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Updated LL TOS Claims FULL RIGHTS to ALL CONTENT


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The thing is, there is nothing in writing to confirm what you understand the ToS affects. If the Lab decides it is everything uploaded whenever, you have no choice but to go to court and argue your point. We have judges that have given rapists 30 days in jail for repeatedly raping under age children for years. There are insane judges. You cannot know whether or not you will get a judge that sees things the way you do.

I think your thinking on the point is rational and the way IT SHOULD BE. Only things uploaded after the change should be affected. But, having been around the Lindens for some time I am certain they will never consider past ToS when they decide they want to use something. In fact I am certain most Lindens will never remember, or possibly even know, there was a time when the Lab was restricted in how they can use things. I doubt most Lab employees have even read the ToS.

Until it goes to court you and I are speculating. Attorneys will love the argument and make money from it. So, if what you believe is the way it should be, the ToS should state that, just as CG Textures stated "As of Sept 6, 2013..." But, the ToS and the Lab don't.

In the SL Viewer I can only see the date I acquired an item not the date someone created it. I don't currently have Firestorm loaded on this computer. But, Kokua does allow item inspection showing creation date of items by the creator. So, the upload date is probably part of the items attributes. That means it is possible for the Lab to respect ToS changes and handle items differently. I have trouble believing the Lab will be so diligent as to train and monitor employees use of items in SL or incur the cost of that diligence. It is cheaper to just consider the current ToS as covering everything in SL and I believe that is what they will do.

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Well I can't say that I am happy to see this, but they did do a trial of items going directly from Amazon into your inventory awhile back (several months anyway, maybe longer) so that has been in the back of my mind with this change. I wasn't impressed with the things being sold then (one I think was free but then you were IN THE SYSTEM *wink*) and can't say I am now.

And the prices seem very expensive so not sure how well this will work. I guess we can watch and see. If someone reports that it is "their stuff" being sold, then we will know.

Thanks for posting.

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Aztral Aeon wrote:

Linden Lab has actually started selling things

This doesnt mean at all they did without the creator consent. i mean by that, its probable that Or, its a creation from someone at LL; OR they bought the item with copy trans perm in order to resell it...This items are on sale on Amazon before the last TOS changes (even recent, your blog post is just a notice for announcing a bargain on those items, sold since monthes) when TOS were not implying they can sell and resell for whatever purpose our items..Its already enough difficult for now to see clear in the middle of this mess, we dont need more confusion.

Since there is some monthes already that these items are on sale now, i bet that if the creator wasnt ok for that, we would have heard about it already.

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Aztral Aeon wrote:

Linden Lab has actually started selling things

That is not the first time they had an Amazon promotion.

The content being sold there is old premium junk gifts.

LL contracted directly with the builders of that junk.

Some of it, especially the Troobles, function so poorly that they are almost an embarrassment.

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Nalates Urriah wrote:

 

Until it goes to court you and I are speculating. Attorneys will love the argument and make money from it. So, if what you believe is the way it should be, the ToS should state that, just as
CG Textures
stated "As of Sept 6, 2013..." But, the ToS and the Lab don't.

 

It will be one hell of an expensive lawsuit. 

A declaratory judgement could be sought but who has the money for this?

But considering what is going on with the Monsanto Case right now it's a bit scary until the Supreme Court rules.  The Court of Appeals has stated that Monsanto's statement, 'we don't intend to do what we are claiming in our patent' as sufficient reason not to issue a Declaratory Judgement. 

The Court might hold that the letter sent by LL to some of the bloggers affords us sufficient protection.

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I am still asking why they have changed the TOS n o w? I found something interesting what possibly could confirm one of reasons what I have in mind, but read here

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/195975/

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/196498/

Probably next time you will find  the best SL contents in Desura, but hey not for free. :matte-motes-nerdy:

Sorry but I couldn't resist .... I know there are residents who still believe in the good of LL 
http://allthingsd.com/20130705/fifteen-questions-for-linden-lab-ceo-rod-humble-about-second-lifes-tween-years/

remember our "sensitive community" will be rewarded....one of the rewards are the new ToS, Amen! :smileyindifferent:

 

