September 6, 2007 by Sarah Nerd
Anshe Chungs latest announcement has many builders and designers in an uproar in second life. I tried to find the original announcment but they always lead to forums of people taking about it but not the actual post itself. I was told that it was removed because it caused such an uproar but was given the text in world, so I apologize if its missing any information. This is what I have seen...
In IMVU the average margin of content creators for items they sell is about 10-15 L$, while in Second Life content prices are still at almost the same levels as 3 years ago when the population was only a fraction of what it is now. We think this is one reason why IMVU is growing much faster than Second Life now. Therefore we decided to make Second Life more competitive and more accessible to players by providing high quality products at prices that allow Second Life to remain competitive in the long run. Our plan for the end of this year is to have between 50 and 100 internal designers and scripters working on 10 LINDENS, plus a network of local partners we are currently training here. We plan to create a full range catalog of decent SL content.
I think this is definitely good news for the content creator community of SL, much the same way ACS entering the IMVU content market helped the content creator community as a whole to grow their business. In IMVU, the increased internal competition and improved quality of the product catalog greatly accelerated growth of the platform and market as whole. Many content creators reacted by strengthening their brand's focus and focusing on more complex / high end products, actually increasing their sales in the long run. I hope we can recreate part of this success in Second Life in the coming months and all benefit from economic growth again, after the stagnation of the economy here in August.
Sellers Guild and many other groups and residents are not happy about this situation. They feel this will make it impossible for them to turn enough profit to stay in business. With so many designers in second life to compete with already, I can easily understand the upset. They feel she is destroying the community she serves. I personally have always been a fan of pricing my own products low, but I don't have the impact to destroy the market the way Anshe might be able to. I guess we will see how much power so holds over our product economy over the next few months.
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shoot the B*****
I am sorry, I can be one of the most professional and respectable people in Sl. as a content developer, when my friend Sarah Nerd told me about this, and what anschenchung plans to do.. I hope they burn in hell. Seem hateful, well yeah.. cause she will be ruining the lives of thousands and forcing multitudes of great high end content developers out of business. Instead of so called helping SL she will be killing it, and the great dedicated hard working content developers that make it great.
I have nothing but to say but to give ansche the finger!
Perefim Cao
Law on This
I got several IMs and emails on this from people who wanted me to take a look at it from a legal perspective.
I did a little bit of digging, and while it's not impossible to imagine such a thing, it would be a somewhat uphill battle. For one thing, suing anyone in another country is an expensive hassle (SL's German designers, and Chinese, to the extent they exist, would have an easier time, I suspect, but I have no idea what Germany's and China's laws are on this, and the interplay with U.S. law given the server locations starts to make my head spin). Basically, a suit is not impossible, but it is daunting. Instead, in the U.S., I'd probably take this to the ITC (International Trade Commission) where a U.S. Administrative Law Judge can award an injunction prohibiting importation of the underpriced "dumped" goods. Even that, however, looks like a losing fight to me.
There are other issues here, but the big one is that anti-dumping laws aren't really designed for intellectual property like this.
Consider this, from the International Trade Commission (the administrative court that deals with this kind of thing): "dumping occurs when a foreign producer sells a product in the United States at a price that is below that producer's sales price in its home market, or at a price that is lower than its cost of production." (See http://www.usitc.gov/trade_remedy/731_ad_701_cvd/index.htm.) Basically, to prevail under this definition, you'd have to prove that Anshe was losing money on these items. Since you can make an unlimited number of copies of one of these items once it has been produced, that's going to be a pretty tough argument.
There are also some anti-competitive behavior laws on the books, but most depend on being able to prove that the alleged perpetrator took some action with the intent of driving competition out of business, and while everyone accuses Anshe of that (maybe correctly, I have no idea personally) I can't find any support for the idea in her actual post.
Anyway, this is a quick-research answer, and I'll keep thinking about it. My guess, though, is that this is one of those situations where it just isn't going to be worth it to pursue it. It's a really intriguing possibility, and one where I do think the law will eventually catch up with the reality (and maybe would apply in a case like this) but I don't see anything out there that really applies right now.
