Threats due to official LL surname........

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

Suppose someone with an LL issued, not-RL word or name, surname, such as Foulsbane, gets a trademark on it. Could s/he then legally prevent the word/name being used in SL? My thinking is no.

---

I know of one case. A couple of years ago I was in a team building a group of sims for a RL celebrity. Her name was not her birthname, so it's very possible there were IP rights on it, although I'm not sure. What I am sure about is the fact that the name was already in use in Second Life when we started. LL terminated that account and handed it over to the celebrity.

The account no longer exists btw.

[Phil Deakins]

LL may have done that due to their own preferences rather than any legal requirement. Also, it sounds like you mean a full name - first name and surname. If that's what it was, then there will have been plenty of other avs with the same surname that weren't changed. I was only thinking of an SL invented surname.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

LL may have done that due to their own preferences rather than any legal requirement. Also, it sounds like you mean a full name - first name and surname. If that's what it was, then there will have been plenty of other avs with the same surname that weren't changed.

---

Of course LL did that voluntarily. The likely alternative would be sitting in a courtroom losing an expensive case:) You can register a trademark afterall and I would be very surprised if that wasn't done.

The name was indeed a combination of first and last, as I said, it was a single account that got terminated. There are plenty of avatars in SL using either the first name or surname (and a handful of "sound-a-likes").

[Freya Mokusei]

---

Kwakkelde Kwak wrote:

I know of one case. A couple of years ago I was in a team building a group of sims for a RL celebrity. Her name was not her birthname, so it's very possible there were IP rights on it, although I'm not sure. What I am sure about is the fact that the name was already in use in Second Life when we started. LL terminated that account and handed it over to the celebrity.

---

The central part of ToS 4.2 reads:-

"You may not select as your Account Name any name that Linden Lab determines may cause deception or confusion; may violate any trademark right, copyright, or other proprietary right or mislead other users regarding your identity or affiliation; or any name that Linden Lab determines in its sole discretion to be vulgar, offensive, or otherwise inappropriate."

This typically (within the history of SL) extends to celebrity names. Falsely assuming the identity of an RL individual in SL is almost certainly 'misleading' by LL's definition above.

I've seen two (quite SL famous) accounts have their names changed - both due to the vulger/offensive thing.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

Ah yes, I knew it had to be in there somewhere.

However, there's a big difference between breaking the LL ToS and breaking the law. My best guess is LL included this in their ToS so they can't be held responsible for any IP right violations concerning account names.

[Freya Mokusei]

---

Kwakkelde Kwak wrote:

My best guess is LL included this in their ToS so they can't be held responsible for any IP right violations concerning account names.

---

Likely!

I'd be a little more jaded perhaps, and add that part of the motivation was to justify offering celebrities their own names in SL. They've always been quite aware that the surnames they selected were often culturally popular ones (i.e., some of the ones from Snowcrash, Gibson books, etc.). And you're right, things are likely to get heated fast when a Hollywood agent receives a letter that either:-

1. Their clients' likeness is performing a pre-recorded show in SL, for money.
2. Their clients' likeness was found in a compromising position over in Zindra.

Anyway, I'll leave my slight derail here. Just wanted to back up what was being said.

[Perrie Juran]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

But...

To the best of my knowledge, 'Foulsbane' is not an RL name, and it's not even an accepted RL word (it probably doesn't appear in any dictiionary although it has been written in the past). If it's not, then it could be trademarked as long as anyone already using it doesn't file an objection. A trademark on it wouldn't make any difference at all to those who have that SL surname, but it's probable, imo, that they wouldn't be able to use it as all or part of a business name.

 

---

There have been threads about the funniest or bestSL Names, and some have been pretty cool.

I have always got a kick out of some of the surnames LL has come up with.

One of my favorites is Triskaidekaphobia.

I don't believe I've ever seen this as a surname in RL.

 

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

 

It would be interesting to know whether or not the trademark office accepts an invented name in a virtual world as being an actual name, and treating it as such. I doubt that it would be accepted.

---

Yeah, I don't know enough about the subject to say one way or the other either.  The devil is always in the details but I would tend to agree with you.

 

 

[Deborah Henry]

some people will do anything for a pick i guess. as for copyrighted names ha ha ha........if it really was a big bother go grab the name before anyone else could take it. simple job done get over it. 

:robotlol:

[Kagome Foulsbane]

ell I am one that is getting harased by 'these' idiots, I figured that if I was really in risk that LL would send me an Official email. I laughed at the idiocy that I saw in the notecard and in doing a search online found a forum that lead me to believe that this has been going on for some time but I was only getting the notecards sent to me for the last two days or so. I logged on yesterday, after about a week away, to have seven notecards from two objects labeled 3 and 4 owned by this persons alt. I have even contacted a lawyer and when he heard the claims it did take him a few minutes to stop laughing, he especially liked the idea that one has to show up in a state court or forfeit the case as well as the so called ownership of a name by someone that is younger, rez date, than several other foulsbane's out there. 

My question is the one part of the notecard is this 'Isn't it illegal, against TOS, to use a program to monitor the usage and times on an individual?' I mean I seem to remember the whole uproar about 'spy hud' a few years back that not only tracked groups of people but attached a prim to them so that one could hear and speak to them, no one else could se ethe text and would think the person was nuts.

