Charlotte Bartlett

April 1, 2021

2 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

Sure, but be honest: How much would you pay for a working Map about now?

(Dear Atlassian: This is how Jira pays for itself!)

I brought 3 new regions and not a single working map nor any ETA based on link LL provided. I mean... I just paid you for this at least deliver me what I paid for which is a map so people can find me! I think I was the April fool this year

March 27, 2021

I have NEVER since 2006 seen them NOT follow the requirements under the Digital Millennium CopyrightAct. They have always done so, it may take some time historically e.g. it's not instant but if you PROPERLY file a takedown notice it's absolutely done and within 2 business days now.

I note there was no response to my asking for the details on this alleged claim against Linden Lab Wil made. I am sure this is doing wonders for his relationship with them on his faux credit product proposal.

Walking a very thin line.
ps it's The IP Team at Linden Lab who write the responses.

March 26, 2021

I feel like this thread has gone very OT.

I have to get back to RL, I guess time will tell how this turns out.

Been nice chatting to all.

March 26, 2021

10 minutes ago, Wili Clip said:

It was years ago when DMCA was a new thing introduced to SL... The process was different

What specific year and which specific lawyer signed the response.

Counterclaims have always since Day 1 been part of the process.

March 26, 2021

2 minutes ago, Wili Clip said:

We sent DMCA many years ago LL lawyers responded they received it initially but then they just ignored.

I see it pointless incurring legal fees. And even if you win the guy is not from US. Through time I figured out that any players who 1st start playing a copy game end up playing the original game.

Sooner or later all people figure out what is copy and what is original. Also usually people gravitate to participate in system that has the biggest community.

LL doesn't respond via a lawyer DMCAs, it's a formulated process that includes the take down.
The only way it would have gone back up is if that person counter filed.

You do realize this forum can be read externally right?
Just checking.

March 25, 2021

1 hour ago, Wili Clip said:

It is not a financial credit. It is just a very simple delayed payment for end product.

Preceded by (my emphasis) his OP on "credit".

"Credit" the ability of a customer to obtain goods or services before payment, based on the trust that payment will be made in the future.

Anyway back to RL.

On 3/23/2021 at 8:12 AM, Wili Clip said:

I am currently running an experiment that I might decide in future to develop into a full scale system that other content creators in SL can benefit from.

About half a year ago I started selling my virtual products on credit. At 1st I was setting credits manually in database for each customer upon their initial pre-payment of 30% and it was lots of unneccesary work. But recently I programmed what I call a credit vendor and now when customers pay 30% of full price of the product the remaining 70% is set as debt automatically. These remaining 70% then they pay off with 50% of their earnings from all of my systems when they withdraw them.

From the 1st look it might seem that this is a bad idea and that it doesn't make sense and that as a content creator I am loosing money. But it is really not a bad idea and I ❤ the concept. And here is why:

Drop rate of new signups in Second Life or Residents who stay in SL for only a month or few months is very high (like for any other free social platform - people try it out some stay lots drop out).

If as a content creator I can sell my products for at least 10 - 30% of full price through credit vendor (as in case of many SL drop outs who will never pay off their debt because they stop using SL) I am still getting sales that otherwise would not happen.

*The virtual goods I sell are no transfer so they can not transfer to another avatar and abandon their obligation to pay.

Unlike with RL physical goods there is no material production cost and with virtual goods we can sell unlimited copies of it.

Because above reasons to me selling virtual goods on credit makes a perfect sense.

Another amazing reason worth pointing out is that i n this way I can get my product and brands in the hands of many more people and that makes for great marketing effect. If your product is not worn or used by anyone and for others to see it and talk about it then that is almost the same as if it doesn't even exist.

(There is a scifi book author Cory Doctorow who issues his books with public copyright permissions, so books can be copied basically for free and his argument is that this way more people find out for his work and he also gets more sales). I learned great deal from reading about his rationale from a preface of one of his book.

Selling something on credit is known concept already from ancient times. While for the selling of virtual goods on credit I kind of hope I am the 1st one or one of the 1st ones doing it in history. \O.. O/

Now 1 main disadvantage or risk is that a customer doesn't fulfill their obligation to pay off their debt (but at least they paid pre-payment). So if I ever build full scale credit system for other content creators to use the customers will have a credit rating / credit score that will be based on their past repayment of debts. Customers with bad or low credit rating won't be able to make any aditional credit purchases and content creators using credit vendors will be able to set minimum credit rating needed to buy on credit.

