Bloggers, start your engines! The rest of you: Well, you’ll have to wait until Monday to get in. If you’re feeling especially bloggity, make sure you have at least one 512×512 image on white background in your blog post for me to yank for a special promotional opportunity for you – BILLBOARDS! IM me when you get your blog post up with your blog URL and I’ll check it out. If it’s an awesome, originals-only post with all original items (no copyright or content theft violations) I’ll make you into a special piece of graffiti or billboard for the fair with a link to your blog!

NOTE:  Teleport locations are NOT SET so you can land anywhere on the sim!

Fair SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Ruthenium/128/128//

Fair Sponsored by: The Artists’ Voice, http://www.theartistsvoice.org

Feb 6th: Blogger Preview Day
Feb 8th-14th: Fair
Feb 10th, 6pm SLT: Literature and Copyright Seminar. Michael A. Stackpole. Robert E. Vardeman, Andrea Howe, and Khia Gherardi as panelists.
Feb 11th, 6pm SLT: Michael A. Stackpole will be reading from his new novel, At The Queen’s Command.
Feb 13th, 2pm SLT: Designers and Content Theft. Jori Watler, Jessanne Janus, Bracken Back and Katey Coppola as panelists.

Previous Posts on the Originals Fair:
http://theartistsvoice.org/featured/i/

http://theartistsvoice.org/headline/av-i/

Artist’s Voice is pleased to announce its first annual Black Friday Originals Only Sale!

The sale will start on Black Friday, November 27th and run through Monday, November 30th!  Naturally, the sale is limited only by two factors:

1. All the contents of participating shops must not violate any Second Life or first life copyrights or trademarks.
2. All participating merchants offer at least one transferable item on sale.

To apply to be included in the sale you can fill out the form HERE or

send a notecard to Kat Alderson with the following information:

• Your avatar name
• Your store name
• Your landmark
• Your SLURL

If by some chance you do have unacceptable items in your shop, you will be notified and have a chance to comply.  On November 24th,  you will be passed the official sale kit which will include sale tags in a variety of flavors, and a poster for your shop.  The poster will dispense a notecard with all of the participating merchants listed, as well information about content theft, intellectual property rights, how to spot imposters, and the best way to report illegal items.

It is necessary for all participants to rez the official sales poster and use the sales tags.

Goals for the sale:

• Offer consumers great deals for holiday savings.
• Offer ethical designers a way to kick off seasonal sales.
• Educate residents and content creators about content theft.

You can message (IM) Kat Alderson in world for a copy of the sale notecard.

We looking forward to working and shopping with you this holiday season!

Hints:

• If you offer clothing, you can offer one layer option for the sale to make it transferable.
• If you have items you just cannot make transferable, why not do a prim exchange with a friend.  Get someone you know and trust to rez some items in your shop, rez some in their, and both sign up for the sale!

From around the grid:

“Content theft would fade as a problem if the market for stolen products dried up. Some folks think copying and theft and sharing stolen content is an acceptable part of the internet culture. After all, the Pirate Party has two seats in the European Parliament. People justify it as some sort of new frontier of share and share alike, or blame the victims as greedy corporatists or minimize the theft as mere pennies and meaningless. Not only are these justifications false, they fail to recognize that content theft hurts consumers.

I am going to list a few ways I think theft hurts those of us who are not content creators. I would not be surprised if some of you can think of others. ” Cajsa Lilihook,  http://cajsalilliehook.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/content-theft-hurts-us-all/

“(…)but I think getting people to be aware and talk about the issue is what is important. So many people seem oblivious to the fact that content ripping is wrong. Education is never a waste ” Circle Widdershins, via the Second Life Universe Forums

“We Free*Stylers rarely get an opportunity to discuss content theft because we go out of our way NOT to promote sellers that sell stolen content. On November 5th there are two grid-wide initiatives aimed at making a public statement about content theft and it’s impact on all of us. We want to show our support to content creators as well as do our part to help educate about content theft.” Creamy Cooljoke, Free*Style

“…In thinking about content creators and their contributions, I imagined what SL would be without them.  This prompted me to put my thoughts into a couple of pictures because I consider our world, the world we all chose to visit for it’s ability to bring color and movement into our lives in a way not always possible in RL, would be dull and empty without them.  So for that I feel we must band together and say NO in as many ways as we can.” — Chalice Carling, Chalice in Wonderland

“Sure, one can say that amounts of money in SL are not big anyway so the loses of creators, and profits of the thieves are not big either, so the whole case is not worth the fuss. But that’s not true. Loses of the creators are big. Maybe they are not big in terms of real currency but count the time invested in the process of making things, count the expenses. Last but not the least, count the right to get compensation for own work and creativity, no matter if that compensation is small or big. Other thing is, thieves do make a considerable amounts, especially if you consider the effort invested. Yes, they steal things that, in real currency scope, doesn’t cost much. They sell it for even less. But they steal large amounts of items from all over the grid and they sell it many times. Small price * many sales * many items = considerable profit. And then, that kind of behaviour seriously damages the economy of the grid. It’s not just creator’s loss. In the long run, it’s yours and mine as well.” -dandellion Kimban, metaverse.acidzen.org

