Possible legal issue - not sure what to do

[Madelaine McMasters]

---

ImaTest wrote:

So I tend to come across as a cynical **bleep** when people discuss using others' work when they shouldn't

---

Ooooh, you can avoid being bleeped by typing b-a-s-t-a-r-d.

See, I can be a helpful **bleep**!

;-)

[Dresden Ceriano]

---

ImaTest wrote:

The added dramatic effect of extra details about the prior club, and it's employees, adds the ill-intent. There's certainly a fair amount of both ignorance and ill-intent here, imo. At least, that's how it reads to me. Wouldn't be the first time I was wrong, for sure.

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I don't see it that way, but I could certainly be wrong as well.  It just seems to me that this person (the friend of the OP) liked the photo so much that they wanted to use it again and were completely ignorant of the fact that they didn't have that right.  But, of course, you are right... ignorance of the law is no excuse.  I hope now that the OP, and the person they are speaking for here (presuming that the OP will either inform them or that they are actually one in the same), are better informed and will do the right thing.

Believe me, I'm quite protective of people's IP rights and quite cynical as well, as far as that goes... I just don't see that the intent was deliberate in this case.  Of course, legally, intent makes no difference, unless you're dealing with a hate crime or something.

...Dres

[Dresden Ceriano]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

---

ImaTest wrote:

So I tend to come across as a cynical **bleep** when people discuss using others' work when they shouldn't

---

Ooooh, you can avoid being bleeped by typing b-a-s-t-a-r-d.

See, I can be a helpful **bleep**!

;-)

---

I can **bleep**ing **bleep** **bleep**ing **bleep** too... **bleep**

...Dres

[Suspiria Finucane]

My personal recommendation would be; “if” you did not receive said *coughs* legal notice from an authorized LL representative, to flush it down the same toilet as the majority of so called legal advice (because it holds no authority in this case) you have received on this thread.

 

I’ll point you to one of my favorite sub-sections of the TOS. Yes, I’ve been threatened before in a similar manner, on this very forum in fact, to no avail. (Bold emphasis by me for your case) Full section can be read here.

 

7.3 You grant certain Content licenses to users of Second Life by submitting your Content to publicly accessible areas of the Service.

…….

"Your interactions with the Service" may include use of the Second Life permissions system and the copy, modify, and transfer settings for indicating how other users may use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, or perform your Content In-World subject to these Terms of Service. Any agreement you make with other users relating to use or access to your Content must be consistent with these Terms of Service, and no such agreement can abrogate, nullify, void or modify these Terms of Service.

……….

 

For your case the key words are “prepare derivative works of”. If, the image was indeed given to your friend as full perm (hence the word “may” in the section), the original creator has waived their license of exclusive use, with the Service, via the sub-section afore highlighted.

 

Therefore, I commend your search for knowledge on the subject regardless of whether it was deemed drama injected or not. You may want to reconsider giving credibility to certain ranked members however. Obviously their rank was not garnered by knowledge of the TOS.

 

PS Second Life is not the public domain. It is a privately held company employing the use of private servers. Anyone who decides to tick the TOS should know what rights they forfeit before doing so.

 

[Qie Niangao]

(Caveat: IANAL.)

I think that makes an important point.

In the absence of another agreement (an EULA for example, or at the other extreme, something like Creative Commons or public domain), the permissions settings constitute a license grant governing usage within Second Life. If a creator doesn't want to grant the corresponding license rights, they must obtain another agreement each time they distribute their work.

I suspect that what constitutes an "agreement" is interpreted very much more liberally by SL creators than by any court in the land, but for practical purposes it doesn't much matter: the drama is often its own reward.

That's in contrast to folks (e.g., certain established texture artists and animators) who invested the effort and lawyer time to protect their work with (presumed) binding EULAs.

---

As I think about it, however, there is a complexity in the case raised in this thread: SL allows texture assets with full perms to be downloaded to the user's machine. As far as I can tell, nothing in the ToS grants users any license to do that; the only grants are for use within Second Life itself.

Now, one hopes that nobody would be so silly as to think a full-perm texture in SL could be distributed freely outside SL. Full perm is absolutely nothing like public domain.