I have been very happy with my credit sales little experiment. Since I've started offering my products on credit there is now a total for about 15 000 usd of customer/players debt on my books (database) for which its questionable of what % of it will be ever repaid but what is not repaid will be mainly because the SL users are no longer in SL.

It has not hurt my product sales purchased paying full price. I think its actually boosting it.

I've established trust with hundreds of customers. By giving them my trust first that they will respect their obligation.

My goal is for the debt to grow to 21 000 000 L$ by the end of 2021 for a better proof on concept and if its recepted well by content creators community I might expand the credit system for others to be able to sell on credit through it too.

We'll see \O.. O/

Some general advantages and disadvantages of selling on credit from the web:

Advantages:

An increase in sales may happen when you start selling on credit. Your customers are likely to buy from you as their cash flow is not disrupted and it is not necessary to pay upfront to competitors. Better customer loyalty. Offering credit to customers demonstrates trust.

Disadvantages:

It can lead to bad debts.There is no guarantee that the customers will pay back.

Loss of income/capital. Bad debt is a loss of income as well as loss of capital you have invested in buying the goods. (Does not apply for virtual / digital goods of which there can be unlimited copies and copying has 0 cost).

Strained relationship.

March 25, 2021

5 hours ago, Mollymews said:

pay-as-you-go methods can work

is a number of avatar makers who do/did this (mostly from Japan and Korea)

buy the avatar from them for some small amount like 10L (or even 0L in some cases)

the avatar comes fully costumed with a basic pack of functionality

then for another small amount like 10L or about, can buy a time-limited 'energy' pack which enables added/extended functionality. When the time runs out then the avatar reverts to the basic functions. I used to see people on these quite a lot on Linden Realms. Run round and earn the 10L. Buy the pack on MP, wear it, get the extended functionality and off they go til the energy runs out, then come back to the Realms and do it again

That's another great idea for concepts in SL for creators to do themselves.

2 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

What you are describing is not credit as far as what you think it is but instead a 'buy now, pay later' scheme of which has different regulatory systems. BNPL is a method of which a person pays an initial payment and then the rest is placed on interest-free credit of which payment instalments are them made as defined under specific terms by the seller or agent on behalf of the seller.

In your example of what you are now doing is the same - BNPL. They pay 30% of the total and then go into an interest-free credit contract with you by which regular payments are then made by the buyer to reduce their debt to eventually own the product outright of which, not doing so can in cases effect credit rating of which you are also implying to create within SL.

Whilst the actual market is new, you are in essence creating a system within Second Life similar to After-Pay (After-Pay has loan licencing in all countries). As such regulations do apply.

The FCA in England are currently planning to regulate this area Buy-now-pay-later products to be regulated - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk), California Financing Law states that you need a credit license to conduct a BNPL business US targets illegal buy now, pay later schemes (afr.com) (Sezzle has now obtained that license) and the Australian Finance Industry Association currently has in place code of practices that need to be adhered to AFIA Buy Now Pay Later Code of Practice - New. As to the EU I am unsure.

All of these regulations are to protect the consumer and define a BNPL scheme under the same financial regulations of providing credit. Just because you are doing it in a virtual world does not remove your responsibility to adhere to those regulations.

As far as I am aware this would fall under the banking rules defined in the ToS of Second Life.

So as others have said be careful and get a very good lawyer if you intend to proceed and make sure you have discussions with Linden Lab as to whether you can even go about such a scheme when it is covered in most countries under Financial provider laws (i.e. banking regulation).

I was too tired to point it out but I suspect an argument not based on legal merit over definition of money versus token to ensue which underpins the loan definition.

Can't wait to see the user case for this once the UK’s Regulated Activities Order is updated and this "credit" product accidentally extends it to a 14 year old who is allowed to be on the platform.

Joking (or perhaps not) aside - if Will just made this a simple subscription service to his own product (as in reality its license purchasing in SL, versus ownership) and left it at that - it would not have been a terrible idea. Blogotex do very well at it.

March 25, 2021

9 hours ago, Wili Clip said:

I read California credit laws (regulations around credits) today and I didn't find anything illegal with offering virtual end products on credit. If you know that something specific is illegal or unlawful then state so. I am not asking you to teach me but if you have something concrete that is wrong with no interest credits on virtual goods then create a specific argument with exact law citation that is being broken.

Thank you for your text that you say you wrote with good intentions but all you wrote is about how I don't understand things while not providing any proof that you understand them any better.

Your client may not be in California. Are you? How will you know where their legal domicile is to know which laws to apply and what protections they are afforded..... then it gets into basic logical compliance knowledge from CIP, KYC, through to definitions that come from such a complex landscape that you will and I repeat this struggle with. Have you been through that yourself with your tax reporting from SL and validating your identity to Tilia when you cashed out that 15K USD (if you did) plus the tax docs.

