Op/Ed: Property Rights, Advertising, and Freedom in Second Life

by Alphaville Herald on 14/07/09 at 4:37 pm

by IntLibber Brautigan

Advertising is a necessary part of Second Life, just like it is a necessary part of the internet. Advertising monetizes (i.e. makes profitable) an investment in a website or sim parcel that otherwise could not be. Why else does Linden Lab charge us to list classified ads in search? Why else do we pay LL to list our parcels in search? Advertising is worth money and is a necessary part of any economy.

Some people will say with a straight face, “But I don’t like advertising” as if saying so makes it a natural law. Most people don’t like advertising, because most advertising is badly done, banal, or ugly, or they just don’t like feeling like they should be buying something because they know they are very suggestible people who are easy to lead around by the nose, even for non-profitable ‘community’ causes.

I don’t like advertising for the most part from an aesthetic view, but some advertising, both print, online and television, can be entertaining, thought provoking, or even positively motivating. The Discovery Channel’s “Boom-di-yada” tv ad of last year I found to be very string pulling, as one example.

However, when you get down to it, advertising makes the world go round, because it sells all the products and services that so many millions of people work so hard to produce, pays their rents/mortgages, puts food on their tables, raises their kids and sees to their retirements. I wont even call it a necessary evil, it is a necessary annoyance and sometimes a pleasing necessity at that.

Whether we enjoy advertising often is impacted by our preexisting prejudices about the companies being advertised.


SL Search is not enough

I had bought into LL’s whole mantra that all you need is Search, that as a land baron, to keep my sims occupied, all I need to do is list my parcels for sale in the land sales part of search. My staff felt the same way and hated when I proposed spending money on other advertising channels.

This past 12 months I saw my occupancy rates dwindle as my competitors got a lot more savvy about advertising. Ironically and hypocritically, many of these competitors are supporters of The Arbor Project.  However we acknowledged that we needed to advertise more, so in addition to a expensive weekly ad for our land sales office to gain us strong search placement (along with promoting profile picks and other means of boosting search rankings) we advertised in Lipstick Publishings magazines, SL-Newspaper, and now the SL Herald. Our occupancy rates have been recovering, and in the process blatantly disproving the claims of LL that all you need is search. If I could do so, I’d advertise in-world on adboard networks, but with the ban on large networks today, its really not economical.


Why Do You Care?

Some people have asked why I care so much about the goings on on the mainland. After all, I don’t own much mainland myself, my business is in private sims. Why I care goes back to who I was before SL. As many people know, there was a court case here in the US called City of New London vs Kelo, in which the Supreme Court ruled that a city can seize someone’s private property under eminent domain and give the property to a private developer if the developer promised to expand the tax base with his development. “Expanding the tax base” was seen by the radical left wing of the court as a legitimate ‘public purpose’ under eminent domain law. Sounds familliar eh?

As a founding member of the Free State Project, I, like many fellow Free Staters, was outraged at this blatantly tyrannical decision, totally legislating from the bench. I led a group of like minded people to propose eminent domaining the vacation estates of Justices Souter and Breyer here in NH in order to “expand the tax base”. Souter’s home was to become the “Lost Liberty Hotel” and Breyer’s expansive country estate was to become “Constitution Park” with a monument to the late great and no longer recognizable US Constitution.

Amusing eh? Yes, the Secret Service thought so too.

However, it served its purpose. Souter’s Republican buddies and Breyer’s Democrat buddies in the NH legislature both adopted my proposed NH constitutional amendment to restrict eminent domain in NH, they did so cravenly only to protect their friends, not the rest of the people. I knew this, and that was the point of that political drama: to get them to do the right thing in spite of themselves. Our actions served as a model, and we helped get eminent domain restricted by law or constitutional amendment in over 40 states here in the US. I am very proud of our work in this movement.


Second Life Property Rights

Every one of my residents, and many others across SL, knows that I will always do my utmost to defend the property rights of all residents of SL. They know that as a strong, principled, and experienced Libertarian, I know what is and is not considered valid property rights under common law.

It is not a property right to be able to get government thugs to take someone’s land and give it to you for your own benefit, whether that government is the US government or the game gods of SL. Anybody who claims it is, is a fascist/socialist tyrant wannabe. If they tried that on you in the real world, in my opinion you are within your rights to use deadly force against them, especially if the state thugs fail to fulfill their sworn duty to the constitution to protect your property rights.

Doesn’t matter if they are elected to congress or employed by Linden Lab, or running land bots, thieves are thieves. There is rarely any such thing as “land extortion”, nobody can force you to spend Lindens you don’t want to spend, and any fool can inspect a parcel for a real donut hole with two clicks of their SL viewer.

Beyond this, it simply disgusts me to see the formerly free market economy of SL be eroded and destroyed by opportunists who abuse eminent domain the same way as New London’s developers and by Linden employees who have an anti-market agenda to destroy Cory Linden’s vision of a truly free market.

I and thousands of other business people have invested hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars into SL only to see crooks, looters and statist thugs ruin everything, frequently with LL acquescence. Those who protest this destruction come under persecution by corrupt Lindens, the governance team hasn’t had any office hours in a year, and refuses to say when they will start them again. Star chamber tactics and a basic ignorance of the rule of law.

