Earthdance 2011

Last weekend, Friday through Sunday, I attended Earthdance 2011 at the Solano County Fairgrounds in Vallejo, California. Yeah, I know Vallejo is not in Second Life but Earthdance is so cool it's like SL plus I have some photos I want to share :)

Earthdance is a 3 day festival held simultaneously in hundreds of locations in dozens of countries. The vision of Earthdance is a world of communities joining in a common goal of global unity, collaboration and evolution toward a Culture of Peace through music, dance, prayer, and activism.

The lineup in Northern California this year included Ziggy Marley, Balkan Beat Box, Les Nubians, Trevor Hall, Indubious, Beats Antique, Delhi 2 Dublin, Faun, Tipper, Mimosa, Emancipator, and many many more.

Here are a few of the photos I took this year:

Batty Suit with Tails and Jacket from silentsparrow

The new silentsparrow (the old location is now the Ozimals Orientation area!) is an excellent source for high quality gothic suits for men and women. They also have a nice selection of gowns, corsets, waistcoats, and an eclectic mix of items.

I've reviewed other suits from silentsparrow before, including the Ryou Suit and the Corbie Suit. Here I am modelling the Batty Suit with tails and jacket.

YouTube Keeps Us On Our Toes - Newly Revised NHC Media Playlists

I create and maintain a set of media playlists for several of the major media players in Second Life. One set, the NHC Media Playlists, I offer on the Second Life Marketplace for L$25. It's really convenient and kinda cool to be able to automatically play a series of YouTube videos on your land or in your club. Sort of like a Video DJ.

However, the videos tend to disappear over time or become unplayable in Second Life. Several things can happen to make a video disappear. The user can pull it or quit YouTube. YouTube can make the video unavailable due to Copyright infringement. But, by far, the most frequent cause of YouTube videos disappearing or becoming unplayable in Second Life is due to the actions of the Warner Music Group (WMG). Since WMG owns the rights to the songs recorded by artists under contract with them, they can get YouTube to pull them over Copyright dispute even if the artists do not object or actively encourage the free distribution and viewing of their music videos. All the artists can do is make the videos of live performances of their music available and most do.

That artists do not control the distribution and terms of use of their own artistic creations seems wrong to me. It seems like a crime.

The second most common thing WMG (and others, like Sony) do to "protect" "their" intellectual property is to disable embedding of the video. What this means is that you can watch the video on YouTube but the Second Life media players cannot play it in Second Life.

All this adds up to making my playlists go stale over time as they gradually are inundated with links that no longer work in SL. Recently I've refreshed a few of my playlists and that is the reason for this post.  I have updated my NHC Media Playlists product on the SL Marketplace replacing unavailable links with new ones that play in Second Life.

I will soon be updating the SL Wiki and inworld freebies I make available.