Linden Lab

For a limited time, we’re offering 50 percent off Premium Membership*! There’s no better time to see what’s available to Premium members of Second Life. As a Premium member, you’ll enjoy rewards like exclusive Resident-created gifts, access to special Premium Sandboxes, as well as Live Chat support. Plus, you’ll get your own inworld home, a L$1000 sign-up bonus, and weekly L$ rewards to spend on whatever you like. You can read more details about Premium benefits here Today, a new Premium gift is available! Go Premium today and jump behind the helm of your new interactive pirate airship, the Linden Marauder. Enjoy fast-action, high flying fun-near-the-sun, or menace the airways with your armament of cannons. Premium members can pick up their airships here. The Linden Marauder is available to Premium members only. You can access the exclusive airfield in Orville to take flight, so don’t delay! *TERMS & CONDITIONS FOR 50% DISCOUNT This limited-time discount offer is available only for memberships on the Quarterly billing plan. Discount will be applied to the first quarterly billing cycle only, and all future charges will be at the regular Premium price. To qualify, Second Life members must have an active Basic account or create a new Second Life account. Discount offer begins on Friday the 18th of July at 8:00 am Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) and expires on Monday the 4th of August 2014 at 08:00 am Pacific Daylight Time (PDT).

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At Linden Lab, we’ve recently been reviewing the long list of improvements and enhancements we want to bring to Second Life, weighing priorities, and scoping out important projects for the next few months. We wanted to share a few highlights from the list of projects we’ll be working on so that you can know what improvements to expect in the coming months. This isn’t an exhaustive list, of course, but here are a few of the initiatives we think will have a big impact on improving all of our Second Life experiences. Releasing Experience Keys We recently put out a call for creators to join a limited beta for Experience Keys - new LSL functions and calls that make it possible to bypass the multiple permissions dialogs that you encounter with scripted objects today. Thanks to the applications we received, we now have enough creators to move ahead with the beta, and we’ve begun giving these beta users access the keys. The feedback we get from beta participants will help determine our next steps for making Experience Keys available to everyone, and we may start by expanding the beta group with a second group of creators. In the meantime, though, everyone can get a sense for what’s possible with Experience Keys by downloading the Project Viewer and checking out The Cornfield game. lXoXy7Fyb0E Improving Group Chat Performance Today, group chat messages can sometimes take a long time to be delivered, and in some cases delivery fails entirely. This is an issue that impacts lots of Second Life users, and it’s something we’re actively working to improve. Anyone should be able to reliably hold a conversation using group chat in Second Life without delivery delays or other problems. We’re carefully monitoring the effects of the changes we make to improve group chat performance, and so far, the results of efforts like upgrading the servers that host chat have been positive. We anticipate that the work to improve group chat performance will continue for some time as we identify the underlying causes of the issues, experiment with different fixes, and analyze results, and as we move forward, we’ll use this blog to share our progress. Implementing the Chrome Embedded Framework We’re working to upgrade the component of the Viewer that’s responsible for rendering web content, including the Viewer splash screen (displayed before login), the content of a number of floaters, and inworld media-on-a-prim. This is important because it will fix a number of bugs (especially related to streaming media) that currently affect many Second Life users, and it will also make available many modern web features that aren’t possible with the Viewer today. We’re making good progress on this initiative already, and expect to have an experimental Project Viewer ready for testing soon. More Texture and Mesh Loading Improvements Building upon the performance enhancements we made with Project Shining, we are continuing to make improvements to how the Viewer retrieves texture and mesh data from our servers. The next round of improvements will reduce the number of connections the Viewer needs to get this data (making it easier on your router and network), while also using each connection to retrieve more data more quickly (for the technically inclined, this means that among other things we will add support for HTTP pipelining). These improvements will mean that as you explore Second Life, objects will appear more quickly and reliably, especially for users who have longer latency connections (higher “ping times”), such as those who live outside the US. We have begun doing small scale testing with a selected group of users, and the early results have been great from a performance point of view. Unfortunately, we’ve also encountered a bug that we need to tackle before we can move on to releasing a project Viewer. We’re eager to move ahead as quickly as we can, and will use this blog to announce that project Viewer as soon as it’s available. Stay tuned for more! Again, these certainly aren’t the only things we’re working on as we continue to improve Second Life, but they’re among our priority initiatives in the coming months. As we move forward on these and other improvements, you’ll hear more from us on this blog, so keep an eye out!

