Since closing the blog last year I have had periodic requests to restart it. As it stands I would be open to anyone wishing to write on this blog around the subject of security and virtual worlds. There aren’t too many other sources out there so keeping the blog going is a good idea. Therefore, if anyone wishes to get involved please email me at roderick[dot]jones[at]gmail[dot]com.
I recently checked into Second Life for the first time in a long time. Interestingly, the subject of what ‘went wrong’ with Second Life has cropped up quite a bit recently as a kind of essay question. My own view is that Second Life had a moment where it almost did offer the metaverse of imagination. Second Life circa 2006 did seem unbound by terrestrial law and economics. The reports of fortunes being made in a new world were drawing in an enormous amount of interest. However, from April to July 2007 the owners of Second Life, Linden Lab began to bind the world the United States law by introducing Age Verification and then banning Gambling from the world. This was in an environment when the US was aggressively pursuing UK executives from BetonSports, which was engaged in online gaming (so it is entirely understandable). While seemingly sensible policy decisions at the time, these decision placed Second Life back in the terrestrial realm. From there the promise and excitement around the world declined.
I find myself wondering how difficult it now would have been to offshore Second Life to maintain its ‘freedom’ and how hard that would be to do now. Unbind it from nation-state law and regulation again. Would it be possible to place the company behind a trust arrangement in an offshore center and place the servers behind similar extra-territorial and legal protections. It is an intriguing idea as online environments become increasingly walled-in — creating one community, which can be transnational is a fascinating idea and would maybe re-boot the idea of a Metaverse. Second Life is currently valued at just north of $200M so it wouldn’t be a cheap experiment but it could work as a side project in Linden Lab.
I found my way here from the Counterterrorism Blog, which recently shut down, and certainly wasn’t thinking about Second Life! But I love (or loved) my time in Second Life, from January 2007 to October 2010, visiting almost daily.
Regarding your idea: Offshoring Second Life might be possible in the same way that Cayman Islands and Isle of Mann financial entities are created. The challenge would come from the actual physical assets of Second Life (servers), whereas financial organizations can be domiciled offshore without any actual physical footprint to speak of. The thing to do would be to check into non-service businesses that are based in offshore havens, i.e. NOT finance, nor insurance, nor advisory/ consulting, and see what they do, which would act as precedent and guidance for an offshore domiciled virtual world.
Two other matters, the first being medium of exchange. Liquid market currency like US$, DM, CHF, BPS, Yen is the obvious. It would be interesting however, to use something like Bitcoin, if one could be assured of a fair market with adequate volume. I am against central banking, don’t have disdain for $US as “fiat currency” or want gold standard! Bitcoin may not be mature enough yet, but it would be an interesting idea to base virtual world transactions on a novel measure of value, as a concept.
More pressing concern: Yes, secondary markets estimate Linden Lab value approx $200mil at present. I’m not certain that LL mgmt would want to further extend themselves with an offshore version of Second Life. In world is very quiet now, the Second Life forums and blogs were read only in March (though that was supposed to be because of transition to the new format), Torley has a lot of free time to post on his Tumblr blog, Second Lie has departed etc. It would be a wise business strategy for Linden Lab to hunker down and concentrate on core features, not spread themselves thin right now.
I don’t know who Linden Lab stakeholders are at present, nor % ownership (I knew in the past, just from public info in the media, but those things can change, and we wouldn’t know as it is a privately held company). Mor do I know what (if any) long-term debt or other liabilities they have. What I’m saying is that it would probably be easier to buy out (or maybe they call it “spinoff”) Second Life as it is now into an exclusively offshore virtual world, rather than maintain two separate versions, one with U.S. HQ and a new entity domiciled offshore.
Well, all we need is a consortium of enthusiastic investors (with deep pockets), then retain international accounting and legal resources to arrange a deal with Linden Lab (assuming they would be interested in such a proposal). Not too ambitious at all!
Sorry, major typographical error! In my initial comment, I said
PLEASE disregard that and replace with
Roderick, I hope you’ll forgive the awful mess I am leaving in your blog comment area. I truly hope that my primitive markup is accepted by your WordPress theme. If not, double apologies!