Is Linden Lab's proposed content rating system in trouble before it begins?

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

Miss Tateru Nino still has not been able to find two people who can agree on Linden Lab's proposed definitions of PG and Mature for Second Life® content, according to her just-published post on Massively regarding the anticipated rating system.

One point that came up in conversation with her last week is that, and this is a direct quote: "The G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17 ratings were established for rating motion pictures and may only be used in connection with motion pictures that have been rated by CARA" (See Section 1A). Tateru asked, "In theory, PG sims should be marked PG®? I mean, if we're following trademark rules and all..."

"That's why things like games in the USA don't use the same codes," added Tateru.

Could Linden Lab's proposed rating system be stepping on an even bigger entity's toes?

Artists consider Adult Content ratings in Second Life, and I reach my own conclusions

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

Let me first say that I understand Linden Lab's motivations for rating (see "Upcoming Changes for Adult Content and sections of the Second Life® grid. In fact, about three months ago, I decided to rate my own sim PG in support of my desire to make it newbie friendly. Newbies already have a lot to deal with when they arrive, and rezzing next to a couple that's copulating in the woods (I still don't get why people do this in very public spaces, but eh) is, in my view, too much of a test, not that I enjoy coming upon these situations myself.

However, I do prefer environments that provide for the greatest level of individual freedoms within a framework of accountability, and I always worry when any entity takes it upon itself to tighten controls over what is right and wrong. I do believe that Linden Lab will rue the day it ever decided to walk this lawsuit-happy path. Notwithstanding special viewers and other automated processes, they are going to devote copious amounts of precious time and resources in arbitration.

Tateru Nino over at Massively is still working on her coverage of this story. "I can't find three people in SL that can all agree on what's allowable in a PG sim," she told me. She shared a few more very fascinating insights in a Not Possible IRL group IM immediately following the announcement, so I'm especially looking forward to her post, which may come as soon as tomorrow.

I was immediately curious to hear what people in Second Life's art community opined on this topic so I did a quick roundup.

New media superstar Gazira Babeli was busy making some interesting changes to how the Odyssey sim will appear on the map when we spoke (we'll have to wait for the next system refresh to see it). Gaz and I agree that this is going to consume a great deal of Linden Lab's time and resources. "That means decadence. Resources lost in details always result in decadence," she said.

Artist and lead creator of many of the grid's most popular sims, including the Greenies, Pavig Lok: Part of me says "about time" and part of me says "best option available" and part of me says "dammit the unicorns and fae have gone from our world, curse you loss of innocence!"

Artist and founder of Second Life's art-critique mecca Brooklyn is Watching, Jay Newt, responded to my email this way:

"It's a really interesting question. It seems to me a little like the movie rating system, and I like the movie system, because it is voluntary. There is the category "unrated" and you know that that means: "who the hell knows what it is going to be." I wish they would make these categories for SL content voluntary in that way so you could advertise your content as fitting into one of those categories or you could elect not to participate in that particular categorization scheme and then people would know that they are just taking their chances coming to your sim.

I also think that SL artists will likely get upset over this because of what they think will happen as a result and the truth is that none us of us knows what will happen as a result. It could be that most places will list themselves as "adult" just to have the freedom to do what they want, even if they aren't about sex or violence, and there will be no stigma attached to that label...

We're all jumping ship from SL as soon as there's a large enough community on some un-regulated open source distributed server system anyway, right? :)"

Hyperformalist and producer/director of ZeroG SkyDancers DanCoyote Antonelli offered an intriguing perspective: "If any company leans on the US legal system in their Terms of Service and are protected by US laws, they should also follow through and support the right to free speech provided for in the US Constitution. Want to be protected by US law? Then provide US rights as outlined in the Bill of Rights.

Leading fashion designer and artist, Eshi Otawara: "If the concern is children, this still will not stop them from entering Second Life and pursuing their curiosities. It's the responsibility of the parent to supervise their child. As far as adult content being 'offensive' to adults, I am sorry to say- there is far more of both natural and less natural human activity that offends a lot of us on a more profound level then adult content ever can. But in those cases it is socially acceptable so those who don't agree must conform or keep quiet in the least.

