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weena Janic
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ok i just received an e-mail telling me that some stuff have been removed out of my marketplace store cause of intellectual proprety

i sell bikes in SL and in the search words "ONLY" i wrote harley davidson so if anyone types harley davidson it'll bring my bikes up. in any part of my advertisement text or textures on my bikes the words harley davidson can be found no one can see or read that word in my listings of over 30 bikes and the nice peoples from the LL IP Team tough right to make me redo over 30 listings for that search word.. i dont know if you have any idea of the time it takes to take 6 or 7 pictures upload them do the listing so it's apealing and try to get a few dollars out of them in a saturated market  but one thing for sure the IP TEAM dosn't so i was wondering if any of you had the same awful feeling to see your entire work go down the drain because LL cant just tell you to correct your mistake instead of killing your entire store

AT least let us edit the damn thing !

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weena Janic wrote:

ok i just received an e-mail telling me that some stuff have been removed out of my marketplace store cause of intellectual proprety

i sell bikes in SL and in the search words "ONLY" i wrote harley davidson so if anyone types harley davidson it'll bring my bikes up. in any part of my advertisement text or textures on my bikes the words harley davidson can be found no one can see or read that word in my listings of over 30 bikes and the nice peoples from the LL IP Team tough right to make me redo over 30 listings for that search word.. i dont know if you have any idea of the time it takes to take 6 or 7 pictures upload them do the listing so it's apealing and try to get a few dollars out of them in a saturated market  but one thing for sure the IP TEAM dosn't so i was wondering if any of you had the same awful feeling to see your entire work go down the drain because LL cant just tell you to correct your mistake instead of killing your entire store

AT least let us edit the damn thing !

So what you're saying here is, as your keywords for search you branded your creations as "harley davidson" and are now pissed that someone called you out on it? Really? Think about that for a minute.

Do you own that brand name, have rights to use that name? My guess is, no. In which case, LL did nothing wrong, you did. There's actually a TOS for merchants for a reason. You might want to read up on it. You're lucky they didn't remove your products from the grid entirely for using a brand, an actual licensed and owned brand name you have absolutely no right to use. So yes, they were being kind to you.

Your time may have been wasted, but it wasn't the lab that wasted it. It was you. Your work didn't go down the drain just because you have to redo your listings. If your stuff had been removed with no warning as to why, like most of the things removed, you might have reason to be irritated. You're lucky, they gave you the reason why. Although you already knew the reason before they removed it. It wasn't a mistake it was a deliberate attempt on your part to, as you said, get a spot in a saturated market. If you choose less than stellar methods to get your foot in the door, you shouldn't be surprised when someone decides to slam it down on your foot  once they find out.

 

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you obviously didn't get what i was saying "really"

what YOU are saying is no one has the right to use tha word "harley davidson"

i wasn't trying to get more peoples to buy my bikes... only to think about what peoples would type to find a bike and like i said  --> no one can see or read that name brand in my listings <-- cause search words dont apear in your listings so in fact i'm not using that name to advertise i used it cause peoples are not machines and when they think of a "motorcycle" more than 60% if asked will say  "harley Davidson" 

MY guess is that you own a brand name and got screwed with it that's why you're so "by the Book" about it and i'm sorry if i'm right but i still think LL goes too far

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weena Janic wrote:

you obviously didn't get what i was saying "really"

what YOU are saying is no one has the right to use tha word "harley davidson"

i wasn't trying to get more peoples to buy my bikes... only to think about what peoples would type to find a bike and like i said  --> no one can see or read that name brand in my listings <-- cause search words dont apear in your listings so in fact i'm not using that name to advertise i used it cause peoples are not machines and when they think of a "motorcycle" more than 60% if asked will say  "harley Davidson" 

MY guess is that you own a brand name and got screwed with it that's why you're so "by the Book" about it and i'm sorry if i'm right but i still think LL goes too far

I got what you were saying and disagree with you.

