New Second Life terms and conditions

[Solar Legion]

Empathy? Yes. That is not what some here are showing nor asking for/demanding. At all.

One can be quite empathetic while still remarking and presenting facts and reality.

The fact and reality of the matter is that this is not all that different from the existing boilerplate they already had to agree to if they used any payment processor outside of simple bank transfers.

Period.

Newsflash for you: There are more people who deal with this sort of thing on a daily basis than just SL Content Creators. Guess what? We've got to factor in quite a bit to ensure bills and other things get paid on time and that funds do not take a sudden hit.

That bit is easy enough to empathize with.

The rest is nothing more than being Chicken Little. Nothing. More.

[Rowan Amore]

Since Tilia was introduced, people have always had to go through 2 levels to get.their money.  Nothing has changed in that regard.  LL and Tilia have also maintained separate ToS.  So, nothing has changed there either.   Being uninsured, they are covering their own a** by saying 'their sole discretion' on paying out.  

[EliseAnne85]

8 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Nothing has changed in that regard.

You're right.  But it is a longer settlement or longer wait for one's rl money now, for some reason.  I cashed out once and the settlement time was 3 to 5 business days.  Now it's up to 30 days.  However, I'm in America so that could have made my cashout through Tilia to Paypal to my bank 3 to 5 business days.  I'm not really sure of all the time frames before the new TOS because I only cashed out once in my whole entire SL which is nearing two full decades.

You and others are also right in that I think also these are standard terms of service for American money transmitters as it stands now.

Edited October 26, 2022 by EliseAnne85

[Rowan Amore]

7 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

You're right.  But it is a longer settlement or longer wait for one's rl money now, for some reason.  I cashed out once and the settlement time was 3 to 5 business days.  Now it's up to 30 days.  However, I'm in America so that could have made my cashout through Tilia to Paypal to my bank 3 to 5 business days.  I'm not really sure of all the time frames before the new TOS because I only cashed out once in my whole entire SL which is nearing two full decades.

You and others are also right in that I think also these are standard terms of service for American money transmitters as it stands now.

It still says 5-10 days but COULD take up to 30.  Again, just a cover their butt statement.

[EliseAnne85]

7 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

It still says 5-10 days but COULD take up to 30.  Again, just a cover their butt statement.

No, I'm saying when I cashed out a message popped up it would take 3-5 business days to settle.  It settled quickly, imo.  It settled in 3 days.  And, this was with Tilia and Paypal and converting the lindens to dollars.  Now it's 5 to 10 days, with a max of 30.  It has changed in the amount of days and I was just wondering why.

[Persephone Emerald]

On 10/25/2022 at 11:04 AM, Love Zhaoying said:

Predictions: 

1) People will soon change their Profile pictures in protest over this.

2) People will declare they are leaving over this, probably to return. I have been told that I cannot use the term "flounce", if they are leaving for perfectly valid reasons.

3) There will be bitter complaints about this in various other threads.

I should buy a Lottery ticket!

1) This change isn't about how the forum is run, so it makes no sense to me to protest by changing my avatar. 

2) This change could seriously affect users of the platform. It's not a joke. People put real money into and have real businesses in SL. They need to be able to get that money back out without excessive fees or uncertainty of whether they'll even be able to get their money. 

3) Yes, especially if the threads that are created to discuss the topic are shut down & locked for no good reason except to stop the discussion.

 - Don't buy a bunch hoping for a big win.

[Lindal Kidd]

17 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

It has changed in the amount of days and I was just wondering why.

Because they could not meet their promise of 3-5 days with whatever cocked-up system is being used. The "30 days" seems to be more the norm, from my own experience and anecdotal evidence.

[EliseAnne85]

2 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Because they could not meet their promise of 3-5 days with whatever cocked-up system is being used. The "30 days" seems to be more the norm, from my own experience and anecdotal evidence.

Mine was a small exchange of lindens into dollars; it was not thousands of dollars as some are saying in the thread here, that's why mine may have settled in 3 days.  It was quick.  My whole experience with Tilia to Paypal to money for rl again was all of one time.  So, I don't know much of anything about it really.

But, 30 days is the norm.  I didn't know that.  

[Persephone Emerald]

2 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

I had to smile as when I logged in this morning I found a notice from "one of the top OS grids" in my mailbox with a sale of a complete mini-mall. There are plenty of things that do not work in OS but getting your money out from the market is not one of hem. Each week it goes straight to your Paypal account without you doing a thing. THAT WORKS FOR ME :D.    