"For me, this is just another step that Linden Lab, unfortunately, must make - to protect the company from the people whose state of mind is so unfortunately fragile they cannot handle functions of their own bodies and who are indoctrinated into false pretensions that assuming what is commonly and unfortunately for human kind referred to as 'purity' vs. embracing the human nature provided to them at birth by whatever/whom ever one chooses to put faith towards makes them somehow more in control of anything. For the rest of us, there are always contentedness, laughter and hope Darwin takes care of it in the long run."

Finally, artist and co-founder of Arthole, the often-controversial arts center that will surely be affected by these new rules because it sits on the mainland, Nebulosus Severine, wrote back a very thoughtful response.

"As you know, I have some very strong opinions on the upcoming changes in SL that would restrict a lot of so-called Adult content. The way LL is handling it is still so unclear to me, and I keep going back and forth from optimism to pessimism.

I don't have to worry about all aspects of this new policy. I am already payment verified, so my presence in SL won't be limited; that is at least some relief to me.

However, I have already taken preliminary steps in considering what will have to be done with Arthole. Arahan and I will be talking soon to figure out what to do. I know he and I both agree that we must have absolute creative freedom to address any subject matter with our art. As we frequently choose controversial topics, I think the safest bet would be to move Arthole to an Adult piece of land.

However, this will limit the access of several friends who, although adults, are not age-verified (for their own personal reasons), and wouldn't be able to come visit Arthole, if it does end up on Adult land. That is really frustrating and heartbreaking.

Not to mention that I have had the same piece of land in Kress for nearly 4 years. I suppose a move isn't that big of a deal, but it's still an inconvenience to say the least.

When it comes right down to it, I believe that LL is censoring SL. I've read their arguments to the contrary, and I don't trust their supposed reasoning. And with their proposed definitions of what "Adult" is, it seems as though they'd have an easier time making a new PG continent and keeping THAT all together. The Mature rating is effectively useless, too. Why not divide the grid geographically into "Adult" and "All Ages" and keep it simple?

Seriously... "illicit drug use" will be considered "adult"? I have never been to a live concert in SL that did NOT have an avatar (or three, or ten) smoking on a prim joint or tripping on scripted 'shrooms.

Anyway, I could go on and on. My bottom line is that I distrust and despise ANYTHING that would seek to restrict freedom of expression. I consider censorship to be one of the biggest violations of human rights. I know LL is a private company, but the more that censorship is imposed on people in any community, the more people start to just accept it as a fact of life, and THAT is dangerous," concluded Nebulosus.
~*~

"Why not divide the grid geographically into 'Adult' and 'All Ages' and keep it simple?" suggests Nebulosus. This sounds appealing, smart and effective doesn't it? And cost and resource thin, right? Oh, wait! Isn't that what is already in place? Which leads me to conclude...

Why change a system that just needs to be implemented properly?

Is this just busy work that will result in the same-ole same-ole put in place just to hush some fundamentalist and ultra conservative groups, at the great expense of art facilities like Arthole?

See also: What will happen to art?

The Big Prim That Wouldn’t Leave

It happened right smack in the middle of the holidays. I myself was traveling with family and thinking about Christmas Day menus and last minute shopping. The point is, most of us had our radars fixed on other topics. Nevertheless, on December 22, 2007, Tateru Nino, an Aussie and long-time reporter on the state of the grid and other important matters as they relate to Second Life®, blogged on Massively that Andrew Linden had attended a Volunteer Island meeting that day to talk about Havok 4, and had ended up disclosing what he calls the "Megaprim Liberation Plan," which he outlined (and Tateru wrote up) as follows:

* Allow parcel owners/managers to move (or maybe just return) objects that overlap their parcels
* Provide some UI feedback to the resident when moving their objects, indicating whether they overlap neighboring parcels
* Maybe... provide real-time enforcement of parcel permissions. That is, allow parcel owners to set a paranoid bit "I don't want anyone, or these specific people, from putting stuff on my parcel"
* Once that is done... then perhaps we will allow you to make prims/objects as large as you want... as long as they fit on your parcel.

