metaLIFE Partnership Going Strong!

Dear Art Gallery Owners and Artists:

With the recent announcement by Linden Labs about XstreetSL freebies, I wanted to remind you about our ongoing partnership with metaLIFE and the Art Gallery Owner's group as a great alternative and addition to XstreetSL.

This partnership will help gallery owners and artists like you better connect with your customers by helping art lovers travel to your in-world galleries and making it easy for people to shop for your art from anywhere in Second Life.

The metaLIFE platform is both:

1. A grid-wide system for easy sales/affiliated sales/shopping
2. A landmark database of interesting locations across Second Life

My Art Galleries of SL kiosks are already integrated with the metaLIFE travel database, which means when someone rates an art gallery via the art gallery kiosks or tour HUDs, those votes are automatically forwarded to the metaLIFE travel database, making them accessible all across the grid. This is a big win for art in SL, making it easier for shoppers and travelers using the metaLIFE in-world tools and website to find your gallery.

You can get your art for sale directly in the metaLIFE platform yourself and get exposed to more shoppers across Second Life. Joining metaLIFE and listing your items is easy and there are no up front costs or monthly fees!

The metaLIFE platform is growing fast. This is an exciting opportunity for the art gallery community to get in and be a strong presence in the metaLIFE platform as it grows and be a great place to find lots of good art.

Follow these steps to get you started:

1. Join metaLIFE - Visit the metaLIFE website and set up an account in just two steps. Video tutorial
2. Add items to sell. Either go to the Sellers Guide, or see this Video tutorial

Your items are now for sale on the metaLIFE website and the in-world network of metaLIFE vendors and metaHUD's.

I have created a special, customized metLIFE vendor for the Art Galleries of SL group and have distributed this to everyone that currently owns one of my art gallery kiosks. If you didn't receive it, please contact me. This is a great way for all of the artists and art gallery owners involved with metaLIFE to work together under a common, recognizable quality brand name to help promote art in SL.

To sell art under the "Art Galleries of SL" Brand:

1. Go to the Art Galleries of SL metaBrand page and click the JOIN button to join the brand.
2. Inform Sasun Steinbeck and she will promote you to Seller status. Anyone applying to sell under this brand must be approved personally by Sasun before joining. Only approved art dealers will be allowed in.
3. Rez the Art Galleries of SL branded metaLIFE vendor from the package you were given where you want to sell items, or go get one at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Vertigo/98/126/29.

When someone buys something from one of your vendors, you will earn 5% commission on everything under the "Art Galleries of SL" brand sold by your vendor!

Once you are promoted to Seller status, your items marked for sale under the "Art Galleries of SL" brand will automatically show up for sale in all branded vendors across the grid. To do this:

1. Create an Item Group for your art. Simply name it, click create, and Add/Remove items. Video tutorial
2. Go to the Art Galleries of SL metaBrand page and click Add/Remove items (at the upper right). Select the group of items you want to sell in the branded vendors.

Step Up! Campaign

I received a note from Tricia Aferdita about some awareness raising going on around art theft. She's helping out with the Step Up! Campaign and helping organize the artists who want to help raise awareness of the problem. I think this is fantastic and if you have been a reader of this blog, you know my stance on art theft and have seen a few of the blatant cases by some of these thieves.

There is a Ning group where some discussions have been going on that is of interest, be sure to take a look. Here is my recent post there.

One thing that I wanted to add to that discussion there. I think one of the most powerful things we as artists and people concerned with art theft in SL can do is to simply confront these thieves and tell them that what they are doing is
WRONG. I strongly believe that the reason they just continue their illegal business is because no one complains to their face.

Now I'm not saying that people need to start making threats about filing abuse reports (or about anything else), which is pointless. The only real recourse is to notify the copyright holder and hope they file a DMCA notice with LL. Just politely inform the thief that what they are doing sucks, that content theft in SL is a serious problem that hurts SL and the art scene, and they should be ashamed of themselves for selling stolen art. Then leave and tell your friends about what is going on. Take them back to show them. Tell them to complain too.

If you are a gallery owner, read this old post about making sure that your artists are not thieves. This is really your responsibility as a gallery owner to make sure you are not helping to sell stolen goods!!