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Well hello everyone :matte-motes-big-grin: please allow me to join the circus. Ms Aeon Chica, you "wink" alot, I think. Are you in good health? I once knew a man who suffered a small stroke, causing involutary blinking of his right eye. He soon learned that walking down the street was aching to geting face slapped. I recommended this man try online dating. POF "Poor Oblivious Folks" yes that one lol. So who is RiftRaven? I AM (no i dont have Turrets lol) the guy with 2 posts, I am only a couple of weeks old, I am still wearing my Second Life dipers, and its nothing to be ashamed about. :matte-motes-bashful-cute-2: Oh linded lab what have you done now. I was so ready to make all this great stuff, and become a really neat merchant, and mingle, do the Chachacha in the middle of town square without any clothes on, and then Linden Lab ruins everything.

 

Yeah in a more serious tone lol I was working on some stuff for the marketplace but this TOS change really turned me off to Second Life. I found the experience wasn't perfect, but there are so many residents i thought I could make a little exta money. But I can't agree to the new TOS and not having invested any time or money yet I just decided to walk away. A bit sad cause I was really looking foward to it. I started 3d modeling back in 2005 so I've mastered just about anything you can imagine about mesh. I found this really good article of some one comparing Inworlds to Cloud Party as alternatives for Second Life.

I decided to go with Cloud Party. CP is just such a refreshing experience. They have a marketplace with 3d previews,  Normal Maps, Specular Maps, animated attachments, and animated objects, animated vehicels, face customization, users can upload custom skeletons, soon they'll have animated morph blend facial animation. I'm pretty excited at the moment. I still want to develop for Second Life but only if the TOS changes. I have just started to make an internet presence, I know it seems like I'm here to promote CP but I'm just exited about their technology.

Cloud Party works on WebGL. Their is no WebGL standard, from what I understand, every developer has their own data format and their is no possibility for copyboting at the moment. Which is the best thing a hard working content creator can hope for. Everyone sees materials off the bat so creating double the content isn't necessary.

That TOS is such a lack of respect to all the SL residents that have invested so much time in SL At this point I get that LL has to focus on the bussines side of things. But they really don't seem to care what residents think of them. They know no one is gonna do anything about it. Anyone else hear of a protest coming in october? This got longer than I expected sorry its a little off topic. Chic Aeon I kid alot lol didn't mean anything by it :matte-motes-grin:

P.S.

I forgot to add that Cloud Party tech developers have made it so meshes that are too dense wont render.

Every one has to develop at certain triangle limits, so CP won't ever crawl to 2 or 4 frames a second 

like Second Life by mesh creators who might not be aware that dense meshes can hinder performance.

One last thing about CP it runs in your Chrome and Firefox browser and on Android with a

settings change I believe. And soon on Ipads too.

P.P.S.

Just caught my POF joke typo lol

Here's that Article

http://timogufler.wordpress.com/2013/09/15/new-worlds/

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Niiice "Oldtimer" lol A quote for all the seasoned SL residents.

SPACE COWBOYS 2000

  • I'm too tired to chew.

    Try to look a little perkier, will you, fellas?

    You still want to go on with this, Frank?

    What do you want to do, quit now? We just finished the tough stuff.

    Now we start training for the mission.

    Everybody get a good night's sleep.

    There's a real challenge.

    What are you doing?

    What are you doing?

    Goddamn teeth won't stay in.

    Damn, Jerry.

    Jesus.

    Gentlemen, a round of drinks from your friends over there who ordered you some goodies. A little Ensure for you guys.

    To old gummers in space.

    Cheers.

    I drink this stuff.

  • Jerry O'Neill

    It's good for your libido

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Why is Cloud Party referrred to as CC?  That is weird.

 

I have looked at Cloud Party but it looks like land would be too expensive for me there.  (I have 4 packed sims in SL.) 

 

Also there is only one of me, and I have my hands full with SL.  It would have to be either Cloud Party or SL.

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Oh sorry. I was about to Log off when I saw that. Thaks for pointing that out. I'll go back and fix that. I havent looked at prices for land in Cloud Party, im still so new to it. CP is still very new, I would't recommend committing to it just yet. It isn't laggy if you find it laggy its because you have Atialiasing or Ambient Occlusion ON, these settings are notorious for causing any video game to lag on decent hardware. It's fun to checkout for now using Chrome cause performance is way smoother. All the developers come from video game development backrounds. Also the marketplace did have cash out, but they suspended that for a more viable option, then it'll be working again. Right now its for the curious, not for leaving SL over.