That's all well and good (I'm serious and really not trying to be derisive here). I do feel a wee bit like Oliver Twist asking for "more"... but we would appreciate some new features, please Sir:






(It will suffice to watch the first 30 seconds of this trailer to get my point)

That said, I turned to my good friend and one of the most entertaining, clever and talented builders I know, Douglas Story, to share his thoughts (and those of most NPIRLers) on this topic. Thank you, Douglas.


by Douglas Story
all photography by Douglas Story except as noted

Exactly 200 days ago today, Michael Linden posted “The Big Prim” problem on the oh-fish-all Second Life® blog in which he invited residents' comments on the idea of doing away with megaprims. “Megaprims” are particular varieties of Second Life’s basic building blocks that are… well… they’re big. Huge. Mega. Gigantic.

They were created by virtue of an exploit in the Second Life code, and although megaprims were never banned outright, they have been frowned upon generally by the Linden Lab gods. Despite that, these king-size building blocks have been widely used all over the grid, and have been especially effective in art builds. Michael Linden’s original blog post stirred up a huge storm of protest and comment, including a piece on this blog that Evil Slavedriver Bettina (that’s her official title, you know) forced me to write. I listed a number of the great builds that would disappear if megaprims were to vanish from our virtual world.

At that time we begged the Powers That Be to preserve megaprims, but now we’ll add another non-negotiable demand… er, I mean, request: please give us megaprims that are resizable and fully editable. You see, currently if one attempts to change the size of a megaprim by even 1 centimeter, the prim will snap back to the normal maximum size of ten meters. Most annoying. Making megaprims resizable will produce a new wave of wonderful creativity, says I.

One of the chief concerns that Linden Lab had with the use of megaprims was the fear that they would not work well with the new Havok 4 physics engine that had yet to be rolled out. But, as AM Radio commented earlier today, it’s a very good sign that Havok 4 is now active over much of the grid and that the Lindens have not banned megaprims outright. So, we repeat our call for Linden Labs to 1) make megaprims officially sanctioned, and 2) make them fully editable.

What follows is a series of pictures of just some of the splendid builds using megaprims that have risen up since the original controversy arose 200 days ago. This list is by no means complete or authoritative, but is rather meant as an indication of the richness that would be lost without these now-essential building elements.

DynaFleur - Teleport directly from here.

Photograph by Harper Beresford
Because my ego is the size of any artist’s (that is, roughly as big as All Outdoors) we’ll start with one of the pieces I created together with a motley crew of all-stars. If you visit, use the damned dance balls!

Syncretia by Alpha Auer - Teleport directly from here.

As you can see, I muffed the landing. Again.

Tunnel of Light by Spiral Walcher - Teleport directly from here.

Spiral also makes top hats with stuff in ‘em. Stuff besides your head, that is. I’d show you a picture of one, but the hats don’t involve megaprims – which is amazing considering the fact that a lot of artists wear them.

David Rumsey Maps by Nathan Babcock - Teleport directly from here.

This remarkable place is a tour-de-force of megaprim usage. Although I elected to photograph something else for this piece, the four sim complex features scores and scores of sculpted megaprims with real world terrain data mapped into them; all this forms the shape of Yosemite Valley. Remarkable.

Space Colony Necronom by Oni Horan - Teleport directly from here.

If you visit here, you really, really want to make sure you’re wearing underwear. Get me drunk enough and I’ll tell you how I know.

Zero Point by Sabine Stonebender - Teleport directly from here.


Planet Mongo by Lumiere Noir - Teleport directly from here.


Privateer Island by Aley Arai - Teleport directly from here.


Kaleidoscope by Juria Yoshikawa - Teleport directly from here.

I wanted to include one of Juria’s pieces here. The poor woman is painfully shy, and is so reluctant to get her name out there that I wanted to help her along a bit. 0.0

Chouchou by Juliet Heberle and Yuki Aabye - Teleport directly from here.


The Far Away by AM Radio - Teleport directly from here.

And lastly…..this much-loved, much-photographed and much-visited marvel of spare beauty. One of the few places in Second Life I return to again and again.