 

But yes for the most part the general populous will stay although I talked to one high profile OLD content creator who was definitely not happy with all the changes.  You put all that has happened in the last month or so together and the picture gets pretty clear.  We have already lost of ton of "good" content creators and I suspect we will lose more in the next few months as further changes emerge.  Most of the artists that left never returned.

 

So while the numbers of the populous may stay or return or even increase, we will likely have lost a lot of what has made SL a creativity platform that can earn money.   I made my choices years ago and don't regret them so most of this washes over me personally.  I never even used a vendor system. This very much mirrors my real life stance about not going along with the masses LOL.  I suspect it is all better than closing SL and none of us wanted that. So it is what it is and many of us will adapt.  

I just got a new graphics program and will be making art -- well over the couch art. No vendor system, no cashing out, just fun and a creative release. 

I don't know the other OS platforms well, but I spent a little time in InWorldz before it shut down. It was like an older, less populated SL, with barely any mesh items, even though we could upload mesh for free. People were friendly. There were still some money trees. When it shut down, many people didn't get their money out.

[Chic Aeon]

4 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

I don't know the other OS platforms well, but I spent a little time in InWorldz before it shut down. It was like an older, less populated SL, with barely any mesh items, even though we could upload mesh for free. People were friendly. There were still some money trees. When it shut down, many people didn't get their money out.

I did very well there making mesh and animations but exited long before the giant hiatus which was also long before the shut down. I had bad feelings with the ending owner from another grid before she joined with others to start IW so I was leery at all times. Made a very good friend there though and had lots of fun. Agree that it was like moving back in time. 

 

EDIT:  Most folks will never leave SL unless they leave "all" virtual life, but for the most part we COULD have most things in OS at the long time stable grid *wink* with no worries about content theft IF creators would come and ONLY sell on that grid. 

 

That takes a populous though and so far historically that hasn't happened. OS is WAY larger than folks perceive but most of it is completely private so not visible.  

Edited October 26, 2022 by Chic Aeon
adding info

[Persephone Emerald]

2 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

I had to smile as when I logged in this morning I found a notice from "one of the top OS grids" in my mailbox with a sale of a complete mini-mall. There are plenty of things that do not work in OS but getting your money out from the market is not one of hem. Each week it goes straight to your Paypal account without you doing a thing. THAT WORKS FOR ME :D.    

 

But yes for the most part the general populous will stay although I talked to one high profile OLD content creator who was definitely not happy with all the changes.  You put all that has happened in the last month or so together and the picture gets pretty clear.  We have already lost of ton of "good" content creators and I suspect we will lose more in the next few months as further changes emerge.  Most of the artists that left never returned.

 

So while the numbers of the populous may stay or return or even increase, we will likely have lost a lot of what has made SL a creativity platform that can earn money.   I made my choices years ago and don't regret them so most of this washes over me personally.  I never even used a vendor system. This very much mirrors my real life stance about not going along with the masses LOL.  I suspect it is all better than closing SL and none of us wanted that. So it is what it is and many of us will adapt.  

I just got a new graphics program and will be making art -- well over the couch art. No vendor system, no cashing out, just fun and a creative release. 

Even more reason for me to drop down to just one Premium account. I've already transitioned to living in Bellesseria rather than mainland, so I won't have any other fees to pay besides for my Premium account. I sold my land & spent that money. Once I buy a sale-priced Maitreya body for Tasha, I shouldn't have any more big expenses. I'll just live on group gifts and air.

[Anna Salyx]

2 hours ago, Jaylinbridges said:

Not everyone pays with a credit card.  My payments to LL are from Paypal, which transfers funds from my connected bank account, that has both FDIC insurance and pays interest.  If I don't have the funds in my bank account, the bank may still pay Paypal/LL, and hit me with an overdraft fee. Usually I keep enough in Paypal to cover all my LL expenses.

 

This is beside the point.  I used Credit/Debit as an example or analogy.  Your account with Tilia is functionally (while not officially) a bank account.  If you have a balance, the merchant, LL, may request a hold and the "bank" will honor the hold. There is no set time period on the holds, but normally they clear when a given transaction is finalized or around 3 to 5 days.  ish.  The fact that Tilia indicates it can take longer is a Tilia policy. But at the end of the day your funding relationship with Tilia (be it Paypal, a Credit/Debi card, or selling Linden Dollars) does not matter, that's between you and Tilia.  LL is simply a merchant in this relationship in terms of the holds requested.  So I stand by my comment that there is a line, a wall, between Tilia and LL.  There might be overlapping areas of concern within the respective TOSes but LL is not dictating policy or action to Tilia. IMO.

