ToS Changes - why?

[Qie Niangao]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

I don't remember Google's grand unified privacy policy 

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That's probably because it was so long ago. The controversy started back in early 2012 ("Google to streamline privacy policies and terms of service across all services on March 1st")... but the fallout keeps accumulating, at least in the Eurozone.

[Phil Deakins]

I'm having a look now. 2012 is just the other day as far as Google and I are concerned I stopped taking a professional interest in Google back in 2006.

ETA: There's a *lot* of reading there. I'll read and (try to) absorb it later in the day.

[Trinity Yazimoto]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

 

I'll be surprised if LL actually makes use of their new rights in ways that the users don't want. They could only safely do it with stuff that is uploaded post new ToS, so they need to wait a while anyway. My recommendation to everyone who uploads their own stuff is to carry on as normal because, if LL does eventually use it for gain, the users wouldn't have had that gain anyway, so they won't lose anything.

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Seriously ?

And you think we, creators can leave that like this and be satisfied with that ???? Its not the fact they will do or not, its the fact they allow themselves to do !!! Do you think we can read in the future and know they will keep not wanting to use this rigth forever ? (in the eventuality you are right and they dont have nefarious intentions what still need to be prooven)

On top if you consider how they managed to force us for agreeing with this TOS (agree or you never log anymore and cant get back your stuffs).

Seriously Phil ???

So... as an example... if in RL you rent your home to a said landlord. This one, one day, come to you and say "we will add somethings to our contract. Now, i may also rent your home to other persons if needed. You wont loose the usage of your home and furnitures (that btw you own) but i will ALSO use it for making some extra money. Of course, its a take it or leave it. If you dont agree, you wont be able to come back to your house and even take back your stuffs. Now, Phil.. of course, its just an eventuality... your furnitures are soooo ugly that i doubt anyone would want to give me money for spending some nights there. So you are fine... be fine... confident... its just that i allow myself to do this... but i will never do it eh ?"....

Dont you seem to hear Sher Khan here ? The snake from The book of the Jungle ? Eh ? with his "trust me... trust me...."

Im sorry... i dont trust so easily, specially ppl that force to me to give them full licence on things i create without any compensation... 

And i think it would be completely insane to give them such blank check with all they already did in the past... Insane or naive but still reckless....

[Phil Deakins]

About what I wrote, you asked, "Seriously?". My answer is, yes, seriously.

I didn't suggest doing nothing about the ToS, and I didn't suggest being satisfied with the ToS. I recommended that those who upload their own stuff continue as normal. What's the alternative? Stop uploading new stuff? Who is the loser then?

Suppose someone stops uploading new stuff and is financially worse off for it because sales shrink. And suppose that LL never makes use of the extra rights. Who is the loser? It's the creator, of course, and after some time of nothing happening they will wish they'd continued as normal. Suppose that LL does make use of the extra rights, who is the loser? It's the creator again because they've sold less stuff, BUT they won't be the loser of sales that LL makes because they would never be able to sell in the same places.

Now suppose that someone carries on as normal. They can't lose on account of the ToS changes whatever happens.

So I do recommend carrying on as normal. Certainly try to get the ToS changed. Everyone wants that. But don't lose sales voluntarily.

Incidentally, your RL home idea doesn't work, because the size and function of the RL home are fixed so, if someone else moves in, your freedom inside the home becomes more restricted. If LL makes use of your textures for gain, they will do it somewhere else, in another product perhaps, and not in a place where you could have made sales yourself, so they won't be taking sales from you, and your market won't shrink.

ETA: If LL decides to sell the textures, meshes and sculptmaps that people uploaded, either within the marketplace or in-world, or in another part of the website, or even by creating a new website for it, then the creators would be the losers because they could have done the same sort of thing. But, in spite of all that's wrong with LL, and there is a huge amount that's wrong, I really don't think that they would have the balls, or the desire, to do something as outlandish as that. Therefore, I suggest that those who upload their own stuff continue as normal. If LL does actually do something like that, or uses the stuff in any way that users don't want, that would be the time to stop uploading. I think it's a bad idea to stop uploading before then, especially for those who make RL money from it.

