Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Answers to Questions

But SL is specialized software that is already developed and is suitable for all those purposes, plus has and existing consumer base. How is it automaticly cheaper to do as a website when you have a handy platform like SL that already has economy of scale due to size? And SL use would not preclude use of a company website.

I am not sure that most companies would be interested in building their own virtual showrooms or allowing the kind of customization that SL does, both of which might make online shopping feel more comfortable.

I am not saying it would neccessarily be a good advertizing tool, just that it is not automaticly a bad one. The biggest hurdle is not the platform itself, but getting enough companies to make good use of it that consumers will, and vis versa. It would be a tough sell initially, but likely has merit long term.

That does not mean that it is neccessarily a good thing for any of us. If the press started poking around and started advertizing some of the things they found behind the 'red curtain' it could get messy. Of course that is true of the internet generally, too, and so far that has not been an issue.

We find for our RL business and website SL is a good advertising tool, not only is it a good place for our existing members of the website to come and have fun and meet other members from the website in a 3D space and yes we have audio and video chat available for the members on the RL site but here in SL it takes on another form for them, it is also good on conversions from SL to our RL website making it a cheap worldwide advertising platform where we as the owners can also interact with our members in a fun environment. Where else can you get worldwide interactive advertising for $195 USD a month and meet your members and potential members in person so to speak

This is a good move if done properly and with a degree of respect for the current setup, that's where LL fail. LL are creating a continent that is based on forced relocation, that refuses to deal with the issue of PG sims neighboring mature sims. They have a good concept that is being very badly executed.

Precisely

The issue is about enforcement. It always has been. No amount of magic technology, coding, or forced relocation of content will ever be able to control the unpredictable human element in any system. Unless they plan on hiring a ton of new Lindens for the G-team, I just do not know how any of this will make a difference.

Like you say is ridiculous that PG and M sims are mixed up like they are on the mainland. LL done some dumb things over the years but this has to be the dumbest. Is nuts to have blocks of 4 PG sims scattered all over the mainland, There are a whole lot of these blocks all over the place. What was that about ??? cheez !!! Many people immediately on either side of these block boundaries have problems at one time or other.

Hopefully as part of the programme to tidy up the mainland LL will also move the people out of these blocks if they choose or not, knowing that the blocks are going to be reclassified as M as soon as is practically possible. Hope so anyways.

I know that AO is going to cause some people problems and expense (considerable even) despite there being no transfer fees. There is a distinction between AO and M behaviour though and LL like all net service providers is mindful of the RL regulatory bodies that govern this aspect of our real world. Something that LL is a part of even if many of us avatar-residents (myself included) would want otherwise.

A website with a skype link?

Matthew

From the infighting that goes on in some of these posts and in the *I* Am Adult Content group, perhaps LL is accomplishing exactly what they want. I know I'm starting to care a whole lot less what happens just based on some of the attitude I've gotten from others that are supposed to be ON THE SAME SIDE...

I hope LL comes clean soon...or at least starts giving some real answers. And I hope everyone gets what they want. And I hope it all happens before everyone does each other in or before the 'rumors' send so many people packing that the adult continent is a wasteland.

Can I suggest that if Linden FORCE establishments to move to some new red-light adult mainland area, that they at least make the move for the business as painless as possible.

If Linden say I have to move from my 20K sqm plot I have here, to a new 20K plot over there, then it would be simple for them to update the LM's that people hold to point to the new location, wouldnt it ?

That way all my existing customers dont have to worry about trying to search and find me. They click on the old LM in their inventory and it automatically takes them to my new location.

If Linden would do this, it would save a lot of people complaining about loss of customers because they can't be found etc.

Its a bit like getting your mail re-directed when you move house.

Vala

They have already said they would leave the old area alone for a time perioid with a LM sign to the new location as long as the av was verified to visit the new land.

