Petition to form the Corporation

What?? It doesn't cost any money to set that up? All it takes is time.

Not to be confused with SL Exchange...

We're tallking about cross-world institutions: stock market, investment banking, and brokerage services tied back to their 1L counterparts. They would have to be tied back since that's the only way they could offer security, because anyone can abandon SL any time they please and hence the concept of secured services would be meaningless. And if they're tied back to 1L then only those with the money and connectons in 1L can offer such services.

You mean:Um, right. So that does what?Ah, gotcha.

So, first corporate law and lawyers, and now marketeers and leeching middlemen. Poor Philip, with his dream of a new untarnished Second Life being turned into a 1st Life again.

I don't understand. I don't have any money or connections but nothing is stopping me from trying?

I meant the web site Morgaine - not mud.

Eggy, every time you say that SL isn't a game, I have to post to disagree

SL IS a game. It's a massively multiplayer game where I can make a motorcycle, script a nuclear device, attack zombies, or work my way up the social food chain. Or all of those things at once.

The only other word to describe SL is "thingie".

SL is not a game, it's a thingie.

Shirts are on sale in SE Umber.

LF

While I cannot deny spending a great deal of my time confused, on this subject I am fairly clear.

What is it, exactly, that you want Linden Labs to add to Second Life that would then allow you to form a 'corporation?'

The reasons you list are issues of trust: people don't often lend a lot of money because there is no way to insure you are likely to ever see it again, large groups of people working together is rare because it is too easy to be taken advantage of with no recourse, pooling ownership of land or objects leaves you too open to one person running off with what should be owned by the group as a whole.

None of these problems would be addressed by allowing the creation of corporations without contracts. They all are avoidable through the use of contracts without any need for corporations. Corporations do not bring about trust on their own.

Please consider the formation of the 'LAND BARON CORP.'

I would rejoice at such a forward-thinking enterprise, since SL is obviously made for barons, such as myself, to reap untold awards and fame!

If only we could harness the massive and weighty power of a corporation, then we would be truly UNSTOPPABLE!

Please add my request to your list!

*chortles and rushes off to the designers, to commision a new logo! (no royalties paid, of course)*

I thought you could already share land and money with the group feature in SL? A contract would not give any increased trust, someone can still pull a quick sell on the $ and if you gave them money then your SOL.

Here is the FAQ (work in progress) from the SLEX website. Trust is addressed the same way grouping in SL is handled. I'd be interested to know what features are not covered in the FAQ that only the Lindens can provide.


What is the SLEX?

SLEX stands for Second Life Exchange (not to be confused with the other Second Life Exchange). It is a virtual stock market that allows virtual corporations to sell shares to the public in order to raise funds that help offset the cost of development. Corporations listed on SLEX use Linden Dollars ($L) as currency when buying and selling shares.


What kind of corporations will I find on SLEX?

Anyone can create a corporation as long as it has a Second Life presence. You might find ambitious corporations trying to raise lots of $L, and you might also find corporations that just want to have a few shares in the public just for fun. To help raise share prices, corporations can issue dividends to shareholders at regular intervals. You can look at a corporations profile to see the frequency of dividend payouts. Don't expect to make money by trading on SLEX. The initial purchase of stock is no more than a donation to the corporation. You are given the stocks as tokens that you can then trade on the SLEX market, just for fun. You might be able to sell your stock to someone else, as long as the corporation does not release a lot of new stock and pays out heafty dividends.


How much should I invest?

Invest no more than you are willing to donate to a corporation, and invest only in people you know and trust. If you see a corporation that listed on SLEX that makes something you enjoyed in Second Life, buying stock is a fun way to donate some of your $L's to the content creators. To make sure nobody takes your investment and runs, do not invest in corporations unless they have a cool product or service that you enjoy.


How do I buy and sell stock?

Buying and selling of stock is done on the Market page. There you can see all available buy and sell orders for every corporation listed on SLEX.

If you have any corporations, they can issue stock in certain volumes and at certain prices. The volume and price of the stock can vary from corporation to corporation. Make sure you read the business plan to see how they justify their share price and how much volume they plan to release over time. If they do not include this information, then you should ask the owners before making a purchase.


How do I create a corporation?

