FlipPAY-Per-View

I wish I had a dollar today for everybody who has privately Twittered, IM'd, e-mailed, PM'd, or voice-chatted to me about FlipperPA Peregrine's latest exploit in Second Life -- or alleged exploit, or thing that appears that it might could be an exploit, just to dot all the tees and cross the eyes here. When I looked at it the first 10 times, it showed a large, blue panel that had information about "who we are" (Flipper and his lawyer involved in SLCC and Phreak Radio) and all their credentials, RL names and stuff, and a kind of interface that enabled you to, well, pay per view of something that was going to stream in. It's been taken down now when I looked at it today, with a remark about "being under construction" and a smiley.

It seems from looking at this website that Flipper has filed for a patent that could apply to a pay-per-view media system that may, or may not, hinge on the use of Second Life technology.

I'm not a tekkie wiki, but I gather that whoever could successfully *get* a patent like this would basically pwn the movie-watching habits of SLers. They could make it seem that just because they had a sort of paperclip type widget that scripted a connection between SL and the RL-PPV, that they could have a monopoly; they *would* have a monopoly and everybody would pay them gadzillions of Lindens, even more than they paid slboutique.com, the shopping site FlipperPAY made, then sold, and keeps a hand on, that has been trailing, performance-wise rather behind slexchange.com, it's Anshe-supported contender.

And just like the technology that made it possible for people to script pay-per-objects and make rentomatic empires based on monopolies, this could make a bundle for Flipper, who needs to find something to do, obviously, since building and scripting among the dwindling Metaversal Development Company dinosaurs isn't something that ever worked for him, and maybe isn't working so hot for other people these days, either and SLCC has been a disaster.

(Yes, *monopoly* on the rental scripts, as there were only 2 of them back in the day, and nobody else had the time or money to script it; frankly, I did finally get tired of the usury and paid a scripter to script my own personal rento box for Ravenglass, and that scripter began selling his box...but then one of the usurers suddenly open-sourced his rento script lol.)

Can you monopolize a PPV system? I have no idea. I mean, how hard can it be to script a thing like this? Maybe not hard, but if it is *patented* as a *process* -- how could you then get around the lawsuit that FlipperPA's eager and devoted attorney would likely slap on you (he's the guy apparently that Stroker Serpentine is using for the bed, and people say Stroker is involved in this PPV caper, too, though I didn't see his name on the "who we are" before it was closed).

Well, you could *try* but unlike real life, where say, the Whole Foods people can get into big rumbles over whether a buy-out constitutes an unfair monopoly and real lawyers and fines and stuff can get involved, there's no RL people to save you in SL.

There's no SEC (except for one that some guy named "Fred" or something might start), no regulatory agencies, no nothing.

If Philip Rosedale's favoured son FlipperPA wants to make FlipperPAY-Per-View, probably not much can be done.

Would anybody pay to watch films in laggy, crashy SL? They would. That's where all these people poo-poohing it will be wrong! Of course they will, movie-watching is HUGE in SL and the movie and TV and video and DVD makers are COINING money.

Flipper-PAY wants in on that. He finally figured out that distributing CrystalShard Foo's idiotic lame-brained pain-in-ass Freeview TV is stupid. You don't get paid for stuff distributed for Free, duh, and all you get are a million service calls cuz the thing don't work. Still doesn't work, btw, I get calls on it still.

So one of my MANY sources put it, this PPV thingie is "like trying to own the patent to the entire concept of pay-per-view in SL.... but ... it doesn't say anything about this PPV service relating to SLCC... but it's very fishy."

Bingo. That's the motivation for doing this hugely overbroad grabby overreach on SLCC could be about: getting material to roll out the PPV service and get everyone on it because there will be a built-in early adapter's market from SLCC.

Even I don't think that devious, as Flip's soi-disant friends and patrons think who talk to me -- and I have to wonder, why am I the only one blogging here on this all alone?