Many will say, “but SL is not a democracy” as if that makes it all ok. Actually, it doesn’t. US law clearly establishes that company towns must respect the constitutional rights of residents and visitors. Even non-democracies in the world have relatively public and open systems of justice. It is really only the most totalitarian depraved tyrannies of history that keep their entire system of governance a total secret from the governed.  

For a company that declares itself “transparent”, “open” and following a “Tao of Linden”, what strange company to keep.

It is time to Free ROBO Marx, and Free SL. If advertising won’t come back, then land bot runners must go. Bring back our land values, stop trampling our rights. Give us rule of law and due process. End the reign of tyranny in SL.

28 Responses to “Op/Ed: Property Rights, Advertising, and Freedom in Second Life”

  1. Karl Reisman

    Jul 14th, 2009

    Bra-vo Thius is exactly the sort of principled stand about land, prioperty and IP rights I applaud. Goo dluck with your effortwith this.

    –Karl

  2. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 14th, 2009

    Intblub is blubbering nonsense again. Why is the Herald publishing all this Randian Extropian blather?

    I’m all for property rights, and I’d love it if the legal and constitutional rulings on “company towns” applied to Linden Lab. But it’s more likely a judge would rule that they are merely a software engineering company with a free membership or private subscription system, whose members sign a TOS, an “unconscionable” or not, it’s a private club, which has the right to create its own rules under the law.

    So, for example, the members of the Skull and Bones Club or the Harvard Club or the Boy Scouts aren’t required to provide some kind of constitutally-guaranteed rights. For example, the court has ruled that the Boy Scouts don’t *have* to have openly gay members. Sad, but there it is — freedom of expression doesn’t trump freedom of association. Go try it out in court if you think you can get this “country” to pass — it could change anything. It’s unlikely to come to trial.

    In his zealous hysteria to insist on eminent domain for himself and his crazy notions, Intblub overlooks the obvious: that in fact for five long years, no one was seizing these ad farmers’ land, whereas they stole the value and impeded the use of everyone around them. Whether it was the “Impeach Bush” guy who devastated sims and forced people to flee or “buy back the view,” whether it was Chrischun Fassbinder with his odious “Mr. Lee’s Hong Kong” ads and $9935 extortionist tag for 16 m2, whether it was the cutter and swooper and extortionist ROBO, these people sucked out value, and didn’t add it, and didn’t enable others to have the right of Community Standard 2, which is “enjoyment of Second Life” free of spam. Ad farms are spam; most of the time they didn’t even have real ads on them but were just extortion plots.

    They were given ample fair warning of a new policy to curb this criminality that ruined other people’s land purchases, they had plenty of time to role up their micro-empires and get into other businesses, including the land business, and if they failed to take advantage of this many, many months of lead time into this and very soft Linden enforcement, it’s their funeral. They should not be “freed”.

    Advertising is needed in SL, but it doesn’t need to be achieved at the expense of other people’s value. There are plenty of opportunities to advertise in clubs and malls and squares on all kinds of sims and even, begrudgingly, the Lindens have a bit of ad space on infohubs (they used to have more).

    The Lindens never said that all you need is search. That’s one of those bogus notions Intblubber has pulled out of his ass completely. They don’t say anything. They don’t care. They are absolutely indifferent to your business or anyone’s but their own and a few select pals. They are technocommunists. There motto is the *full* Steward Brand — “Information wants to be free” — when it’s YOUR information. And…”Information wants to be expensive” — when it’s THEIRS, and a consulting fee, or a licensing fee is then applied. That’s how the technocommies roll.

    I boggle at anyone who could be in the land business for a year and not figure out that they couldn’t get by with only search. You need a hundred ways of getting the word out, picks, word of mouth, magazines, web sites, inworld ads, classifieds, etc. The competition is fierce, and the buyers scarce.

    The Lindens disdain for commerce not related to their own mission, and their hatred of liberal capitalism that undermines their power, along with their FIC tekkies who hate capitalism, conspire to create a very, very narrow funnel of advertising in SL overall. Instead of selling space on the website, splash screen, welcome areas or in special events, as many media or entertainment operations would, they act like they are hippies and block it everywhere — which is why it then comes out anyway, but in unregulated, tacky, and even criminal ways — extortionist ad farms, spam, etc. Now, they’ve started to give the splash screen only to their very special friends — and clearly Intlib isn’t one of them, despite them giving him a pass at other junctures on other issues.

    All Intlibber is saying is, “I wish I could be like the Lindens and be one of their friends” — and get value and take it away from others.

    I fail to see why we need to “free” the ad cutter ROBO Marx. Pretending that he changed his ways and suddenly merely had a legit ad for a “tier rental” agency seems hugely bogus and completely unvalidated. He should have been put out of business long ago. His name describes him: technocommunism which uses rapacious slash-and-burn commercial operations with utter disregard for others’ enterprises only to serve himself and a utopian technocratic view of the world.

    Cory Linden’s vision of a free market? Huh? Cory’s interest is in Free — period. Not markets. Sandboxes.

  3. Karl Reisman

    Jul 14th, 2009

    That’s funny Prok, I don’t get that read off this at all.

    Karl

  4. anon

    Jul 14th, 2009

    what i love about prok is she can be right about anything given a stupid enough opposing viewpoint seeing as she’s always so contrarian

  5. Jumpman Lane

    Jul 14th, 2009

    prokofy is a granny woman who does not believe that people can change. i for one believe Robo Marx should freed. ad farming WAS the purestf orm of laizzez faire capitalism their evr was. “buying the view” was hokum. that unsightly ads MARRED a view increased the value of the 16m plot. and it’s objectivist not randian. tard. remeber block @prokofy caws prok likes twitter. hehehehe.

