I’ve been invited to have a chat with Ebbe Altberg, the brand new CEO of Linden Lab.
I have of course a big pile of questions and there probably is not enough time to ask them all, but I wanted to give the readers of this blog a chance to ask him some as well.
So, leave your question to mr Altberg in the comments section below and if I get the chance I’ll ask it.
Jo Yardley's Second Life 
Pingback: Advice for Ebbe Altberg from the user base - Page 14 - SLUniverse Forums
Did kids call you ABBA when you were growing up?
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My question:
How do you balance Linden Lab’s prior comittments to maintaining an open platform and the Lab’s efforts to create a more inviting environment for everybody. For an unrelated question what were the questions that went through your head as you went through the new user experience the first time?
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What was it that got you to become the CEO of Linden Lab? (aka why?)
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If he thinks the “We can do anything we please with your work” policy (as per the ToS) is the right direction for the company?
-This is not *just* to harp on the ToS, but also an honest question. I get that LL believe it is at least *easier*, if not necessarily the *only* way, to write a defensively overbroad ToS, but it seems to me to be quite a change in attitude from the original vision of SL.
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Is he even aware of the issue, or has it been swept under the rug internally? How does he hope to rebuild the trust of the content creators who have abandoned Second Life because of this change?
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Why, after repeated attempts to seek a discussion with Linden Lab regarding the slap-in-the-face ToS of August 2013, the Lab refuses to take action. I want to see Linden Lab at the very least come to the table to discuss the issues. Last missive from Peter Gray indicated that Linden Lab was reviewing and working on changes to the ToS–that was four months ago. My last Certified Mail, Return Receipt Requested letter and emails to Peter Gray and Rod Humble in early January were utterly ignored. I represent the United Content Creators of SL, comprised of many of the top creators that make our world come to life. Come Ebbe. Sit and talk with us over a fine glass of virtual wine, made by one of our fabulous creators.
The letter, in case Peter failed to pass it on to you.
Peter Gray, Director, Global Communications
Linden Lab Headquarters
945 Battery Street
San Francisco, CA 94111
Dear Peter:
It seems my emails to you have been lost in the hubris. It’s unfortunate that a formal CMRR letter is required to receive an answer. As we move into 2014, I am transitioning the group. We still believe that the ToS is abominable and the lack of follow-up from Linden Lab has only served to increase the anger and frustration of creators. I imagine the Lab thought that if they just ignored the outcry it would diminish. That has not proven to be true.
However, a steady diet of anger and anxiety is useless. In 2014, I am seeking to open a line of communication between the Creatives and the Lab. We need each other to excel. Bottom line? We both desire to be profitable. For the Creatives, we need to know that our hard work is safe. For the Lab, you need to have certain freedoms to allow your business to function.
Top Creatives are pursuing other grids in an effort to protect their incomes and others have already pulled up stakes. I realize that for every one that leaves, five take their place. It’s rather the quality of the work that will fill Second Life that should be of concern. How do we stop it? How do we assure Creatives that their incomes and work products are safe?
I’m not worried about the creative hobbyist. Although we all started out there. I am worried, however, about the single women supporting entire families on the money they make creating in Second Life. I am worried about the disabled that make quite decent livings here. I’m worried about the Creatives that have well-paid staffs that they are responsible for. Help me, Peter. Help me make this better. I hope you understand the anger—the fear. Real lives are in the balance. Help me to bridge this gap.
I started UCCSL not only to work on effecting change in the ToS, but also to serve the Creatives. I’m including the verbiage from New Year, New Vision below. As you might imagine, my sending this to the group caused quite an uproar from the more militant vocalists of the group, whose sole intent is to change the ToS. However, I’ve also received enough positive feedback to encourage me to move forward. I’ve disbanded the Council and have a very small team of positively passionate people working with me to move the group onto a more positive track. I have also adopted a new philosophy, which basically says, “This is the vision for the group in 2014, if you aren’t on board, feel free to find a group that supports your needs.” Frankly, I expected a 20% immediate decrease in the group—acceptable collateral damage. However, that hasn’t happened. I’m also ejecting the more militant aspect. I think this group can be good for us—Lab and Creatives alike.