Now, FlipperPAY is of course evil incarnate in my book, but is this latest caper of his evil? I really can't say yet until I hear the discussion. Doing stuff like this is work, and people should be paid. Should they grab content from SLCC in perpetuity due to the need to get paid? No. That was wrong. And doing it with a Linden even in your grabby, dubious, now-a-non-profit, now-a-business 3-card monte between 2 entities with shadowy records is REALLY wrong.

I can't help thinking that you could grab less, reach less, make more decent contracts, and even promise some penny royalties, and still make content available that people would appreciate, and still make money, and not make people furious. I mean, do we all expect SL to go on just putting up grainy YouTube's? Shouldn't somebody start making this stuff more real -- and getting everybody paid and served?

I don't doubt that in FlipperPAY's little brain, this is something that involves that heady amalgam that always imbues him with self-importance that consists of 1/4 ballyhoo about "I'm helping the community," 1/4 "I'm helping Flipper", 1/4 "I'm helping my buds" and 1/4 "I'm doing something cool and scripty that my Linden pals will love me for -- and maybe not even in that order.

Here's hoping more will emerge on this story!

Comments

[Prokofy Neva]

Could someone explain to me why this Reuters story now gives a message "You are looking for something that isn't there."

Reuters/Second Life » TiVo, Amazon to sell movies straight to TV sets
US Dollars spent in Second Life over last 24 hours ... You can discuss this story with other Second Life residents in the Reuters Atrium. ...
secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2007/07/10/724c7dcbc307155677fc9ad56a4d5e08/ - Similar pages - Note this

[Prokofy Neva]

Thought it was going to be RRR doing this anyway?

http://www.3pointd.com/20061026/rivers-run-red-bringing-tv-to-second-life/

[Prokofy Neva]

Thought it was going to be RRR doing this anyway?

http://www.3pointd.com/20061026/rivers-run-red-bringing-tv-to-second-life/

[Prokofy Neva]

Here we go, this just in:

The Virtual Viewer(TM) Solution

The In-World Interface

The Virtual Viewer(TM) solution allows users to view the media through a virtual rectangular screen located in the virtual world. The virtual screen will appear on an individual user's computer monitor as a "screen within a screen." All virtual world participants within viewing distance of the virtual screen will be able to view the virtual screen.

The Selection Menu

The solution allows users to click on the virtual screen, using a mouse, to call up a menu of media selections. Virtual Viewer(TM) is adaptable to make the menu available by way of an internet browser or by way of user interface controls uniqure to the virtual world. Users are able to browse or search the menu for the media of their choice, and to select media to view. After the user selects the media, the solution instructs the user to pay for the media.

Payment

The Virtual Viewer(TM) solution can accomodate a variety of payment methods, including credit cards, on-line electronic payment mechanisms, or even using virtual world currency. Once the user makes the payment, the solution transmits a signal from within the virtual world to the server housing the media to allow the requested media to begin playing on the virtual screen.

Media Access

The solution identifies the media by way of a temporary Uniform Resource Locator ("URL") that is unique to each instance that a user requests the media. Each URL will be available for the length of the media or viewing time purchased, as applicable, and will then expire.

[Nobody Panix]

It's too early to raise the pitchforks. Indeed, it's peculiar that one would actually put up a site and then take it down as soon as someone sniffed it out (why make a site at all?) - but no one understands exactly what this proposed patent does. It will be years before it even gets a look at the USPTO. Until we can view what has been applied for, it's pointless to speculate.

That said, software patents can be very dangerous for innovation and in many cases, are used solely as shady businesses akin to ambulance chasing.

I don't support software patents in SL or outside. But I'd need to see what kind of a process is proposed to be patented before I sharpened my stick.

[Prokofy Neva]

At nobody, look in the comment above you, there's a description of the patent.

