3pointD.com

News that Irish comedian Jimmy Carr would do a stand-up gig in the virtual world of Second Life apparently didn’t raise enough eyebrows for virtual-world services firm Fusion Unity Ltd., which has just issued another press release for the February 3 event. But checking in at the company’s Web site (from which the image above was lifted), reveals something strange: almost nowhere on the site is Second Life referred to as Second Life; instead, it’s re-branded as The Metaverse throughout, except in a couple of press releases on the news page.

The site almost makes it sound like Fusion Unity built the virtual world itself — though it avoids actually making that claim (a move that seems better thought out than the spelling on the site). The page describing real-world simulations also seems slightly misleading, featuring Linden Lab’s prim oil rig in SL’s ANWR region as an example of a simulation of a hazardous real-world location.

Fusion Unity’s merits as a design team — which may be formidable, for all I know — are difficult to untangle from its obfuscation of the virtual world’s origins. (Do I smell a debate between Virtual Creationists and Virtual Darwinists brewing?) But one thing that’s interesting to note is that Linden Lab founder and CEO Philip Rosedale has never had any problem with co-opting his customers’ creations as part of his PR efforts, often speaking about the fact that his company has the largest content-creation team in the world working for it. Is this kind of turnabout fair play? Or is it a matter for the DMCA?