But an argument could be made that a user is within the granted rights to download a full-perm texture, modify it, and upload it to derive another work within SL. (Again, that's all relating to content licensed only by the permissions system; obviously, most reputable texture sellers grant this ability explicitly in their EULAs in order to be able to sell textures to any but the most newbie of builders.)

[Suspiria Finucane]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

(Caveat: IANAL.)

I think that makes an important point.

In the absence of another agreement (an EULA for example, or at the other extreme, something like Creative Commons or public domain), the permissions settings constitute a license grant governing usage within Second Life. If a creator doesn't want to grant the corresponding license rights, they must obtain another agreement each time they distribute their work.

---

"Any agreement you make with other users relating to use or access to your Content must be consistent with these Terms of Service, and no such agreement can abrogate, nullify, void or modify these Terms of Service"

I'll point to this part of the section.

 

Using "the service" is of course much different than using the public domain.

 

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Qie Niangao wrote:

 

As I think about it, however, there is a complexity in the case raised in this thread: SL allows texture assets with full perms to be downloaded to the user's machine. As far as I can tell, nothing in the ToS grants users any license to do that; the only grants are for use within Second Life itself.

---

If downloading a texture is part of "the service", how could that not be in the TOS? The service is defined in sub-section 4.1:

---

"Second Life" or the "Service" is the multi-user online service offered by Linden Lab and includes the Websites, Servers, Linden Software, Linden In-World Content, and

User Content

. "Servers" are the online environments that support the Service, including without limitation: the server computation, electronic data storage, software access, messaging and protocols that simulate the Second Life environment.

---

 Furthermore it defines user content as:

 

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"User Content" means any Content that a user of the Service has uploaded, published, or submitted to or through the Servers

,

Websites, or other areas of the Service. "Websites" are the websites and services available from the domain and subdomains of

http://secondlife.com

and

http://marketplace.secondlife.com

and any related or successor domains from which Linden Lab may offer services.

---

 This clearly shows that the original image in question was user content and falls under the user content license defined in 7.3

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You agree that by uploading, publishing, or submitting any Content to any publicly accessible areas of the Service, you hereby grant each user of Second Life a non-exclusive license to access the User Content through the Service, and to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content In-World or otherwise on the Service solely as permitted by you through your interactions with the Service under these Terms of Service.

This license is referred to as the "User Content License," and the Content being licensed is referred to as "User Content."

---

Perhaps something needs to be added for clarification.

 

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Qie Niangao wrote:

 

Now, one hopes that nobody would be so silly as to think a full-perm texture in SL could be distributed freely outside SL. Full perm is absolutely nothing like public domain.

But an argument could be made that a user is within the granted rights to download a full-perm texture, modify it, and upload it to derive another work within SL. (Again, that's all relating to content licensed only by the permissions system; obviously, most reputable texture sellers grant this ability explicitly in their EULAs in order to be able to sell textures to any but the most newbie of builders.)

---

Agreed. Futhermore, my intention here is not to promote any type of content theft. It is however very important to know what people have agreed to under the TOS.

 

 

Permissions are a powerful tool and should be used with discretion. If the original image owner was so concerned with its use, full perms should not have been given. A warning for everyone.

 

 

 

[GothGirl Demonia]

To answer my opinion.

1. Legal Threats in a Note-Card I would completely disreguard them, I had some Gorean Role-Player pissed off because they and their friends were supporting CopyBot, and because I publically exposed all of them and their groups on unofficial SL Forums & in game, I never got banned, and their legal threats never carried out. Either way there is no way to stop trolls on the internet even if it was for laughs because one trolls just asks another friend to continue so a court order against me doesnt mean my other friend cant do it.

2. Anyways back on the point, If the person gave you content full permissions in Second Life then it is full permissions, Note-Card agreements are not a forum of agreement even when buying a bunch of textures from a store, you do not have to follow it, now if Linden Lab will ban or suspend a person for reselling the textures likely, if the creator will try to bring legal issues maybe I doubt it, however you can argue their Note-Card in a court/law, and as Linden Lab control's the servers they would likely take action to protect the merchants if complaints were actually filed, however given the fact you can create many accounts from many IP-addresses, spoof MAC you can get away with giving away a load of textures.

Simply Said, Linden Lab might honor agreements in Note-Cards in SL, but they likely would not hold up in a court/law with a good defense although you would have to get legal advise to make sure I am pretty sure done properly you can deny ever accepting any agreement because technically you don't agree to it until you buy therefore even if you didn't agree they have to refund you by not telling you before you buy. ( Although I would say respect the merchants.)