Any registered user can create any number of corporations. As the creator, you can invite people to join, or eject any of the members. Only the creators of a corporation can edit the business plan, make stock purchases, issue stock, or payout dividends. Members receive shared access to the corporations bank account, but there are some restrictions on how much they can withdraw.

Any earnings made by the corporations (from sale of their own shares, another companies shares, or dividends payed from other companies) are divided evenly between the members of a corporation. Members can deposit as much money as they want into the corporations money account, however they can only withdraw their equal share of the corporations total money. If one person deposits $1000, and another deposits $500, they can both withdraw $750.


Can corporations own stock in other corporations?

Yes, your corporations can purchase stock in other corporations. If any of the corporations in which you own shares pay dividends, the amount is payed into your corporations money account. Money from sale of your own corporations shares will also go into your corporations money account. All members of a corporation have equal access the corporations money account. Members can deposit any amount of money. Withdrawing money from the corporations account is limited though. All members, including the owner, can only withdraw an equal share of the total money in the account.

Eg: In a two person corporation, if one person deposits $1000, and another person deposits $500, they can both withdraw up to $750.


How does stock become available for purchase?

The owner of a corporation must issue a block of stock before it becomes available. The price and volume they release is at their discretion. Once you own stock in a corporation, you are free to place a sell order on the market. If you are looking to buy some stock in a company and there is none available, place a buy order on the market to see if it gets filled. A price will be suggested based on the last known trading price of the stock.


I want to join SLEX, how do I register?

Find a SLEX ATM in world and click on it. The first time you click on a SLEX ATM an account will be created on the master computer. It will generate a random password and that will be sent to you via instant message. Use your Second Life name and this password to login to this website.

The next time you click on an ATM, it will display a dialog box that will let you deposit or withdraw money from your account. If you want to start trading, then you should deposit some money after you register.


What do I do if I forgot my password?

Find a SLEX ATM in world and click on it to activate your SLEX account. A dialog box will appear. Click the button that says Forgot Pass. You password will be sent via instant message.


Where can I find a SLEX ATM?

At the moment there are two SLEX ATM's located in Second Life. One is in Europa (111,111) at the Bowling Alley. Search for Bowling in the Find tool. The other is located in Blue (177, 126) in the Casino and Games area. You can register now but deposit money at your own risk. SLEX is under heavy construction so there is no promise we wont delete your username from the database right now. When SLEX is ready, the data will be backed up once an hour.

So tell me, is Bryce a game? Is the MSN messenger a game? If MS bought Bryce and included a Bryce-based collaborative 3D whiteboard in MSN, would it become a game?
Do you even KNOW what a game is?
Sheesh.

Jack, I salute you as a pioneer in SL! I checked out your ATM and future plans for SLEX and I think its absolutely wonderful!

Also, the thing about SL that I think people tend to overlook is that you really CAN do anything! There are no constraints like RL.

I certainly wish you well in your SLEX endeavor! Kudos to you!

Sincerely,
Jaq

LOL. I'd probably agree with both of you and disagree with both of you too, in different areas.

This is the wrong place for it though. Want to start the ultimate thread on whether SL is a game or not? It could end up the longest thread in the forums ....

I'm trying to hold a reasonable conversation here.

Sure, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from singlehandedly heading out to the world's trouble spots armed with a toothpick and totally wiping out all the hotbeds of religious fundamentalist or corporate imperialist terrorism. It's just that the chances of success are low. So, let's try to stick to discussing what has a chance of succeeding.

I've already explained why cross-world enterprises based on 1L securities are not open to implementatiion by SL ciitizens who do not have that backing in 1L. Nothing stops you from trying, but it's about as effective as waving your arms up and down.

The SL stock market will not be based on RL securities, it will be based on SL companies that have been taken public in SL.

That's not really a valid comparison.



No you didn't explain it. You just said it was a restriction and the only reason you gave was saying that not everyone has enough money. And I'm saying it's not a restriction because you don't need the 1L backing or 1L securities to do anything beyond setting a server to handle XML/email communications. Anything that you think requires 1L backing could be done by a lone scripter. (Aside from using trademarks or copyrighted material which are 1L restrictions anways, not SL restrictions).

Well, that's a very good start to exclude 1L. The security has to come from somewhere though.

How are you going to secure any bonds or contracts you make, if not through 1L securities? You could disappear at any time from Second Life (after very easily laundering and then distributing all your L$ assets in SL), with massive losses to the honest community and no possibility of penalty to you.