I am looking to the future and I believe the more we work together the more success we will all realize. Right now there exists a deep chasm between the Lab and Creatives. I’m willing to work to bridge that, but I need your help. If there is one line in the ToS that I think pushes the Creatives over the edge it is, “and otherwise exploit in any manner whatsoever, all or any portion of your User Content (and derivative works thereof), for any purpose whatsoever in all formats, on or through any media, software, formula, or medium now known or hereafter developed, and with any technology or devices now known or hereafter developed,”. I’m sure you can see how someone who puts hours and hours of work into their creations would be appalled by this language. It simply has no limitations, leaving us to wonder if our hard work is indeed safe.
I know that I spend in excess of 30 hours a week, just working on the Rose Theatre & Art Gallery. I’m also studying blender, as I will be pursing my real life income here. This places me at well over 60-70 hours a week in dedicated work in the Second Life grid. I am 57. My husband and I are facing “old age” (lol) having lost our entire retirement savings. I am also physically compromised with severe arthritis and fibromyalgia complicated with stage three kidney disease that precludes me from taking any pain medication to relieve the first two diseases. I see Second Life as the only viable option for us to make up this frightening deficit. I don’t’ say this to elicit some kind of emotional response, but rather to point out that I am not the only one in this sinking ship. I feel positive that with my established name in Second Life and recognized skill as a builder and designer that I will be successful. Like other Creatives, though, I am fearful. This ToS does not bode well for any sense of security in my future here.
I have given valuable tools to the group to use as individuals toward the end of effecting change in the ToS. Whether they use them or not, is their decision. How I’d like to say, “Hey, you don’t need to do any of those things because we are making headway.”
Peter. It’s broken. Let’s work together to fix it. I have the voice to help with that, but need something concrete, worthwhile to say.
Warm regards,
Kylie Addison Sabra
cc: Rod Humble
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Reblogged this on United Content Creators of Second Life.
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I’d like to ask the legal rational behind LL’s TOS change through the following questions:
Is this SL TOS change in any way connected to the purchase of Desura.com?
If so, are there plans to resell SL creators content through the Desura game portal?
If so, will the original creators be compensated for any of those sales?
If so, are there plans to resell content originating from SL creators in packages by any other means?
If the answer to all the above is no, then ….
Does Linden Lab have any intentions, suggestions, ideas to resell the creator’s content to outside companies, individuals, organizations?
If yes, would Linden Lab be compensating the creators for such sales?
If yes, what is the proposed compensation to be?
If NO, then why does Linden Lab need the rights to resell?
Is the legal rational for equal and/or total rights to any and/or all content and/or IP brought into Second Life by users/creators based on the ideal that content is created using Linden Lab servers and selling it through Linden Lab’s/SL’s Marketplace, thereby establishing a right to be compensated by reselling other’s IP?
Please, whomever is meeting with him, don’t buy into platitudes and diversions. Keep it on topic. Don’t need to be ugly about it. Just let him know you understand what he’s said and then ask the question again- calm friendly persistence is key.
Thanks for asking for our two cents. If you really ask the tough questions and really get the true answers it should be very revealing.
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TheresaAnne has summed up what I would like to see addressed
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As a real world artist and writer I am concerned with the TOS as well. You were left holding the bag so to speak. If people cannot come up with their own creations or ideas do you think it’s fine to pillage our hard work without our knowledge ,compensation or chance to opt out. Where do you stand and will you put this in the forefront or shove the issue into a drawer, thereby stifling our creativity?