3. A single texture as you described as for being used in a club or on a board, they likely gave it to you FULL PERMISSIONS, without any agreement, therefore its full permissions and in my opinion would not be in the wrong to use it, I would personally tell the person to bug off, mute them, and tell them have an issue file a DMCA you gave it to me full permissions, or just make some edits to the whole texture yourself, and then reupload which would mean they would have to seek a Court/Law in real life to take legal actions of course if you want to give it to them tooth and nail.

4. You could always just do the baller move, and give the texture to a bunch of people, even upload it to a few blogs and image sites, heck if you got the asset key of the original texture they uploaded you can just use that on your items and Linden Lab would have to destroy their original upload to get rid of it, now its perfectly legal to use LSL for this is it abuse technically many merchants wouldn't like it but its not using a CopyBot.

Otherwise if you want the person just to leave you alone and give into their demands eventhough they did give it to you full permissions just change the texture or create your own.

Personally if someone tried this to me my friends would be all over them in a matter of Seconds, and they would likely say we're sorry or quit Second Life really fast.

[Qie Niangao]

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that the TOS bars users from entering into other agreements (such as EULAs) with different licensing terms than implied by permissions settings? Again, IANAL, but that seems implausible. If LL for some strange reason wanted to, it could ban from the service all EULA-agreeing users, but it would seem quite a reach for them to claim the power to bar private parties from even entering into such agreements.

I do think some clarification is needed (at least by me) about the implied rights granted for full-perm textures. It doesn't seem at all clear to me that one has any rights whatsoever to those images once downloaded to your machine. At that point, they are not part of the service, so the creator's copyrights (expressed or implied) should be in full force, not at all abridged by the Second Life TOS. So I see no implied license to actually perform a modification in some other program or service, nor to upload an image derived that way.  

Incidentally, the "Modify" permission doesn't inherently imply anything relevant to changing those textures. As with animations, it may be that the modifiability of texture assets is intended to grant only the ability to change their names and descriptions. (Also, modifying assets in-world retains attribution, which is lost when the new work is derived ouside the service and re-uploaded with a new creator. That would seem a big deviation from every other "modify" license in the service.)

[Perrie Juran]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that the TOS bars users from entering into other agreements (such as EULAs) with different licensing terms than implied by permissions settings? Again, IANAL, but that seems implausible. If LL for some strange reason wanted to, it could ban from the service all EULA-agreeing users, but it would seem quite a reach for them to claim the power to bar private parties from even entering into such agreements.

I do think some clarification is needed (at least by me) about the implied rights granted for full-perm textures. It doesn't seem at all clear to me that one has any rights whatsoever to those images once downloaded to your machine. At that point, they are not part of the service, so the creator's copyrights (expressed or implied) should be in full force, not at all abridged by the Second Life TOS. So I see no implied license to actually perform a modification in some other program or service, nor to upload an image derived that way.  

Incidentally, the "Modify" permission doesn't inherently imply anything relevant to changing those textures. As with animations, it may be that the modifiability of texture assets is intended to grant only the ability to change their names and descriptions. (Also, modifying assets in-world retains attribution, which is lost when the new work is derived ouside the service and re-uploaded with a new creator. That would seem a big deviation from every other "modify" license in the service.)

---

My apologies that I can't find my documentation for this right now....I lost my bookmarks when my hardrive died a few months ago.

Essentially this is all considered an open legal issue and it is not just a matter of LL clarifying things in the TOS but also the laws need clarification.

For instance, the general legal advice given to professional photographers is to NOT upload their pictures to Facebook because any EULA they may try to add may not be enforceable.  In other words, Facebook's EULA which grants an almost unbridled license for pictures you may post there will trump any restrictions you may try to add.