You could in principle secure an SL business entirely within SL by making a very large US$ purchase of Linden dollars and then signing that money over to an SL trust group as a NON-REFUNDABLE security. You would not be able to belong to the group of course, since you must not be able to run off with the funds or it's no security at all.

See, there are inherent problems in this area. Maybe they can be overcome, but you need to look at the side effects of doing so too.

One side effect of creating a powerful financial organization based on secured trust is the one I highlighted in my first post to this thread: your empowerment versus the corresponding disempowerment of everyone else in the land. Currently there is practically no discrimination of that kind in SL, ie. what you can achieve is mainly limited by your natural abilities and not your wallet.

Wallets sizes do count of course but mainly when obtaining land, and land size doesn't immediately make you able to do things that others cannot, so it's not a huge differentiating factor. It's more a vanity and feudal control thing than real business empowerment leading to high profits, and the reason is simply that land provides control over a small domain. Financial muscle through securities would provide direct control over the financial envvironment in the whole of Second Life.

And that's a pretty appalling thought.

It wasn't intended to be an analogous comparison of domains. It was intended to be an analogous comparison of futility, which it did, maybe too humorously but nevertheless effectively.

I'm already running an XMP-RPC server to SL thanks, so I'm aware of what the technology can achieve, which is why I've not once mentioned any technical barriers to this since I see none. It's simple, technically.

The problems I've mentioned are instead entirely to do with the effect of money and financial muscle and legal frameworks and trust through securities beyond those possessed by your neighbour. Jacqueline seems to be more aware of the problems and is discussing them more reasonably instead of dismissing everything out of hand.

Not everyone wants a Second Life where the equivalent of VISA and CityBank and Lloyds hold total control through sheer financial power, and ordinary people are (in financial terms) all non-controlling serfs.

Nobody is being restricted so, 1L securities are welcomed. It might help the image of a SL corp. But it is a lot of work over something meant simply for fun so why would anyone bother.

One person not being able to afford a 1L securities is not a restriction of SLEX or Second Life, it's a restriction of capitalism.



Just like in 1L, investment = gamble. Invest in your friends for fun. Or gamble on strangers. Whatever is fun for you.




Yes that's always an option. I believe there are groups in SL that might do this already. But you are assuming that SL corp could raise 100,000 L$'s. That's impossible. SLEX trading will be low volume, low price. If someone does secure 100K to a well trusted SL group, to encourage investment, I'd have to say : what are they thinking? If they got 100K, why do they need investment.




With GOM you can use RL $ to buy anything in SL. So it's not just land.



No it wouldn't. All it would accomplish is spreading mass confusion. People who be asking themselves "Why did this guy give so much RL $ to a securities firm. Am I supposed to believe this guy actually did this or he just claims to have secured the monies? If he has so much money, why does he want me to give him money? WTF, use GOM."

And maybe you could control GOM but that could take thousands of dollars and would accomplish nothing but putting an end to people buying currency.

Ok sew it together for me since my awarness prohibits comprehension. Explain the chain of events that goes :

a) Someone starts a corporation (done a long time ago before I got to SL....)
.
.
.
.
z) VISA, CityBank, Lloyds holds TOTAL control through sheer financial power.

Explain please.

Forget it, Jack.

If you want to be totally blind to the effect of power through money then there is nothing I can do to remove the blinkers. I have to assume that you're doing this on purpose though. I've never met anyone who didn't understand the connection.

I'm not wearing blinders or blinkers!? I can totally understand how in first life, corporations gain control of the media to indoctrinate the public. If you feed me a conspiracy theory about how corporations in RL destroy the world, I'll believe it.

But in SL it's not the same. In SL anyone can be king. All it takes is a few prims.

LOL I could almost hear the air leaking out of dozens of balloons!!

My condesention meters in the RED!!

With all due respect, this is supremely naieve.

One simple counter-example.

100K is about $500US.
A sim is $1000US upfront and $200US / month.
Sims purchased on the grid with L$ cost even more.
There are already business in SL that use this much land.
Some of these business are joint ventures.

Ergo, you have joint ventures with capitol already much greater than 100kL$. I see no reason why people wouldn't invest more. If a major assumption is that SLEX will work on low-capitol investments under 100kL$, I think you are making a huge miscaculation.

Ergo, I don't want any SLEX with you.