VintFalken's post, discussion
Some commentary and discussion over here:
http://www.vintfalken.com/10lindens-acs-anybody-pro/
:O
Wow, Anshe runs SL now???
heh.
Well, she apparently wants to...
SLExchange.com link to related discussion
Sarah provided me this link inworld.
http://slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=22452
It seems SLExchange did decide after 18 pages of forum posts that giving Anshe Chung her own category was probably not really smart.
Re: SLExchange.com link to related discussion
Because thanks to my friends about this author.
every time you enter the site. youtube is always providing the original video.
A very good site like facebook siteside. I said I love you.
regards...
Just remember that Anshe
Just remember that Anshe owns SL Exchange...
I heard she was a partner.
How much of a partner, I do not know. Of course, her being a partner may be akin to a kiss of death.
Nicely done signature, Gwyn. :-)
'scuse me?
"They feel she is destroying the community she serves."
The community she whats?
There is a word for what she does to the Second Life commmunity, but I think it uses different letters....
Heh.
That seems to fit the data presently available. :-)
Anshe Chung as Walmart.
That's what I read here. If she follows through on this, she should expect a backlash. Given her cloak and dagger investments on WSE as 'Third Party', I think she may well be shooting herself in the foot.
If she wants to monopolize trade in Second Life, I think she's on the right path. After all, she has Chinese employees who can work for her for pennies on the dollar. However, the PR price may cause her to lose rentals - and most certainly will cause a lack of good will from smaller entrepeneurs.
I guess when you start as an escort, its all about who screws who. :-)
She can be wal-mart
but i'll be the dollar store ( items have been this low for months now & no one really buys any)
http://shop.onrez.com/Thabiggdogg_Richez
when people see items prices so low they think stuff must be junk. people need to boycott anything she does. she just screwed them all over with the dreamland stuff last month now she pulls this.
i read on slx she pulled all her items cause she left the pose balls as full perm... earlier today her special area wasn't listed anymore.
ALSO love how she gets the special last name LINDENS this here proves she is really licking the LINDENS asses to get that last name LINDENS
ThaBiGGDoGG Richez
CEO SLBC & BDG
yeah, I do the same...
On slexchange and elsewhere... 1 L or 0L. I'm starting to sell some stuff on OnRez, but it just takes forever to list so many items. I'm only putting the newer 50% of my items on OnRez, but that's about 250 items... O.o
What I don't get is that Anshe is complaining about the lack of decrease in prices, and yet I don't believe she has been decreasing any of her land prices. Has she? Of course not.
What did she pull on Dreamland last month anyway? I must have missed that.
Well last month what she did
Well last month what she did was make the Dreamland land rentals convert over to land ownership. Each chunk of land got 16m for her ad space or something taken out. But see anytime she could reclaim those lands back in her name make them re rent them off her. Renting or owning land in private sims can't be 100% trusted. Cause when they sell you land the Estate owners still own that land.
Searched that name 10L Lindens on SL it isnt a name. but thats trademark infringement them letter her use that last name Lindens on SLX. noobs etc see that name & think thats a linden selling the items.
If they made her a special deal it should be open to anyone. If she paid 1Mil L$ to get a special section that should be posted on there for anyone else to get the offer she got..
ThaBiGGDoGG Richez
CEO SLBC & BDG
Hmm. Well...
That is the model I use for Sentience - people buy the land and pay me tier. It worked out well for me, because people helped me recoup my cost for the island fairly quickly - but Sentience is set up a little bit differently. For example, there are no 16m plots, but there are common areas which any resident can use (as long as no one complains). Further, they get more control of the land, etc. It also requires less work.
I'm not a big fan of rentals, but they have their place. the 16m plots are the question on that Anshe issue, but hey - people are free to leave her islands. I don't see what the fuss is about. Don't like what she's doing? Leave. Plenty of estates out there.
10Lindens ACS as a name is questionable, I agree, but that is between Linden Lab, Anshe and SLExchange. Frankly, I'm a little disappointed with how SLExchange handled the whole thing - and I'll write about that in a day or so. I have a feeling that there will be more developments.
He did although he no longer
He did although he no longer does. Look at this link
Also...Found this protest
Also...Found this protest item.