To get an idea of how Lawyers are interpreting the current situation, here is a good example:

http://www.nyccounsel.com/business-blogs-websites/who-owns-photos-and-videos-posted-on-facebook-or-twitter/

However, in regard to SL, the original content creator or copyright owner may still have the right to impose additional restrictions because of  7.8 of the TOS:

"You acknowledge that the Content of the Service is provided or made available to you under license from Linden Lab and independent Content providers, including other users of the Service ("Content Providers"). You acknowledge and agree that except as expressly provided in this Agreement, the Intellectual Property Rights of Linden Lab and other Content Providers in their respective Content are not licensed to you by your mere use of the Service. You must obtain from the applicable Content Providers any necessary license rights in Content that you desire to use or access."   (my bolding)

[Dresden Ceriano]

---

Perrie Juran wrote:

However, in regard to SL, the original content creator or copyright owner may still have the right to impose additional restrictions because of  7.8 of the TOS:

"You acknowledge that the Content of the Service is provided or made available to you under license from Linden Lab and independent Content providers, including other users of the Service ("Content Providers"). You acknowledge and agree that except as expressly provided in this Agreement,

the Intellectual Property Rights of Linden Lab and other Content Providers in their respective Content are not licensed to you by your mere use of the Service.

You must obtain from the applicable Content Providers any necessary license rights in Content that you desire to use or access.

"   (my bolding)

---

This isn't about imposing additional restrictions, because those restrictions are already set.  License rights are intended to give you rights of use, not take them away.  Nowhere does the TOS say that giving someone something full perm automatically gives them the right to use it however they wish (as if it was an unlimited use license)... in fact, it says the opposite, as illustrated by the quote you posted above.

I fail to see why this is so difficult for people to understand.

...Dres

Edited for clarification.

[Perrie Juran]

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Dresden Ceriano wrote:

---

Perrie Juran wrote:

However, in regard to SL, the original content creator or copyright owner may still have the right to impose additional restrictions because of  7.8 of the TOS:

"You acknowledge that the Content of the Service is provided or made available to you under license from Linden Lab and independent Content providers, including other users of the Service ("Content Providers"). You acknowledge and agree that except as expressly provided in this Agreement,

the Intellectual Property Rights of Linden Lab and other Content Providers in their respective Content are not licensed to you by your mere use of the Service.

You must obtain from the applicable Content Providers any necessary license rights in Content that you desire to use or access.

"   (my bolding)

---

This isn't about imposing additional restrictions, because those restrictions are already set.  License rights are intended to give you rights of use, not take them away.  Nowhere does the TOS say that giving someone something full perm automatically gives them the right to use it however they wish (as if it was an unlimited use license)... in fact, it says the opposite, as illustrated by the quote you posted above.

I fail to see why this is so difficult for people to understand.

...Dres

Edited for clarification.

---

I understand what you are saying.  The only reason I use the phrase "impose additional restrictions" is because of the issues with things like Facebook which I linked to above.  I could have stated it better.

[Suspiria Finucane]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that the TOS bars users from entering into other agreements (such as EULAs) with different licensing terms than implied by permissions settings? Again, IANAL, but that seems implausible. If LL for some strange reason wanted to, it could ban from the service all EULA-agreeing users, but it would seem quite a reach for them to claim the power to bar private parties from even entering into such agreements.

 

---

 It's not what I'm saying; it's what SL is saying. That was a direct quote from the TOS.

 

---

Qie Niangao wrote:

I do think some clarification is needed (at least by me) about the implied rights granted for full-perm textures. It doesn't seem at all clear to me that one has any rights whatsoever to those images once downloaded to your machine. At that point, they are not part of the service, so the creator's copyrights (expressed or implied) should be in full force, not at all abridged by the Second Life TOS. So I see no implied license to actually perform a modification in some other program or service, nor to upload an image derived that way.  

---

Let's discover this in a different paradigm.

I'm sure you will agree that a texture is a digital image. I think you would also agree that a skin is a texture is a digital image.

That said, most would probably agree that most skins ie: digital images are no mod. For our discussion, no mod meaning no user content license for modification whatsoever.

A user decides they want to take a photograph (digital image) of their AV in-world. They then download that digital image, crop it or photoshop it on their computer, and upload it to the service. According to the legal experts on this thread, if that skin (digital image) was not created by the user, that person is violating another user’s IP rights by displaying it. Let's say a forum profile picture for example. The same could be said for any other texture in the image used without permission.

However, LL has set a precedent for this by allowing users to create derivative works of (on their computers) and uploading the same by not removing said images from the forum or in-world displays for years.

Now, some may say, I didn't use the exact image of the texture so it doesn't count. They did "prepare derivative works of" by wearing the skin and then captured a digital image and upload it. If this act was truly a violation, surely LL would enforce it, but they don't.

