After a bit over a month of intense building, as well as almost a year of careful planning, Neufreistadt just announced today that a second sim was formally opened to the public under the Confederation of Democratic Simulators (CDS) — Colonia Nova, a Roman-themed sim, also under the same democratic government of the CDS.

More information can be found on the official site for Neufreistadt or at the Colonia Nova Blog.

1.4 million users learned recently the lesson about what “copyright” really means. Or rather, they finally understood what it means for content creators who live from the royalties honestly earned through their hard labour on their own copyrighted work to see others profiting from those work — through piracy.

The “hot bomb” was dropped this week — a technology appropriately called “copybot” was suddenly seen for sale on several places (in-world and on the e-commerce sites for SL). It’s a pretty simple device that can basically replicate avatars (their shapes, clothes, skins…), objects, and even whole islands. With that technology you can basically copy anything and call it your own. I’m not sure how much the device costed, but the technology is not “rocket science” — it’s something any programmer can do, using something called libSecondLife, a set of libraries that are able to “talk” the “SL Protocol” defined by Linden Lab, allowing any programme written by any user to talk to the LL servers and basically get everything that’s on their servers.

Looking at the above paragraph, it sounds like a major catastrophe. This is the power of the media — turning something uninteresting and uneventful into “news”. But how dramatic can be the impact!

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Thanks to the Kuurian Expedition in Second Life, there will be an event next Monday, November 13th, at noon SL time, at the Colonia Nova Theatre. Here goes to blurb to that event:
When a company decides that their own customers (or users) should be the ones submitting designs, code, content, documentation, to improve — or even to create — their products, this is called crowdsourcing, a buzzword coined by Wired Magazine’s Jeff Howe (who will be with us on stage) to describe a new model of companies that get free work from their users/customers.

Crowdsourcing is at the core of Second Life - in Jeff’s words, ‘Simply put, without the crowd, Second Life couldn’t exist.’ As residents of Second Life, we’re used to it at all the time. What are its key features? How successful is it? What are the biggest drawbacks? Can any company deploy this model, or what changes will need to be done on a company’s structure to allow it to successfully employ crowdsourcing? Can we use SL’s example to determine the future of crowdsourcing in other companies?

In this session we’ll try to answer a few of those questions, and raise many more!

Thanks to Poinky Malaprop for organising the event and to Jeff Howe who will be on stage as well.
The location is here — the brand new Colonia Nova Theatre. Roman attire is not mandatory, but definitely recommended Follow the links on this blog entry to do some required reading on crowdsourcing if you’re willing to learn more and come with your questions to the event.

Rubaiyat Shatner, the Ars Virtua Gallery Director, is calling for proposals on this most interesting project:

Ars Virtua Gallery and New Media Center in Second Life is soliciting proposals for its artist-in-residence program. The deadline for submissions is November 21, 2006. Established and emerging artists will work within the 3d rendered environment of Second Life. Each 11-week residency will culminate in an exhibition and a community-based event. Residents will also receive a $400 stipend, training and mentorship.

Ars Virtua Artist-in-Residence (AVAIR) is an extended performance that examines what it means to reside in a place that has no physical location.

Ars Virtua presents artists with a radical alternative to real life galleries:

1. Since it does not physically exist artists are not limited by physics, material budgets, building codes or landlords. Their only constraints are social conventions and (malleable-extensible) software.
2. The gallery is accessible 24 hours a day to a potentially infinite number of people in every part of the world simultaneously.
3. Because of the ever evolving, flexible nature of Second Life the audience is a far less predictable variable than one might find in a Real Life gallery. Residents will be encouraged to explore, experiment with and challenge traditional conventions of art making and distribution, value and the art market, artist and audience, space and place.

Application Process: Artists are encouraged to log in to Second Life and create an avatar BEFORE applying. Download the application requirements here: http://arsvirtua.com/residence. Finalists will be contacted for an interview. Interviews will take place from November 28-30.

About Ars Virtua: Ars Virtua is a new media center and gallery located entirely in the synthetic world of Second Life. It is a new type of space that leverages the tension between 3D rendered game space and terrestrial reality, between simulated and simulation. Ars Virtua is a venue for new genres; it is also a platform for showcasing traditional artists creating still and moving images, for instance, who apply scripts to extend these into the synthetic game environment. Ars Virtua maintains a close relationship with the underlying animation engine that enables Second Life architecture and 3D rendered sculpture. Ars Virtua brings the art audience into new media rather than new media to the museum or gallery, and calls upon its audience to interact with the art and one another via their avatars within the space.

About Second Life: Second Life is a 3D online persistent space totally created and evolved by its users. Within this vast and rapidly expanding place, you can do, create or become just about anything you can imagine. Built-in content creation tools let you make almost anything you can imagine, in real time and in collaboration with others. An incredibly detailed digital body (’Avatar’) allows a rich and customizable identity.

URLS:

• http://arsvirtua.com/
• http://arsvirtua.com/residence/
• http://slurl.com/secondlife/dowden/42/59/52/?title=Ars%20Virtua
• http://secondlife.com

AVAIR is a 2006 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc., (aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. It was made possible with funding from the Jerome Foundation.

It is rather rare that Philip has some free time left to give us a piece of his mind. Thus, it’s very refreshing to see his latest entry on the Official Linden Blog, stating Linden Lab’s mission.