The art of making money of "SLArt"

SLART, SLART, SLART

There I said it three times. And maybe I shouldn't have. Aparently someone by the name of Richard Minsky has trademarked everything from Slart over SLArt to slart. How crazy can it get?

This issue was first pointed out to me by my friend Gany after he was approched in world by an av called "ArtWorld Market". He put a few things together and sent out this notcard:

Hi all, this is an IM I woke up with:

================ the IM ==============

[1:09] ArtWorld Market: Hi Gany-- Your profile Picks with the heading SL-Art contains "SLart SLArt ". This infringes the SLART trademark and must be removed. SL-Art and SL Art are ok.

=== I didn't save my own text at this point, since between her 1st and 2nd message I had my moms RL birthday party to celebrate (it was today and my grandparents came of for a BIG lunch), but I said that I didn't use "SLART" as a search entry, and that "SLart" or "slart" should have nothing to do with her "SLART", and that I used it since that was the word people would be using when searching for SL-Art, or people making it. On top of that, I even pointed out to her there's a SL resident named "Slart Flanagan". So... go figure what she would want him to do... anyway, here's her reply to me on what I wrote ===

[10:29] ArtWorld Market: (Saved Mon Jan 14 15:25:35 2008) Thanks for gettting back to me, Gany. SLART is a "Standard Character Mark" which means slart (no caps) or any mixture of caps and lower case letters, or any font or style are covered by the trademark. If people are searching for SLARt, slart, SLart or any other version usiing the SL search feature it is the same. SL Art or SL-art are ok to use. Others have used it and have stopped when it was pointed out they were infringing on a trademark. Here is an examplpe: http://virtualartpedia.a.wiki-site.com/index.php/virtualartpedia:Community_Portal .
[10:37] Ganymedes Costagravas: fine, I changed it to SLArt and SL-Art. Tho I think it's not right to claim a trademark of a word that is a known and practically has become a standerd used term for SecondLife Arts, or something that will be a very often used search entry for SecondLife Arts.

============= Epilogue ===================

Now, I personally didn't know that "SLART" or "slart" or "SLart" or "SLArt" are all falling under that trademark, hell I didn't even know there WAS a trademark in it, and lets face it, wouldn't you use it as a search keyword when you make a topic in your Pics area on the profile, when you want to try to make some money by making SL-Art pictures?


Now I don't even know if this trademark is for real either, but I do know that whoever is behind it is actually trying to make it worth their while. I found at least one blog that was asked to change its name or enter a licensing agreement. The blogger seemed to be ok with this and actually states here: "As an artist in my First Life and a promoter of the arts in my Second, I fully understand and respect that someone who establishes a trademark on something–whatever it is– needs to protect them tooth and nail."

I'm sorry but are Gany and I the only ones who thinks this is ridiculous? SLArt to me is a common term that refers to all sorts of art(sy) work originating from SL or existing in SL. Who has the trademarks for "Rock and Roll", "Pointillisme" or "Baroque"? Same thing no? SLArt, however you write it, is a word, just a word, and if I want to use it I will. No silly money-hungry "entrepreneur" will keep me from doing so!

Anyway, I'm on my way now to trademark all variations of "SLex" & "SLove"... May as well make it worth my while too. Nah ... just kidding .... ;-)

PS: thank you Gany for letting me use your notecard!

UPDATE:

It seems Vint is on a crusade. I'll gladly join in. If you want a full permission copy of the T-shirt I made just ask. Feel free to hand them out to anyone! If you could make them available in world on a permanent basis even better!


I would love to see Flickr plastered with pics of people wearing it :-)

Sue me Richard !

Second Rez-Day

December 23rd was my second Rez-Day. Yup, Loki is two years old now and my god how different SL is from that first day I walked onto the grid in my playdoh skin and white T-shirt. When I arrived I was all alone there. These days new avs rez left,
right and center. I remember feeling very helpless, moving around was difficult, moving objects even more so. Thankfully I'm not easily discouraged. On my first night in SL Sophia Willberg taught me how to use poseballs to dance and together we danced the night away. I was hooked.

Later on I met this really nice lady whose name I have sadly forgotten who gave me a load of boxes with invaluable inventory. I spent hours sifting through furniture, clothing, gestures, animations, sextoys and all those others amazing things I now owned. Since I needed a place where I could rez all the stuff and some privacy to do so I set up camp at a sim called Hedonistic Retreat where I found a small empty hut to use as my home.

From my base camp I started roaming the sims. One of my first regular hangouts was a place called Sexcapades. Sounds a lot more corny than it really was. First and foremost it was a place where people gathered and where I met a lot of nice and interesting peole. The place later moved and changed it's name to Heaven Above the Clouds which, as far as I know, still exists.

One of the people I met there was Shiloh Minogue. She became my first real friend in SL and later on we extended that to RL. Together with her I discovered poseballs were not just for dancing. Since she couldn't stand the playdoh skin I was still wearing she bought me my first "real" skin; a very expensive one from Dragonfly. Even though I don't see her in SL all that often these days I will get to meet her IRL in the near future. I'm looking forward to it.

It was also around this time I discovered making snapshots of people and giving them a copy is a great way to start a conversation. Unfortunately uploading snaps costs $L so I had to find a way to make some Lindens since I had set myself the goal not to just buy them. I noticed a bunch of people walked around with really badly made tattoos and I was convinced I could do better. Guess I was right. Doing only custom jobs, saving myself the hassle of needing a shop and all that, I was able to bring in enough to get around. I even got ambitious and started making a skin. I had no clue where to start and tutorials were few but with the help of GLIntercept I got myself a few samples of how it was done. Lazy as I am I still wear the one skin I ever made (yes, I know that it's cheating but I only used it for "educational use").

