About a week ago, a social media post accused a region on the Kitely grid of distributing infringing content.

Strictly speaking, any infringement complaint needs to be made by the original content creator, through official channels. That wasn’t the case here.

It was a pseudonymous user, DMCA GridSkipper, claiming that the Fashionistas Island had some infringing content — but offered no details about what specifically that content was or whose copyright was being infringed.

“It didn’t even include all the information required by a DMCA, primarily the infringing content was never identified,” Kitely CEO Ilan Tochner told Hypergrid Business. In addition, the person reporting was using a throw-away email address and a brand-new Kitely account.

Despite the lack of concrete information, the grid took action.

“We took the report seriously despite the questionable nature of the reporter’s identity as it really shouldn’t matter who reported it if the content itself was indeed being distributed without a proper license,” said Tochner. “We responded quickly to the possibility that there was infringing content to ensure that if it existed it would be promptly removed from our service.”

Within two hours, the grid set the region access to private, so that only the region owner could visit it, and contacted the region owner. Eventually, the grid took down all the content.

Kitely requires a formal complaint about any content to be done by clicking a Report World link on the world’s World Page, sending an email or internal message, posting the information on the forum or filing a DCMA take down notice on their website copyright notice link.

Some grid owners claim that they cannot remove or limit access to content before receiving a formal complaint from the content author or before being served with a formal DMCA. In fact, that is one of the excuses for infringing content in OpenSim and virtual worlds, in addition to 10 other excuses Maria Korolov wrote about last year.

But grids are increasingly getting more proactive when it comes to protecting creator rights on their platforms.

For example, DigiWorldz recently banned use of Athena Mesh bodies following informal complains on social media forums, even without formal DCMA notice or filing. The grid took the action after confirming with the original author that use of the meshes was violating copyrights.

David Kariuki is a technology journalist who has a wide range of experience reporting about modern technology solutions. A graduate of Kenya’s Moi University, he also writes for Cleanleap, and has previously worked for Resources Quarterly and Construction Review. Email him at david@hypergridbusiness.com.

Latest posts by David Kariuki (see all)

About a week ago, a social media post accused a region on the Kitely grid of distributing infringing content.

Strictly speaking, any infringement complaint needs to be made by the original content creator, through official channels. That wasn’t the case here.

It was a pseudonymous user, DMCA GridSkipper, claiming that the Fashionistas Island had some infringing content — but offered no details about what specifically that content was or whose copyright was being infringed.

“It didn’t even include all the information required by a DMCA, primarily the infringing content was never identified,” Kitely CEO Ilan Tochner told Hypergrid Business. In addition, the person reporting was using a throw-away email address and a brand-new Kitely account.

Despite the lack of concrete information, the grid took action.

“We took the report seriously despite the questionable nature of the reporter’s identity as it really shouldn’t matter who reported it if the content itself was indeed being distributed without a proper license,” said Tochner. “We responded quickly to the possibility that there was infringing content to ensure that if it existed it would be promptly removed from our service.”

Within two hours, the grid set the region access to private, so that only the region owner could visit it, and contacted the region owner. Eventually, the grid took down all the content.

Kitely requires a formal complaint about any content to be done by clicking a Report World link on the world’s World Page, sending an email or internal message, posting the information on the forum or filing a DCMA take down notice on their website copyright notice link.

Some grid owners claim that they cannot remove or limit access to content before receiving a formal complaint from the content author or before being served with a formal DMCA. In fact, that is one of the excuses for infringing content in OpenSim and virtual worlds, in addition to 10 other excuses Maria Korolov wrote about last year.

But grids are increasingly getting more proactive when it comes to protecting creator rights on their platforms.

For example, DigiWorldz recently banned use of Athena Mesh bodies following informal complains on social media forums, even without formal DCMA notice or filing. The grid took the action after confirming with the original author that use of the meshes was violating copyrights.

David Kariuki is a technology journalist who has a wide range of experience reporting about modern technology solutions. A graduate of Kenya’s Moi University, he also writes for Cleanleap, and has previously worked for Resources Quarterly and Construction Review. Email him at david@hypergridbusiness.com.

Latest posts by David Kariuki (see all)

About a week ago, a social media post accused a region on the Kitely grid of distributing infringing content.

Strictly speaking, any infringement complaint needs to be made by the original content creator, through official channels. That wasn’t the case here.