[Qie Niangao]

For those who (quite reasonably) care about the IP rights of things they create in SL, the new ToS does warrant misgivings.  And that would go doubly for anyone in Chosen's situation (other forum), with contractual obligations to third parties that evidently cannot be reconciled with LL's ToS. That would really suck.

We're also talking here about why LL came up with that ToS and especially what LL is actually going to do. And that matters at least as much as how creators feel about it because it determines what LL should be willing to do. If Phil and I and others are correct and LL doesn't really have specific plans for the extended IP rights grabbed by the new ToS, then it shouldn't interfere with their business plans to just back down and tighten the ToS language to say what they actually mean.

Unfortunately, if I'm correct, the Lab will never get around to fixing the ToS because they no longer care enough that they can be bothered. They don't care about SL creators, SL concurrency, SL land ownership, none of it. I think they've given up completely, and  that's how they came up with the ToS they did: it was just the broadest language to unify IP rights across all their products without having to do any actual work.

Telling them that this is the end of SL because the creators will all leave may or may not be a valid point, but to all appearances, Linden management is so disengaged and demoralized that they'll never get the message, and if they did, it would only reaffirm their sentiment that nothing is worth doing.

[Phil Deakins]

Do you have a link to the other forum where Chosen's problem is described? A PM will do nicely if you'd rather not post it here.

[Dillon Levenque]

I somehow missed the post in which you agreed the 'masses' comment was wrong. The only thing I saw was your reply to me: "I too appreciate someone pointing out the idiocy of RiftRavens's post, Thank You! Ohh! Looks like he caught on to what people were saying cause he edited his post! I've heard his idiocy knows no bounds. Oh my! lol", which did not seem apologetic.

I have since seen the post I missed; had I seen it first I would not have written my reply to Phil.

[Phil Deakins]

I posted what was the most likely reason for your post to him, Dillon. But it's much better coming from you

[Dillon Levenque]

LOL. I just caught up with that one, too.

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

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RiftRaven wrote:

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

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If we think of idiocy as a relative term, somewhere like three sigmas below the mean, then blindly accepting license terms and terms of service wouldn't qualify. Most of us do it. We can't all be three sigmas below the mean!

And the error that Riftraven made has been acknowledged and corrected. So he's no longer an idiot, he's an ex-idiot. But, like all of us, he's still a potential idiot.

Let's hear it for untapped human potential!

;-)

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Thank you... I think. :smileyvery-happy:

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You're welcome... I know!

;-)

[Phil Deakins]

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Dillon Levenque wrote:

LOL. I just caught up with that one, too.

 

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You've been missing all the fun stuff. You need to keep better tabs on this thread

Btw, I was really pleased that you replied to my brown-text post. I spend ages writing and tweaking it but nobody replied to it until you did. Thank you

[Qie Niangao]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

Do you have a link to the other forum where Chosen's problem is described? A PM will do nicely if you'd rather not post it here.

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It's a post over in the Mesh content forum. The last four paragraphs discuss his specific situation.

[Phil Deakins]

I thought it might be in a completely different forum, which is why I suggested a PM.

It's quite a spot he's found himself in. How on earth does he get out of that?

Other people have the same problem but not with such clients, so they could bluster their way through it, knowing that the chances of anything even slightly serious coming from it are just about nil.

[RiftRaven]

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Dillon Levenque wrote:

I somehow missed the post in which you agreed the 'masses' comment was wrong. The only thing I saw was your reply to me: "

I too appreciate someone pointing out the idiocy of RiftRavens's post, Thank You! Ohh! Looks like he caught on to what people were saying cause he edited his post! I've heard his idiocy knows no bounds. Oh my! lol

", which did not seem apologetic.

I have since seen the post I missed; had I seen it first I would not have written my reply to Phil.

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The problem with these forums is that they post replys in the wrong order. I had not stopped to realize that at the time of that writing. I wrote that because I was being defensive, thats what I do when I believe someone is being unfairly harsh to me. But I apologize for that too. The real problem is that unfair, current TOS.

P.S.

Lessons learned:

Write less obvious idiocy. lol

Whether you casualy post or not, your voice always matters to someone.

 

[Perrie Juran]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

 

I'll be surprised if LL actually makes use of their new rights in ways that the users don't want. They could only safely do it with stuff that is uploaded post new ToS, so they need to wait a while anyway. My recommendation to everyone who uploads their own stuff is to carry on as normal because, if LL does eventually use it for gain, the users wouldn't have had that gain anyway, so they won't lose anything.

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First off, should Linden Lab choose to use your content in the way they are now demanding you grant them the right to, yes, you do lose something.  The commission you should have normally been entitled to.  Sure it is a potential future profit, but you still lose it.  You have given it away that potential future profit  by agreeing to the new ToS.

But that is also not the only issue involved. There are other reasons I don't like these new Terms.

In the whole scheme of "Your World, Your Imagination," if I were to dot every "i" and cross every "t," I have to take extra care now with the things that I build for personal pleasure and/or do for friends.  The pool of content that was available for me to lawfully use has now been vastly reduced.  Anything that was labelled "free for personal use but not for resale" has now become unusable for me.

I've built with things from Builders Brewery and used particle scripts from the Particle Lab, modifying them to meet my specific requirements.  It has now become questionable if I can even do this anymore because the licensing on that stuff specifically says it 'cannot be sold.'

What an awesome way to kill "Your World, Your Imagination."

[Phil Deakins]

As far as I know, nobody like, or is happy with, the new ToS, including me. I can't argue against most of your post, Perrie, but I do have a comment or two about this bit:-

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Perrie Juran wrote:

First off, should Linden Lab choose to use your content in the way they are now demanding you grant them the right to, yes, you do lose something.  The commission you should have normally been entitled to.  Sure it is a potential future profit, but you still lose it.  You have given it away that potential future profit  by agreeing to the new ToS.

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The point I was making is that creators wouldn't lose. They wouldn't gain something they were entitled to, of course, but they wouldn't actually lose anything; i.e. they wouldn't make fewer sales, for instance, or be any worse off, and they wouldn't be deprived of sales that they might otherwise have got. LL selling the stuff somewhere other than SL and the marketplace, wouldn't cause creators to be any worse off, because the creators wouldn't have been able to reach those selling places. Unless LL does something really outlandish, then creators won't be any worse off regardless of what LL does with the stuff, if anything at all.

[Drake1 Nightfire]

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Ceka Cianci wrote:

 

really I am tired of trying to figure them out..

I never seen so much muddy freaking water in my life with a company..

I mean seriously..

 

they suck.I mean like government cheese suck!! 

LOL

 

 

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There are days I wistfully reminisce about grilled guvment cheese sandwiches.

[RiftRaven]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

It took a little over twelve hours for Bryn's blog post to get the obligatory spam from

an unwitting shill

an artist operating in Another Virtual World. Wonder what took them so long.

And the ToS issue as a whole has now reached critical mass for crazies. That, too, was predictable.

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 Taking cheap shots at someone, even after they apologized, several times. This isn't what you would consider "Obligatory Spam"?. I apologized more than I was comfortable with, went back and fixed my mistake. For such an eloquent speaker, looks like your self-restraint doesn't share the same eloquence. I wonder if you would be willing to do the same, and fix your posting mistake. "Kind Sir".

 

[Pamela Galli]

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Ceka Cianci wrote:

 

really i am tired of trying to figure them out..

i never seen so much muddy freaking water in my life with a company..

i mean seriously..

 

they suck..i mean like government cheese suck!! 

lol

 

 

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That is exactly how I feel about this.  It is like trying to deal with someone with the intellectual capacity of a chimpanzee. 

[Qie Niangao]

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RiftRaven wrote:

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Qie Niangao wrote:

It took a little over twelve hours for Bryn's blog post to get the obligatory spam from

an unwitting shill

an artist operating in Another Virtual World. Wonder what took them so long.

And the ToS issue as a whole has now reached critical mass for crazies. That, too, was predictable.