Harley Darvidson is  a trademarked name and you do not have a right to use it for commercial purposes as you were, or any other way, without their specific permission.  If you weren't trying to get people to buy you bikes why did you use it in your keyword? To make sure more people see your bikes and increase the likelihood of a sale. Your being disingenuous.

And before you ask, yes, I own a trademark brand name and would object to anyone using it without my permission.  That is the whole idea behind a trademark.  I paid good money and a lot of it to get the RL trademark.  No, I have not gotten screwed either.  The protection a trademark provides is a defense against that and gives me legal grounds to stop it and sue for damages resulting from wrongful use.

In addition to a trademark violation, you violated LL's IP Policy, incorporated into the TOS by reference as well as the MP Fee and Listings Policy which specifically prohibits using brand names not your own in keywords.

You aren't the first merchant that has come here to say their listing was pulled for this reason.  I am sure that they will be more. LL seems to be cracking down on this.

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weena Janic wrote:

you obviously didn't get what i was saying "really"

what YOU are saying is no one has the right to use tha word "harley davidson"

i wasn't trying to get more peoples to buy my bikes... only to think about what peoples would type to find a bike and like i said  --> no one can see or read that name brand in my listings <-- cause search words dont apear in your listings so in fact i'm not using that name to advertise i used it cause peoples are not machines and when they think of a "motorcycle" more than 60% if asked will say  "harley Davidson" 

MY guess is that you own a brand name and got screwed with it that's why you're so "by the Book" about it and i'm sorry if i'm right but i still think LL goes too far

Just because harley comes up and some very well may search it out, does not mean you have free reign to use the term. Keywords are there for people who are searching, they ARE part of your advertising. They ARE part of your listing.

Obviously you're trying to get people to buy your products. What kind of merchant wouldn't? Every merchant wants customers, that's not a bad thing. I didn't say wanting more customers was a bad thing. What you did to get them, however, is not a good thing. That's why your stuff was taken down. You can't use a brand name, at all, if you don't own it. That's not just a rule in sl. It's a law. You don't get to brand your stuff with names you don't own. That's just a reality of being a merchant, no matter where or what you sell. Even using it in keywords is slapping that brand on your stuff.

Making you abide by the rules you already agreed to is not going too far. They have to enforce laws you know. They are as obligated as you or I to follow them. I didn't realize following laws, and rules, was always such a bad thing. If you want to call me a stickler then by all means go for it. I prefer people be able to protect the stuff they own. That includes big companies right on down to the little guy. I wouldn't want someone else to use your product or brand name, if you had one, on their products either. It's not right. I don't blame you for not wanting to do the work over, but it's still not the lab's fault you used incorrect terms and now have to redo it.

Try reading this, it might help

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/listing_guidelines

Go to about 1/4 of the page down, there is a section about branding, specifically the "not allowed" section, it has a spot that discusses keywords specifically. There is also a section all about keyword spamming.  It might shed some light for you.

 

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I guess you're right Wade and i apreciate your compassion i should have known better.... than to try to let some steam off in here

thank you for your response

P.S.  back to the main post all i was venting about was the lack of opportunity to edit something that was wrong instead of blocking it, not about rights and TOS, i'm the kind of person who tosses the instruction booklet and tries to figure it out.  Ok i used something i shouldn't have sorry  but it would be nice of LL to let us edit the mistake instead of blocking it.

i will no longer receive posts on this thread nor will i ever post in this forum, so  dont bother bashing me over the head with whatever.

thank you

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It's a hard lesson learned but everyone has them, and no one likes them. Especially when it's our own fault we experience them.

I think they chose the best method to deal with it. They could, if they so chose to, not allow you to use the MP at all, or remove your content from the grid. No one is entitled to be a content creator in sl, even moreso if we choose not to abide by the rules.  By allowing you to relist they are giving you a second chance to rectify what happened. Having to redo listings over, isn't nearly as bad as having your content, or ability to sell your content, removed entirely. Think of it as a silver lining in the situation.