The only ones who will get what they want (albeit short term) are the ones that want a pg SL,
the rest will suffer.
my partner and i run 4 sims in SL and have never made a profit or broken even, now we will not be able to rent land to so called adult businesses or we will alienate most of our mature renters. which means more loss for us. honestly i wish we had never bought land here.

and as i have said before and i will say it again, LL are still selling sims to people who are blissfully unaware of the new SL, shame on you LL, rot in your stinking world.

as for you, Blondin Linden, i have trodden in things which are better than you, it may have stunk but at least it was honest.

OH SNAP!

You can achieve the same kind of interface SL has via Skype? I guess all this is unfounded.. everyone can just move over to Skype, since appearantly it offers similar services.

Of course since Skype does not provide a virtual 3d world in which to display product, that suggestion does not quite work...

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Originally Posted by Matthew Dowd
Bragg versus Linden (2007) is worth a look as it was a case where someone did take the TOS to court. LL's lawyers originally submitted that the case be dismissed on the basis Bragg did not have a case because LL only acted in accordance with the TOS. The judge overruled that on the basis that the TOS were unbalanced and unfair (the parts the judge objected to have not been substantially changed). LL then tried to invoke the TOS clauses stating that any arbitration must take place in California and subject to Californian law. The judge again overruled that and insisted the case was heard in Pensylvania and subject to its state laws.

In the end this case was settlted out of court so no legal ruling on the validity of the TOS was ever made. However, it certainly sets the precedent (if it were needed) that the TOS can be challenged in court *if* you are willing to go to the expense of time, money and effort to do so (and remember that you aren't guaranteed to win, and should of course seek legal council before doing so).
***

Not to mention that the Judge in the case said that the "contract" was one of adhesion and unconcienable. As such, he was a hairs width from making the ruling that would have made ALL Eulas and TOS worthless since the contract could not be negoatiated and all powers and legal recourse were limited to only one party. So the TOS isn't worth the virtual paper its virtually printed upon if you want to push the matter in the courts.

I would have loved to see Bragg complete his lawsuit. If it's a game, then a simple "we let you play at our discretion" is understandable. But it it's going to be more, then no business is going to throw big bucks to a provider who makes all the rules, changes them when the wind changes direction, is unpredictable and can pull the service with NO warning and no compensation for loss of service. If LL wants big cats to think of them as a business tool, then they'll have to start acting like a business. Rule one in business school - every existing customer is worth ten potential ones.

I just read a summary of Bragg vs. Linden http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2007/05/31/judge-rules-against-one-sided-tos-in-bragg-lawsuit/

Rueters may not be the best source in the world, but the key point is that Linden tried to retroactively change the contract based on an unforseen monitary loss on the part of the lindens. That kind of thing would not normally a breach of contract on the part of Bragg unless specificly prohibited by the contract. An open ended clause does not protect Linden, and there is no direct clause in the contract to do so either.

In the case of the current situation, though, the accuser would have to show that adult content which is not age restricted is 'fair use,' but considering it is illegal in most jurisdictions to knowingly make such content available to minors, it is unlikely that age restrictions would be considered something other than fair use.

If you have a rental contract, the contract does not have to say you do not have the right to burn the place to the ground for burning the place to the ground to be actionable.

Another counter-example would be grow-ops (drug labs or marijuana farms in residences). If the landlord does not take reasonable steps to ensure their renters are not using the premises for such purposes and a grow op is found, the landlord can be charged in addition to the tenants being charged.

In other words, both sides have rights that cannot be abridged. The renter claiming infinite rights is just as one-sided and unenforcable as the property owner trying the same.

Edit: One more thing... the best Bragg could likely have gotten was the sale contract tossed out, which is why LL would have settled when they saw they would lose. It does not mean Bragg would have neccessarily gotten his account back, since there would still have been an issue of how enforcable the contract is on either side.

I didn't say that - the question was "where else can you get worldwide interactive advertising for $195 USD a month and meet your members and potential members in person?"

Well you can get a website, and use skype, forums, twitter etc. to communicate with customers for far less that $195. The experience is different but the end result is the same.



There are plenty of examples of flash being used to embedded 3D interactive demos of products or 3D panaoramic views. True, these do take time and money to develop effectively - however so does recreating a product within SL (above and beyond the $195 per month).