The OP did the same thing the so called legal experts turn a blind eye to on a day to day basis. Is it legal? Precedents set are a very valuable tool in a court case.

 

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Qie Niangao wrote:

Incidentally, the "Modify" permission doesn't inherently imply anything relevant to changing those textures. As with animations, it may be that the modifiability of texture assets is intended to grant only the ability to change their names and descriptions. (Also, modifying assets in-world retains attribution, which is lost when the new work is derived ouside the service and re-uploaded with a new creator. That would seem a big deviation from every other "modify" license in the service.)

---

All I can say about this is point to what I wrote. LL appears to be fine with modification and uploading of digital images back to the service per the example.

One final point. As you may be aware, this issue is profit driven. It appears to me if no profits are forfeited by this act, no measures are taken. However if there is a substantial profit loss, action is taken. Double standard? Perhaps...

 

[Suspiria Finucane]

---

Perrie Juran wrote:

However, in regard to SL, the original content creator or copyright owner

may

still have the right to impose additional restrictions because of  7.8 of the TOS:

---

 May being the out. Not positively have the right.

 

---

Perrie Juran wrote:

"You acknowledge that the Content of the Service is provided or made available to you under license from Linden Lab and independent Content providers, including other users of the Service ("Content Providers"). You acknowledge and agree

that

except as expressly provided in this Agreement

,

the Intellectual Property Rights of Linden Lab and other Content Providers in their respective Content are not licensed to you by your mere use of the Service.

You must obtain from the applicable Content Providers any necessary license rights in Content that you desire to use or access.

"   (my bolding)

---

And where would that provison be exactly? 7.3?

 

 

I would venture to say, 100% of the people posting on this thread are not Bar members or even paralegals. Fortunately for me, my partner is.

 

 

[Qie Niangao]

Regardless of whatever terms the Lab has in its TOS, there's no way they can use that TOS to prevent other parties entering into other agreements. They could theoretically ban those other parties from the service (which of course they've never done), but there's simply no mechanism by which they could invalidate those other contracts. The TOS could as well require the moon to be made of green cheese.

The in-world snapshot thing as "derived work" is kind of a distraction, seems to me.  In RL, we take photos containing trademarks, copyrighted works, etc., all the time -- indeed, it's practically impossible to avoid it. But this is all subject to reasonable restrictions the courts recognize: we aren't allowed to go to museums and take unlicensed photos of protected paintings. Nor do we get to re-use the Nike trademark however we please just because somebody wore a sneaker in one of our snapshots.

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Suspiria Finucane wrote:

[...] As you may be aware, this issue is profit driven. It appears to me if no profits are forfeited by this act, no measures are taken. However if there is a substantial profit loss, action is taken. Double standard? Perhaps...

---

In practice, that's no doubt true. In practice, most everything is profit driven. But in theory, the license grants and restrictions cut both ways. For example, one may license a script under GPL to forbid distributing any derived work that does not include the original script, open and freely re-distributable. One could imagine an image artist wanting the same sort of terms applying to their work, although I'm not thinking of an example, nor am I sure whether terms of existing licenses such as GPL would directly apply to images. (Maybe it's common and I just don't know about it.)

Without profit, certainly, there are limited resources to enforce such license terms.

[Dresden Ceriano]

---

Suspiria Finucane wrote:

---

Qie Niangao wrote:

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that the TOS bars users from entering into other agreements (such as EULAs) with different licensing terms than implied by permissions settings? Again, IANAL, but that seems implausible. If LL for some strange reason wanted to, it could ban from the service all EULA-agreeing users, but it would seem quite a reach for them to claim the power to bar private parties from even entering into such agreements.

 

---

 It's not what I'm saying; it's what SL is saying. That was a direct quote from the TOS.

 

---

Qie Niangao wrote:

I do think some clarification is needed (at least by me) about the implied rights granted for full-perm textures. It doesn't seem at all clear to me that one has any rights whatsoever to those images once downloaded to your machine. At that point, they are not part of the service, so the creator's copyrights (expressed or implied) should be in full force, not at all abridged by the Second Life TOS. So I see no implied license to actually perform a modification in some other program or service, nor to upload an image derived that way.  

---

Let's discover this in a different paradigm.