It was a pseudonymous user, DMCA GridSkipper, claiming that the Fashionistas Island had some infringing content — but offered no details about what specifically that content was or whose copyright was being infringed.

“It didn’t even include all the information required by a DMCA, primarily the infringing content was never identified,” Kitely CEO Ilan Tochner told Hypergrid Business. In addition, the person reporting was using a throw-away email address and a brand-new Kitely account.

Despite the lack of concrete information, the grid took action.

“We took the report seriously despite the questionable nature of the reporter’s identity as it really shouldn’t matter who reported it if the content itself was indeed being distributed without a proper license,” said Tochner. “We responded quickly to the possibility that there was infringing content to ensure that if it existed it would be promptly removed from our service.”

Within two hours, the grid set the region access to private, so that only the region owner could visit it, and contacted the region owner. Eventually, the grid took down all the content.

Kitely requires a formal complaint about any content to be done by clicking a Report World link on the world’s World Page, sending an email or internal message, posting the information on the forum or filing a DCMA take down notice on their website copyright notice link.

Some grid owners claim that they cannot remove or limit access to content before receiving a formal complaint from the content author or before being served with a formal DMCA. In fact, that is one of the excuses for infringing content in OpenSim and virtual worlds, in addition to 10 other excuses Maria Korolov wrote about last year.

But grids are increasingly getting more proactive when it comes to protecting creator rights on their platforms.

For example, DigiWorldz recently banned use of Athena Mesh bodies following informal complains on social media forums, even without formal DCMA notice or filing. The grid took the action after confirming with the original author that use of the meshes was violating copyrights.

David Kariuki is a technology journalist who has a wide range of experience reporting about modern technology solutions. A graduate of Kenya’s Moi University, he also writes for Cleanleap, and has previously worked for Resources Quarterly and Construction Review. Email him at david@hypergridbusiness.com.

Latest posts by David Kariuki (see all)

About a week ago, a social media post accused a region on the Kitely grid of distributing infringing content.

Strictly speaking, any infringement complaint needs to be made by the original content creator, through official channels. That wasn’t the case here.

It was a pseudonymous user, DMCA GridSkipper, claiming that the Fashionistas Island had some infringing content — but offered no details about what specifically that content was or whose copyright was being infringed.

“It didn’t even include all the information required by a DMCA, primarily the infringing content was never identified,” Kitely CEO Ilan Tochner told Hypergrid Business. In addition, the person reporting was using a throw-away email address and a brand-new Kitely account.

Despite the lack of concrete information, the grid took action.

“We took the report seriously despite the questionable nature of the reporter’s identity as it really shouldn’t matter who reported it if the content itself was indeed being distributed without a proper license,” said Tochner. “We responded quickly to the possibility that there was infringing content to ensure that if it existed it would be promptly removed from our service.”

Within two hours, the grid set the region access to private, so that only the region owner could visit it, and contacted the region owner. Eventually, the grid took down all the content.

Kitely requires a formal complaint about any content to be done by clicking a Report World link on the world’s World Page, sending an email or internal message, posting the information on the forum or filing a DCMA take down notice on their website copyright notice link.

Some grid owners claim that they cannot remove or limit access to content before receiving a formal complaint from the content author or before being served with a formal DMCA. In fact, that is one of the excuses for infringing content in OpenSim and virtual worlds, in addition to 10 other excuses Maria Korolov wrote about last year.

But grids are increasingly getting more proactive when it comes to protecting creator rights on their platforms.

For example, DigiWorldz recently banned use of Athena Mesh bodies following informal complains on social media forums, even without formal DCMA notice or filing. The grid took the action after confirming with the original author that use of the meshes was violating copyrights.

David Kariuki is a technology journalist who has a wide range of experience reporting about modern technology solutions. A graduate of Kenya’s Moi University, he also writes for Cleanleap, and has previously worked for Resources Quarterly and Construction Review. Email him at david@hypergridbusiness.com.

Latest posts by David Kariuki (see all)

About a week ago, a social media post accused a region on the Kitely grid of distributing infringing content.

Strictly speaking, any infringement complaint needs to be made by the original content creator, through official channels. That wasn’t the case here.

It was a pseudonymous user, DMCA GridSkipper, claiming that the Fashionistas Island had some infringing content — but offered no details about what specifically that content was or whose copyright was being infringed.

“It didn’t even include all the information required by a DMCA, primarily the infringing content was never identified,” Kitely CEO Ilan Tochner told Hypergrid Business. In addition, the person reporting was using a throw-away email address and a brand-new Kitely account.