When we updated our Terms of Service in August 2013, the revised language of Section 2.3, the “Service Content License,” caused concern among certain Second Life creators. The revision to this section was worded in such a way that these creators expressed concern that we intended to appropriate their original creations and sell or license such creations without their permission. As our historical practice demonstrates and as we have since tried to clarify, this was absolutely not our intent. Creators are the lifeblood of Second Life. It is you who have populated Second Life with a petabyte worth of unique content and experiences, and it is important for our collective and continued success that you remain confident in continuing to create in our world. To be clear: Linden Lab respects the proprietary rights of Second Life’s content creators and prides itself in its success in providing platforms on which users can create original content and profit from their creations. As part of an update to our Terms of Service today, we have made a modification to further clarify Section 2.3. The updated section still provides Linden Lab with the rights that we need in order to operate and promote Second Life, so you will see that we have retained much of the language as the previous version. However, the updated section now also includes limits that better match our intended meaning, and we hope will assuage some of the concerns we heard about the previous version. First, the modified version limits our rights with respect to user-created content in Second Life by restricting our use “inworld or otherwise on the Service.” Additionally, it limits our right to “sell, re-sell or sublicense (through multiple levels)” your Second Life creations by requiring some affirmative action on your part in order for us to do so. This language mirrors the corresponding User Content License currently in Section 2.4, which has been part of the Terms of Service for years. We know that the legal language of documents such as the Terms of Service can seem daunting, and we expect that some creators may continue to have concerns about particular elements of the updated agreement. Today’s revision to this section of the Terms of Service more closely expresses our intent - that we do not intend to appropriate or sell your content outside of our Service - and our hope is that the limitations clarified in the updated language of this section will support creators’ confidence in our platform. As with any document like this, it’s important to read the whole Terms of Service before agreeing to it. Section 2.3 isn’t the only thing that’s changed - we’ve also added the updated policy for skill gaming, which we blogged about here - but we wanted to blog about this update to be clear about what’s different in this section, what it means, and why we made the change.

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Experience Keys are a new tool in Second Life that make it so you can opt-in to an entire experience made up of numerous scripted objects, rather than having to grant avatar permissions to every individual element of that experience. In other words, they allow creators to make experiences that are more immersive, because they’re not interrupted by permissions dialogues. Additionally, with Experience Keys, each of the scripts in the experience has access to a common private database that stores information across user sessions and simulator restarts; a powerful new capability for scripters. Here’s a quick video introduction. Recently, we kicked off the limited beta for Experience Keys. Thanks to the great applications we received, we now have enough participants for this stage of the beta, and are beginning to send out keys to those beta creators now. We’re excited to see what creators make with this new tool! In the meantime, though, you can have some fun and get a sense for the ways Experience Keys can improve inworld content by checking out The Cornfield- a new (free) game, thematically inspired by a bit of Second Life history and created by the moles. Watch the trailer below, then grab the Experience Keys Project Viewer and go check it out for yourself - you can find a portal to The Cornfield here! lXoXy7Fyb0E

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Thanks everyone for your questions. We will continue to keep an eye on this thread for questions and feedback and will update the FAQ accordingly as needed. best regards,

Sassy Romano wrote: Thanks there are answers to some of the questions that have come up but again:- "What if the creator is also the operator" what applications have to be made, double fees? and how many affidavit's will be needed (same one or a different one per application)? Hi Sassy, fees are needed for each type of license that is requested, but the application allows for applying for all types with one applcation - provided the legal opinion and affidavit covered all the necessay points for all perspectives being applied for those could be done at the same time as well. best regards,

WDL Bayn wrote: Hi LL, Thank you for taking the time to address my specific question. I will have more as I've already contacted a local attorney. But the 1st one is : That legal oppinion must be US oppinion or EU oppinion ? I'm based in EU. Thank you, WDL Bayn Hi WDL, The reasoned legal opinion has to be from a credible attorney in good standing and licensed to practlce law in the U.S. We will be updating the FAQ to clarify this. Thank you,

Gaia Gabe wrote: Hi Linden Lab. Just a few questions to file application to become an operator : - Echosign : you require a SSN number. I am not american. i tried to file it with my fiscal code (equivalent to your america r SNN). It was not accepted - It is required to provide transactions from 1st of the year ...LL site allows only to dowload transactions of last 31 days . How we can do? - it is required to provide a list of approved skill games we have...dont you think this process have to be made in 2 phases with 2 seperate deadlines? Before the games scripter (so operators will know what is allowed or not) and next the operators. - you require A reasoned legal opinion from a credible attorney in good standing, which describes in detail the operation and legality of the games of skill you are submitting for approval, including the creators of each game of skill; A sworn affidavit or declaration 1) certifies the facts set forth in the application and legal opinion; and 2) attests compliance with Linden Lab’s requirements. Please explain me the difference beetwen those 2 points . Do not think it is the same? Dont you think that it is enough the legal stuff provided by game creator? Do we have to use a local (not american ) attorney? Thank you Hi Gaia, EchoSign allows for other types and forms of ID if you do not have a SSN. Please see the options on the application such as passport information. FY13 revenues are requested, not transactions. The reasoned legal opinion has to be from a credible attorney in good standing and licensed to practlce law in the U.S. The sworn affidavit comes from the applicant. Thanks!

