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eBay Virtual World Delisting Skips Second Life
As a follow-up to last week's eBay delisting story, CNET has the word that Second Life content is exempt from this decision. Mr. Durzy, speaking with CNET, specifically cited Second Life content as exempt because of the uncertain role of the virtual world. As the company (and the rest of us) are uncertain whether to label Second Life as a game in the first place, player-created content is still sellable via eBay auction. A perfectly fine explanation, but GigaGamez takes things a step further, pointing out that eBay founder Pierre Omidyar became a major investor in Linden Labs in 2004. It's uncertain if this constitutes a conflict of interest, because confusion about what exactly Second Life is persists pretty much everywhere. Just the same, it's interesting to note. Their article on the subject also has a few words of commentary from Edward Castronova, the well-known commentator on all things RMT.
Unlike the average MMO, where all assets virtual and physical belong to the company and not the end user, stuff that players create within Second Life is their own intellectual property. It's not a matter of SL being a game or not at all, but rather a function of licence agreements and design philosophy.
"Snow Crash" is a bible around Linden Labs. They've explicitly said things like "we're trying to create the Metaverse" in the past.
egypt urnash minimal art.