The Alphaville Herald

Can Weapon Sales Save FurNation – And Second Life?

by Pixeleen Mistral on 04/10/11 at 3:13 am

Corsi Mousehold moves from sexbeds to combat - a desperate bid to pay land fees for furs

FurNation administrator Corsi Mousehold left a message at the Herald offices early this evening to express continued deep concerns about Stroker Serpentine's full permissions release of the SexGen sexbed base and animations, and claimed Mr. Serpentine's actions are a deadly threat to Mousehold's furry enclave, saying "His actions were intentional. He intended to destroy FurNation by releasing the Ultra full perms. I would like an interview."

Corsi Mousehold

After rushing to the Herald offices, I was able to contact Mousehold for an exclusive interview on this important topic.

During our conversation, I learned that Corsi had asked Mr. Serpentine for use of a motion capture rig to create new sexbed content to combat the freebies spreading like wildfire, but was told "your 'community' is about to go bye-bye..don't waste your time".

We discussed the difficulties in pursuing a Digital Millenium Copyright Act takedown of Second Life content -- which ironically enough was one of the motivations for Stroker Serpentine's lawsuit against Linden Lab. With muddled claims on the intellectual property that makes up the SexGen bed and the prospect of little beyond lawyer-enriching legal action, Corsi considered several options.

For furry avatars who frequent FurNation all hope is not yet lost.

I learned that Mousehold hopes to become a weapons dealer to generate enough revenue to keep Furnation's tier payments current. We also went on to discuss Herald founder Urizenus Sklar's suggestion that Second Life's only hope for survival is to combat-enable all land - an approach almost certain to lead to a resurgence in the in-world economy, more interesting cybersex, a marked decrease in abuse reports, and enhanced shopping experiences via gameifaction.

Will Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble take heed before it is too late for not only FurNation, but Second Life itself? We can only hope.

Corsi Mousehold: Releasing the Ultra full perms was not a 'Nice Gesture' like he made it out to be.
Pixeleen Mistral: my impression was Stroker was making it clear that he was leaving SL permanently by releasing the bed base full perms
Corsi Mousehold: Not true.
Corsi Mousehold: He may be leaving SL but the release was to intentionally fuck me over.
Corsi Mousehold: [2011/09/28 16:12] Corsi Mousehold: What have you done ..... Stroker that will kill the income I was relying on to keep FurNation running.
Corsi Mousehold: [2011/09/28 16:13] Corsi Mousehold: I heard you gave the base out full perms. The scripts would have been okay but the animations too ... FurNation's done for.
Corsi Mousehold: [2011/09/29 4:07] Corsi Mousehold: I can ask if you still have the Mocap setup, I could save my community using that and making animation overriders ... Would you be willing to sell it to me?
Corsi Mousehold: He responded today.

Pixeleen Mistral: what did he say?
Corsi Mousehold: [15:04]Stroker Serpentine: (Saved Mon Oct 03 08:40:03 2011) Your "community" is about to go bye-bye..don't waste your time.

Pixeleen Mistral: so what do you think he meant by that? you could get another mocap setup
Corsi Mousehold: He once threatened to kill FurNation by giving away the animations full perms.
Corsi Mousehold: That was over a year ago in the last fiasco.
Corsi Mousehold: I think he just made good on his promise since he wasn't making anything off it anymore.

Pixeleen Mistral: Jumpman Lane claimed that you used him as a hitman - maybe Stroker was unhappy about that. Jumpman has been relentless
Corsi Mousehold: I didn't
Corsi Mousehold: Jump and I talked a while back in the last fiasco but I hadn't talked to him for months until recently when Stroker said he was leaving.
Corsi Mousehold: When Stroker sued the lab I wished him luck.
Corsi Mousehold: From there it was assumed on the rare conversation that I had with him that we were okay with each other.
Corsi Mousehold: Not on friendly buddy buddy terms but not hating each other.

Pixeleen Mistral: whatever settlement Stroker and Linden lab came to was never made public - perhaps Stroker thinks SL is doomed because of problems with getting content protections going
Corsi Mousehold: Stroker never made anything off the Lab.
Corsi Mousehold: It was just a promise that the Lab made to help content creators.

Pixeleen Mistral: did the Lab keep it's promise?
Corsi Mousehold: Hard to say.
Corsi Mousehold: I haven't had a chance to deal with the lab on the subject.
Corsi Mousehold: But in talking to them on the phone it seemed like the hotline Lindens were unwilling to help.
Corsi Mousehold: I kept asking how soon the content would be removed if I file DMCA takedown.
Corsi Mousehold: They wouldn't answer.

Pixeleen Mistral: that is odd - to fit into the DMCA safe harbor provisions you have to remove the content in a reasonably fast fashion
Corsi Mousehold: Yes.
Corsi Mousehold: But would the lab actually go all out and remove it from every persons inventory?
Corsi Mousehold: Stroker gave his own stuff away ... He loses that.
Corsi Mousehold: But mine and Briggi's he didn't have the right to.

Pixeleen Mistral: well - they are supposed to - and they run the asset server database thing - but maybe they never thought about handling DMCAs quickly
Corsi Mousehold: In this sort of environment the issue is that things will spread like fire.
Corsi Mousehold: And it has.
Corsi Mousehold: I have people randomly IMing me about the itmes being given away.

Pixeleen Mistral: do you guys have any sort of written agreement on who owns rights to those animations?
Corsi Mousehold: Not paper. But in IM's
Corsi Mousehold: And that was .... God .... YEARS ago. Those logs were lost on my last computer.

Pixeleen Mistral: If you do have rights to the animations, perhaps filing a DMCA is the way to see if the Lab can do anything about this
Corsi Mousehold: Not that easy.