Ayesha Lytton wrote: Hi, I need some clarification. I have no problem complying with this, EXCEPT it appears that the "operator account" can't give or receive L$ from anywhere else. I own almost all of my machines with this same account that I use for my land business. I get tier payments, shop, go to live music and tip, etc. What is the point of taking in L$ if I can't spend it on things in SL? Please tell me I'm reading this wrong. The information about this covered in section 4 of the applicaion. Thank you,

Innula Zenovka wrote: I have a question about the requirement that both the Creator and the Operator of a game submit legal opinions about it. Does the Operator have to obtain an opinion from her own legal advisor or may she ask the Creator for a copy of the opinion he obtained when first obtaining approval to sell the game, and rely on that? Hi Innula, We have updated or FAQ based on may of the questions that we've seen here. THe new updated FAQ and Information about this can be found here. We will continue to update with any new information. Thank you,

WDL Bayn wrote: I'm wondering about the part of obligation from the operators to provide a "reasonable legal oppinion that describe each skill game including detailed operational description". We will only be allowed to operate approved games. This double checking nonsense. Why is necesarry for an operator to present the legal oppinion for a game that is already approved and certified by LL that complies with the new ToS ? What will happend when we want to use a new game ? We have to apply again ? What if we want to become operators but have no idea what games will pass the approval process? What if no games pass the approval process? Then what do we operate? Thanks, WDL Bayn. Hi WDL, We have updated or FAQ based on may of the questions that we've seen here and appreciate your patience as we did so. Information about this can be found here in the new updated FAQs which we will continue to update with any new information. thank you,

WDL Bayn wrote: I'm wondering about the part of obligation from the operators to provide a "reasonable legal oppinion that describe each skill game including detailed operational description". We will only be allowed to operate approved games. This double checking nonsense. Why is necesarry for an operator to present the legal oppinion for a game that is already approved and certified by LL that complies with the new ToS ? What will happend when we want to use a new game ? We have to apply again ? What if we want to become operators but have no idea what games will pass the approval process? What if no games pass the approval process? Then what do we operate? Thanks, WDL Bayn. Hi Sassy, We have updated or FAQ based on may of the questions that we've seen here and appreciate your patience as we did so. Information about this can be found here in the new updated FAQs which we will continue to update with any new information. thank you,

Sassy Romano wrote: Please answer my question regarding costs. I've found the operator, creator one... $100 per application but what about the quarterly fee and why does an approved game that LL has accepted into the list then ALSO need the operator to go through the same lawyer legal process when the operator has no sight of the code and thus can't assert that the game really does what it says? Why does LL want fees from TWO entities for what is essentially the same thing? Hi Sassy, We have updated or FAQ based on may of the questions that we've seen here and appreciate your patience as we did so. Information about this can be found here in the new updated FAQs which we will continue to update with any new information. kind regards,

Yuriko Nishi wrote: hi =) that raises a few questions. we run a car race sim. the racers have to buy a car to run in our races. after each race the best drivers get a payout from the sim owner. do these new rules apply to us? 2ndly we run demolition derbys... the racers have to pay the operator of the races 20 L$. after the derby the top 3 split the pot between them. do these new rules apply to us? As Linden Lab does not have full access to every game’s operational functions and does not exercise control over such games, we are unable to provide opinions of whether a specific game would be subject to our Skill Gaming Policy, in this forum. Each creator and operator of games will need to evaluate whether their game(s) would be subject to, and in compliance with, this policy. We reiterate that a game of skill is defined as “a game, implemented through an Inworld object: 1) whose outcome is determined by skill and is not contingent, in whole or in material part, upon chance; 2) requires or permits the payment of Linden Dollars to play; 3) provides a payout in Linden Dollars; and 4) is legally authorized by applicable United States and international law.” Moreover, “[g]ames in which Second Life residents do not pay to play are not within the scope of this Skill Gaming Policy.” For more details, we strongly recommend reviewing the Skill Gaming Policy and Skill Gaming Program Terms and Conditions. This policy applies to all residents.