  6. Vryl Valkyrie

    Jul 15th, 2009

    My first post to the Herald.. I swore I would never post here but then there is Prok with all of ITS insanity. Prok constantly contradicts itself from the blog to comments like these in this article.

    Prok says “I’m all for property rights, and I’d love it if the legal and constitutional rulings on “company towns” applied to Linden Lab. But it’s more likely a judge would rule that they are merely a software engineering company with a free membership or private subscription system, whose members sign a TOS, an “unconscionable” or not, it’s a private club, which has the right to create its own rules under the law.”

    Anyone who knows of Prok (I realize that only a small fraction of SL even heard of a Prok.. someting that makes one think of a recto exam) that Prok constantly refers to SL as this real life community and Linden Lab as its Communistic Big Brother Villan in evil black clothes with its special hand picked KGB FIC guerrillas. According to Prok’s blog anytime Prok wishes to libel its victims on a Dolcett Prok style skew, Prok uses the term “public figure”. Prok is obviously not only unstable but non trustworthy due to the constant emotional rants often based on unreliable 007 sources who stab her and anyone else in the back in a Prok second. In otherwords, it’s either a software program or not… not only when Prok finds it convenient.

    Of course it is more than a software program. It is a platform which houses a melting pot community and all of its sub cultures as well. Prok knows this. However, Prok selectively chooses when to enforce the same theory that Intlibber basically says in his well articulated think piece.

    To make it short and sweet.. Let ROBO Marx back in. ROBO was a product of his environment. Those were different times, policies, etc. Give him a chance to acclimate.

    I agree that controlled gridwide advertising is a good thing. It’s certainly not the same thing as adfarms, something I did personally abhor. I knew advertisers who were not extortionists. They were decent merchants who provided a valuable service. Even Prok believes in ads, or why else does Prok have so much google adsense on the blog? No, it does not need to be only Linden controlled ads such as the infohubs. That’s ridiculous. SL is supposed to be about free enterprise unless I am mistaken or is this the virtual world owned by Prok?

  7. Ari Blackthorne

    Jul 15th, 2009

    Really a *very* good article.

    Except for the very last paragraph.
    No – not being sarcastic or cynicle – I’m serious.

  8. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 15th, 2009

    Vryl is an unstable loon, and also not the brightest bulb in the pack, but then, the Herald has established that already I suppose.

    When you are on the Internet, speaking and actly publicly for the sake of reaching crowds of people, in public places which admit other people to them, regardless of whether you use your own name, or are using this or that software to speak, you are definitely a public figure. It’s well established that Vryl is a *public figure*. She owns a huge texture business that the Lindens even grace in the public Library in every single folder of every avatar. She led a monster group to protest, for a time, a public policy of the Lindens. Her shrinking-violet act, tearfully whimpering that she is not a public figure, is just so much emotional blackmail. We all get that.

    It doesn’t matter whether you perceive your setting as “a company town” or “the metaverse” or “a chat room” or “a country”. Public speech is public speech; taking action in public and leading groups of thousands of people in public campaigns on public issues is being a public figure,whether you do it as an elf in the forest in a game, as vain publicity seeker ready to turn strike-breaker in a world, or as merely a public nuisance in a public chatroom. Public is public. Don’t want to be assessed for your behaviours? Don’t become a public leader leading groups of thousands of people that you then destroy as you make common cause with “the company town”. Don’t have giant stores that the Lindens give windfall advertising opportunities too. Shrink your violent back on to a closed island.

    I personally believe Second Life *is* more than merely some software company with a product, with the world a mere software artifact. I’m not reductionist and platformist in that fashion. I think it is an online community with immersive qualities and realistic qualities in a 3-d streaming world with a sense of place definitely makes it like a country.

    However, I have a firm grip on reality in terms of RL law and how it might look at such a “country”, where I idealistically might wish it to be so or not. AND I also have a really scathing view of kooks like Extropians and technocommunists who have some crazy notion of making an extra-sovereign autonomous zone that somehow trumps real-life national boundaries, and even international law, such as it is, and establishes some utopia where some people gain control over others under guise of establishing hedonistic “freedoms”. No thanks. I’m a healthy believer in the rule of law as established by democratic countries in real life which help preserve liberal societies for everyone.

    Vryl is too stupid to understand these subtleties. And her desire to let ROBO Marx, who is a pernicious fucktard who destroyed other people’s property values for years, into this community of SL to go on doing this, lets us know she is merely a contrarian here, being an ass. If ROBO were next to her store, we’d hear a different song.

    Vryl also in vain tries to trump up some contradiction of “hyprokisy” about ads, when I make it clear in my post above, as I do everywhere, that I am four-square for advertising, just not for spamming and destructive spam and extortion, which is criminal.

    Nowhere in any post have I ever said that Lindens should control all advertising, i.e. that all advertising should pass through their hands. Again, Vryl is just not very bright or able to comprehend larger issues.

    BTW, if the Herald were a real newspaper, it would investigate how it is that Vryl, who doesn’t have an adult business, was among the first on the Zindra continent to put up a store, for her boyfriend, who, it turns out, has an adult anims store. Who knew?!