Also, whereas a web site becomes the advertisement for the product, as many other companies who have tried to use SL to advertise their product, you need to continually advertise and market your SL presence - which somewhat defeats the purpose of using SL to advertise the product.

As such, whilst SL may have a lot of uses - advertising and marketing is not one of them.

Matthew

LOL we have a full audio and video chat server but theres nothing like a 3D environment and bear in mind its just advertising costs for us i can even write of the Linden dollars i buy as a tax expense

I am not here to make money and as long as the costs stay within the company budget i enjoy the time here

We have skype and twitter and email as well but not 3D thats here for that

I have all the Adobe software so can develop and build a full interactive flash site if i so wished, however we are a community profile site so a flash based site is not for us as it doesn't give the members a facebook/myspace style site. We also pay a lot more than 195 USD for our own servers here in Amsterdam



I disagree in part as my wife spends time in world making her stuff and mentoring our new members as they join us here and we constantly market and promote inside SL as it is for us another untapped source for the RL website and conversion rates its better value than some of the web based advertising we use to recruit members. So we are not like other companies that lose sight of the fact for SL to work you have to work at it and create value for our members here and the community that use our land and as i said its all tax deductible so doesn't cost us that much to play, especially where we have a budget set each month to use for SL

I don't care if we do not make a single L$ here as long as my expenditure stays within the set limits we agreed on with the accountant

I've argued in other threads that SL's strengths are as a recreational tool not a business tool. From what you describe, I suspect that your use of SL is more as a recreational tool - adding a little bit of fun and novelty for yourself and your customers which is good for customer relations etc. (the same way a company might daily buy fresh flowers for reception etc.).

Matthew

Yes i will agree with you on that, it is aimed as a 3D enhancement to the rest of our website but one of the side effects is that we get a good join up rate from SL people looking for a website such as ours So for me as well it is another marketing tool to recruit new members to our website that may have not known about us if we hadn't had a presence here. Just in the same way as i would take a 200 USD banner ad run one week, except SL brings us in a better conversion rate as we are here and are able to interact with people something banners do not do and most other companies do not do when they arrive here then wonder why they fail.

I am not saying its a good marketing tool just value for money for us and thats not to say it would be for another company at this moment in time

Note that tax deductable still means a company has to shell out 100% of the $ to save the tax rate % in taxes.

Other forms of advertizing are tax deductable too.

LLs rules are frequently ambiguous or even contradictory. The whole definition of light use in the OpenSpace debacle: different Lindens telling people different and contradictory things was bad enough, but the examples they gave were contradictory to begin with. In other cases, restrictions in a contract that are customarily not enforced have ended up being unenforceable.

It works out that we play at a greatly reduced price as its built into the overall advertising budget for the RL website. Im sure there are many others here that do the same

I just like it that the tax man has to give me some back for here

If there's a "?" in the link, it works for all normal browsers... because the way this forum treats an [img]with a ? in the link is to turn it into an anchored link.

Actually, it's quite complex, but thanks for playing. I consider myself to be adult content in my mode of dress and expression quite frequently. That is behaviour, but I consider my behaviour also to be part of my identity and self in Second Life. One's behaviour and apparent personality are, likely more than most places on earth, expressed visually in this game through mode of dress, expression, and what one chooses to surround one's self with.

It gets a little more complicated when you get hold of someone whose modes of visual expression are tied into a very sexualized personality. What happens when someone wants to express that they're gay or transgendered or kinky in public in their mode of dress, or if they want to be affectionate with their significant other? Are you gonna tell em, "Sorry, you can't be that way in public. You'll need to go be gay in Pornsylvania."

However, you're gonna be hard pressed to find someone who disassociates their gender preference from their behaviour. They're not going to go "Hi, I'm Bob, and I behave in a homosexual manner." They're going to go "Hi, I'm Bob, and I'm gay." The inherent association with identity in that sentence shows eminently how inexplicably linked sexual preference and identity are. So in this case... some people very much ARE adult content. Some aren't. But it very much IS a matter of discriminating against the person as well as their behaviour to ship them off to Pornsylvania on that basis.