“The effect of this protest can be huge. Linden Labs indirectly receives a portion of all sales, because $L are more expensive to purchase than they are to sell back. They also make a huge amount every day on upload fees. If enough people band together for 48 hours and stopped all transactions, it would send a clear message that we will no longer tolerate content theft.” – Kellie Iwish, via Violet Sockington’s Shrinking Violet blog

Don’t have your materials? TP over here to get them!

Today at 5pm SLT I will be hosting an inventory sorting party! Here’s the location – see you at 5pm SLT!

Running out of things to keep yourself occupied? Check out Step Up! for more activities: http://stepupsl.wordpress.com/

Gabby Panacek has a great idea for those of you that want to participate but still want to support the content creators! http://atomicvalley.com/?p=850

Thankfully, all the vendors in my shop are lined up fairly straight so all I had to do was rez thicker-than-the-vendor prims over the vendors. These prims are scripted to give inventory – inside you will find the two November 5th posters & information about the Artist’s Voice group. If you want to get a copy of this prim, you can grab one here in SL.

The vendors on the floor out front have been deactivated but I could have easily rezzed another prim to cover them up.

There are many ways to participate in the protest! From Kat’s post:

The idea behind the 5th of November is pretty simple, and is meant to show our complete disgust with content theft, and to encourage the powers that be to give us more support and more tools to fight content theft in our brave and shiny virtual world.  If we halt as many L$ transactions as possible for 48 hours, we send a clear and unequivocal statement to Linden Labs™, reminding them that the Linden economy, and thus the success of Second Life™ is based on two things:  the hard work of Second Life’s content creators and the deep virtual pockets of Second Life’s residents.

The L$ transactions proposed for boycott on November 5th and 6th are as follows:

• uploads
• the purchase of $L currency
• the sale of $L currency
• XStreet purchases and sales
• in-world purchases and sales
• land store purchases
• stop blogging about Second Life (while not a $L transaction, it will help)
• pay shop rents on the 4th or the 7th (you should NOT go in arrears on rent or tier)

Mind you, it is understood that not all of these options work for everyone.  No one will be vilified or spurned if they cannot participate.  However, your participation to some extent is vital, and very much appreciated.  There’s a notecard available in world (message Kat Alderson in world for the official notecard and textures) which outlines some easy ways for you to participate.

It is important to remember that the Artist’s Voice group is not trying to hurt the Linden economy or Second Life content creators  in any way.  We’re only asking you to help send a message to Linden Labs.  You are encourage to shop and upload to your heart’s content on every day save for November 5th and 6th!  You are simply being asked to show your support for an end to content theft for 48 hours.

On November 5th, 2009 (Tomorrow!) at 5pm SLT I will be hosting an inventory sorting party! Here’s the location – see you at 5pm SLT!

]]> http://theartistsvoice.org/projects/a-protest-ready-shop/feed/ 0 http://theartistsvoice.org/projects/artists-voice-encourages-you-to-stop/ http://theartistsvoice.org/projects/artists-voice-encourages-you-to-stop/#comments Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:29:43 +0000 admin http://theartistsvoice.org/?p=3 On the 5th of November, the Artist’s Voice will be encouraging its members and the community to STOP. Stop buying L$, stop selling L$, stop uploading, stop creating, stop shopping, stop selling, stop blogging! Just STOP!

The effect of the content creation community in Second Life is huge. If we all banded together for 48 hours and just STOPPED – we could really send a message to Linden Lab that we will NO LONGER tolerate content theft, and show them – and ourselves – how much of an effect we have on the SL community. This will only work, however, if we ALL work together.

If you want to participate, you will be doing a great service for yourself and the community. If you don’t, please notecard me with one idea for a campaign you would be willing to participate in. Of course, this is completely voluntary, but we would really like it if you participated.

We have several solutions for creators who may find “STOP SELLING” a major task.

CREATORS:

1) Put ban lines around your land after first warning your groups of your intentions and putting it on your blog. Then set up prim signs for “Artist’s Voice” around, so that people know why. You can even set it up to give a notecard with an explanation.

2) Put prims up in front of your items with the texture provided below. Most people stop at the first road block – this will be as effective. If you rent at a mall, please clear this with your mall’s landlord first.

3) Block your shop’s doorways with prims that show the 5th of November texture. Set the prim to give a notecard explanation and a copy of the texture.

4) Please note there is a loophole in all of this – you may still sell $0L freebies! It’s not making the economy any money.

Texture to use on prims for this campaign: