Inworld Legal Panel on TOS - Details

[Trinity Yazimoto]

im still in touch with Juris Amat, one of the attorneys present on last saturday, for the transcripts.

As soon as we will have them we will communicate them to everyone and will do translations in the languages we can according to the native languages of the members of the International Communications team.

For now, here is an excellent article from Kylie : http://simstreetjournal.wordpress.com/creators-rights/digital-property-rights-in-second-life-times-have-changed-by-kylie-sabra/

[Phil Deakins]

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Kwakkelde Kwak wrote:

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Phil Deakins wrote:

You are making the mistake of thinking that LL claims copyright. They don't. They claim rights to do whatever they want with everything but they don't claim ownership of the copyrights. So it's up to the copyright owner to file DMCAs, and that's not LL.

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But LL doesn't have to act on your DMCA charge. They can simply say they let the other party use your content. LL has the right to distribute your items in any way they like, right? They're allowed to give it away (or have it taken from SL).

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Maybe they could do that, but I'd like to see the outcry if they actually tried it

[Catherine Cotton]

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Kwakkelde Kwak wrote:

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Phil Deakins wrote:

You are making the mistake of thinking that LL claims copyright. They don't. They claim rights to do whatever they want with everything but they don't claim ownership of the copyrights. So it's up to the copyright owner to file DMCAs, and that's not LL.

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But LL doesn't have to act on your DMCA charge. They can simply say they let the other party use your content. LL has the right to distribute your items in any way they like, right? They're allowed to give it away (or have it taken from SL).

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@ Phil, and @ Kawakkelde;

 

Ok I read that section of the tos again. (cripes I should have it memorized by now)

 

I believe I get it,  they have all rights to user content,(as quoted below) but they don't have to protect my rights...but I have to grant; "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" to protect their rights to my user content.

 

Really.  Yeah that's not going to happen.

 

 

"Except as otherwise described in any Additional Terms (such as a contest’s official rules) which will govern the submission of your User Content, you hereby grant to Linden Lab, and you agree to grant to Linden Lab, the non-exclusive, unrestricted, unconditional, unlimited, worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, and cost-free right and license to use, copy, record, distribute, reproduce, disclose, sell, re-sell, sublicense (through multiple levels), modify, display, publicly perform, transmit, publish, broadcast, translate, make derivative works of, and otherwise exploit in any manner whatsoever, all or any portion of your User Content (and derivative works thereof), for any purpose whatsoever in all formats, on or through any media, software, formula, or medium now known or hereafter developed, and with any technology or devices now known or hereafter developed, and to advertise, market, and promote the same. You agree that the license includes the right to copy, analyze and use any of your Content as Linden Lab may deem necessary or desirable for purposes of debugging, testing, or providing support or development services in connection with the Service and future improvements to the Service. The license granted in this Section 2.3 is referred to as the "Service Content License."

 

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)"

 

 

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

Maybe they could do that, but I'd like to see the outcry if they actually tried it

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You mean giving it away? I'm sure they won't do that, but the way I read it, it's yet another small addition to the lack of control over our own creatons. I can live with that I guess. The bigger issue is people no longer being able to use the mentioned texture resources.

[Phil Deakins]

I meant LL not accepting DMCAs from copyright owners because they could claim that they allow whatever it is to be used by whoever it is. That would be truly outrageous but I can't see it happening.

I'm like you in that I can live with the new ToS as far as anything I have uploaded, and anything I may upload in the future, is concerned. It's my opinion that everyone could live with it - right up until LL does something really bad with the newly claimed rights, but I don't think they'll do anything of the sort. I can actually envisage people being pleased and proud that their work is being used in another of LL's products, even though LL didn't pay them for it. I really don't think that LL will do that but, if they do, I can envisage such pleasure and pride.

Again I agree - that it's really bad for anyone whose practise is to buy limited rights to stuff from elsewhere, because they can no longer upload anything like that and stay within the ToS.

[Qie Niangao]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

Again I agree - that it's really bad for anyone whose practise is to buy limited rights to stuff from elsewhere, because they can no longer upload anything like that and stay within the ToS.

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It's not just stuff bought elsewhere but also the in-world "value chain" that's broken by this. I mean, in-world texture stores used to be very popular; now that Mesh has pretty much killed in-world building, those stores can't be such a big deal anymore, but still there must be some folks who bought textures from them and want to use those textures now on items they create. Now, some of those textures were licensed to allow the buyer to download them to one's machine and create derived works. (Indeed, some were only really useful as "brushes" or screening layers, etc.) But now owners of such licensed products are in a legal limbo about whether they could ever upload such derived content under the new ToS. Probably not, actually, and that suggests the new ToS might constitute a "taking" for which LL could be liable if there were enough damages to warrant taking them to court.

(As always: I Am Not A Lawyer, etc.)

[Phil Deakins]

Yes, that too

I've never bought textures, not in-world or out-world, so that particular difficulty would never have occurred to me. Although...

Wouldn't a derived work be legally seen as a new work and the creator of it actually own the copyright to it? Perhaps it would depend on the degree of change from the original.

[Qie Niangao]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

Wouldn't a derived work be legally seen as a new work and the creator of it actually own the copyright to it? Perhaps it would depend on the degree of change from the original.

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Heh, yeah, I think you're right. (It might depend on the license terms of the original work, although now I'm less sure any of this matters.)

[Cabbage Acanthus]

So many people have done exactly that, Ela.  So many people are gone now.  The "You don't have to be here.  Leave if you don't like it." hasn't exactly done SL any favors and that culture of disregard is what is destroying SL.  

I will likely sign the new TOS since I no longer really create anything anymore... Whenever I actually get around to signing back into SL that is.