Be careful you don't sling accusations, there are cases where people can license photos or art you may recognize from a service that licenses such things, or they are that artist in RL, and they may indeed have permission to show or sell that piece. So assume goodness! Ask if they have permission politely. The only gotcha is that a real thief will claim "of course" so it's a bit of tricky business trying to sleuth out the truth. If they claim that they are indeed that artist in RL, and something just seems really suspicious, what I have done in the past is this - if you can find the RL artist's website, email them a polite note to confirm that the SL person you found is really that person and that the reason you are asking is that you are very concerned about art theft in SL and want to make sure that the RL artist is not being ripped off. They will thank you.

I'd love to hear your stories, and Tricia Aferdita is collecting them as well, so I'll be happy to forward them on to her. So let me know if you run into any slimy art thieves in SL! If you don't feel comfortable confronting a suspected thief, let me know, I'd be glad to help. To me this is what is means to Step Up!! Complain about it, don't just shake your head and leave!

Art Theft in SL, again

Someone tipped me off to another person supposedly selling tons of stolen art in SL, Dwayanu Weyland. He's got a gallery selling hundreds and hundreds of pieces of art, the majority of which is probably copyrighted, but I didn't go verify everything. I landed in the M.C. Escher section at his gallery, and that was basically all I needed to see, since I know all that is copyrighted for sure. He's not just displaying it all for educational purposes, no, he's charging money for this art and making a profit off his stolen content. Here's our conversation, for your enjoyment. I'm seeing some of the same justifications these people use to legitimize their theft, which is good since I know what to expect now :)

Sasun Steinbeck: Hi Dwayanu, do you have a moment?
Dwayanu Weyland: What's up ?
Sasun Steinbeck: well it looks like there is a big problem with your art gallery in Leelight
Sasun Steinbeck: Maybe you don't realize that you are selling copyrighted content
Sasun Steinbeck: which is illegal
Dwayanu Weyland: and your ownership of those rights is what??
Sasun Steinbeck: what I have rights to isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about what you are doing
Sasun Steinbeck: you can't sell content you don't rights to sell in SL
Sasun Steinbeck: do you have permission from the copyright holders to sell this art?
Dwayanu Weyland: and i suppose you've checked with the 50 or 60 other galleries that sell perhaps Picasso's ??
Sasun Steinbeck: if you can give me landmarks to them, I'd be glad to ask them
Sasun Steinbeck: however, what other galleries do or don't do has no relevance to what you do, nor does it excuse you from selling stolen content
Dwayanu Weyland: SL has a gadget called Search. use the All tab, type in "PIcasso", you'll get lists
Sasun Steinbeck: thank you I will do that
Sasun Steinbeck: maybe you just didn't realize that what you are doing is illegal and unethical
Dwayanu Weyland: I find the american idea that they own the internet amusing and annoying both. I would point out that the typical sale price in my gallery is about 35 pence real, which is below the legal boundary for copyright violations. I also don't see anybody trying to extradite the ill-gotten gains.
Sasun Steinbeck: it's illegal to even display copyrighted images without permission, it doesn't even matter of you make a dime or not. SL is a commercial application that benefits from the display of art in galleries such as yours, but I'd guess that it does look worse if you do make a profit, which you are, even though it isn't much
Dwayanu Weyland: i don't care a lot for your silly laws, tho obviously i'm subject to the Linden's judgements. Last I checked with them, museum reproductions were fine.
Sasun Steinbeck: oh? and where did you see that
Sasun Steinbeck: perhaps I am confused
Dwayanu Weyland: i can also point out that it is the photographed images which are copyrighted, not the paintings.
Dwayanu Weyland: if any of my images have watermarks, then i'm certainly at fault.
Sasun Steinbeck: I think you are wrong on that last point
Sasun Steinbeck: for example the M.C. Esher copyright says "No part of this website and or works by M.C. Escher may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system"
Sasun Steinbeck: so that makes it pretty clear. most copyright notices are similar
Dwayanu Weyland: i can walk in to the National Museum and photograph a painting, and if i escape security ;-) ;) ;-), i'm home free.
Sasun Steinbeck: that doesn't mean you can sell that photograph or even display it without permission, unless it falls under fair use guidelines. which this most certainly does not
Dwayanu Weyland: you obey everything you are told ! good to have sheep in the world.
Sasun Steinbeck: content theft is wrong, no matter what you may think, it is unethical and illegal
Dwayanu Weyland: I realise you represent the hundreds of poor to middling and very rarely good sl artists, who are frustrated at being incapable of selling their work, because nobody will buy it.
Sasun Steinbeck: your opinions do not change the fact that what you are doing is selling stolen art
Dwayanu Weyland: garbage
Sasun Steinbeck: no, that's a fact
Sasun Steinbeck: I can see it for myself
Dwayanu Weyland: you are appying your laws to me. try again.
Sasun Steinbeck: it's not my laws, obviously
Dwayanu Weyland: you don't like it. sorry. to quote (not phillip, but I don't remember which) one of the Lindens, "shit happens"
Sasun Steinbeck: I will be contacting some of the copyright holders of your stolen art and letting them know exactly how to file a DMCA against you
Sasun Steinbeck: if they choose not to pursue, you have nothing to worry about
Dwayanu Weyland: And if they do, I suppose i'll have to ask the Lindens for your real identity, so my lawyer can contact you