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A lot of people will have a lot of things they’re irate over, or want answers about. So do I. But there is one OVERRIDING Issue that NEEDS addressed. And that is simply COMMUNICATION. Yes, we con’t directly pay for Second Live. But We are all, nonetheless, LLs Customers. And an awful lot of use spend an awful lot of money in the process of enriching and enlivening your world. Which makes you money. That doesn’t mean LL should jump to do whatever we want. It DOES mean that we deserve LLs respect, and honest and open communication., Any way you slice it, LL, *WE* provide your paycheck, just as YOU provide us a place where we hope to live out our hopes and dreams. If you aren’t happy, it’s bad for us. If WE’RE not happy… it IS bad for you. SO please let’s work together so we’re BOTH happy. Don’t send cryptic press releases and bury plans deep in obscure technogeekspeek in even more obscure places. Talk to us. Tell us why. Tell us how you’re looking out for US as well as yourselves. Explain it. Informed customers make better customers. You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve had to explain how the current changes in inventory and asset handling better serve users. I really shouldn’t HAVE to. There should be readily available info so that instead of people angry at poor performance understand it will LEAD to better performance. Shouldn’t keeping customers be something LL does? So if you want one thing to ask about or suggest, how about that? Let’s talk together. Let’s work together for ALL our benefit. Let’s Communicate
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is probably a question for the BoD but what I would like to know the most is:
Will LL ever put SL into another company and offer shareholdings to its residents?
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Second the Motion: I’d like you to ask about creators’ rights, Jo. All sorts of content – from builds to poems – will disappear from SL to the detriment of the entire community, if creators don’t feel safe with the rights to their work.
In another thought along the same track, when non-profit/educational discounts were removed, we lost important contributions to the SL community as those sims had to move to other vw’s. Can LL please commit to doing more to encourage people to remain or return with their creative and educational content? How about some grants to individuals — people who don’t have nonprofit status nor funds, but have good skills and creative ideas? Like, hey, how about a grant to Jo Yardley recognizing her achievements in Berlin and facilitating her next project? Just for example. 😉
SL is nothing without its creators.
Thanks so much, Jo!
~ Merry
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And by creators, I mean content creators, from builders to poets, not LL.
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Will he consider bringing back first and last names?
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I’d still rather see LL stop clinging like obnoxiously to usernames. Far fewer people would care about “bringing back last names” if usernames weren’t shoved in front of everyone’s faces relegating display names to an afterthought or a throw-away titler.
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As a direct question to the new CEO:
How is it that you expect us to believe the “we support the Content Creators…” diatribe when most anyone can go to nearly any sim and find infringed Intellectual Property in some form?
Whether it be copybotters who have existed for years, and survived over a thousand visits from Removals Lindens, like the one at: http://slurl.com/secondlife/INFINITY%20BEACH/37/236/3822
Every item in this store is stolen from its legitimate creator.
Or the person selling pirate DVD Movies at: http://slurl.com/secondlife/LOSEMIND%20IN%20XLCITY/74/128/79.
And now that you claim unlimited, Irrevocable and permanent license to all this material, are you ready to be held liable as a party to copyright infringement? You all made yourselves party to it when you decided to take license to it.
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Here here!
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Is LL at all concerned about the steady dwindling of grid size, particularly private estates, over time? (http://gridsurvey.com/charts/gridsize.png) Or is tier no longer an important component of LL revenues?
If so, is any thought being given to the possible role that current grid policies may play in this dwindling (e.g.. Linden Homes, tier levels, LL barriers to community-building)?
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Now that Rod Humble has left, has anyone heard from Ebbe Altberg, or has there been any updates about his vision and plans for communicating with the residents in any way?
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Here’s mine:
One of the reasons that Second Life has such a tarnished reputation with the public at large is the proliferation of undesirable antics (forum & feed trolling, stalking, griefing and cyberbullying.
The practically limitless ability for someone to create an army of alts to use as sockpuppets on the forums and feeds, in combination with certain deficiencies in the design of the feeds, the lack of a policy on alts’ participation in the forums and feeds, and also a chronic lack of response on behalf of the Lab’s personnel to such incidents, are making Second Life a place where the “Your World. Your Imagination” slogan is becoming less and less relevant, because users’ self-expression eventually becomes violently censored by small, extremely vocal groups of trolls that act with complete impunity.
Are there any plans to crack down on these activities that drive legitimate users away (users that actually participate in Second Life’s economy and contribute to it via content uploads, land rentals and such) and harm the platform’s reputation?
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Ebbe and Jo, I am one of those folks who spends a lot of time in Second LIfe, and would spend more time and money if the land prices and tier were a little more manageable.
Are there any plans to reconsider? I use SL to create educational machinima for staff development, and my employer would buy me a sim if the prices were more realistic. I understand that land tier is a BIG part of LL’s income, but…it’s too high for me.
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I am a lone person with a small gallery that I have been building up over 2 years…I have put hundreds of UK pounds into renderosity over the years to buy their backgrounds etc ….
The fact that renderosity and other sites are now forbidding any uploads from their sites into SL is a very worrying prospect for people like me…I am not selling those backgrounds in mp as my creations they are used in my art in keeping with the terms and conditions that I agree to when I buy these items..
So who is going to refund my money? LL or renderosity? no one of course…this is out of order and I know it also affects creators of clothes and builds as they get a lot of textures from those sites and are using them under the correct terms that come when they pay….
.so we are all now stuck with textures, backgrounds and more that we cannot use in SL…Do LL care about this at all? add this money to the money we pay for uploads and membership in SL and we are out of pocket big time. SL has been a great tool for people to express their creative side and it has some of the most talented people from all around the world. LL should want to welcome and nuture these people not alienate them. The creators make SL the awesome place it is… the time that is put into the sims and builds is just amazing…please can LL not understand the harm they have done and try to come to some sort of compromise? I know renderosity did say they would reconsider uploads if LL changed the wording and I am sure the other sites would follow them with that allowing creators the freedom to again make their fabulous standard of work.
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My one question for Mr. Altberg is “How are you going to make Second Life relevant and useful again?
I’ve been actively using SL for over 5 years as a part of my RL architectural explorations, and I have seen the relevance and usefulness of the platform deteriorate, even as it becomes technologically much better.
I was recently invited to teach a class at the University of Minnesota by a faculty member who has long taught the uses of digital technology in architecture. I pitched a class about architectural collaboration, and proposed using SL as a platform. The answer I received was “I’ve heard Second Life is dead.” I was willing to go to bat for SL, even though it was many times more expensive than other virtual worlds, but in the end I could find no relevance for any virtual world to the careers of these young architects. The class has been shelved. That is such a shame, because I feel that virtual worlds could be extremely useful to architecture and many other arts, but nobody takes virtual worlds seriously anymore. It is a great idea, relegated to the large trash pile of great ideas that never caught on. Second Life is not relevant.
The new Terms of Service are driving away the remaining serious creators who wish to use Second Life as a way to expand their work, experiment with new ideas and reach new audiences. I don’t know of any artist or designer who would risk creating or uploading work that could be used by someone else with no permission, attribution or remuneration. I certainly won’t. I have used Second Life to develop and model products for RL clients, but I can’t do that anymore because I can’t guarantee that Linden Lab won’t take the work and make it public, or sell it elsewhere. The new TOS violates my confidentiality agreements in every way possible. I’m moving this part of my business to Kitely. I am moving my store to InWorldz. I fear that soon the only SL businesses left will be those selling avatar clothes to each other. Second Life is not useful.
I would ask Mr. Altberg to pay as much attention to the social and business aspects of SL as his predecessor paid to performance aspects. I would ask him roll back those changes that have made the platform less creative and less of a community, including: revising the current TOS, bringing back the educational sim discount, bringing back avatar last names. He should also concentrate not merely on attracting new users, but also on attracting the right kind of user – people with skills who are willing to use SL as a platform for RL activities. Those people need a reason to be here, and right now there are none. The creators who are here are being driven away, or are literally dying off with no one to replace them.
By focusing entirely on technology and not on the society, Linden Lab is going to end up with a technologically sophisticated platform that nobody uses.
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Reposted to http://gridstalker.wordpress.com/
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Last names were important. They did make a big difference. They were key in the immersion factor. And they are technically possible, so, my question is too …will last names come back?
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Why? We have display names now, which are superior in every way.
How about instead of bringing back the old name system, LL stops pussyfooting around the name issue and remove usernames from nametags as the default? Also, have new SL users set a display name during the sign-up process. As it is, the new user experience doesn’t mention display names even once, most new users stumble around with no clue they even exist.
THESE are the real problems with the avatar name issue. LL took a perfectly good solution and managed to implement it in the worst way possible
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…or remove the the “username must be lowercase with no spaces” restriction, so people could have a single name they were satisfied with.
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‘Do you think that it is time for Linden Lab to open a new, responsive avenue for communications between themselves and the users of their Second Life product rather than leaving it to the existing channels (both official and external) that cause confusion and frustration. If yes, what steps are being taken to implement this?’
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It is obvious the TOS was created to cover all products of LL however, they must be aware that one TOS does not fit all so to speak. It has been six months and despite promises to fix the purpose, scope and terms of this TOS have not been fulfilled. When does LL propose an new revised TOS to be issued and will they take the property of content creators (who make SL tick) into consideration when revising said TOS? LL needs to keep an open dialogue with UCCSL that will be their link to the creators it would make instances like this more productive and efficient .
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I hope Ebbe Altberg can promise he will do all he can for SL to thrive – that would mean he must solve some problems mentioned above.
Apart from that, I wonder what ideas he (so far) has for SL, and where he see SL in the future..
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Reblogged this on Gridstalker and commented:
See my thought in the comments section.
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Pingback: CEO Ebbe Altberg trifft sich mit Bloggern in SL (Post-19209) 19210 Old London Docks
I bet this is on your list already, but I would like you to ask him about the status of the Oculus Rift Support.
Thanks
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I would ask…no sorry..I really WANT ASK to LL why the New TOS of August 2013 slapped in our faces without an advice or something ?
I would like to remember to Linden Lab that secondlife is what is NOW thanks to us,
we (content’s creators) and secondlife’s users have spent time..hours..days …years..to make secondlife the best virtual place ever.
Some of the best texture’s factories and some of the best creators in real world never perm us to use their things for SL,
many others are following this way…so LL would you really want this ?
Why no answer after the first contact ?
What are we , secondlife content’s creators and users for you ?
Are we worth something for you ?
OMG how bad has change one of the best dream’s place I know :((((( .
Sorry for my poor english..it is not my native language, but I hope that who read my words can understand what I’m feeling in these moments.
Best regards…… a secondlife lover
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I have a question, it is in regards to this one statement that seems to have a completely different meaning for them than it does for us “we support the Content Creators…”
SL has lost a lot of talented and brilliant content creators in the past, due to “lack of support.” Creators who have contributed significantly to your platform and helped make it what it is today have migrated to other virtual worlds. To maintain the SL standard, how exactly, are you planning to attract and retain skilled content creators in the future?
Thanks and good luck! 🙂
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I’d just like to know how committed Linden Lab will be to Second Life. This will inform my decision as to whether and how much energy I will invest in this platform as opposed to Opensim, High Fidelity, (et.al) moving forward in the future. As a follow up how involved is Linden Lab with Philip Rosedale’s next gen HighFidelity? Thank you.
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Would it be possible to bring last names back? I don’t want to pick from a list of (sometimes ugly) names, but i’d rather be able to make up my own first and last name. Look at other worlds, like Inworldz, they are doing it just like that and it seems to work. So would be cool if we could have that in SL too.
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With SL2 on the horizon will current Sim owners be charged to move their regions over or will there be a free switch over service offered?
Or will Linden Labs charge all over again to open up a region in SL2 to replace the SL1 region?
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hi,
As my previouse message on the other page my question is simple its rather a request.
Please let us keep our avatar names and shapes and skins and hairs that makes us in the virtual world. My avatar in sl is me and to me getting rid of it is like killing a part of me plus some fame i got with this avi. Other thing that would be great is to have the Base build or lets say Core structure of a build from SL into the new world so you can rebuild your old place but in new style.
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on SL i am Sue Windstorm
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