  9. We

    Jul 16th, 2009

    I would agree with Prokofy’s sentiment about this “company towns” point validating US law in Second Life “jurisdiction” being false. We don’t “Live” in Second Life, we might have things that look like houses, but are really just lines of data. No one needs a house in SL, or land, or anything. Second Life is a private business, selling a private service, which can deny that service to anyone they want with or without cause.

  10. Script Shark

    Jul 16th, 2009

    Hahahaha Who know?! I knew as i own for years an
    animation business but you never read profiles don’t you lol

    I did my homework thats why I got land in Zindra
    but you know I dont have to epxlain to
    whatever you are…. LOL

    I got the land not Vryl your really a total
    obsessed idiot

    It was ME who get the land but you were in such
    a rush on your spy mission you did not even check
    so you can spread more filth from your fat fingers

    When i mention you, people fall of their chair and we all know why

    So obsessed by Vryl and playing a guy in SL so whats else
    i need to say we all know whats going on…

    The shop name is called PRIMONOMICS

    http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sondraman/147/207/697

    Second Life Sex animations for couples and Lesbians and Gay
    but off course you knew that already so dont act if you stupid

    We know what you are ,pity you don’t realize it yourself, yet LOL

  11. Vryl Valkyrie

    Jul 16th, 2009

    Once again, another obsessive emotional rant from the narcistic mind of Second Life’s notorious and infamous Prokofy Neva! Prokofy hypocritically condems one person right after another yet she herself has lost the trust of the public years before many of her victims arrived onto the SL scene. I would compare her to something like Hannibal Lector playing the role of Mother Theresa. It simply does not jive.

    If she cared as much for the public as much as she claims, then she would leave Second Life. Prokofy and her libelous blog does more harm to Second Life than everything else combined, including Congressman Mark Kirk. One would have think if Prokofy is not HIS alt. She has taken every opportunity possible to libel its members one by one or in batches FIC. She derives sadistic pleasure in systematically ripping Linden Labs to shreds, fiber by fiber until all is left is Prokofy microchip dust bunnies, a new form of Solvent Green for the needy digital minions of Prokofy Neva.

    She whines about the possibility of ROBO being allowed back in, yet she was unbanned several times herself from forums, etc.

    Prokofy mirrors her own self reflection onto me and others.. hence her need to control, manipulate and judge that which she cannot inevitably own. She is a dictator in waiting. Sadly like most dictators, it is her “friends” with all of the misinformation that they feed her, who will finish her in the SL end. Wonders if Mark Antony will holographically project his neurogenic data from the realms of the dead into SL in order to address a speech for Prokofy as he did Ceasar in what some used to call REAL LIFE? .. even a wannabe one like Prokofy Neva! *laughs*

    All it takes is a few moments of sifting through Prokofy’s blog to reach the conclusion that she is not only the matriarch of hypocrites with all of the pots calling the kettles black, but she is ironically contradicting herself from blog to blog… whenever it is convenient.

    Hypocrtically she once wrote a blog dedicated to Pixeleen Mistrial, “What Pixeleen Erases” .. I found that blog to be especially hilarious simply because Prokofy is allowed to post at the Herald yet Pixeleen is not allowed to post to Prokofy’s blog.

    She amazes me as she continues to harass and stalk me inworld like the dreaded paparazzi, showing up at my partner’s land in Zindra, uninvited, taking screenshots. I seriously wonder how she found out where I was in Zindra when Ann Otoole was the only one who knew. *shrugs*

    This is a woman who hates her own cunt. She hates it so much she actually referred to me on her blog as a cunt, as if it were a dity word due to her jealousy of my feminity and her own self hate. Since I am a woman who celebrates the beauty and lovliness of my tasty yumyum, I reclaimed the word cunt in the most dignified manner possible. Perhaps Prokofy needs to learn to use her fingers more in the way of self exploration between her thighs instead of constantly typing vitriolic babbles randomly hiccuping from the mind of a menopausal frigid woman.

    Hopefully she gets help for her paranoid schizophrenia and stops listening to the voices inside her head! Everything is not a conspiracy. My suggestion to Prokofy, is to try taking herbs or drink a bit of green tea, it may help with the delusions. Better yet, have sex! On Zindra! *smiles* with Primonomics Animations! LOL!

    Here is a little song that I lovingly deditate to Prokofy Neva and her tabloid blog, far less of a journalist piece than the Herald.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5KAJw4y8wE&feature=channel

    For the record, Script and I have been together many years in REAL life as they say.. in addtion to SL. No, he is NOT my alt. No, I am NOT a mangina. I do have a vagina though! *laughs* Does she?

    I guess I could always sport a dildo for her.. will it make her a nicer person? I think not. Ciao!

  12. Vryl Valkyrie

    Jul 16th, 2009

    Prokofy, let’s go to court and see what a judge says about public figure, libel and defamation with malice. Cya! :-)

  13. IntLibber Brautigan

    Jul 16th, 2009

    Prok,
    So desperate to sow the hate and venom across the grid. Contrary to the claims of you and your friend Ann, Vryle doesn’t have an adult business, and didn’t put up a store. Her boyfriend has had one for a long, long time, but doesn’t speak english too well, so she helped him work things out with the Lindens as any translator would do. They actually tried to stuff him in a landlocked parcel, when his existing building is bordering on linden land.