Anyway wish that LL would just come on say hey ignore the fool and ban his account and IP, as this is getting to the point that I really do not even want to even bother clicking ignore on the person much less click discard the umpteen tiems they got a new alt to send me a card that they will den even owning the prim that is doing it blaming it on 'hackers' and 'Griefers'

[Qie Niangao]

To answer your question, no, there's no prohibition against monitoring anybody's online status using a script nor any of the various other means of gathering the same information. The subject arises periodically, and a year or so ago, the Lab may have disabled one of those "various other means" (or something; I forget now), and briefly floated the idea of disabling the ability of scripts to determine online status, but that would have broken (a lot of) legitimate content, so they backed down.

There are a host of other ways to use scripts to invade privacy and violate ToS (chat spying is one example), but an account's online status simply isn't private in SL and probably never will be.

(Also, just in passing, it's not possible to deny ownership of a prim that chats or transfers inventory. The Lindens weren't born yesterday.)

[Innula Zenovka]

As I recall, Third Party Viewers aren't allowed to over-ride other people's preference to hide their online status.  But, as you say, it's perfectly permissible to use  llRequestAgentData(id,DATA_ONLINE), which has any number of legitimate purposes.

[Perrie Juran]

---

Innula Zenovka wrote:

As I recall, Third Party Viewers aren't allowed to over-ride other people's preference to hide their online status.  But, as you say, it's perfectly permissible to use  llRequestAgentData(id,DATA_ONLINE), which has any number of legitimate purposes.

---

Policy On Third Party Viewers

2.iii  You must not provide any feature that circumvents any privacy protection option made available through a Linden Lab viewer or any Second Life service.

[Coby Foden]

---

Perrie Juran wrote:

---

Innula Zenovka wrote:

As I recall, Third Party Viewers aren't allowed to over-ride other people's preference to hide their online status.  But, as you say, it's perfectly permissible to use  llRequestAgentData(id,DATA_ONLINE), which has any number of legitimate purposes.

---

Policy On Third Party Viewers

2.iii  You must not provide any feature that circumvents any privacy protection option made available through a Linden Lab viewer or any Second Life service.

---

... but by all means feel free to use our llRequestAgentData(id,DATA_ONLINE) to circumvent the privacy protection option made available through a Linden Lab viewer or any Second Life service. :smileyhappy: :smileytongue:

... that's how we operate. :matte-motes-nerdy:

It makes me wondering what was the purpose in preventing showing the true online status in viewers? I guess they were just trigger happy, before they learned that the script cannot be disabled without breaking usefull functionality.

[Innula Zenovka]

At risk of re-starting the argument about this, there's a big difference between, on the one had, a TPV being able to over-ride the "show my online status to friends" settings for your entire friends list and, on the other, a scripts in vendors or message boards being able to look up the online status of inviduals.

LL were, at one point, talking about disabling AGENT_ONLINE completely, except for the script's owner, but were persuaded not to when people pointed out all the legitimate uses.   But generating drama by allowing paranoid TVP users to check which of their frenemies, if any, were hiding their online status from them wasn't deemed to be one of them.

[Qie Niangao]

Thanks for the reminder that it was TPV display of online status that they disallowed.

I see why they have to placate users who draw the reasonable but erroneous conclusion that hiding their online status in settings really hides their online status in some meaningful way, and even suppose this is some kind of privacy setting. People have come to think it should work that way, so it would be hard for the Lab to explain that it doesn't, never has, and never will.

Still, it does seem kind of misleading, this illusion of control.

[Coby Foden]

---

Qie Niangao wrote:

Still, it does seem kind of misleading, this illusion of control.

---

Yes. The settings in viewer:

• Only friends and groups know I'm online [On / Off]

• Friend can see when you're online [On / Off]

are totally misleading to any new user. There should be an explanation:

 

"These settings in your viewer only affect how your online status is shown in other users' viewers. Please do note that by using a script anybody can still always see your true online status - regardless of what settings you have set in your viewer. So sorry but we couldn't make any better privacy thing. :smileysad:  But hey, you can think it positively this way: a fake privacy is better than no privacy at all. Yay!  :matte-motes-big-grin:"

Or something like that... :smileyindifferent: :smileytongue:

[Perrie Juran]

---

Qie Niangao wrote:

Thanks for the reminder that it was TPV display of online status that they disallowed.

I see why they have to placate users who draw the reasonable but erroneous conclusion that hiding their online status in settings really hides their online status in some meaningful way, and even suppose this is some kind of privacy setting. People have come to think it should work that way, so it would be hard for the Lab to explain that it doesn't, never has, and never will.

Still, it does seem kind of misleading, this illusion of control.

---

I wonder how many people obtained their own personal trackers since the rule went into affect?

Yep, it's an illusion.

[Drayviin]

Guy sounds like a real dick and honestly, any crap that is done on a game and yes second life is still considered a game. Won't hold up in court, not to mention that LL is outside of the US jurisdiction. So he can supeona all he wants dosn't mean he would actually get it. 

My advise is to copy the nc send it to LL and let them deal with is and block further contact with Captain Stink Head there. It's obviouse all he cares about is..wel...actually I have no ide what the hell that moron cares about...

 

Just my two or twelve cents...

[Treasure Ballinger]

Linden Lab is headquartered in San Francisco, California, USA.