It's not bashing you to point out why they did what they did, or why using the brand name was wrong. It's also not beating you over the head to point out the TOS. If you can't be bothered to read them, it's no one's fault but your own. No need to flounce just because people don't agree with you.

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1. Do not use Real World bike names for any reason, Real World names can be DMCA claimed.

What you really need to know is who file the claim for example I know someone made a FUS-RO-Dah hud there were 3 on the market place a DMCA was filed against one creator his was removed but the other two were not if this was not filed by the Skyrim Creators then it was a FALSE DMCA removal. I believe that LL should provide information on who files the DMCA TakeDown Request such as if it was a company or another player. (If it was not the real world company, for example then it was a false claim, although you should still ask consent before using real world trademarks, names, or sound alike etc, even if the name is different and an exact model for example turbo squid or such.)

2. If your builds were actually your own, you are 100% sure you did not use anyone elses build, sculpts, license rights, or any look alike, similar names, or real world trade marks, then you have a right to Counter File the DMCA, in which to solve the dispute LL will likely restore your items, and any other disputes will have to be settled in a court.

I know some people troll file DMCA's however I have seen this happen );

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LL owns the Marketplace and makes the rules.  Your listings can be taken down because you break them.  Her items were not removed, just the listing and she can relist them as long as she doesn't use a trademarked name to market them.

I've heard of more people lately that that this has happened to.  LL might have decided they may have some liability to the owner of the trademark if they allow unauthroized use of it since they would directly benefit from commissions on sales or it could have been flagged for keywords by anyone or both. 

A DMCA is not necessary in a case like this nor do they have to disclose who complained, if anyone.  The simple fact that the rules were broken was enough. There may have been other merchants that had items delisted for the same thing or will be, We don't know unless the merchants tell us. 

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Hi everyone,


Actually what you did could be classed as 'passing off' or using someone else's brand name as your own and so it is quite right that the offending items should be removed.

 

If you were a rl business using my brand name I would take action.... against you and the service providers

 

 

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GothGirl Demonia wrote:

1. Do not use Real World bike names for any reason, Real World names can be DMCA claimed.

What you really need to know is who file the claim for example I know someone made a FUS-RO-Dah hud there were 3 on the market place a DMCA was filed against one creator his was removed but the other two were not if this was not filed by the Skyrim Creators then it was a FALSE DMCA removal. I believe that LL should provide information on who files the DMCA TakeDown Request such as if it was a company or another player. (If it was not the real world company, for example then it was a false claim, although you should still ask consent before using real world trademarks, names, or sound alike etc, even if the name is different and an exact model for example turbo squid or such.)

2. If your builds were actually your own, you are 100% sure you did not use anyone elses build, sculpts, license rights, or any look alike, similar names, or real world trade marks, then you have a right to Counter File the DMCA, in which to solve the dispute LL will likely restore your items, and any other disputes will have to be settled in a court.

I know some people troll file DMCA's however I have seen this happen );

Trademark Violations have nothing to do with DMCA which covers Digital intellectual Property, it's unlikely this take down would have been done under the DMCA process.

Most likely Harley Davidson employ someone to google Harley Davidson all day long and see whos trying to rip em off, bearing in made a significant proportion of their revenue is derived from sales of licensed memorabilia

If you were involved in a DMCA claim which ran its legal course obviously LL would provide the name of the claimant, how else would either of you be able continue the legal process otherwise. 

If a DMCA is filed incorrectly the injured party is entitled to compensation paid for by the claimant, the filing process is quite complex and invloves sending signed faxes to LL with evidence to back the claim. Consequently people do not 'troll file' DMCA notices, I would be interested to know how you were able to 'see' a DMCA claim happen ?.