You know it's frustrating that I can't just abuse report this sea of absolutely blatant copyright violations to LL and expect them to do something about it. Is this all worth the trouble, and now legal threats? Maybe it would be better to not even talk to art thieves and just go directly to the copyright holders with anonymous info on how to file a DMCA. If they choose to do nothing about it, then that's the end of that. Lately it seems that the art thieves I'm finding know full well exactly what they are doing and just don't care, so talking to them directly to get them to "do the right thing" is completely ineffective. I am really feeling on the side of the content creators that are suing LL over this mess, since I believe LL can and MUST play a more active role in stopping at LEAST the most blatant copyright theft in SL.

Banned from 170 sims

Today's drama - I was banned from 170 sims. Yep, little 'ol me.

On 9/15 I received unsolicited advertising notecard spam sent directly to me from one angel4sky Shepherd. As it says in my profile, I abuse report spammers. So I AR'd her for spamming and told her I did to hopefully make her stop (I know, fat chance) and spare others the spam.

Her reply made me laugh, rudely, in her face:

[2009/09/16 14:40] angel4sky Shepherd: (Saved Wed Sep 16 10:10:08 2009) i ve reported you because of being a bit strange to report people because of one notecard, much fun in a club where the guests start 100 times the same gesture..^^

English is not her native tongue, but what she seems to mean is that she's justifying spamming lots of people because people in nightclubs spam gestures hundres of times. Hello?!? Earth to angel4sky, come in, we're not reading you!

It turns out she is an Estate Manager for a very large number of sims, and in retaliation against my AR she not only AR'd me back (or claimed to) but banned me from the entire estate of 170+ sims. I found out since I couldn't get to a particular sim where my sculpture is on display. Much confusion and waste of time ensued by me and the two sim owners trying to figure out how in the world I got banned and in getting me un-banned by Bell Joubert, the estate owner (nice guy). After that, I finally remembered who this angel4sky person was and put 2+2 together. I wrote the estate manager a note complaining that his trusted estate manager is abusing her power banning people from the estate for personal reasons. Hopefully he will take the appropriate steps to make sure that kind of abuse never happens again.

I'm glad this got sorted out. Having to recommend that gallery owners never rent or buy from Bell Estates due to some crazy estate manager blocking my access to the kiosks and galleries would not have been my first choice.

Some People... part II

She's at it again. She's not selling her stolen images, but simply displaying them is copyright theft nonetheless, since Second Life is a commercial application that benefits from the display of art in galleries such as hers. Alexandra Sautereau has her illegal Victor Vasarely images in her Zeroform Sautereau gallery at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Mirandirge/13/30/44 (where I am banned, amusingly enough). What's interesting is that now that I've had a chance to look at these images, inside the frames is a notecard named "zeroform + sautereau authenticity card" which I find highly suspicious, as if there is some scam going on to fool people into thinking that this is not actually a illegal Vasarely image but something that Alexandra created herself. I don't know since I can't read the notecard. But what else could it be if someone other than the creator is giving out supposed certificates of authenticity?

The last time I paid Alexandra a visit, she was selling these items as well as some Mark Ryland images, for profit. When confronted, she quickly took them all down but then refused to admit there was anything wrong with selling art she "found" on the internet, such as Mark's site where his copyright notice is clearly posted.

I've emailed Victor's representative and notified them of the illegal usage of his images, so the ball's in their court if they want to file a DMCA against Alexandra. I'd file an abuse report if it weren't a waste of time, since LL doesn't do anything even against blatant and admitted art theft as in this case unless a DMCA is filed.