[Soen Eber]

*shrug*

Even if he patents it, it won't make that much difference. AMD reverse-engineers the Intel chips and that's legal. When SCO got snippy about some code in Red Hat it didn't take that long for the dev team to rewrite and make that legal. There's a lot of "workalike" products out there like Corel Suite, Open Office, and Google's offerings that do the same general tasks MS Office does. Walk down a cereal isle and there's bound to be knock-offs Cheerios and Raisin Bran (popular American breakfast cereals for the benefit of the non-US folks).

Maybe you can patent a process, I don't know -- but the wide availability of competing products tells me that black box reverse engineering would survive a court challenge, and probably wouldn't even make it past the hearing level (if the process was documented and verified, and the Judge got the right "friend of the court" briefs).

A developer skilled in LSL, streaming technologies and some back-end PHP/MySQL scripting could knock out a similar process in a couple of days or less. If this guy starts causing trouble we'll probably see open source versions being airdropped into the scripting forums.

[Prokofy Neva]

Even Second Citizen had to pounce on this one, and of course SLCC's Amen Corner, Vivienne Draper, is there battling all questions away saying this is Flippie's speshul pwivate biznezz, but...people are continuing to ask questions.

Amy, Queen of the FIC, asks what Troy Vogel rightfully characterizes as really chilling questions:
http://forums.secondcitizen.com/showthread.php?t=16147

I've always said the FIC are nastier to each other than to the rest of us.

Desmond sums up the funny issue, which is that 'patent pending' is what you see stamped on all kinds of plastic gimcracks all over the world, means not a lot. But is there really a patent filed? where's the number? Why is Vivi blathering about secret business when the patent is a public document in the U.S.? It's probably pending from even pending, if you know what I mean lol.

Ordinal ways in with the copyleft stuff (well I'll call it that for shorthand) which basically says, don't let's have any of the scripterati break ranks from the MUD Altruism Regime and the IRC channelers and try to make money off stuff that should go in the private domain, or threaten those who already have SL perm-protected items with future lawsuits.

And Flipper's answer is about as lame as a three-legged dog. My word and how the children don't even blink.

If his thingie is patent pending, that doesn't mean he can't launch it NOW with its intimidation factor (which, I'd argue, is what Stroker's case is all about) and use SLCC content in a few weeks or even 6 months and be assured of a nice pool of instant users.

No reason whatsoever. And probably everybody will click and play, and if people complain about patents and LSL and LL TOS, they'll be told they're amateurs and this is how it is done in RL -- ROFL.

[Nobody Panix]

1) The post above does NOT describe the process that has been submitted as a patent. Big difference. So no, we still don't know what the process is, nor the technology enabling the process if not an LSL function. Yes you can indeed patent a process.

2) There will be no "number" until which time the patent has been awarded. There will however be a full filing posted to the USPTO office when it's been processed, which again, could be months or years from now.

3) This isn't FIC against FIC so stop making it about that. These are valid questions regardless of who is asking. Software patents are, in many cases, reckless and self-serving.

[Prokofy Neva]

Maybe software patents are self-serving; maybe not. And maybe that's a good thing. From everything I've seen so far, extremists in the OS movement have zero ethics and no consideration of the value of other people's property. I don't see why I need to adopt or applaud their code.

It may be the best form of protection for the most people's creativity in worlds to have proprietary rules that don't enable script kiddie hacking OSers to steal everything and resell it as their own.

Patenting things that people think are very much in the public domain and already used everywhere by creators who thought they were in an OS and shareware and free sort of environment -- changing the rules midstream -- is wrong, and is going to make everyone angry.

FIC against FIC is what it is about, when you saw the way Aimee, the Queen Bee, began to fight for "the soul of the group" which in her view is the open-source, collaborative, creative atmosphere for LSL and the client itself, which is considered to be shareable.

The minute she felt that was threatened and one of their privileged coding number was going to try to step out of the collaboration and make a profit off things -- or really worse, seek patents to block others from using stuff they already found and scripted themselves no different than FlipPAY's concept, she made a chilling intervention to let him know We Are Not Amused.