    I’ll note that Ann was also one of the first to get land in Zindra, yet how come you aren’t harshing on her for her devious LL dealings? Do try to be even handed, sweetums.

  14. IntLibber Brautigan

    Jul 16th, 2009

    We,
    You also may not live at your office, but your constitutional rights don’t stop at the time clock or the office door. We arent LL’s employees, so we arent restricted like employees can be. I notice We doesn’t seem to publish a lawyers license number or bar membership… My attorneys agree with me, so I think I’ll stick with the real lawyers opinions on this.

  15. Vryl Valkyrie

    Jul 16th, 2009

    In defense of Ann Otoole, she says that she did not confide in Prokofy. I do believe her. I think that it is just a coincidence that Prokofy happened to TP in to the exact spot where Ann logged out.

    Perhaps there is a real FIC except in this one, Prokofy is the leader. It would explain how she is able to know things from the inside.. such as where to TP to Script’s land in Zindra, or know if an account is active or not or personal info such as gender, etc as she implied to know about Rheta… no idea, just saying… who knows. :-)

  16. Ann Otoole

    Jul 16th, 2009

    People thinking I am associated with Prok is impressive rofl. Where exactly did that come from anyway? I don’t give a flying flick if Vryl is her partner or her partner is real. Vryl/Script is none of my business. You can do the homework and see Script’s sex ball business is there, has been there all along, and warrants a spot in Zindra. So fucking what? So Script managed to get a prime spot? LL paused and manufactured more prime spots. Suddenly everyone that wants it gets coastline for their fishing porn shacks even though they did not have coastline for their mainland sex parlor blocked in on all sides. Lots of people are now getting coastline. There is probably so much coastline in Zindra they can’t give it all away. If you are looking for oddities around Zindra then why was Nimrod Yaffle’s name on a sky sign over 2 unassigned parcels in Zindra? I have a screenshot of that so I can say it was there. On the map tiles that is. Not in world. there were no sky sign prims over those parcels. I don’t know if it was a glitch in the new mapping system or whatever but the words were clearly there long enough to take a screen shot rofl. Think what you want. I really don’t care. It just doesn’t matter who gets what spot in Zindra. FFS they are GIVING THE LAND AWAY. Complaining? hoo kay. Oh and BTW if you do not have or are not connected to a commercialized adult content business then guess what? YOUR OPINION DOES NOT COUNT. It is none of your business. Even if you do have a qualifying adult business then all that matters is that time stamp and ticket number, your description of your adult content is accurate, and whether or not you are performing due diligence on keeping your Zindra land choice slurls up to date. That is your business.

    As for ads in SL the stupid fast rotating sign farms are back already. All over the place. I guess LL is simply unable to keep up with the problem land extortion. The only difference now is that it is not 16m2 parcels. It is larger parcels. but the rules appear to forbid such things as a dozen fast rotating for sale sign cubes way up in the air causing viewer lag and general ugliness. So what is the solution? Can anyone say jack shit about anything when they don’t have the facts? No because it is Libel. All anyone can do is AR ad farms that “appear to violate the rules”. And that is the end of it.

    Nothing will change. If you don’t like how LL runs LL’s business and LL’s Second Life then you know where the door is. No amount of spiteful blogging, pjira fighting, forum arguing, defaming, alting, spreading false rumors, slandering, libeling, or drama festing is going to change a damn thing. One would think some incredibly smart people might have figured that out by now.

  17. IntLibber Brautigan

    Jul 17th, 2009

    Pix loves it when the comments section turns into a cat fight. The rubber necking factor goes up by a factor of ten, as do the adsense and amazon revenues.

    If someone can get into a spat about mesothelioma the link values go through the roof….

  18. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 18th, 2009

    Vryl, I’m happy to submit documentation to the state bar of New York urging a review of your lawyers’ law licenses if they attempt to harass me by a frivolous and ungrounded “libel” suit. Go away.

    As anyone knows from reading my blog, I — like many a visitor to Zindra — raised their eyebrows quite high seeing the odious and manipulative Ms. Valkyrie appear on Zindra among the very first people to get land — and there she was, flying around and building an ugly box store. How could it be that textures were considered “an adult business” for this little twat?, we wondered. Or is being a twat and selling textures *enough* of an adult business lol? These were questions not only I but other bloggers and members of the general public rightly asked. Whereupon we were banned from this parcel and threatened lol. We were then told that this was a boyfriend who had an adult business, and Vryl was merely in the group and merely building *cough*. OK, whatever. We get to ask the question; we are not stalkers; the fact that Vryl didn’t REALLY view this as a stalk and that her boyfriend’s efforts to ask threatening questions inworld were just PR gambits are amply proved AGAIN by SL server records showing the following:

    24 1754210957
    Date: 07/09/2009 18:59:41
    Give Inventory
    Source: Vryl Valkyrie
    L$0 —
    25 1754210813
    Date: 07/09/2009 18:59:36
    Give Inventory
    Source: Vryl Valkyrie
    L$0

    where Vryl has offered a landmark and a photo of her store to me AFTER she had her bf threaten me and AFTER she claimed she was being ‘stalked’.

    Um, do you send people pictures and landmarks if you are afraid of being stalked? Or was the confused and emotional and ridiculous Vryl here in fact now trying to add to her story that “my boyfriend has an adult store here so I’m legit”? Guess she got over her fear of being “stalked” quick then lol.

    Sorry, but if you are in a land group and building for a business on Zindra, *you are in the adult business, too*. So capering and simpering and pretending this is somehow “libel” to a) ask a question about it and b) ask how textures relate to it is silly, as the truth defense suffices.

    And questioning why you were likely the recipient of yet another favour from the Lindens, after getting the WINDFALL advertising in the library and featuring on the blog AFTER performing the service of destroying a protest group you once led is legitimate journalism, normal reporting in a democratic society, and perfectly protected reporting. That you then produced this boyfriend who has nothing on his profile but his partnership with you and some cryptic picture, odd indeed if he is a real person and not an alt, and that this boyfriend suddenly was found to make anims all seemed odd, but…so what? So people asked you what the hell you were doing first in Zindra at a time when many were being turned away and queued up, when you yourself had no adult business? That you schnorred your way in as you boyfriend’s adult business seems pretty obvious given that you are in the group AND building the store. Duh? So what is possibly libelous about this REPORT describing QUESTIONS about a public figure, on a public commerce sim? It’s a series of questions, attemping to get answers. It is not statements but questions, and legitimate ones in a free society. Even under the Linden TOS, no action has been taken against me or any other blogger for a) asking questions b) using the inworld tools to take a picture and send a postcard to a blog of a PUBLIC STORE in a COMMERCIAL SIM c) writing outside SL criticially of this matter and then — um, because this action is such a *cough* stalking, getting d) a picture and landmark later when the store was completed so that I could TP and view it.

    I’ve never been unbanned from the Linden forums, ever. I was banned from the Linden blogs as they were originally formatted. I got notification of the first action; I got no notification of the second. I cannot post to the main Linden forums. At some point when their software for the new blog was revised, I posted, and low and behold, found I was able to get through because they simply didn’t port their bans to new software — but received no notification whatsoever. I can’t be “unbanned” from something that I was formally never notified of, and then never notified that I was “unbanned” even if somehow the Lindens viewed it was formal. I fail to see why *even if* I had a modicum of due process here and *was* “unbanned” formerly this would be relevant at all to the issue of ROBO Marx, who should remain banned because he destroyed others’ properties for years, and continued to defy new regulations about ceasing to do that.

    As for getting “insider information” that’s ludicruous. I TP’d to one of the lots that I had put in my own list to request a spot in Zindra. While flying around to see how it was getting built up, nearby I saw Vryl building a box. That’s all, and the Lindens’ server records back that up, rather than supporting some wild conspiracy theory about getting tips. Erm, why would the Lindens give *me* tips about Vryl, when Vryl is their pet, not me lol? Makes no sense.

    I never discussed Vryl or this parcel with Ann O’Toole, I barely talk to Ann O’Toole inworld, although she obsessively posts on my blog. If she happened to fly in at the same time, it’s merely a coincidence. It’s possible that I blog-posted this from inworld and that showed the URL and some people tp’d from my blog, I’d have to check. But it’s more likely that everybody descended on Zindra that first day to see what’s what.

    Going to my own selected parcel in a list and seeing Vryl isn’t “stalking”, it’s flying around a public place that is a public commercial sim. Taking pictures isn’t stalking either, but the work of a reporter. These thin-skinned prima donnas think they can bully and threaten reporters and preserve themselves from criticism although they take hugely public roles and have huge public influence and get huge public favours. I’d no more shirk from reporting on Vryl than I would on reporting on Wal-Mart or AIG executives if I were a real reporter. Vryl runs one of the largest texture businesses in SL; she has been feted and cossetted in an unseemly way by Linden Lab with the library advertisement and the (admitted lame) textures put in the library and the blog; and she led a huge protest group of more than 3,000 people in a hugely public protest and then ejected everyone from that group in caving to Linden Lab’s wishes. This is all on the Herald record, not even my record.

    Pixeleen is not allowed to post on my blog because I have rules (unlike the Herald, which bans on a whim). If you incite or cause RL or SL damage to me, you are blocked. Pixeleen objectively incited the work of griefers against my sims and events, even travelling on griefing posses along with the griefers as they proceeded to disrupt events and crash sims. These are objective facts with many witnesses. What Pixeleen also did was stand idly by while hordes of goons savaged me and demonstrated against me, and, while peckishly claiming she was going to put in an editorial defending my right to report, never in fact did so, helping to harass me further. This is all documented, and needs no further discussion. Much of the time my posts in face are deleted here if they are critical of Pixeleen himself.

    As for “hating your own cunt” if you call a person like Vryl “a cunt,” gosh, that’s retarded. I’ll plead the truth defense on that one, too, your honour. It’s not a word I use lightly unless I find it applies accurately : )

    Who cares what the story is of Script and Vryl and RL and manginas and dildos? What matters is that a) Vryl destroyed a protest group and caved to the Lindens b) Lindens gave her a huge favour with the Library feting c) reporters are within their rights to ask why she showed up first in Zindra and what she, not a person ever associated with adult business was doing there at a time when MANY questions of that nature were being asked on this PUBLIC sim about PUBLIC figures. If it turns out she showed up first because her *cough* boyfriend has a *cough* anims store, that’s ducky. I’m so happy for them. Zindra is great.

  19. Pixeleen Mistral

    Jul 18th, 2009

    Prokofy:

    What you call “travelling on griefing posses along with the griefers as they proceeded to disrupt events and crash sims” is what call most people call reporting.

    Honni soit qui mal y pense

  20. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 18th, 2009

    No, it’s not reporting, it’s incitement to imminent criminal action, we all know that, you know that, and the griefers know that.

    не плюй в колодец: пригодится воды напиться

  21. IntLibber Brautigan

    Jul 18th, 2009

    Prok sez:
    ” I’m happy to submit documentation to the state bar of New York urging a review of your lawyers’ law licenses if they attempt to harass me by a frivolous and ungrounded “libel” suit. Go away.”

    Sorry hon, thats not quite how it works. When someone asks for the name and contact info or bar number of your attorney, you are expected to provide it. If done so in a documented environment, as the chatlogged world of SL is (and this website is) and you refuse to provide it, then you are acknowledging either that you have no attorney, or you welcome being served personally any legal documents.

    Secondly, you seem to be purposely confusing the order of events as we’ve been led to believe they were: Ann Otoole shows up at Script’s store, tps out, and then within a minute or two, you teleport into the same location. You didnt fly in, according to witnesses, despite your claim to the contrary. So Ann didnt find out about Scripts place from you, you found out from her. Or maybe its some hugely collossal coincidence that of all the 30,000 sims in SL, you happened to teleport into the same location vacated shortly before by a person who is one of your regular and habitual yes-men. Personally I don’t see much coincidence in this. Yet you apply the same standard to Pixeleen following griefers while doing her job of reporting, and to Jim Schack when he did the same (he was busy abuse reporting them, btw, which is why he was there).

    You really do need to see a doctor about that toxo plasmosis induced paranoid psychosis.

    Now, you can make up your conspiracy theories about why IntLibber is friends with all these people you are convinced are the spawn of satan, but the facts are that you are such a hateful, spiteful, demagogic pedant that you are too blind to recognise that when you are convinced the whole world is at fault, that the problem is you, not the world.

  22. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 19th, 2009

    Intblubber’s brain cells are largely decimated from his years of serious drinking.

    If Vryl attempts to sic lawyers after me for my legitimate, legal, completely permissible *blog comments* about her antics in Second Life as a *public figure*, I will be take the names of HER lawyers and sending them to the state bar. My lawyers are irrelevant if SHE is serving me duh. But gosh, I don’t see anything from this person who is an anonymous avatar lol.

    I have no idea what Ann O’Toole did. She is unrelated to me. I made my own visit to Zindra, to check out whether my wish list of parcels were taken or not, and while flying around, I saw Vryl. I didn’t see Ann. I then likely blogged about it with Posterous, I’d have to go check. Either then, or later. Ann either came later by TPing from my blog OR, what is more likely, Ann simply came on her own. Geez, it’s not like Zindra is so gigantic you won’t see everybody there. This was before they added more land.

    Ann is hardly a yes-man, but is constantly harassing me on multiple forums.

    It isn’t at all beyond belief that two people in the queue to apply for land to Zindra go to Zindra at the same time. Duh.

    Jim Schack was no more “reporting griefers” than Charity Stohr, his alt, is just knitting and tatting when she constantly comes on Ravenglass. The very presence of all these goons there is merely a harassment escapade. Time to write to the Woodbury president again.

    Pixeleen isn’t a reporter, and isn’t doing a job of reporting. Pixeleen is riding shot-gun on a griefing posse. Again and again, he has been caught doing that.

  23. Vryl Valkyrie

    Jul 19th, 2009

    First of all, let’s set the record straight. You are not a journalist. Nothing close to it. Secondly, you often stalk and obsess over people you do not like for nothing less than having a bad hair day. Pixeleen and Intlibber are closer to journalists than you will ever be simply because they do not go off on rampant emotional obsessive rants. Nor do they stalk people or avatars.

    Not that we need to explain to you, a self proclaimed dictator, however as Intlib said, Script was rejected 10 times for parcels that he chose and the 11th choice was the one which was finally accepted. The 10th choice was a donut hole. He rejected that one. The 9th choice was accidentally given to someone else. The first 8 choices all rejected because of being on protected waters, which when he saved those spots he did not know they were protected since the sims were not yet parceled.

    I offered you a LM and Photo to someone else’s location in Zindra, not mine. No need to offer you mine since you already had it. Yes I did see it as a stalk, still do. I have also complained to Linden Lab that you stalk me as well. So if you continue, I am sure they will take necessary action against you. Stop stalking me. Plain and simple. Find a new hobby. Let’s go to court and let the judge decide what is libelous and defamatory or not and what is a public figure or not. Time also to complain to typepad. Better yet, I’ll have my lawyer do that. What about google adsense? You don’t think you break their rules? When push comes to shove, you will lose simply because your arrogance blinds you of reality and legalities. Now I’m tired of you. You are a huge drain and bore me to no end… it’s the same repetitive banter… like ground hog’s day. It never ends.

  24. Vryl Valkyrie

    Jul 19th, 2009

    One more thing, I hope that at some point Linden Lab bans you simply because you and your blog does more harm to Linden Lab than any negative PR. You harass its residents. You libel and defame its residents. You abuse its residents. You think that somehow someone appointed you as judge and jury over Second Life and Linden Lab.

