I’ve been really busy lately. I’ve been spending less time hanging out with friends, posting to forums, following general SL related news and blogs, mostly because pretty much every day has been in some way about work.
Workwise, I have two major projects slated for completion this month, along with a private project that could take me through to the end of August, and a smaller incidental project i hope to finish this weekend. It’s also been a very refreshing experience to meet and greet with like-minded folks of late to explore other possibilities. The Thinkbalm networking event this past week was super fun to be a part of and attend. I would love to see more of that happening in the Solution Provider realm of things – not just under the jurisdiction of Linden Lab and the SP Program.
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Last month, I had to deal with a bunch of copybotters as well as a permissions bug introduced in the 1.23 viewer by the bulk permissions button *appearing* to change permissions but in reality not actually doing the job, leaving products open to transfer with either full permissions or infinitely transferrable. What a headache. I was lucky to be able to file some DMCAs and have the content removed, then go back and replace the removed content with corrected content, but it probably could have been worse had I been the type of merchant who makes hundreds of sales routinely.
Linden Lab recently put out a new blog post on their Content Management Roadmap that addresses some of this, plus lots more. As I understand it, the takedown process is supposed to be getting easier. Policies over use of content copying tools are to be clarified and it looks like they are gearing up to address questions regarding Nebraska and content portability between it and SL-proper. It also looks like they want to introduce some sort of paid program to verify the trustworthiness and legitimacy of content creators overall.
As an aside, for those who don’t know what Nebraska is, basically it’s a closed beta program running right now that is more or less SL in a box – it runs behind a corporate firewall and will allow corporations to have greater control over how they’re used and what goes on. This is particularly useful for corps who want to take advantage of the idea behind 3D collaborative spaces. It looks like it will be pricey, and probably won’t be for everyone. But it’s out there, and there is increasing demand for content to be ported behind firewalls, since very little exists so far.
This presents a quandry for me as both a content creator and solution provider.
While I have no problems creating full permission content for hire, there has been increasing demand for everyday objects unrelated to full builds of any kind. Trees for instance. Or perhaps cars, furniture, office buildings, etc. All for free or close to it.
From a graphic designer/illustrator’s point of view, assigning a full license of a given work to a client is usually grounds for charging 200-300% of the price quoted for first use rights. Unfortunately, given the wild and very new state of content creation and solution provision as an industry, issues such as these are very rarely standardized. I’d even argue that this very lack of standardization and backup through advocacy is really harming an industry that should be growing. I’m not saying solution providers should charge out the nose, but time spent in SL creating and managing projects is exactly the same as time spent creating and managing any other project in real life. In many cases, these projects can demand a very large and varying skillset with accompanying in-depth knowledge of Virtual Worlds – that’s actually not something that’s all that common on a professional basis.
Additionally, the problem for content creators and business folks is that items need to be provided with full permissions in order to be ported to these installations. That’s… not something I’m entirely prepared to handle, at this moment, particularly in light of the lax permissions security I’ve seen recently.
I”m not ready to discount the Content Management Roadmap posting entirely and I have had discussions with a few folks who were involved in the development behind the post… it sounds promising, but I would really like to see a concrete move towards implimentation and widespread use before I would even begin to feel comfortable addressing porting of existing products elsewhere.
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I have begun looking in to alternative living accommodations and may plan for a move some time this fall. I would really like to be much closer to amenities – like within walking distance – and be a little more central to the GTA if at all possible. Perhaps I will find some reasonable spots after i have a chance to visit the ones that pique my interest.
In any case, a change in lifestyle is in order. That’s really something I look forward to.