Quote

If high income land barons or designers wanted to avoid the risk of LL holding their fake Tilia dollars, they could and some already do, ask for payment for their product and services from RL credit or debit cards, or Paypal directly - bypassing the fees and uncertainty of these new TOS rules.  If their usual payment is with Lindens, now they get stuck with holds.

and to be clear, once you have converted your Linden Dollar tokens to "fiat-currency" (US Dollars) it's not "fake Tilia dollars". Tilia my be a holding spot for both L$ Tokens you might have along side an actual fiat-currency you might also have, but the two are separate entities that don't every cross a direct path. You cannot process Linden Dollars to a personal banking account directly. that remains a two step process:  1) Convert L$ to US$ and store in Tilia.  2) Transfer out from Tilia.

The details of your stored money value, the fiat currency, are spelled out in section 4 of the Tilia TOS, but basically outside of fraud, criminal activity, and fees, if you have a balance you can process it out, if your account is terminated, any balance after fees, will be processed out to you. So not fake dollars.

[Paul Hexem]

4 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

Don't people who cash out already do so to Paypal and have agreed to THEIR ToS?  How is this any different?  It seems like a boilerplate ToS to me.

Because every time LL tries to do something the same way as everybody else, they do it terribly. It's like if you take delivering goods via trucks on the freeway, something other companies have done successfully for years. When Linden Lab tries it, everything seems to be set up exactly the same, except for some reason there's a racoon at the wheel.

[diamond Marchant]

1 hour ago, Anna Salyx said:

basically outside of fraud, criminal activity, and fees, if you have a balance you can process it out

I agree.

I think any confusion about this is due to poor lawyer word smithing.... instead of phrases such as

"Tilia may... allow you to request a refund " or

"Tilia, in its sole discretion, will approve or deny your request"

they should have simply said "you can request a withdrawal according to the Tilia TOS"

and then when you look there you see that Tilia will fork it over after they have established that you are not up-to-no-good.

[Gabriele Graves]

On 10/25/2022 at 8:36 PM, Gabriele Graves said:

LL really needed to explain properly and specifically what it means to not have a Tilia account and what ramifications it has on your SL account and what the process is for closing an existing Tilia account.  Also what happens to your SL account if Tilia terminates your account.

On 10/25/2022 at 9:29 PM, Gabriele Graves said:

I've put in a support ticket to ask about this relationship, be interesting to see what we get back.

Reporting back here with the response I received today with thanks from Spots Linden:

Quote

Thank you for contacting Second Life Support, and thank you for your patience. 

 

My name is Spots Linden, and I am the Supervisor of our Tier One Support team. Melly mentioned your question to me and your ticket was escalated up to me for review.

 

Tilia's services play a part in all USD transactions with us, and closing a Tilia account would prevent that account from making any such transactions, including recurring fees such as Premium Memberships, mainland tier, and private regions, as well as purchasing L$ from the Linden Exchange.

 

Closing a Tilia account would not affect in-world or Marketplace L$ purchases, but you would not be able to purchase additional L$ to facilitate further purchases.

 

If someone did want to go through with this process, they should reach out to us through our Support Portal so that we can work with them to make sure they understand what this entails, and work towards their request.

So the bottom line is that if you want to continue buying L$ or paying for Premium, you do need to have a Tilia account.

It seems as though they will allow us to operate a Second Life account without a Tilia account with it being possible to close said Tilia account but the process for that seems to be put in a ticket right now.  So following on from that one would assume that if Tilia terminated an account, the Second Life account would still be OK, you would just lose the ability to do the above.

[Rowan Amore]

I set up payment info on a new avatar today.  At the bottom of the page where I bought Ls for the first time was something that said...by clicking purchase ( or something to that effect) you agree to the Tilia terms of service thereby, creating an account with Tilia.  No other info was needed aside from what is and has been required when entering credit cards.  Hasn't this been the case since Tilia became involved?   The only time they require all that other info such as ID and utility bills is when you want to cash out.   

[Solar Legion]

1 minute ago, Rowan Amore said:

I set up payment info on a new avatar today.  At the bottom of the page where I bought Ls for the first time was something that said...by clicking purchase ( or something to that effect) you agree to the Tilia terms of service thereby, creating an account with Tilia.  No other info was needed aside from what is and has been required when entering credit cards.  Hasn't this been the case since Tilia became involved?   The only time they require all that other info such as ID and utility bills is when you want to cash out.   

Tilia has been the payment processor for those transactions for some time now and you are quite correct - for the majority of user transactions, no information beyond the card information is required.