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Zigzags Salad wrote:

Most likely Harley Davidson employ someone to Google Harley Davidson all day long and see whoso trying to rip me off, bearing in made a significant proportion of their revenue is derived from sales of licensed memorabilia

 

I think what most likely happened is that one of his competitors or another SL user went and flagged his items. That is what normally happens. 18 months ago or so members of CTL openly requested that residents flag any items that are incorrectly catagorised or infringe on trademarks etc. They apparently do not moderate the marketplace themselves but rely on us to flag items for investigation. Since then "FlagFest" has been in full swing.

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Porky Gorky wrote:


Zigzags Salad wrote:

Most likely Harley Davidson employ someone to Google Harley Davidson all day long and see whoso trying to rip me off, bearing in made a significant proportion of their revenue is derived from sales of licensed memorabilia

 

I think what most likely happened is that one of his competitors or another SL user went and flagged his items. That is what normally happens. 18 months ago or so members of CTL openly requested that residents flag any items that are incorrectly catagorised or infringe on trademarks etc. They apparently do not moderate the marketplace themselves but rely on us to flag items for investigation. Since then "FlagFest" has been in full swing.

I thought trademark infrigments could only be flagged by the trademark owner?

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iCade wrote:

I thought trademark infrigments could only be flagged by the trademark owner?

Yes, in fact the flagging system doesn't have a way to report copyright and trademark stuff. If you choose "infringes my intellectual property rights" as a flagging reason, the form won't let you proceed. Instead, the following message is displayed:

 

We can only process intellectual property complaints from authorized persons in compliance with legal processes. Please refer to our 
 for more information and instructions on how to submit an intellectual property notice.

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iCade wrote:


Porky Gorky wrote:


Zigzags Salad wrote:

Most likely Harley Davidson employ someone to Google Harley Davidson all day long and see whoso trying to rip me off, bearing in made a significant proportion of their revenue is derived from sales of licensed memorabilia

 

I think what most likely happened is that one of his competitors or another SL user went and flagged his items. That is what normally happens. 18 months ago or so members of CTL openly requested that residents flag any items that are incorrectly catagorised or infringe on trademarks etc. They apparently do not moderate the marketplace themselves but rely on us to flag items for investigation. Since then "FlagFest" has been in full swing.

I thought trademark infrigments could only be flagged by the trademark owner?

They can. But you can flag an item under spam or disallowed listing practices>keyword spam, which is where this problem would fall.

It likely was just another user that flagged at least one item, in this case, and less likely the actual company or it's employees. But who reported it or why they did, doesn't matter. The reason for flagging or in this case removal, is pretty solid.

 

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Hm, Harley Davidson should be ok. Since the RL company is spelled Harley-Davidson they can hardly complain about you trying to cash in on their name. On the other hand using RL brand names is loathsome, isn't it? Totallly uncreative and un-SLish. What about playing a bit around with the brand, like Hardly Rideable, Horribly Dated, Howdy Stranger, Harvey Dent?

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Princess Verwood wrote:

I agree with playing around with the wording, however, I doubt it matters whether the name is spelled Harley Davidson, Harley.Davidson, HarleyDavidson, or any other combination, the trademarked name is still used.

Its very hard to fudge on that stuff.  Also many companies as a protective matter also trade mark not only obvious but remotely similar terms.

As an example, WIPO recognizes trademark rights and it is very hard to register a domain with the word "walmart" in it.

http://www.circleid.com/posts/wal_mart_on_the_domain_name_war_path

http://www.elliotsblog.com/people-of-walmart-using-a-trademark-in-a-domain-name-2663

http://domainnamewire.com/2009/10/29/walmart-goes-after-peopleofwalmart-com-typo/

 

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iCade wrote:

I thought trademark infrigments could only be flagged by the trademark owner?

Well it's a grey area. Under the terms of service agreement LL have the authority to act against all IP and TM infringement without the involvement of the original owner of the rights.

However, also under the TOS LL manage to completely absolve themselves of this responsibility. So essentially they can do as they please until they are specifically required to take action by law. I find their lack of action disgusting considering LL supported and endorsed the libsecondlife project which was responsible for creating the precursor to copybot and making the code open source. They support a DMCA process and that is it. Ridiculous.