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

In order to get ready for that, LL's legal staff has done a massage of the SL ToS to bring it closer into line with what they 
hope
will be the future of internet law. From day one there has been a major quibble going on over who owns what. Even back in the days of such simple platforms as ICQ, there has been disagreement over who owns the digital assets uploaded or shared via the service.

...However the reality of the legal system dictates that we won't really know who owns .. I mean REALLY owns the digital assets we upload until a law-making case hits the courts and is tested all the way up to the highest levels. (Which could possibly mean the U.S. Supreme Court, but definitely means 2 or 3 decades from now.)

What we are seeing is an initial attempt by LL to keep the power in their hands. In the most evil interpretation, it gives them the legal right to totally screw us over. Will they? Most likely not IMHO .. but then again our banking system used to be in business to SERVE the depositors. Now? Not so much.


I've no doubt LL holds this point of view - I've seen similar arguments advanced for years by far more companies than LL. This bit from the TOS certainly reinforces that idea:

Linden Lab has no obligation to monitor or enforce your intellectual property rights to your User Content, but you grant us the right to protect and enforce our rights to your User Content, including by bringing and controlling actions in your name and on your behalf (at Linden Lab’s cost and expense, to which you hereby consent and irrevocably appoint Linden Lab as your attorney-in-fact, with the power of substitution and delegation, which appointment is coupled with an interest).

However, if one follows the reasoning that "if it's on our servers we own it and/or have every right to exploit it" to it's logical end, it also means LL doesn't own content on any server that isn't physically owned by them. Starting with all that content they've farmed out to amazon and other CDNs! How about those asset servers, are they on LL-owned hardware in an LL-owned datacenter?

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EDIT:  Sorry, that was supposed to be a reply to Pamela. SEEMS like I clicked the correct "reply" button but the Force was evidently not with me.

 

I went over to Cloud Party today; yes curious.

It ran lickety split smoothly for me on the highest setting. I have a slightly customized avatar and an island :D. The current pricing structure doesn't seem to have much to do with what we are used to in SL. And I am not sure about mesh uploads yet but I did find a tutorial about uploading.

There is VERY VERY little content at the moment so aside from some new glasses, my avatar is pretty basic. Apparently the facial sliders are new (link sent me from a friend who likes to research).  I am going to hit the video tutorials tomorrow.  It is good to stretch ourselves, but abandoning ship is not on my agenda. I DID however read the Cloud Party TOS thoroughly before logging in *there's that wink again*.


I journeyed over to inworldz today also (what can I say, extremely bored now that I am not in Blender 4 - 6 hours a day). I couldn't seem to TP anywhere (well one place out of 8) and it was very much SL a few years back. Not a bad thing, but not a replacement for me.  I really am spoiled with great content!


So Limboland is where I am at the moment. I will keep the home fires burning at MOSP, The Blog and my shop -- still, I do need a creative outlet :D.

 

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Personally, I don't find IP stuff all that worrisome. In the end, I decide how to spend my time. If I feel platforms are unfair, I'll start to create more for other platforms. If no platforms have fair TOS, than I'll sell only thru my website, and I'll do more Youtube stuff. Companies can do whatever they want, but it doesn't mean any of us have to play along. Sure, maybe I'll get screwed because of all the stuff I've uploaded. That doesn't change the fact that I can take all my stuff and sell it somewhere else.

If we all went somewhere else, LL would eventually lose it's advantage, because everything would get old quick, and we'd be making new stuff somewhere else. Personally, I'm excited that all the other worlds now have mesh, and my goals for the past 2 years have been to spread out from SL more and more. I'd advise every1 to seek out other places to create in.

Cloud Party has similar issues that Blue Mars had. Meshes upload fine from any 3d program, but animation is a big problem, unless you use Maya. IMHO, their rig is screwed up, but maybe that is just how Maya does things. I see bones facing the wrong direction, which makes retargeting for mocaps a mess. Blender has no fix currently to even create a working dae with animations for Cloud Party's rig. Notice there is only 1 animator there. I may just end up making my own rigs and selling my own animated creatures there, as I know custom rigs work. Their marketplace is primitive, but you can see the item in 3d. There is also some long wait process to get paid when some1 purchases something. Until there are cash outs, we can't even know how viable it can be to create there.