I'm sure you will agree that a texture is a digital image. I think you would also agree that a skin is a texture is a digital image.

That said, most would probably agree that most skins ie: digital images are no mod. For our discussion, no mod meaning no user content license for modification whatsoever.

A user decides they want to take a photograph (digital image) of their AV in-world. They then download that digital image, crop it or photoshop it on their computer, and upload it to the service. According to the legal experts on this thread, if that skin (digital image) was not created by the user, that person is violating another user’s IP rights by displaying it. Let's say a forum profile picture for example. The same could be said for any other texture in the image used without permission.

However, LL has set a precedent for this by allowing users to create derivative works of (on their computers) and uploading the same by not removing said images from the forum or in-world displays for years.

Now, some may say, I didn't use the exact image of the texture so it doesn't count. They did "prepare derivative works of" by wearing the skin and then captured a digital image and upload it. If this act was truly a violation, surely LL would enforce it, but they don't.

The OP did the same thing the so called legal experts turn a blind eye to on a day to day basis. Is it legal? Precedents set are a very valuable tool in a court case.

 

---

Qie Niangao wrote:

Incidentally, the "Modify" permission doesn't inherently imply anything relevant to changing those textures. As with animations, it may be that the modifiability of texture assets is intended to grant only the ability to change their names and descriptions. (Also, modifying assets in-world retains attribution, which is lost when the new work is derived ouside the service and re-uploaded with a new creator. That would seem a big deviation from every other "modify" license in the service.)

---

All I can say about this is point to what I wrote. LL appears to be fine with modification and uploading of digital images back to the service per the example.

One final point. As you may be aware, this issue is profit driven. It appears to me if no profits are forfeited by this act, no measures are taken. However if there is a substantial profit loss, action is taken. Double standard? Perhaps...

 

---

The scenario which you've decribed here doesn't corrolate with the topic of this discussion in any way.

The TOS does indeed give you the right to take snapshots of other people's creations in most circumstances (such as their builds and the skin that they've created that you use on your avatar)... but that's not what the OP's friend was trying to do.  Someone else took that snapshot and therefore they have no right to use it as they wish, regardless of the fact that it was given to them full perm, for the same reasons that I've already stated in my previous post.

...Dres

[Feldspar Millgrove]

---

Suspiria Finucane wrote:

My personal recommendation would be; “if” you did not receive said *coughs* legal notice from an authorized LL representative, to flush it down the same toilet as the majority of so called legal advice (because it holds no authority in this case) you have received on this thread.

 

I’ll point you to one of my favorite sub-sections of the TOS. Yes, I’ve been threatened before in a similar manner, on this very forum in fact, to no avail. (Bold emphasis by me for your case) Full section can be read

here

.

 

7.3 You grant certain Content licenses to users of Second Life by submitting your Content to publicly accessible areas of the Service.

…….

"

Your interactions with the Service

" may include use of the Second Life permissions system and the copy, modify, and transfer settings for

indicating how other users may use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display

, or perform your Content In-World subject to these Terms of Service. Any agreement you make with other users relating to use or access to your Content must be consistent with these Terms of Service, and no such agreement can abrogate, nullify, void or modify these Terms of Service.

………. 

For your case the key words are “prepare derivative works of”. If, the image was indeed given to your friend as full perm (hence the word “may” in the section), the original creator has waived their license of exclusive use, with the Service, via the sub-section afore highlighted.

  

You are misunderstanding the wording there, and you are also ignoring the remainder of the TOS, and your understanding of Copyright law is defective.   Use of the Second Life permission system does not constitute any waiver of copyrights nor does is it represent parole evidence of a contract to transfer copyrights.  Let's not even get into the "binding a third party" tangent.  Where did you go to law school?

[Xilion Iceberg]

Wow... I don't check on the topic for a couple of days and bam... this many replies O_o

I hope I didn't stir up more than I wished...

 

I took the image down btw... I had a feeling of being a little rebellous, if only because someone sending such a notecard is a plain jackass in my eyes... but in the end I highly agree with most of the posts here; it's just not worth the drama

 

I saw someone ask what the name of said previous club was where the image came from. Even though I would like to share that as a sort of backstab to said jackass, I'll choose to be the wiser one and not share it.

Once again: Thanks everyone for all replies... very informative to read and certainly worth remembering for the future!