RSS feed fixed

Thanks to Mar Dwi for pointing out that his blog feed was missing from the Art Gallery Consolidated Feed. I tracked it down to some overly-strict XML validation that was silently failing a ton of feeds. I removed some of the restrictions and now everthing is flowing well. Many blogs were being ignored and are now showing up. The feed has a whole new life now! Check it out, and read this post about why it's so important to have a simple blog for your gallery!

Accusations of Starax forgery

Recently some accusations of Starax sculpture forgeries surfaced surrounding the AngelGate show. I heard these third hand so, take it with a grain of salt. I don't know who, but either way it was a legit concern. So I volunteered to do some investigation on whether it's technically possible to do a perfect clone of an object in SL. The copybot and variants circulating today to NOT allow you to specify an arbitrary creator name/ID and creation date. They ALWAYS show the bot's name and the actual date when the copy was made.

Using the built-in Inspect command on the SL viewer pie menu, one can easily scan a list of every single prim any object is made of, with the prim creation date and name of the prim creator right there. So spotting typical copybot forgeries of anything is rediculously simple, since 99% of the prims will NOT be who you expect it to be and the creation dates will all be wrong (and most likely all very very close to the same time since copybot creates all the prims in the copy linkset very quickly). What a forger would typically do is link in a single legit Starax prim (from one of Starax's full-perm objects that are easy to obtain) as the ROOT of the linkset, and that gives the entire object what appears to be a legit creator name and creation date. But Inspect will always show the real story!

Now in the process of learning C# and Asp.Net lately, which has kept me very busy, I spent a lot of time learning the OpenMetaverse libraries (formerly "libsecondlife" or "libsl") so that I could built my own bot, for the fun of it. So I'm fairly familiar with the basics of building a working bot and what is possible and what is not. So I dug into the OpenMetaverse sources and looked for a way to specify a prim creator ID and date. At first glance it appears that there is away to do that when you create a prim, but it turns out all those properties are ignored when you actually rez a prim using the library calls in a bot. Only the critical prim geometry is used to creat the prim, then the client makes a few more function calls to set other properties.

Currently there is no built-in way in the existing libraries to set the creator ID and creation date on a newly rezzed prim like you can other prim properties. In addition I checked the actual network packet definitions and there IS NO network packet defined for setting those properties.

The possibility always exists that there is a very well hidden exploit that lets you set these properties, but there IS NO way to do that with the OpenMetaverse libs today and not even a network packet type defined for that that someone could use to add additional functionality to the libs to allow that. So my conclusion is that this a VERY VERY tiny possibility that it's at all possible and unless someone can prove that there is such an exploit (and report it asap, omg) then the validity of any theoretical copybot variant that can set arbitrary creator IDs and dates on a prim is just not true.

Therefore, if all the prims in a Starax sculpture were made by him, then it's legit and anyone claiming otherwise needs to show some proof that the above exploit is real and then take immediate action to report it so LL can clost that hole in a hurry.

One last note, I have seen Starax scuptures where some of the prims were not made by him. In particular, his Achilles scupture contains prims created by Jeffrey Gomez. It appears he simply used some of Jeffrey's prims in this particular piece, and the bulk of the prims were created by Starax. This was from a reputable source (my Starax wand) so it's definitely legit.

Consolidated Gallery RSS feed

Did you know about this RSS feed? If you go to http://sasun.info and click your browser's RSS button, you can subscribe to something very cool. I have created a single, consolidated RSS feed for all of the galleries on my list that have an appropriate RSS feed available. This feed is available at http://sasun.info/RssHandler.ashx?source=galleries.xml.

What this means is that if you have a blog or an RSS feed about your gallery in SL, and if it has been approved by me as "appropriate" for the consolidated RSS feed, it will be included automatically. Now, everyone interested in art in SL can subscribe to this ONE feed to see all the news about all the participating art galleries in SL. Here is what you need to do:

First, if you don't have one, create a blog for your gallery to talk about what's new, upcoming shows, your thoughts about art, whatever you want to blog about that is closely related to art in SL or your specific gallery. I recommend you go check out blogger.com. It's easy! You REALLY should do this - it's free advertising and this consolidated feed will help get lots more eyeballs on your blog!