Here are some words of comfort. Collectively suing in a class action lawsuit, would not be an issue, and likely stop LL in their tracks.

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"Linden Lab has no obligation to monitor or enforce your intellectual property rights to your User Content, but you grant us the right to protect and enforce our rights to your User Content, including by bringing and controlling actions in your name and on your behalf (at Linden Lab’s cost and expense, to which you hereby consent and irrevocably appoint Linden Lab as your attorney-in-fact, with the power of substitution and delegation, which appointment is coupled with an interest)".

 

Soon after I posted yesterday on this thread, this is what I suspected and now is becoming increasingly probable as the most likely reason for this new TOS. I'm speculating that L.L. wanted to cut down on the policing of internal IPR complaints thinking they would save a substantial amount of money that would otherwise be going into overhead and court costs. (Notice L.L. has returned to pre layoff levels or close to them with their employee population at 170+? again even as SL usage slowly shrank these past few years). (I'm thinking a lions share of these added employees went straight to the (over bloated) LL legal department to handle increasing complaints and law suits. More importantly cutting down on IPR related legal fees and procedural expenses along with court settlements would probably be an even more substantial reduction in these IPR related costs then employee overhead reduction, and the new TOS would seem to be trying to make that possible. However the resulting loss of peeps who appreciate creativity and particularly the highest quality artists and merchants, with or even without a substantial profit motive as their basis for contributing to SL, will probably end up costing L.L. more in the long run from this draconian move imho. Turning SL into a copybotters paradise would definitely do more harm than help imho.

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I took a break for a couple of weeks and came back to the $1,000 advertising and all of this.

The only thing I can say is that LL has always been a sweatshop in a creativity suit. At least they're getting better at making that obvious, it's the least they can do for their paying customers.

There are alternatives for the mesh creators that truely do treat your content as yours, with clearly spelled out and limited terms of use.

I used to think Prok was wacky for saying all LL wanted was open source content to monetize however they saw fit. Now, not so much.

As for their TOS ... bah, they'll settle.

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I do agree that unless LL either retreats its TOS change on hijacking our content or places another statement that makes it clear what its only intent is for all these massive full unrestricted rights... more and more content creators will let their pre-TOS-Dated content sit in SL to rot as it makes what ever money it can... and focus their NEW content creation to other more IP friendly environments where our rights are respected.

I create mesh and 2D art that I have enjoyed creating raw in SL (inworld photography) and bringing this virtual world photography back into SL processed to hang in my art gallery to be enjoyed and sold.  I also create 3D mesh art sculptures.  Although I can thank SL for kick starting my life as an Artist back in 2010, now that my art has moved out to RL where I am even doing my own RL art exhibits from this art, I cant take the chance of having LL hijacking my art because of this new TOS change.  So until they change the TOS rules, I wont be bringing anymore art into the grid.  Its harder to make that stand with my 3D mesh sculptures as they do make a lot of my recent revenue... so I haven't decided if I will bring my mesh art sculptures into SL.  I can make amazing 2D wall art from my 3D sculptures while the models are in Zbrush.

I just hope Rodvik comes to his senses and realizes that this recent TOS change is causing more harm than any intended good.  It has created a ton of new negative press about SecondLife far past the immediate SL community.  An, it will continue to spread as creators spread the news of LL's content hijacking and texture / content libraries place more bans on their IP's use on the SL grid.

But sadly we know LL is not one that really cares about doing the right thing and rarely retracts a horrible idea unless things get so publically ugly that they really don't have a choice.

So the best weapon we Creators have is to keep spreading the news of this latest LL Bonehead decision to others and help in making this bad decision viral in the community and industry.  LL has a history of bowing to overwhelming negative press if it doesn't seem to be settling down.  They hope we will all just shut up about it soon.

We really cant let it get quiet.

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Wiggy Bingyi wrote:

Looks like a precursor to LL selling the platform to me. Gaging the current state of SL, that would make sense.

This is EXACTLY what I was thinking. They either want the rights to recoop losses when they shut down SL or so they can sell literally EVERYTHING to the highest bidder. Well if someone else does take on SL (I hope) then perhaps they'll do a better job with it (I hope).