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Taking cheap shots at someone, even after they apologized, several times. This isn't what you would consider "Obligatory Spam"?. I apologized more than I was comfortable with, went back and fixed my mistake.

For such an eloquent speaker, looks like your self-restraint doesn't share the same eloquence.

 I wonder if you would be willing to do the same, and fix your posting mistake. "Kind Sir".

 

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I'm honestly not sure to what you're referring here, and I'm genuinely sorry to offend. If it's even what you mean, I was most certainly not counting you among the "crazies" -- nor anybody else posting to this thread. This is among the more rational discussions of the topic I've seen, and I quite enjoyed the (fairly off-topic) discussion you and I had earlier (about Mesh creation, 3D modelling, and other content creation).

I also don't see how you'd be connected to what I was calling "obligatory spam." That was a post[*] on Bryn's blog, hyping InWorldz -- and I even allowed for the possibility that was unintentional ("unwitting"). It's just that this is a longstanding pet peeve of mine: every time LL does something stupid, the OpenSim flavor of the day gets trotted out as the just and proper successor to SL, to which all users should now flock. (Been there, done that, got the t-shirt -- and still can't run scripts worth a crap.)

 

[*ETA, much later -- Eep!  It was a comment on a post to that blog, not an actual post by Bryn. Yipes, and sorry if any confusion about that, which would be really bad.]

[RiftRaven]

Thank you for clearing that up. I supposed it upset me to the point of needing to acknowledge your post. Given that I tried to be respectful and polite, in our mesh conversation, It took me completely by surprise, although I admit I was a bit frustrated.

My upbringing prevented me from simply ignoring it. But considering just how much apologizing I had finished doing, It seemed to rub me the wrong way. Again I don't mind apologizing specially when I am wrong. I had nothing but respect, after our mesh conversation, and that has rightfully been restored.

No harm really, I was reluctant over being involved in more drama, so making my previous post was a bit of a hard decision. 

Just a simple misunderstanding, it happens. 

Please except my latest apology and well... a digital hand shake.

Would you like "Paper" or "Plastic" with those apologies sir? lol

[Dillon Levenque]

Inara Pey has an interesting article on this subject today. After discussing SL's new ToS with an IP lawyer, she learned that the terms are very typical. She posts copies of several other ToS sections from online companies and the terms mirror SL's. In fact, they are identical—word-for-word in several instances.

It seems likely there's a 'one-size-fits-all' boilerplate ToS out there somewhere and someone at LL decided to use it. It also seems likely that that size does NOT fit Second Life, but at the same time it doesn't appear that the change was a result of LL deliberately setting out to rip off Second Life's creators.

You can read the article here.

[Drongle McMahon]

The fact, if true, that the wording is the result of indolent copying instead of due care in composition, doesn't really have much importance. It's the effects that matter. However, the implication that it is the result of laziness and lack of attention to the specific needs of SL is much more revealing bof the attitude of the authors to the concerns of their customers than is a letter of weightless hand-waving reassurances sent to bloggers. "Oh, don't waste time thinking about it. Just find the most exploitative terms you can out there, and copy them. We can always pretend we don't really mean it."

[Czari Zenovka]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

It's just that this is a longstanding pet peeve of mine: every time LL does something stupid, the OpenSim flavor of the day gets trotted out as the just and proper successor to SL, to which all users should now flock. (Been there, done that, got the t-shirt -- and

still can't run scripts worth a crap

.)

 

 

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(Bolding mine)

ACK!  Still having that issue, if you're referring to IW.  When I toyed with the idea of having my shop there as well as SL I tried the scripts in my futon.  They worked...kind of...if "working" means that instead of the back of the futon going into a flat bed position, it instead flipped to a perpendicular position, ok.  Same exact scripts I use in SL.  I did look at the perpendicular to the base futon back and tried to ponder a new product, but finally gave up and returned to SL.

[Phil Deakins]

That's a very illuminating article that you linked to, Dillon. Thank you for posting about it. It certainly adds weight to the reasons why those who upload their own stuff are better carrying on as normal for now. If LL actually does something wrong in the future, that will be the time to take action, but not now.