She will crush him like vermin if he threatens her ability to rein supreme with whatever she's grabbed out of the whole thing.

[Hiro Pendragon]

I'm just curious... if Flipper is "evil incarnate", I want to hear what terminology you use for pedophiles, rapists, nazis, and suicide bomber terrorists.

No, really. I want to hear you out-superlative Flipper.

[Prokofy Neva]

I don't think you have a sense of humour at all, Hiro. Evil incarnate in Second Life isn't at all like evil incarnate in real life, of course.

Do your SL swords really cut? No. But are they still swords? Yes.

Well, evil works the same way, Hiro.

[Ordinal Malaprop]

No, software patents _are_ bad. Software already has copyright, for a start; there are already all sorts of licencing restrictions preventing people from just ripping off your efforts. Patents on top of that are just a legal bully weapon, meant to prevent people from challenging your market by legal means rather than by the fact that you do it better than they do (assuming that you can spend more on lawyers than them). The added effect is that people wishing to do something slightly different can also be extorted from.

There is an entire industry of companies registering and/or buying up patents on things everyone does, and then claiming royalties on them, and few have the time, money and persistence to properly challenge the claims - particularly when it comes to independent developers in a field where there is little case law.

Software patents are absolute poison as far as developers are concerned - this is not simply my opinion, I do work professionally in the field and speak to other people - and regardless of the likelihood of them being granted or the time that it might take to see the patent appear, the mere intention of trying to take one out is _extremely_ suspect.

[Hiro Pendragon]

"Evil incarnate in Second Life isn't at all like evil incarnate in real life, of course."

I see what you're trying to say. However, you've gone into "SL is a game" mentality. If you do something that involves real business in SL, there is no line between SL and RL.

Maybe on World of Warcraft, or the Sims, there can be a difference. Someone could go into WoW, be a total jackass, and be perfectly nice in real life. In the game, that person role-plays a evil character. However, in Second Life, if someone pisses off people, there's no points, there's no role-play inherent with the platform. This is like the Internet.

But, I guess it clearly illustrates what I've said about you, Prok, all along - this is a game for you. Prokofy is a character, and you don't see a moral line being crossed when you "role-play" a jerk in Second Life, because you don't (usually) let it spill into your real life.

Well, you can't have it both ways. If you say that SL is like a game, then you must acquiesce on the point that you are a role-playing a curmudgeon. If you say that SL is not like a game, then you can't distinguish between "evil incarnate" in SL and RL. (Instead, you would need another modifier, like "virtually evil incarnate" or something witty)

[Prokofy Neva]

No, I don't believe SL is a game. I have a business in SL that isn't a game. SL is an extension of real life -- of sorts. SL is a world, a place that may be fantastic in its nature, but the people in it are people and human in nature, not fantastic. But it is relative. FlipperPA embodies any number of evils for me; I think the context here is said as a form of literary hyperbole. He's "evil incarnate" in SL, but he's an avatar who can't do a LOT of damage. If anything, FlipperPAY represents what they mean by the *banality* of evil lol.

Flipper being evil is merely an extension of his real-life character, frankly. It merely gets amplification in SL, and scope; but it is also trivialized, of course, as evils go, compared to, say, Darfur or murder of journalists in Russia. Most certainly so.

>But, I guess it clearly illustrates what I've said about you, Prok, all along - this is a game for you. Prokofy is a character, and you don't see a moral line being crossed when you "role-play" a jerk in Second Life, because you don't (usually) let it spill into your real life.

No, that's not true. I do not play any game. I do not role-play. I do what is instinctively natural and seemless for me. Prokofy is merely an extension, a version, a manifestation of myself that is part of the continuum of my being, not something I 'make up' or a 'fiction' or a 'character in a novel' -- though some might wish that were the case. It's very real -- in some ways, the manifestations people make in SL are more real than SL.

