Paradise Lost in Second Life returns

As announced by Canary Beck on the 15th of July, the Basilique Performing Arts Company’s critically-acclaimed theatrical adaptation of John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost will be shown for a second season, beginning on August 2nd. Tickets are on sale at the Basilique store on the Second Life marketplace for alternating Saturday and Sunday performances.

Season 1 was highly successful, with every performance being sold out. If you missed the opportunity to watch Paradise Lost during its first season, I will say it again: You really cannot afford to miss it. It is the most ambitious and perhaps the most important artistic event in Second Life and virtual worlds for 2014. You can read my review of the show here. If you are interested in attending the performance, you are advised to book your tickets early. The tickets are non-transferrable, so, if you wish to purchase tickets for your friends and/or loved ones, you should buy them as gifts.

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See also:

• Paradise Lost returns for a Second Season: Tickets on Sale now – Canary Beck
• The Basilique store on Second Life Marketplace
• Paradise Lost in Second Life: Pushing the artistic and technical envelope (this blog)
• Paradise Lost: An outstanding masterpiece of performance art in SL – by Inara Pey
• The Drax Files: World Makers [Episode 18: Paradise Lost] on YouTube
• Paradise Lost in Second Life coverage on this blog

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Shortlink: http://wp.me/p2pUmX-BZ

Thoughts on the (non-)changes to Section 2.3 of LL’s ToS

This post is certainly going to be one of the most difficult for me. No, it’s not personal, intimate or anything. It’s just that what I see makes it very difficult for me to maintain a civil tone – and it’s not only about Linden Lab’s decisions, but also about the way things are affected by the appalling mode of discourse in SL forums and blogs on important matters. I’ll try to do the best I can, though.

It’s already well-known to pretty much everyone that follows SL-related news that the changes incorporated to LL’s ToS on August 15th, 2013, caused significant controversy among SL users, most notably certain content creators. They also spawned two controversial announcements by CGTextures and Renderosity, which I have covered rather extensively here. It’s been nearly a year since then. Throughout this time, much was said, and very little was done. On Wednesday, the Lab announced (in an almost self-congratulating way) that they amended Section 2.3, which caused the controversy. For comparison’s sake, in my previous post, I covered the announcement and also linked to a Google document where I present both the post-8/15/2013 ToS and the new ones side-by-side.

Linden Lab amends Section 2 of its ToS

Last August, Linden Lab revised its Terms of Service. The most important changes were made to Section 2, which governs content licences and intellectual property rights. While the entire section was overhauled severely (you can read about the changes in greater detail here and here; I have also covered the issue as exhaustively as I could), it was the changes to Section 2.3 that caused certain content creators to protest in various ways, and led to two controversial announcements from stock content providers CGTextures and Renderosity – for my assessment of these two announcements, please read here. Today, July 16th of 2014, the Lab announced that it has amended the offending section.

Maybe the reaction to the “bikini babes” Second Life ad was a bit out of proportion?

The much-criticised “bikini babes” ad.

In my previous posts (here and here), I discussed – belatedly, I admit – the “bikini babes” banner ad that was used by Linden Lab to promote Second Life. There has been much criticism and outcry from all kinds of sides, for all sorts of reasons.

On the academic front, Liz Falconer, professor of Technology Enhanced Learning and Director of the Education Innovation Centre at the University of the West of England (UWE), said that this sort of marketing plays to a stereotype (the young male gamer) that is not attractive to the academic world. For more details, please listen to the 15th installment of The Drax Files Radio Hour podcast, where she was interviewed along with Stylianos Mystakidis, e-learning manager at the Library and Information Centre of the University of Patras, Greece.

Jo Yardley pointed out (rightly) that this ad, by being a campaign on its own rather than part of a more inclusive campaign, gave a skewed and one-sided view of Second Life to the public at large. Others said that such ads present SL as a sex haven, which presents problems for other parts of its user base – for instance, it’s been claimed that, because of such marketing, users with child avatars are more vulnerable to being wrongly accused of being paedophiles. There are aspects of these criticisms that still need to be discussed, and I intend to draw upon a comment posted here by Trinity Yazimoto, and upon discussions I’ve had with various people since I posted my first post on Saturday. So, I’ll dwell on this matter a little bit more.

Second Life marketing, Sex and the Mainstream

In my previous post, I discussed an attitude that tends to portray Second Life as a whole in a negative manner simply because there is a strong sexual side to it – what I have called the “X-rated smear of Second Life“. In that post, I touched upon the general culture that lies behind this attitude and targets mostly women, aiming to control and censor them. Today, I’m going to turn my attention more to the proponents of the “let’s appeal to the mainstream” line of argumentation, through the academia and its attitude towards SL that is largely driven by the same factor.

The Drax Files Radio Hour, Show #15. Image courtesy of Draxtor Despres.

In the wake of the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education 2014 Conference, the 15th installment of The Drax Files Radio Hour podcast was dedicated to the usage of virtual worlds (and Second Life in particular) in education, and featured a joint interview with Liz Falconer, professor of Technology Enhanced Learning and Director of the Education Innovation Centre at the University of the West of England (UWE), and Stylianos Mystakidis, e-learning manager at the Library and Information Centre of the University of Patras, Greece. The interview provided some important insights for anyone interested in understanding the relationship of SL and virtual worlds in general with the educational sector.