The Hedonistic Retreat closed down and I lost the place I called my home for the first few months. Not that I really needed it, by now I was hanging around wherever the SL winds blew me and my friends list grew steadily. Through one of them, Unrulie Childs, I met Lily Fizz who offered me to take up residence on a small plot of land next to her humongous castle at Bloody Falls. I accepted and though I was seldom home I had myself a nice cottage for a while and all for free. Thanks again Lily !

It was only when I found slprofiles.com and made myself a profile that my friends list started booming. I met so many people there I stil call friends today. I would love to list them all here but I would inevitably forget someone and I just don't want to do that. I'm sure you all know who you are! The "Thank you Yo and Jaxi" party, the activities for "Relay for Life", the inevitable drama, they all forged bonds. Even though some have left SLP by now for various reasons, for me they will always be linked to those days.
Some of them I found again when, being a bit unhappy with the maximum size I could post my pictures on SLP, I started an account on Flickr. It meant a second wave of new friends; creative people who pushed me to explore the boundaries of my own creativity and technique by the stunning work they produce, getting me in touch with the vivid SL photography community in world.

This trip down memory lane is of course but the tip of the iceberg. So many good laughs, disappointments, true heart warming moments, deep conversations, silly drama and exciting adventures remain unmentioned but I just can't list them all. On this occasion I would love to thank all of you out there who mean or have meant something to me. You guys have made SL in the past two years a good place to be. After all, it's the people who make SL what it is, always has been like that and it's not likely to change.

A day and a half later...

While I was sorting out some pictures to go with the above text I got an IM to mail from Mecca asking me if I could log on since she needed a profile pic of me. Struck me as odd since only last week she made a series of 80 pics of me. Upon logging on and tp'ing to her place I was greeted by a whole bunch of friends. Turned out Mylena had secretly been organising a party for my rez-day and what a party it turned out to be... I will not go into detail but the first incriminating pics have already surfaced and I'm sure more will follow.

All I can say is I had a blast. It felt so good to be surrounded by those I love and genuinly feel part of something bigger.

An incredible "thank you" to Mylena for organising it, thank you Andrew for the sporks, thank you everone for being there and an extra special thank you Semi and Nephie for your wonderful music. You guys have no idea what it meant to me.

UPDATE:

Thanks to Bella & Adhemar for the footage! Great job :-)

Flickr Antics

Joonie Jatho just sent me a mail asking if I will ever blog again. Thank you Joonie. Of course I will. I know it's been a while. I guess I have been spending way too much time in photoshop and on Flickr. As a result I have used up my 200 pictures that come with a free account and I'm rather proud of most of them so I don't really want to delete any. I'm left wondering if I should go for a pro account but something is holding me back. I'll get to that later.

It's a funny world, the SL community on Flickr, and rather addictive. I have wondered why people, myself included, would spend so much time making, processing and posting pictures that will most likely be forgotten the next day. Is it the calling to produce true art, to express ourselves in a creative manner or is it the stream of views, comments and favourites we hope to get and with it the appreciation or even adoration we gain from our fellow flickerites? Maybe after all it's just an ego thing. Or part of it is anyway.

It would explain the extensive commenting and the virtual pats on the back that are constantly exchanged. It is a given that the more you comment on others the more comments you get back. The more comments you get the more you are loved, no? I guess it's like with every other community site whether it be Flickr, MySpace, SLProfiles even SL itself, we want to belong, be part of it. This does introduce some strange phenomenons though.

It's rare to get a "real" comment on a picture. What do I mean by that? A real comment in my opinion is just what it says it is, something a person wants to say about your work, good or bad. Not that I think all the "Gorgeous picture" or "Stunning work" compliments are not real but in all the comments made on my pictures there is just one in which the author states how she thinks the picture could be improved. Thank you Luna! That took courage because it's "just not done". In a way it is sad since we could all learn from each other if we had Luna's courage.

I know, there are groups you can add your pictures to just for that specific purpose, but that's not what I mean. I'm not saying every picture should be thoroughly dissected and evaluated, I'm just looking for some honesty. Usually the honesty is translated into "I don't like it so I will not comment".

Another strange phenomenon I've noticed is the tactics people use to get their pictures noticed. Adding it to a bizillion groups for example or adding a thousand tags or making sure you post it at a certain time for higest visibility. I caught myself doing it. I'm just as guilty of it as the next guy. All of that so I could belong and that brings me back to the pro account. I could easily get one. The cost isn't exactly a problem but why would I need to add hundreds more pictures? Why would I need to get my fix of comments on a neverending stream of pictures? Maybe I should stick to my 200 picture limit and only add pictures I think are really worth it, replacing an existing one. By doing so I would protect myself from the temptation to enter the rat race for pats on the back and I can go back to work on the pictures that really matter to me regardless of the comments.

But that's just a thought because if I started replacing older pictures I would lose the evolution in my work. It is most certainly there and it would be a shame to erase it. After all it is very nice to see how people's work progresses and changes or takes new turns. The endless creative possiblities was what sucked me into it and is what I still enjoy. I suppose I will just have to grow a spine and resist the temptation of picture vomiting and underhand tactics to get them noticed. The comments that matter will probably be there regardless and and I'll remind myself it's not supposed to be a popularity contest when I see 20 favourites appear on the next mediocre picture.