Pixeleen Mistral: why not?
Corsi Mousehold: I file DMCA on Stroker. The base of the issue.
Corsi Mousehold: Stroker counters.
Corsi Mousehold: What then?
Corsi Mousehold: He doesn't have to actually do anything other than say he had permission.
Corsi Mousehold: Burden then falls on me to take him to court.

Pixeleen Mistral: copyright lawyers don't work cheap
Corsi Mousehold: In the meantime the beds and animations are all out there.
Corsi Mousehold: Spreading like fire.
Corsi Mousehold: Passed around the grid.
Corsi Mousehold: Months would go by and my buisness is lost.
Corsi Mousehold: And that is even if I can afford to do it.
Corsi Mousehold: Sure I would win but I would still lose everything in the process.

Pixeleen Mistral: so it sounds like you need to find another mocap rig if you are going to stay in the animation business and just walk away from the sexgen ultra base animations
Corsi Mousehold: I still have the animations I added to the Titanium and Mythril that he doesn't have.
Corsi Mousehold: So my choices are to file DMCA and since Stroker is doing this to blatantly fuck me over, He would counterclaim and I would surely go under.
Corsi Mousehold: Or ... Add his handful of animations he added to the Ultra, to my scripts he didn't have access to and keep selling in a market that is drying up.
Corsi Mousehold: Or .... Do that and talk to scripters that know I am trustworthy and I can actually trust myself. And move on to another market.

Pixeleen Mistral: there could be questions about if it was "work for hire" too, or at a minimum who held the rights exactly - without paper agreements only lawyers would win
Corsi Mousehold: And you hit the nail on the head Pix.
Corsi Mousehold: Stroker is bankrupt. Even in winning the lawsuit ... He has no money for me to win.
Corsi Mousehold: Sure Florida is a state you can garnish a paycheck from but he's a plumber. He can work under the table and out of the almighty tax doller.

Pixeleen Mistral: so - what do you plan to do?
Corsi Mousehold: Option C.
Corsi Mousehold: What else can I do?

Pixeleen Mistral: so - come up with some new product?
Corsi Mousehold: Yes.
Corsi Mousehold: I have literally thousands of people that visit the FurNation sims daily. Tens of thousands monthly.
Corsi Mousehold: I am working with a scripter to build weapons for SL Combat.
Corsi Mousehold: I have a couple of them lined up. I will build and animate and get the sounds for them all.
Corsi Mousehold: They script them
Corsi Mousehold: We split.

Pixeleen Mistral: maybe that will work
Corsi Mousehold: I have one SL Military group looking into using just my weapons already. Because they are unique.

Second Life sex merchant plans to become an arms dealer

Pixeleen Mistral: so becoming an arms dealer may be the salvation of Furnation
Corsi Mousehold: Pretty much.
Corsi Mousehold: I would rather not say what we're doing in an interview because I don't want someone else to beat me to the punch.
Corsi Mousehold: I would be changing the name of PawPadz to "Armed and Armourous"

Pixeleen Mistral: Urizenus Sklar told me a couple days ago he thinks LL should make all sims in SL combat-enabled
Corsi Mousehold: LOL
Corsi Mousehold: BAD IDEA

Pixeleen Mistral: Uri said it might be the only thing that could save SL
Corsi Mousehold: Oh yeah. That would be a griefers paradise.

Pixeleen Mistral: think of the arms and shield sales - you'd just shoot the griefers
Corsi Mousehold: Hold on let me raid across the grid and shoot this couple on the adult mainland trying to fuck in a skybox.

Pixeleen Mistral: fucking in a skybox on the mainland is crazy already though
Corsi Mousehold: Hey Baby. Oh God you are so HOLY SHIT WE GOT INCOMING!!! KEEP SUCKING GIRL I'LL SAVE US!!

Pixeleen Mistral: LOL it would add a whole new dimension to cyber
Corsi Mousehold: Yathink?
Corsi Mousehold: Wow baby that orgasm was NUCLEAR!!!
Corsi Mousehold: Yeah sweetie that's cause a bomb went off. I haven't cum yet.

Pixeleen Mistral: don't give away any trade secrets...
Corsi Mousehold: I could keep the jokes going for hours on that idea.
Corsi Mousehold: Shopping would be a warfare in and of itself.
Corsi Mousehold: HOLD ON .... LET ME .... GET .... TO ... THE ..... VENDOR!

Pixeleen Mistral: I think it might be fun - buy before you are shot - the gameifaction of in-world shopping could be a win
Corsi Mousehold: It would certainly be funny as fuck.

Pixeleen Mistral: making SL more funny would be good for SL - too many people take this far too seriously
Pixeleen Mistral: take those JLU guys for instance
Corsi Mousehold: JLU ... The grid would be better without them.
Corsi Mousehold: That's what I need.
Corsi Mousehold: An automatic Kryptonite rifle.
Corsi Mousehold: Kalel is so into his RP I swear he would probably delete his account if you shot him with one.
Corsi Mousehold: DERPADERPA!!! SHOT WITH A GREEN BULLET .... I GOTTA GO MAKE A NEW ACCOUNT! HOW ABOTU WONDERBOY! IT WOULD SUIT MY AGE BETTER DREPADREPADREP

Pixeleen Mistral: yeah - at this point nobody wants to associate with the JLU
Corsi Mousehold: I still find it funny that JLU thinks SL combat is low end griefing.
Corsi Mousehold: Freaking Retards.
Corsi Mousehold: I think I saw a list somewhere that has SL military members that got profiled by the JLU
Corsi Mousehold: I was disappointed that I was not on the list.