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Madeline Blackbart wrote:


Wiggy Bingyi wrote:

Looks like a precursor to LL selling the platform to me. Gaging the current state of SL, that would make sense.

This is EXACTLY what I was thinking. They either want the rights to recoop losses when they shut down SL or so they can sell literally EVERYTHING to the highest bidder. Well if someone else does take on SL (I hope) then perhaps they'll do a better job with it (I hope).

And just to whom would they be selling it?

SL/LL is funded by Venture Capitalists.

http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2006/03/second_life_get.html

They are the "real owners" of LL/SL.

One or all of them might be seeking to sell off their interest in LL/SL.  That is possible.

But the only people who would really be interested in buying SL would be people interested in monetizing it.

These people measure success by one thing and one thing only, return on investment.  Any altruistic interest would be secondary to that.

It could be possible that a few of them look at SL as a 'hobby,' or they have a personal interest in the concept of Virtual Worlds.  But I'd find that doubtful.

Really, if the new TOS truly gives them the right to sell your content, then they stand to make even more money by selling that content elsewhere as they see fit.

So selling LL/SL may really make no sense.

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Madeline Blackbart wrote:


Wiggy Bingyi wrote:

Looks like a precursor to LL selling the platform to me. Gaging the current state of SL, that would make sense.

This is EXACTLY what I was thinking. They either want the rights to recoop losses when they shut down SL or so they can sell literally EVERYTHING to the highest bidder. Well if someone else does take on SL (I hope) then perhaps they'll do a better job with it (I hope).

Adding one other thought here about "selling" SL/LL.

We've been talking about RIGHTS (LL's claim to the right to sell our creations) and INTENT (LL's claim that this is not their intent), but for any buyer there is another issue:  RISK.

A buyer would look at the TOS and see the RISK of lawsuits, the cost of the lawsuits and the potential damages that could be rewarded if the plaintiffs prevailed in Court.  At least in my opinion, a sensible Buyer would want to see this resolved first.  It would be a huge risk to assume.

 

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Maybe there was some truth to those ancient rumors of Microsoft buying Second Life?

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Second-Life-Linden-Lab-Mark-Kingdon-virtual-World-Xbox,11402.html

Metro GUI on SL! ITS HABBENING!

I would say that if you're a mesh or texture vendor, you could at least make your products difficult to alter in ways that customers aren't meant to alter (SL would probably be able to alter them how they want) and then place your logo somewhere. Then at least if LL takes it, everyone sees your name on your product and you're getting (kind of) free advertising.

It is kind of sad to say but I think MS would do a better job with SL. I am really tired of CTL announcing new features and then the day of deployment my sales drop 30% and don't recover for months.

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Flea Yatsenko wrote:

Maybe there was some truth to those ancient rumors of Microsoft buying Second Life?

Metro GUI on SL! ITS HABBENING!

I would say that if you're a mesh or texture vendor, you could at least make your products difficult to alter in ways that customers aren't meant to alter (SL would probably be able to alter them how they want) and then place your logo somewhere. Then at least if LL takes it, everyone sees your name on your product and you're getting (kind of) free advertising.

It is kind of sad to say but I think MS would do a better job with SL. I am really tired of CTL announcing new features and then the day of deployment my sales drop 30% and don't recover for months.

Did you really have to bring Klingon into this? 

It's bad enough as was  :(

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So basically speaking LL is telling merchants to stop creating. Too bad because I really enjoy SL for the fact that I can run my own little business. Now everything I make, hand-drawn wotever is, is in their property. No wonder so many merchants stopped putting effort in their business n becoming bitter n bitter toward LL as it should be the opposite. Instead of reinforcing the permission system or getting rid of fkn copybotting viewers, they decided to punish the sources of SL market flow. They should protect or at least try to provide merchants a better environment for designing, not poking around their TOS n piss merchants off by surprise. Im so pissed off. I can understand there are some dishonest merchants who give LL bigchunk of headaches relating copyrights n what not, but what about the rest of the community who are loving n caring for SL within their creation? What about them? Do they even care that merchants keep SL interesting? So really, they dont even give a spit about merchants huh. We dont have any protection at all. This is just awesome. 

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