Anyway. I digress. 

So you cannot report TM infringement through the DMCA process. As far as I know there is no official process to report TM infringement. I assume one would get their legal representative to write to LL.

However it would seem that anyone can report TM infringement via the flagging process in the MP and LL will act upon it without any intervention from the original owner of the TM. This was demonstrated when they changed the MP maturity ratings in response to the teen grid closing. Brooke Linden asked MP users to flag any items that had incorrect maturity ratings. However people started also flagging incorrect categorization of listings and TM infringement, and lots of content was taken down as a result, some of it for trademark infringement. A friend of mine who sold items in RP sims had loads of Battlestar and Starwars items removed. He found out that one of his competitors had done the flagging so he (and I) went and flagged his competitor for TM infringement. We got lots of his items taken down too. 

The TM infringement needs to be an obvious one, but you should try out it out for yourself. Find something on the MP that is an obvious TM infringement and flag it to see what happens. You can flag it under any category.

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weena Janic wrote:

ok i just received an e-mail telling me that some stuff have been removed out of my marketplace store cause of intellectual proprety

i sell bikes in SL and in the search words "ONLY" i wrote harley davidson so if anyone types harley davidson it'll bring my bikes up.

So, potential fraud -AND- trademark violation.

Fraud because they weren't what they claimed to be. Trademark violation because you used somebody else's trademark.

 

Harley Davidson is such a recognized and iconic brand name because they take enforcement of their trademark seriously... LLs did you a favor pulling those. The last thing you'd ever want is a cease and desist letting showing up on your RL doorstep from that company. By getting them yanked early - you're being saved from what could be a much worse outcome down the road.

Pain to set it up again, sure - but look at it as an opportunity to re-theme them.

Plenty of good motorcycles in SL, and clubs for them, and so on - lots of opportunities to market to that community using a brand name you build for yourself. Go around to some of the motorcycle spots in SL and see what folks are doing.

- Don't copy one of their brands. Don't even try to keyword sneak into their search (many do this, but its unwise for the reasons you now know).

 

Just look at the themes in the community, and find your own original spin on it.

 

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weena Janic wrote:

you obviously didn't get what i was saying "really"

what YOU are saying is no one has the right to use tha word "harley davidson"

i wasn't trying to get more peoples to buy my bikes... only to think about what peoples would type to find a bike and like i said  --> no one can see or read that name brand in my listings <-- cause search words dont apear in your listings so in fact i'm not using that name to advertise i used it cause peoples are not machines and when they think of a "motorcycle" more than 60% if asked will say  "harley Davidson" 

MY guess is that you own a brand name and got screwed with it that's why you're so "by the Book" about it and i'm sorry if i'm right but i still think LL goes too far

They aren't being by the book about it. That's the TOS and the law. You can't use things to advertise your product which you do not own. Was no need to take a shot at the person for telling you the truth. Instead of being irate why not learn about IP infringements, before someone sues you for it one day.

I'm only surprised anything was done since even MP carries a lot of IP infringements on a given day, and there is no way to report it, unless you are the one being ripped off. I highly doubt most of those corporations troll the MP looking so on it goes.

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OP has gone now

but ji ust say that this probably the worst way to vent pretty much ever

like you get your stuff blocked by linden bc you using a brandname/tm that you not allowed to do

so have a rant/moan. which is ok to do

+

is 2 parts to the rant/moan

1) is so unfair that i cant use someone elses brandname/tm to help sell my stuff

2) after being told i cant then it sux that i wasnt able to edit my MP listings and i had to do them all over again

OP vent went all wrong when kept getting defensive about 1)

later on OP get off that and go onto 2). which is the more important thing if you actual want to get anything good to come out of the rant

but by then was all kinda to late

+

also dunno if anyone else noticed

the thread got hit about 900 times by a link clicker  within minutes of it first being posted

is not a good look this and dont help with the credibility of the rant/moan when this happens

 

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