Despite the lack of concrete information, the grid took action.

“We took the report seriously despite the questionable nature of the reporter’s identity as it really shouldn’t matter who reported it if the content itself was indeed being distributed without a proper license,” said Tochner. “We responded quickly to the possibility that there was infringing content to ensure that if it existed it would be promptly removed from our service.”

Within two hours, the grid set the region access to private, so that only the region owner could visit it, and contacted the region owner. Eventually, the grid took down all the content.

Kitely requires a formal complaint about any content to be done by clicking a Report World link on the world’s World Page, sending an email or internal message, posting the information on the forum or filing a DCMA take down notice on their website copyright notice link.

Some grid owners claim that they cannot remove or limit access to content before receiving a formal complaint from the content author or before being served with a formal DMCA. In fact, that is one of the excuses for infringing content in OpenSim and virtual worlds, in addition to 10 other excuses Maria Korolov wrote about last year.

But grids are increasingly getting more proactive when it comes to protecting creator rights on their platforms.

For example, DigiWorldz recently banned use of Athena Mesh bodies following informal complains on social media forums, even without formal DCMA notice or filing. The grid took the action after confirming with the original author that use of the meshes was violating copyrights.

David Kariuki is a technology journalist who has a wide range of experience reporting about modern technology solutions. A graduate of Kenya’s Moi University, he also writes for Cleanleap, and has previously worked for Resources Quarterly and Construction Review. Email him at david@hypergridbusiness.com.

Latest posts by David Kariuki (see all)

Kitely, a leading OpenSim grid, has announced a significant upgrade to its virtual world hosting service, doubling the performance of all Kitely regions without increasing prices. The company has achieved this by adopting the latest Amazon server technology, the M7i generation, while maintaining its existing pricing structure.

“This upgrade enables your worlds to handle more scripts and avatar activity without experiencing server lag,” said Kitely CEO Ilan Tochner.

According to our most recent stats report, Kitely is currently the third-largest OpenSim grid by land area and one of the 20 most popular by traffic numbers.

The grid’s prices start at $15 a month for a 15,000-prim region with up to ten simultaneous visitors, and go up to $150 per month for a 64-region land area with up to 180,000 prims and up to 80 simultaneous visitors. But for people just starting out, Hypergrid Business recommends their $ 20-a-month plan, which has four contiguous regions, 60,000 prims, and a capacity of 40 visitors.

Kitely has always been committed to using powerful servers, hosting a limited number of regions on each server, and employing a modified version of OpenSim with proprietary high-performance assets and inventory systems, the company said in its announcement yesterday. The company’s servers are hosted in an Amazon Web Services data center in California, which offers high-speed connectivity to the Internet.

“This latest upgrade reinforces our commitment to providing a premium experience to our OpenSim customers,” Tochner said.

Kitely, which opened its doors to the public in March 2011, is one of the longest-running OpenSim grids. It is unique in that it offers on-demand regions — the regions are only active when people are visiting them, and go to sleep when they are empty, allowing the company to keep costs low while offering high performance on regions when they’re active.

“We have a great reputation for customer support, reliability, and high-performance virtual world hosting,” said Tochner. “Kitely is also the home of Kitely Market, the premier marketplace for buying and selling virtual items across the hypergrid.”

Hypergrid Business editor and publisher Maria Korolov is a science fiction novelist. During the day, Maria Korolov is an award-winning freelance technology journalist who covers artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and enterprise virtual reality. See her Amazon author page here and follow her on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and check out her latest videos on the Maria Korolov YouTube channel. Email her at maria@hypergridbusiness.com. Her first virtual world novella, Krim Times, made the Amazon best-seller list in its category. Her second novella, The Lost King of Krim, is out now. She is also the publisher of MetaStellar, a new online magazine of speculative fiction.

Latest posts by Maria Korolov (see all)

Kitely, a leading OpenSim grid, has announced a significant upgrade to its virtual world hosting service, implementing an enhanced version of OpenSim 0.9.2.2. This update comes on the heels of a recent system-wide upgrade that doubled world performance.

According to an announcement earlier this week, the new version of OpenSim includes hundreds of proprietary stability and performance improvements developed by the company over the years. One of the most notable enhancements is faster world startup times, which should improve user experience across the grid, and better compatibility with scripts imported from Second Life.

