About Swastikas

[Pepite Roxan]

Hello everyone :)

I'm going to upload an aircraft. I have doubts about the swasticas.

There is something in the SL TOS that forbids me to upload historical textures with swasticas printed on?

The swastica will be to have it as close as possible the real thing was.

Thank you very much, Pepite

[Ted McGregor]

I reckon you are trying to replicate a Stuka, Messerschmitt, Heinkel or Dornier from the WWII-era.

To be historically accurate with German WWII - airplanes you should at least make the Luftwaffe-cross prominent over the swastika. This cross has a rather limited association with nazis and has been in use by the German army long before WWII ( e.g. WWI-airplanes.)

Many German airplanes of the day however were not always coated with that swastika. IYou shouldn't need it for historical accuracy, if you want to be safe with the T.O.S.

The small swastika, on the tail part of the plain, was usually added on later when the NSDAP (nazis) took hold of Germany politically and took over the army, which of course also included their 'Luftwaffe'.

Should the T.O.S. forbid use of swastikas anywhere, that would be your safest option to choose from.

[Pepite Roxan]

Thank you.

Actually the livery I'm doing had, historically the swastica printed. If it is for historical purpose, is it allowed, so?

[Ted McGregor]

I'm not sure about that.

I'm sure you cannot use the swastika, of course, as an ideology ( like using it with slurs or slogans ) or glorification.

But again .. use of the swastika, although being used on warmachinery in the WWII-era, is not obligatory to be historically correct.

ETA :

As an example, take a look at this :

I could not possibly tell you if the above Buddha is allowed in SL. You'd always run risk of getting reported as a creator, I'm afraid.

The swastika here is of different origin. Eventhough it is historically correct, you hardly find any buddha's with swastikas within SL.

[valerie Inshan]

As opposed to many countries - especially European ones - the United States do not prohibit nazi symbols or flags: the public display of Nazi flags in the U.S. is protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.SL is ruled by the laws of the USA, so, legally strictly speaking you can use swastikas, especially for historical or RP purposes. A quick look on the marketplace will show you dozens of items WWII related that use them. 

Putting that symbol on an airplane replica is not against the ToS. What would violate such ToS would be, for example, someone wearing a swastika for racist purposes, progaganda or harassment towards other residents.  

[Pepite Roxan]

Ok thank you very much. Pepite

[Scooter Hollow]

Just to clarify, the first amendment only covers what the government is allowed to do about speech. If Second Life wanted to ban any sort of speech on their own servers, they would be allowed to do so. (Such as harassment)

[Coby Foden]

It's also interesting to note what the European Union has decided.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika

Attempt to ban [swastika] in the European Union

"An attempt to ban the swastika across the EU in early 2005 failed after objections from the British Government and others. In early 2007, while Germany held the European Union presidency, Berlin proposed that the European Union should follow German Criminal Law and criminalize the denial of the Holocaust and the display of Nazi symbols including the swastika, which is based on the Ban on the Symbols of Unconstitutional Organisations Act. This led to an opposition campaign by Hindu groups across Europe against a ban on the swastika. They pointed out that the swastika has been around for 5,000 years as a symbol of peace. The proposal to ban the swastika was dropped by Berlin from the proposed European Union wide anti-racism laws on January 29, 2007."

However, in some European countries public display of swastika is punishable by fine, and even by imprisonment.

[irihapeti]

the risk you run is that others may take your craft (when made available to the public) and use it as a prop to troll people elsewhere

when that happens you can end up with large numbers of people in your IM pointing out that this is happening. Some will also consider you an enabler of trolling. That you are not doesnt prevent people considering this, no matter how much you might reason with them

personally if was me making this I would go with the Luffwaffe insignia and leave it at that. To any reasonable person (meaning those who take others into consideration) who obtains/buys your craft then the absence of the swatiska is not a biggie for them 

[Theresa Tennyson]

---

TDD123 wrote:

I reckon you are trying to replicate a Stuka, Messerschmitt, Heinkel or Dornier from the WWII-era.

To be historically accurate with German WWII - airplanes you should at least make the Luftwaffe-cross prominent over the swastika. This cross has a rather limited association with nazis and has been in use by the German army long before WWII ( e.g. WWI-airplanes.)

Many German airplanes of the day however were not always coated with that swastika. IYou shouldn't need it for historical accuracy, if you want to be safe with the T.O.S.

The small swastika, on the tail part of the plain, was usually added on later when the NSDAP (nazis) took hold of Germany politically and took over the army, which of course also included their 'Luftwaffe'.

Should the T.O.S. forbid use of swastikas anywhere, that would be your safest option to choose from.

---

The standard WWII Luftwaffe markings throughout the war included the swastika on the tailfin; however, I just did a quick Marketplace search and none of the German WWII aircraft for sale there have it despite the rest of their markings being accurate. I'm assuming that at some point including the swastika caused enough problems for the makers that they removed it so it would be prudent for the OP to do the same. The TOS doesn't include any specific language about swastikas that I could see though.

ETA - Okay, this is interesting... I decided to do some research on RL airplane model kits. The box illustrations of Luftwaffe plane kits from American or Japanese makers have the swastika; however, the boxes for kits by Airfix, a British (i.e. European) company, don't.

[Ted McGregor]

Thank you for your research, which is also why I refrained from using swastikas altogether in this thread.

My advice to the OP stands : avoid certain trouble by avoiding the use of swastikas altogether even if historically correct.

 

( People will have no issue recognising that certain era of plane-constructing without their use.)

 

[valerie Inshan]

Adding to all previous posts, here's a input on dos and dont, depending in which country they apply. Sorry it's a bit long but rather complete.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika

Related links in here are interesting too. 

Where law applies or not, I would like to point out common sense should rule. As long as it has historical purposes, you should be fine (even if you have to post a disclaimer / warning). After all, as it's been pointed out in other threads, Nazi bardads DID exist. And they lotst. This is history.