[Gabriele Graves]

3 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

I set up payment info on a new avatar today.  At the bottom of the page where I bought Ls for the first time was something that said...by clicking purchase ( or something to that effect) you agree to the Tilia terms of service thereby, creating an account with Tilia.  No other info was needed aside from what is and has been required when entering credit cards.  Hasn't this been the case since Tilia became involved?   The only time they require all that other info such as ID and utility bills is when you want to cash out.   

Yes definitely.  I've never cashed out and so far never had to provide any ID information to LL.  It didn't hurt to get some confirmation at this stage though in case there had been a fundamental shift in the way that LL uses the Tilia platform.

[Rolig Loon]

26 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

So following on from that one would assume that if Tilia terminated an account, the Second Life account would still be OK, you would just lose the ability to do the above.

So, essentially operating as you would now, if you had no PIOF. You could earn L$ in world and trade them with other residents, buy things on the LindeX, etc.  You just couldn't convert them to USD.  

[Persephone Emerald]

16 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

Reporting back here with the response I received today with thanks from Spots Linden:

So the bottom line is that if you want to continue buying L$ or paying for Premium, you do need to have a Tilia account.

It seems as though they will allow us to operate a Second Life account without a Tilia account with it being possible to close said Tilia account but the process for that seems to be put in a ticket right now.  So following on from that one would assume that if Tilia terminated an account, the Second Life account would still be OK, you would just lose the ability to do the above.

If you had no Tilia account, but had lindens you wanted to cash out, you could perhaps gift them to a trusted friend in SL, who could then gift you their approximate RL money. Technically this wouldn't be selling the linden dollars, but would rather be an exchange of gifts.

I also gift my landlady rent money every month through PayPal and my housemates gift me their share of our Internet fee. If we were to exchange money through PayPal as a commerce transaction, PayPal would charge us a fee.

[Gabriele Graves]

Just now, Rolig Loon said:

So, essentially operating as you would now, if you had no PIOF. You could earn L$ in world and trade them with other residents, buy things on the LindeX, etc.  You just couldn't convert them to USD.  

Yes that's right though I am unsure what the Payment Info status would be if someone closed their Tilia account.  Technically it would still be Payment Info Used if they had ever bought L$ but who knows until someone tries it.

[Gabriele Graves]

Just now, Persephone Emerald said:

If you had no Tilia account, but had lindens you wanted to cash out, you could perhaps gift them to a trusted friend in SL, who could then gift you their approximate RL money. Technically this wouldn't be selling the linden dollars, but would rather be an exchange of gifts.

I also gift my landlady rent money every month through PayPal and my housemates gift me their share of our Internet fee. If we were to exchange money through PayPal as a commerce transaction, PayPal would charge us a fee.

Yes though obviously you would have to know that you could absolutely trust them to do this for you but I don't see how this would be an issue.

[Rolig Loon]

6 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

If you had no Tilia account, but had lindens you wanted to cash out, you could perhaps gift them to a trusted friend in SL, who could then gift you their approximate RL money. Technically this wouldn't be selling the linden dollars, but would rather be an exchange of gifts.

Well, no.  Although that sounds reasonable, your use of the word "gift" doesn't fit LL's definition.  They would consider that as a sale, and therefore against the TOS.  That one has come up before.  The fact that it would be almost impossible for LL to detect that you had in fact sold L$ is an interesting technical loophole, but it would still be a violation.

3.3. Linden Dollars may not be purchased or sold outside of the LindeX exchange.

Any purchase or sale of Linden Dollars through any means other than the LindeX is not permitted and is considered a violation of these Terms of Service which may result in suspension or termination of your Account.

Edited October 26, 2022 by Rolig Loon

[Persephone Emerald]

Just now, Rolig Loon said:

Well, no.  Although that sounds reasonable, your use of the word "gift" doesn't fit LL's definition.  They would consider that as a sale, and therefore against the TOS.  That on

3.3. Linden Dollars may not be purchased or sold outside of the LindeX exchange.

Any purchase or sale of Linden Dollars through any means other than the LindeX is not permitted and is considered a violation of these Terms of Service which may result in suspension or termination of your Account.

My mother and I exchanged checks as Christmas gifts more than once. 

[Rolig Loon]

Just now, Persephone Emerald said:

My mother and I exchanged checks as Christmas gifts more than once. 

Oh, I didn't say that it couldn't be done and I admitted that  it would usually be hard to prove you violated the TOS. Still, since you brought up the idea  ... ☺️