The most significant feature in OpenSim 0.9.2.2 is the transition from XEngine to YEngine for the scripting system. This change brings both benefits and challenges.

“YEngine is designed to more closely follow the LSL script syntax,” said Oren Hurvitz, Kitely’s co-founder and VP R&D, in the announcement. “This makes it easier to port scripts that were designed for Second Life into OpenSim.” However, he warned that this change may cause some scripts that worked on XEngine to break, requiring users to fix, replace, or remove affected scripts from their Kitely worlds.

The switch to YEngine has also reset all scripts to their initial state.

“That’s because the state files where OpenSim stores script state have changed their format, and YEngine can’t use state files that were created by XEngine,” Hurvitz said.  As a result, users who have scripts needing configuration after being rezzed will need to reconfigure them.

It’s important to note that the transition to the new script engine requires the system to recompile all scripts in each world. According to Hurvitz, “This happens the first time each world is entered following today’s update. This means that each world will take longer than usual to start the first time anyone enters it after this update.”

However, Hurvitz said that this is a one-time delay, and subsequent entries to the world will be faster due to the scripts already being compiled.

This latest upgrade follows Kitely’s recent system-wide enhancement that doubled world performance, demonstrating the company’s ongoing commitment to improving its service without increasing costs to users.

Kitely, which opened to the public in March 2011, is one of the longest-running and most innovative OpenSim grids. With its unique on-demand region system and the popular Kitely Market, the grid is a significant player in the virtual world ecosystem.

For more information about the script changes and how they might affect users’ worlds, Kitely recommends checking the OpenSimulator wiki entry on YEngine.

Hypergrid Business editor and publisher Maria Korolov is a science fiction novelist. During the day, Maria Korolov is an award-winning freelance technology journalist who covers artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and enterprise virtual reality. See her Amazon author page here and follow her on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and check out her latest videos on the Maria Korolov YouTube channel. Email her at maria@hypergridbusiness.com. Her first virtual world novella, Krim Times, made the Amazon best-seller list in its category. Her second novella, The Lost King of Krim, is out now. She is also the publisher of MetaStellar, a new online magazine of speculative fiction.

Latest posts by Maria Korolov (see all)

Update (Sep 1, 2024): Several educators have asked to be able to order after the school year has started. To accommodate their request, Kitely decided to extended the offer until September 15. Only 10 more people will be able to take advantage of this deal, and there will be no more extensions after this.

For a limited time, Kitely‘s “Mega Worlds” region packages are on sale again, for $90 a month, the company announced today.

A “Mega World” is a variable size region the size of 64 standard region that can hold up to 150,000 prims. That works out to about $1.40 per standard region per month.

They also get their own dedicated servers.

The downside? They’re only available for the first 25 customers who order.

The deal comes shortly after Kitely’s recent performance upgrades that sped up world startup times. And, in May, Kitely rolled out an upgrade that doubled region performance.

Normally, the Mega Worlds cost $120 a month, and the last time the Mega Worlds were on sale was four years ago.

Most OpenSim grids and hosting providers cram a lot of variable-sized regions into each server and run multiple variable-sized regions on each OpenSim instance in order to keep their operational costs manageable and their prices affordable, said Kitely CEO Ilan Tocher.

“This can be problematic because if your region shares server resources with many other regions then it may run slowly due to what happens in those other regions,” he told Hypergrid Business.

Kitely uses a different strategy and instead of placing a lot of variable-sized regions — which it calls “worlds” — on each server it automatically starts worlds when they are entered and shuts them down when they become empty.

This enables Kitely to run each world on its own OpenSim instance and place no more than four such worlds on each server. By doing this Kitely provides each actively used world a lot more server resources than what other OpenSim grids provide, thus giving its customers a better inworld experience while keeping its prices competitive.

What is unique about Mega Worlds is that Mega Worlds don’t share their server. A Mega World is guaranteed to always get a full server of its own when its active, so it can fully use all of the server’s resources without being impacted by other people’s worlds. This means that Mega Worlds can run bigger worlds, with more scripts and more visitors, than other worlds.

You can read more about Kitely Mega Worlds and its limited-time promotion here.

For examples of publicly-accessible Mega Worlds, check out Coopersville, Signature Safety LLC, and the International Spaceflight Museum.

