoughts and Brainstorms

UPDATE 4.21 : 4pm(slt)
:: Continuing with the conversation "Is there a current Music-Crowd Recession in Second Life?", The blog received some amazing insightful comments HERE.

Here are relevant links to add to the conversation:

Thanks Paisley Beebe:
- The SL Music Biz, Why isn't it Doing Better?
http://tonightlivewithpaisleybeebe.com/2009/04/15/the-music-biz-in-sl-why-isnt-it-doing-better/
- Music as a business in Second Life :
http://rezzable.com/blog/thinkerer-melville/music-business-second-life
- An Interview with Paisley Beebe :
http://www.your2ndplace.com/node/1466

Thanks Morris Vig:
- Music Crowds in SL, What to do about it :
http://morrisvig.wordpress.com/2009/04/14/music-crowds-down-in-sl-what-to-do-about-it/
- The Best Second Life Arts Event Ever :
http://secondarts.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/the-best-second-life-arts-event-ever/
- Vig’s Unified Theory of Second Life :
http://secondarts.wordpress.com/2008/10/09/vigs-unified-theory-of-second-life/
- The importance of a quality social experience in SL :
http://secondarts.wordpress.com/2008/10/11/the-importance-of-a-quality-social-experience-in-sl/

Thanks Bettina Tizzy:
- SL is Killing Me :
http://npirl.blogspot.com/2009/04/sl-is-killing-me.html

Thanks Crap Mariner:
- I Feel Like Butter that has been Spread over too Much Bread :
http://firstlife.isfullofcrap.com/2009/04/i_feel_like_butter_that_has_be.html
- Cheap Venue Owners
http://firstlife.isfullofcrap.com/2008/04/cheap.html
- Every event should be a spectacle
http://firstlife.isfullofcrap.com/2008/08/spectacle.html
- 100 via Ustream
http://firstlife.isfullofcrap.com/2009/03/100_plus.html
- Trash Talkin Tukso
http://firstlife.isfullofcrap.com/2009/03/talking_in_circles.html
--more contributions from Crap can be found:
HERE

Thanks Nexeus Fatale:
- Crowd Recession? Reasons why Crowds aren't Returning to Events
http://nexeusfatale.com/dj/crowd-recession-reasons-why-crowds-arent-returning-to-events/
- What's Missing from Second Life Events
http://nexeusfatale.com/metaverse/whats-missing-from-second-life-events/

Thanks ArmistasX Saiman:
- Falling Revenues Explained
http://www.secondeffects.com/2009/04/falling-revenues-explained.html

Thanks Homeless Martian:
- Is there current a music crowd recession ?
http://homelessmartian.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/is-there-current-a-music-crowd-recession/
- Part 2 (The Ego)
http://homelessmartian.wordpress.com/2009/04/19/is-there-current-a-music-crowd-recession-part-2/
- Part 3 (The Experience)
http://homelessmartian.wordpress.com/2009/04/21/is-there-current-a-music-crowd-recession-part-3/

Via GigaOM
http://gigaom.com/2009/04/15/exclusive-internal-second-life-data-shows-returning-growth/

Thanks Hamlet Au:
Why is Live Music in Second Life Suffering a Downturn:
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2009/04/live-music-downturn.html
For Second Life Entrepeneur, Revenue Declines As US Unemployment Rate Increases
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2009/04/us-unemployment.html
For SecoNew World Newsfeed: Second Life's Growth Plateau Ends
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2009/04/new-world-newsfeed.html
Second Life Musicians Losing Their Audiences Should Take A Tip (Or Two) From Ousama
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2009/04/mixed-reality-ousama.html

Thanks Brthaue:
What's Wrong with the Music Biz in SL!
http://iheartsl.com/2009/04/15/whats-wrong-with-the-music-biz-in-sl/

... and from the Official Linden Lab/Second Life blog:
The Second Life Economy - First Quarter 2009 in Detail
(as you'll notice, Linden Lab seems to be the only ones with an entirely different conclusion than most everyone above.)

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Please let me know if you have written a post about your perceptions on the current state of crowd attendance at SL events. Add your link in the comments, and I'll update this post.

Fantopia Magazine (ToonTopia Dance Club)

Fantopia Magazine
(ToonTopia Dance Club)

We at FanTopia publishing has just launched a new magazine. Our mission is to explore pop culture beyond the scope of the mainstream, thereby illustrating for our readers the groundbreaking ideas that will influence the trends of tomorrow in the global dance music business within second life. Fantopia is an indispensable style guide, cultural reference and source of entertainment for a highly influential audience. Geared to drive the music and fashion industry in sl. Pick it up for free on XStreetSL