Romina Heron wrote: a simple question for a clear answer: no devil...zyngo...what about these games? allowed or prohibited? As Linden Lab does not have full access to every game’s operational functions and does not exercise control over such games, we are unable to provide opinions of whether a specific game would be subject to our Skill Gaming Policy, in this forum. Each creator and operator of games will need to evaluate whether their game(s) would be subject to, and in compliance with, this policy. We reiterate that a game of skill is defined as “a game, implemented through an Inworld object: 1) whose outcome is determined by skill and is not contingent, in whole or in material part, upon chance; 2) requires or permits the payment of Linden Dollars to play; 3) provides a payout in Linden Dollars; and 4) is legally authorized by applicable United States and international law.” Moreover, “[g]ames in which Second Life residents do not pay to play are not within the scope of this Skill Gaming Policy.” For more details, we strongly recommend reviewing the Skill Gaming Policy and Skill Gaming Program Terms and Conditions.

AnKayla wrote: I have games from a profit share avatar on my land. Will this still be legal? I am not responsible for it but can they still do the profit share for me? Will Iose the business from them now? Also what if someone lives in another country and owns a full region. Do they have to become an operator and pay the attorney fees and license? The sim owner from another country? Hi AnKayla, As Linden Lab does not have full access to every game’s operational functions and does not exercise control over such games, we are unable to provide opinions of whether a specific game would be subject to our Skill Gaming Policy, in this forum. Each creator and operator of games will need to evaluate whether their game(s) would be subject to, and in compliance with, this policy. We reiterate that a game of skill is defined as “a game, implemented through an Inworld object: 1) whose outcome is determined by skill and is not contingent, in whole or in material part, upon chance; 2) requires or permits the payment of Linden Dollars to play; 3) provides a payout in Linden Dollars; and 4) is legally authorized by applicable United States and international law.” Moreover, “[g]ames in which Second Life residents do not pay to play are not within the scope of this Skill Gaming Policy.” For more details, we strongly recommend reviewing the Skill Gaming Policy and Skill Gaming Program Terms and Conditions. This policy applies to all residents.

Octavia Sorbet wrote: A few procedural questions for Linden Lab If I begin the application process and do phase one, and am unable or decide not to complete phase 2, am I out the application fee? When in the process is the fee deducted, only if your application is approved? Will denied applications be charged the fee? Thank you Octavia This questions is answered here in the FAQs, thanks!

Hi Drake, Games of chance are and have been prohibited by the Wagering Policy. If you encounter what you believe are such objects, you can file an abuse report if it's an inworld object or flag an item on the Marketplace via the exisiting flagging system there. Thank you,

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Hi Surfaqua, As each game differs in its operational functions, we are unable to provide opinions of whether a specific game would be subject to our Skill Gaming Policy via this forum. Each creator and operator of games will need to evaluate whether their game(s) would be subject to, and in compliance with, this policy. We reiterate that a game of skill is defined as “a game, implemented through an Inworld object: 1) whose outcome is determined by skill and is not contingent, in whole or in material part, upon chance; 2) requires or permits the payment of Linden Dollars to play; 3) provides a payout in Linden Dollars; and 4) is legally authorized by applicable United States and international law.” Moreover, “[g]ames in which Second Life residents do not pay to play are not within the scope of this Skill Gaming Policy.” For more details, we strongly recommend reviewing the Skill Gaming Policy and Skill Gaming Program Terms and Conditions.

Hi TerryDavidd, As each game differs in its operational functions, we are unable to provide opinions of whether a specific game would be subject to our Skill Gaming Policy via this forum. Each creator and operator of games will need to evaluate whether their game(s) would be subject to, and in compliance with, this policy. We reiterate that a game of skill is defined as “a game, implemented through an Inworld object: 1) whose outcome is determined by skill and is not contingent, in whole or in material part, upon chance; 2) requires or permits the payment of Linden Dollars to play; 3) provides a payout in Linden Dollars; and 4) is legally authorized by applicable United States and international law.” Moreover, “[g]ames in which Second Life residents do not pay to play are not within the scope of this Skill Gaming Policy.” For more details, we strongly recommend reviewing the Skill Gaming Policy and Skill Gaming Program Terms and Conditions.

Hi Yingzi, Per the Skill Gaming Policy; a game of skill is defined as “a game, implemented through an Inworld object: 1) whose outcome is determined by skill and is not contingent, in whole or in material part, upon chance; 2) requires or permits the payment of Linden Dollars to play; 3) provides a payout in Linden Dollars; and 4) is legally authorized by applicable United States and international law.” Moreover, “[g]ames in which Second Life residents do not pay to play are not within the scope of this Skill Gaming Policy.” For more details, we strongly recommend reviewing the Skill Gaming Policy and Skill Gaming Program Terms and Conditions.