Then, add your blog's URL to the "webpage" setting in your Galleries of SL Kiosk .User Settings notecard. That's it! If your blog service has an RSS feed provided for you automatically (which you can see by clicking the "view feeds on this page" icon on your favorite web browser), it will automatically be discovered and added to the consolidated feed. For you advanced web-savvy folks, if you don't have an autodiscoverable RSS feed for the URL you specified in your kiosk "webpage" setting, then specify the actual RSS feed in your "RSS" setting in your .User Settings notecard. This is not necessary if your feed is already available on your home page.

Q: What is an "appropriate" feed?
A: It must be about your gallery or art in SL. It cannot be a flicker stream, ning group, xstreetsl.com page, a RL company/gallery, or anything unrelated to art or galleries in SL. If this is the case, I will flag it as inappropriate and it will not be picked up for the consolidated RSS feed. Note that your website will always be available on the list at http://sl-artgalleries.blogspot.com, regardless of whether it's flagged as OK for the consolidated RSS feed.

Q: What the heck is an RSS feed and how does someone read one?
A: See http://www.whatisrss.com. I recommend Google reader at http://www.google.com/reader. It's easy to use, available anywhere you can get to the web, and works great on mobile devices too.

Q: Why should I care?
A: This is an excellent way to keep people interested in your gallery and to get your blog read more widely. By having ONE place for people to go to keep up to date on what is going on with all the galleries in SL, you will increase your readership and your visitor count, which hopefully may even transfer to sales, if that's something that's important to you :) Once you have a blog set up, keep it updated! Post about changes, events at your gallery, interesting things you've seen related to art in SL, etc. This is a great way to advertise and spread the word to a wider audience and be noticed! Other galleries are, so if you're not, you're missing out on some cheap, easy promotion. It's just plain fun, too!

Q: How do I know if my blog/feed is marked as included in the consolidated RSS feed?
A: Go to http://sasun.info/gallery_public.aspx and search for your gallery. Look in the "RSSok" field.

Q: Why does Google reader sometimes have "untitled" for posts on the consolidated feed?
A: This is a Google bug. It has problems reading perfectly fine XML sometimes. I hope they fix it soon.

Q: Hey there's nothing wrong with my blog/feed! Why is it marked 'N'? It should be included!
A: Let me know. I'll be glad to re-evaluate and let you know what I decide.

Q: How did you do this?!?
A: Lots of hard work. I wrote a custom application that goes out and finds your RSS feeds on your webpages, which I get from my gallery database. If you've specified an RSS feed in your kiosk, it uses that instead (after it checks it for being an actual RSS feed - if not, it tries to discover the actual RSS feed). It then creates an OPML file with all the feeds that actually work that I upload to my website. The website takes that opml file and sucks in all the feed posts from all the feeds in it and caches them. It then builds a big honkin' huge single XML feed and caches THAT too, so that when you ask for it, it delivers it fast. It's all very complicated, trust me :)
I hope this latest project of mine increases awareness of all of your wonderful galleries and what is going on inside them to a wider audience. Enjoy!

Sasun's 4th Rezday Beach Bash!

I can't believe it! 4 years already! Great excuse to party! Bring your fab swimwear, rubber duckies, inner tubes and water toys and come party with us on beautiful Vertigo! We have a very cool spot all set up for the party, with the fantastic DJ Speelo Snook spinning some hot latin dance beats to shake your bod to, some fun water activities like bumper boats, and comfy spots to hang out and watch the festivites and dancing. Yay! Just watch out for the sharks, they bite!
Wed, September 16th at 8:00pm PDT/SLT - lasting all night! So come late if you can't come at 8!

I'd also like to recognize how awesome the last four years have been for the art scene in SL. The growth has been phenomenal and it's been a joy to be part of. If you are an artist or gallery owner, swing by and have some fun with us and say hi!

See you there!

Your hosts, Sasun Steinbeck & Galea Yates
9/16/2008 8:00pm

secondlife://vertigo/110/198/35

sabra Hemingway @ Amicitia Gallery

The Amicitia Gallery is proud to present sabra Hemingway's brand new "Crossroads 2009" series. Join us at our "Dare Affair" event on Sunday the 13th and noon PDT. We dare you to wear something wild! We have the fantastic Speelo Snook DJ'ing some awesome modern latin dance beats on the upper balcony to dance to after you work your way through the gallery, enjoying sabra's fantastic colors and emotional new work, laid out as a story sequence. See you there!! secondlife://102/106/26