    Despite what you may think, Linden Lab is not the all evil Big Eye with their hand selected FIC. The FIC is merely a symptom of you spending too much time studying Russian. Everything is not a conspiracy. Everything is also not a result of favoritism. Maybe if you took a little break from SL, it may help you get grounded in reality again. Otherwise speak to your doctor about the possibility of treatment for paranoid schizophrenia.

    As for the rules of your blog, you do not allow others to post if they tell you something that you do not like .. such as you are making libelous comments. You claim that this incites RL damags to you yet at the same time you hypocritically make comments which also incite damages to ones RL. Your justification is that you are entitled to your opinion. Everyone is entitled to his/her opinion, including to say one is committing libel, especially if it is perceived so.

    At the end of the day, you are free to do as your please. However, sometimes in life there are certain ramifications that comes with freedom of choice. Be prepared.

  25. Aminom Marvin

    Jul 19th, 2009

    Vryl: I see you are still threatening anyone you don’t like with baseless legal threats. It’s a shame you can’t step out of your own body and see how much of an idiot you are. You have only proven to be a mentally unstable nitwit. In your eyes, anyone having a negative opinion of you, and/or exposing your actions, is a high crime.

    It’s been 9 months since you’ve first threatened to sue me; I have not received anything from your lawyer.

    How about backing your threats? Go on, sue me (which you’ve threatened to do in the past), Prok, the Herald, or anyone else you have threatened. Stop talking and act.

  26. Vryl Valkyrie

    Jul 20th, 2009

    The day that you unlawfully recorded my voice at an emotional moment in my life on my private estate inside Second Life was the day that you ceased to exist as a human. I seriously doubt that many would have empathy with a man who records the voice of someone without their knowledge or consent as you did with me, then pass it to a third party to be published on the internet for billions of users worldwide outside the realms of Second Life to have access to.

    Not only were your actions against the Second Life Terms of Service, but it was also against real life laws. I realize that from your cocky smug attitude that you wank on the delusion that you have somehow gotten away with it. Keep thinking that. Even if I am to never take legal action against you(I haven’t made a decision on that yet.. to be honest, I’m still healing), there is such a thing called Karma whether you believe it exist or not.

    For the record, I did not threaten you nor anyone. I told you what my legal options were. You really should stop speaking out of your ass as if you know it all because you do not. Just because I have not taken legal action with you, does not mean that I have no intentions to do so.

    I have encountered a few mentally disturbed people in Second Life, including a stalker, however, what you did to me was the worst yet. It was a rape. I consider you a rapist. You wank on hurting women, this I am sure of, probably as a result of your own self hate and hate of women too. It obviously gives you a sense of empowerment and confidence, something that you probably lack in your real life. You are sick. Get help.

  27. Aminom Marvin

    Jul 20th, 2009

    A thinly veiled threat is a threat nonetheless. Try to spin it all you want; it’s just as transparent as the rest of your rationalizations.
    It is ironic that you speak of karma when you were the recipient of it. You destroyed the largest Second Life protest group ever. In response, your misdeeds were fully exposed along with your mental instability. No Grand Cosmic Mystery was responsible; your actions were so blatant and obvious that they practically exposed themselves.
    You bore the fruits of your own attempt to grab power. You also bore the fruits of your own misdeeds on Prok’s blog. You talk about some sort of cosmic accountability while denying any sort of account on your part.

  28. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 21st, 2009

    Vryl is such a time-waster.

    1. You don’t have to be a journalist to enjoy First Amendment protections. This has been proven a number of times when bloggers have faced harassment from people like you. Go away.

    2. I don’t stalk or obsess about people. See Pixeleen if that’s your issue. I TP’d to Zindra to look at my own land requests. I saw you flying, blogged about it, and never went back. End of story. However, you’ve ensured MORE attention for yourself and dragged me back to the Herald to look at your screeds and threats — if that’s called “stalking” I guess we’re all getting a big horse laugh. Ridiculous.

    3. If the landmark is not to your store and the picture isn’t to your store, why did you send it? Whose is it? And no, I didn’t bother to go visit it because…you are not of interest to me, I’m not a stalker, and I don’t care.

    4. If you can’t see how nutty Intlibber is, and see the preposterous stuff he’s written on my blog or recently on Angela Talamasca’s blog, go look — oh, I see, this is all opaque to you because you’re one-sided and stupid. Intlibber and Pixeleen have stalked and harassed me literally for years. Occasionally I’ll blog about their antics as an object lesson and to illustrate a higher point. I don’t care. They self-discredit.

    5. If you believe me to be a “stalker,” then call your local police, call the FBI, call the National Aeronautics and Space Administration — here’s a new service where you can report stalking in virtual worlds: http://bit.ly/1xcT7m
    or call the Intergalactic Senate, do what you need to do.

    6. Um, I didn’t save a landmark to your place, and I’d have trouble finding it again. But as it is a PUBLIC place and you are a PUBLIC FIGURE I’d have the right to go visit it and report on it should the journalistic need arise. The claim of stalking is silly, specious, and a form of harassment itself.

    7. Complain all you like to Typepad. There’s no violation of their TOS. Meanwhile, I should flag to them that a person I’ve banned from my blog keeps evading my IP and name blocks.

    8. I don’t break Google Adsense’s rules. Your effort to harass me in this regard in the past failed. Efforts to attempt in the future will be ignored. Get a life.

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