Coopersville hypergrid address: grid.kitely.com:8002:Coopersville

Signature Safety LLC hypergrid address: grid.kitely.com:8002:Signature Safety LLC

International Spaceflight Museum hypergrid address: grid.kitely.com:8002:ISMuseum

Kitely, which opened to the public in March 2011, is one of the longest-running and most innovative OpenSim grids. With its unique on-demand region system and the popular Kitely Market, the grid is a significant player in the virtual world ecosystem.

Hypergrid Business editor and publisher Maria Korolov is a science fiction novelist. During the day, Maria Korolov is an award-winning freelance technology journalist who covers artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and enterprise virtual reality. See her Amazon author page here and follow her on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and check out her latest videos on the Maria Korolov YouTube channel. Email her at maria@hypergridbusiness.com. Her first virtual world novella, Krim Times, made the Amazon best-seller list in its category. Her second novella, The Lost King of Krim, is out now. She is also the publisher of MetaStellar, a new online magazine of speculative fiction.

Latest posts by Maria Korolov (see all)

This year’s Storylink Radio’s October celebration is more ambitious than ever before, organizers told Hypergrid Business.

There will be live in-world Halloween storytelling all month long and dozens of YouTube exclusive presentations, including short Halloween tales every night on Storylink Radio’s YouTube channel.

All the videos were filmed in virtual worlds.

The live Halloween stories begin on Thursday, Sep. 26 and run through Nov. 2.  There are three different stories every night at 6 p.m., 7 p.m., and 9 p.m. Pacific time in-world and on YouTube.

There will also be a special, live, Halloween Trick or Treat story, and a Dia de Los Muertos storytelling.

“We will be presenting simultaneously at the Storylink Radio estate in Kitely and the Seanchai Library in Second Life, with a live intergrids chat connection,” StoryLink Radio owner Shandon Loring told Hypergrid Business.

Hypergrid Business editor and publisher Maria Korolov is a science fiction novelist. During the day, Maria Korolov is an award-winning freelance technology journalist who covers artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and enterprise virtual reality. See her Amazon author page here and follow her on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and check out her latest videos on the Maria Korolov YouTube channel. Email her at maria@hypergridbusiness.com. Her first virtual world novella, Krim Times, made the Amazon best-seller list in its category. Her second novella, The Lost King of Krim, is out now. She is also the publisher of MetaStellar, a new online magazine of speculative fiction.

Latest posts by Maria Korolov (see all)

About a week ago, a social media post accused a region on the Kitely grid of distributing infringing content.

Strictly speaking, any infringement complaint needs to be made by the original content creator, through official channels. That wasn’t the case here.

It was a pseudonymous user, DMCA GridSkipper, claiming that the Fashionistas Island had some infringing content — but offered no details about what specifically that content was or whose copyright was being infringed.

“It didn’t even include all the information required by a DMCA, primarily the infringing content was never identified,” Kitely CEO Ilan Tochner told Hypergrid Business. In addition, the person reporting was using a throw-away email address and a brand-new Kitely account.

Despite the lack of concrete information, the grid took action.

“We took the report seriously despite the questionable nature of the reporter’s identity as it really shouldn’t matter who reported it if the content itself was indeed being distributed without a proper license,” said Tochner. “We responded quickly to the possibility that there was infringing content to ensure that if it existed it would be promptly removed from our service.”

Within two hours, the grid set the region access to private, so that only the region owner could visit it, and contacted the region owner. Eventually, the grid took down all the content.

Kitely requires a formal complaint about any content to be done by clicking a Report World link on the world’s World Page, sending an email or internal message, posting the information on the forum or filing a DCMA take down notice on their website copyright notice link.

Some grid owners claim that they cannot remove or limit access to content before receiving a formal complaint from the content author or before being served with a formal DMCA. In fact, that is one of the excuses for infringing content in OpenSim and virtual worlds, in addition to 10 other excuses Maria Korolov wrote about last year.

But grids are increasingly getting more proactive when it comes to protecting creator rights on their platforms.

For example, DigiWorldz recently banned use of Athena Mesh bodies following informal complains on social media forums, even without formal DCMA notice or filing. The grid took the action after confirming with the original author that use of the meshes was violating copyrights.

David Kariuki is a technology journalist who has a wide range of experience reporting about modern technology solutions. A graduate of Kenya’s Moi University, he also writes for Cleanleap, and has previously worked for Resources Quarterly and Construction Review. Email him at david@hypergridbusiness.com.

Latest posts by David Kariuki (see all)