All I'm saying is that FlipperPA's being evil incarnate in SL is in scope, in scale, in remedy, is far, far different than the lasting, major evils of RL. I certainly have to say that. Because there is a range on this continuum, and there is a scale of difference between the grasping, cunning manipulative evilness that the FIC does, and say, mass murderers. I mean, a scale that for many simply isn't even on the same spectrum.

>Well, you can't have it both ways. If you say that SL is like a game, then you must acquiesce on the point that you are a role-playing a curmudgeon. If you say that SL is not like a game, then you can't distinguish between "evil incarnate" in SL and RL. (Instead, you would need another modifier, like "virtually evil incarnate" or something witty)

In this case, the context here in this blog is hyperbole not because SL is a game or I think it's a game, but because it's a sentence structure that says like this, "Now everybody knows that I think Flipper's the Anti-christ, har har, but hey, even I will say that he could have a point here." It's a rhetorical set-up, see.

Actually, as evil goes within the SL context, Flipper isn't *the most* evil. I will grant him that. There are a few others far more evil.

[jamie bergman]

Ok, I've read this article and still can't figure out what the big deal is... exactly HOW will FlipperPA come to monopolize the streaming market? Surely alternatives will be developed, right?

[Khamon Fate]

Well don't be thick Jamie. The point is to demonstrate that Flipper has openly rebelled against the fake alturistic aura of the FIC by decrying the public face of openness and freedom. They're all willing to bilk loads of money out of the sca^h^h^h Wonderful World of Second Life, in colour, but would never blatantly threaten to impose real life patents and copyrights on the commuuuuunity.

He'll win the war based on the public popularity of his purple hair and some long-term real life friendships in teh FIC. Speaking of which, he's really separating the sheep from the goats now isn't he. Perhaps that's the point, not the patent at all, but a self-discovery journey that requires pushing his aquaintances through a friendship sieve to see which ones fit.

[Cocoanut Koala]

I don't know about him winning the war.

Remember, when he separates his acquaintances through the sieve, they are doing the same with him.

They are not irrelevant, and they can bring him down.

Again, I'm moved to quote my old boss: "Be nice to the people you pass on the way up, because those are the same people you're going to pass on your way down."

coco

[Prokofy Neva]

Wow, that's an amazing bit of analysis there, Khamon, you're probably right.

Coco, I sometimes wonder if the Lindens will be nicer to us when they have their fall from glory when the big corps get fed up with them and move on and they're back to us chickens, and then I remember, no, they weren't nice on the way up, they won't be nice on the way down, either.

[udontknowme]

PPV/in world viewer that accepts credit cards. Well it's pretty obvious by now that someone is privy to inside information. I'm not talking about being friends with a Linden; I am however talking about potential RL $ being obtained threw some back room deal with LL again. Frankly I am pretty sick of reading that type of bullshit. Especially given that LL seems to go out it's way for some doing deals the wrong way. But rarely ever compensates ppl like Anshe Chung with any type of discount when ppl like her are literally spending thousands of US$ to invest in the SL product.

I find that kind of unbalanced "business tactic" not only suspect; I find it offensive to those that always go the extra mile with little or no compensation what so ever.

In the end reading these kinds of things; leaves nothing in my mind but contempt for some employees at Linden Lab. Obviously someone didn't get the memo on "business ethics 101"

Cat

[Khamon Fate]

/wave to Cat

[jamie bergman]

LoL. FIC altruistic? C'mon now. I never bought into THAT heaping pile of shit. Its ALWAYS been about the money to them. Perhaps they were just better than others at hiding that.

Perhaps because I saw threw them from the beginning this is also why I can't understand why this issue is such a "big deal".

As my boss says, "We're not here to make friends. We're here to make money."

[jamie bergman]

udontknowme, I am shocked by your naitivity. This is how things work in the business world. Seriously. Backdoor deals and what not. You can't stop it... so you might as well join in.

Get YOUR giant mansion and gas guzzling SUV today! :)