Me personally reading what I wrote - I would have wrote out a quick bucket of work streams like due diligence, regulatory, product classification, approvals (inc Tilia inc.) etc and started to write specific actions and what subject matter experts I needed to assist me within the business plan. But that's just me.

Concrete? Sorry I am not here to act as your advisor and nor should you accept advisory from an Internet forum where you base legal and financial risk decisions upon that information. You have no way of establishing my finance credentials nor would I want to share them with you (no offense). Hence, why I suggested you need the experts in the room in RL with you as advisory before you get yourself into actual trouble.

March 24, 2021

To the OP, you seem like a well intentioned person, but you seem also like somebody who is trying to come up with Get Rich Quick Schemes without the level of understanding /hard work and background required to be successful, to the point where your posts sets off alarm bells.

1. Please don't quote Investopedia (their Brides and Liquor websites are far better written / accurate), it proves my point about your lack of experience and understanding around the topic. You need proper guidance. Yes of course learn, but do that before you put yourself at risk. Otherwise it's just a gamble, not a business and you'll never succeed. I am not going to give you financial or legal advice on a forum. Go write a proper business plan and stop posting get rich quick schemes to a forum if you are serious. If you don't even understand basic finance and don't have a degree or work experience in the topic including being up to date with the complex regulation that sits across it, you'll need proper advisors on your "board", You do that before you offer a product, you certainly don't piece together bits of random internet knowledge from appalling sites like Investopedia and think you understand finance and complex regulation and transact without a safety net.

2. In your OP (in summary) you said you have hundreds of customers and had to date transacted 15K USD of debt "on to your books". What did your lawyer say on that ahead of completing that activity, especially about the recent activity? My guess is from your secondary posts you treated this as an experiment and did not take the requisite steps for this to be a credible business or opportunity.

(Starting point for you once you do understand how monetary definitions differ outside the BSA - > https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/new-fincen-virtual-currency-bsa-requirements-present-compliance-implications). + as Qie mentioned the upcoming continued changes around currency definitions you have significant risk exposure as a result based on the manner you are conducting yourself. Again if you are serious about having a "business" you will have taken the considered and risk management steps ahead of just wading in and offering "credit" right? Your test phase above would have been done with considered regulatory understanding and risk management? Did you contact Tilia Inc. too in advance to ensure you were able to use their tokens in that manner as a product? What specific due diligence did you conduct? What disclosures did you provide to each customer who purchased with your token zero interest "credit" repayable in digital tokens issued by a Money Service Business? What laws did you consider and what changing regulatory framework did you bake into your assessments? What compliance rules did you apply etc etc.

3. it's easy to think SL is a "play at business" environment - it allows us to explore learning & running small businesses in a way, but it does not remove from us the obligations from things such as tax, reporting, regulation and laws that exist in the real world. The onus is on you to ensure what you are doing is appropriate before you do it.

4. I don't necessarily think being able to pay installments is bad thing per se. But the implications and financial constructs behind it is not for amateur hour even if you try to hide it behind gaming token definitions and creating derivative ways of paying with those tokens from a registered Money Service Business - (Tilia Inc.). There is one company who is perfectly positioned to offer such a product e.g. a partnership with Afterpay or Affirm or PayPal etc etc- and that is Tilia Inc. I would strongly question why Tilia Inc. would expose themself to any regulatory risk allowing randoms to try and get into financial products of ANY definition based on their Money Service Business status. I have pinged LL as their TOS still links to the old banking info page and it's out of date and needs to be brought up to scratch via Tilia Inc. Do not confuse banking licenses with money service businesses and constructs around how they operate.

4. Finally I am sorry but If it walks like a Multi-Level Marketing "Business" that keeps trying to pitch opportunities on a forum, then it likely is a......that's a perception driven by pitching versus soliciting feedback.

That all aside - that new resident likely won't buy a 10K house, they will go and potentially buy the 75L one which around 30 cents in the Saturday Sale in a higher volume environment. I do like Bree's idea / spin off with aging on products. Albeit a customer for the same price can buy a non aging product but focused on role play like Orwar mentioned could be a great niche product for things like your cookies going stale and crumbling if you don't eat them during role play etc.

Anyway, can I suggest if you have more ideas it may be worth first seeking input and feedback before the big pitch on a forum. You may find you get some good feedback and Ideas that help shape your maturity and approach before you expose yourself to risk.

March 24, 2021

I would be careful with your terminology. "Affiliate" commissions are one thing when you structure them paying you commission from their ongoing sales after initial purchase of your product for resales (oh look a pyramid). That aside:

Offering financial products, including extending credit may create you significant issues both from a legal and regulatory standpoint. Plus, the multiple and varied laws in the US from consumer protection through to regulatory requirements. Virtual tokens - yes (for now), but you are going deep into a concept without seeming to understanding any of the legality or risks. Just the terms you are using are setting off significant alarm bells so I hope you take this in the spirit it is intended.

Before you go anywhere near this, you should get a formal legal opinion from a lawyer who understands banking and securities laws plus applicable consumer credit laws that apply both in California, the US, plus the location of you and these "borrowers". Even if to simply understand, if you offer 'credit' instruments in virtual tokens, payable by same said tokens (e.g. in a commission format or other) issued by a third party Money Service Business (Tilia Inc.), what burdens, reporting and other risks you are creating for your "company". How are you regulating and navigating (for example) not becoming an IVTS operator (by mistake) - one tiny example. You will also want to ensure that lawyer has dialogue with Tilia Inc in advance as they own the license to those tokens.

Before you even get that far, I wholly recommend reading the TOS. Particularly the section on 4. Conduct and links to banking policy. https://www.lindenlab.com/legal/second-life-terms-and-conditions - LL need to update their wording significantly on their "bank" policy as it's vastly out of date in terms of definitions, but it should give you an idea of how they view in-game "banking" type activities. I am pretty sure one could argue credit instruments would fall within the spirit of that definition, even if not explicitly called out. It would be reasonable to assume this on the basis of Tilia Inc. being a Money Service Business and their underlying services aka "the tokens" you intend to create credit instruments from as a derivative product.

2 hours ago, Odaks said:

I don't know how well you could fall back on the concept of L$ being only "game tokens". L$ have a US$ value; might this need you to jump through a lot of hoops to get approvals to be a Financial Provider? I might be wrong but needs clarifying.

Linked to my point about the legal opinion - there is some semblance of wider question as L$ tokens do not have direct USD value (technically) - the age old currency argument v property v definition around game tokens that continues across FINRA, IRS and FinCEN etc etc. Again, I see no mention of the OP having navigated those aspects in terms of his business venture.

February 22, 2021

The Saturday Sale - catalog is also weekly at https://saturdaysalesl.wordpress.com/blog/

February 16, 2021

Dear Oz,

thank for you everything you have done for Second Life. I know you will be sorely missed from all areas here. I hope retirement brings you some fun projects and that you also pop back into SL from time to time to see how it continues to evolve.

best of luck and wishes!

January 18, 2021

I have hopes, dreams and predictions

My hopes are investment into mobile/app options and a Marketplace 2.0.

My dreams are a mega sized region (4x size) with 30K prims.

My predictions are with the world situation that will continue in 2021, that SL will continue to be here. Looking at the fine balance of fees versus tier model, I suspect the cash out fee may increase slightly during 2021 as regulation will continue to cost Tilia as a MSB.

January 3, 2021

5 hours ago, Lewis Luminos said:

90% of "SL problems" can be eliminated by upgrading your hardware or your internet connection (for example, stop trying to use it on wi-fi). The remaining 10% are way less than in the past.

Yes there are hiccups whenever something new is introduced, like the recent uplift to the Cloud. But it's small beans compared to the old days when region re-starts would have the entire grid unavailable for 24 - 48 hours every week and a griefer could bring the entire thing down in minutes.

I do agree with this normally - However, I do have another perspective.

Over the recent weeks (since 1 Nov) our customer support has gone up by 402% (I am a geek sorry). In all but rare cases, the issues our customers are having are not related to our specific products but something not running/working in SL. Recent days the script slow responses has had an impact on vendors (even when updated). That amount of increased customer service mainly related to things like delayed deliveries (Marketplace + In world), when they try to edit something not getting responsive screens (e.g. edit is greyed out on a mod item), etc etc. I am a hobbyist in SL, but I have been run off my feet by the issues and helping customers.

I run a Gigabyte wired connection and am on a top of the line computer with two stable viewers I can access. . I have never had customer service levels this high since 2006, so I think a lot of people are having different experiences right now - region owners and merchants are particularly probably getting more of those bumps than an average user. The OP's frustration I genuinely sympathise with as a result from my own experience. It's right to call it out. Whilst the uplift project definitely has some less successful aspects they are still working through - I think it would be good timing at the start of the year for LL to come out with an updated roadmap and communication to help users navigate the fall out and timing / best approach whilst they fix their issues.

I have not seen the grid being down in years like that on the wider griefer/"Wednesday updates" (literally years). So to me this isn't about measuring to the "worst" standard possible, but an average of the recent 3-5 years which have been stable. LL can help a lot with some better and more open communication (now I am having deja vu!)

January 2, 2021

I don’t think just you. There have been gird wide issues. Status says resolved now so you may want to test a delivery to see if resolved.

December 28, 2020

45 minutes ago, Tary Allen said:

Got one of the tiny homes (I had one of the skyboxes, traded for the tiny home)

Can't see how many prims I've used since the counter seems to be broken, and I wasn't counting, but I'm not over the limit, maybe 70-80 atm

I recognise that mini house! I was going to take part, but blew up a Christmas Tree I brought to double size..... 168 LI. Ahem. (But it's so pretty!).

December 26, 2020

On 12/24/2020 at 11:45 PM, bigmoe Whitfield said:

and for those of us not using facebook, they should be here instead reporting it, instead of using a platform which is harmful.

1. The group is a closed merchant group on FB nothing to do with LL.

2. A sec Jira was opened for LL as I noted in my post.

3. multiple creators per my post reported it via LL support.

4. I did raise a thread without exposing the exploit here some time back. Moderators deleted it.

So not sure what else should have been reported “here” apologies not understanding what you mean.

December 24, 2020

I raised a sec Jira for it some time back. On the merchants Facebook multiple creators reported it via support. I believe turning off the redelivery function is the workaround to stop exploits until they can fix. Many of us was trying to bulk edit it off and it was failing, so LL stepped into to help I suspect.

Customers can still use redelivery inworld via vendors who support it in the interim.or ask the creator to resend.

December 21, 2020

4 hours ago, foneco Zuzu said:

The Real Life is getting even more insane.

One has to wonder if the Cyberjunk 2077 fiasco will scare any investors to bet on Software gaming companies for Years to come.

So no news is like sort of good news on LL front.

It's one area of investment that is actually in stable growth. Covid played a part in that over 2020, and 2021 shows no signs of that cooling. Also activities like M&A in relation to what Linden Research are going through, it is normal to not see anything public for 12 months or greater (as they are a private company). It's a complex "dance".

December 20, 2020

I think I am going to report my own thread as there is a duplicate form another poster in Tech and somebody then did a third one.

But if anybody does read this - mine is back to normal 21.7K which is in line with the Saturday Sale traffic expected.

December 20, 2020

As there are two threads on this

Mine is fixed now, back to 21.7K which matches weekend numbers expected for Saturday Sale. (We don't use bots - that's pure shopper traffic).

December 20, 2020

Mine is fixed too, back to 21.7K which matches weekend numbers for Saturday Sale

December 20, 2020

6 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

Is there somewhere that SAYS that officially? 1 minute = 1 traffic?

I can't believe that those 4,000 plus traffic numbers at the beginning of the month were folks standing around as no one BOUGHT anything LOL (not complaining -- that wasn't the point). And those numbers dipped to 3,000 a day as the month went on (for one thing you don't have to come to the calendar every day -- and then there is simply attrition :D). I haven't been around the sim as much either.

I get the resetting thing and maybe that is it. There have certainly been plenty of times in the past that the count didn't move for a week. I have a feeling that this isn't anything PLANNED at all. I guess we'll see tomorrow or Monday or whenever. Not an issue for me; just interesting.

the only link I could find for the official traffic info was via https://community.secondlife.com/knowledgebase/english/guidelines-for-creating-search-listings-r235/Section_.5.6#Section__5_6

December 19, 2020

12 hours ago, Cindy Evanier said:

I would be interested too as yesterday I clicked something and was suddenly stuck looking at myself when walking instead of looking from behind. I pressed what I though was default and was then looking down at the top of my head. The presets I presumed to be defaults until you create your own but they weren't what i expected. I must stop myself clicking things when I don't know what they do.

Same here - we were stuck far up in the air, and none of the camera options or preferences would revert it back - no idea what I pressed!

December 19, 2020

1 hour ago, sallymayye said:

That might be right, but it makes for a search as flawed as the last one. If a roleplay community had 40 regular people, they would be a very healthy and popular sim. But they will show terribly comparing unique visitors, to stores and pickup places, or hubs where ejected people with no homes stack up.

Search will always be flawed in SL as whatever algorithm is used, people look to game it.

I still am on the side this traffic was not an intended change, but something wonky - in 24 hours we will know once traffic updates. It seemed to time with the land store reopening....

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