Gooseberry in the Clouds and commercial usage

[Gaia Clary]

Hi, I am sure this slipped through most people's attention:

The Blender Cloud shares its content mostly under a CC BY 4.0 license

This means:

 

• The Blender Cloud offers a huge amount of data (characters, assets...)
  from older Blender film productions (BBB, sintel, TOS,...)
  that we can reuse in second Life.
• The Gooseberry Project will add even more quality assets to the mix.

But the most important for SL content creators:

You can make use of the Cloud data in whichever way you want,
including selling your recreations on the SL market place.

Please consider seriously to support the Blender Cloud now and help making Project Gooseberry come to live. I can not express in words how important this cloud will become in the future not only for Blender, i guess this can become a source for every content creator...

And the Gooseberry Film is just the beginning of all.

But note: we only have 9 days left to match the goals, and ... the Cloud is at its beginning. Content is growing, right now we see 4 open movies and 7 training videos in it, more content is coming in...

[Chic Aeon]

I am getting 404s on the links for Blender Cloud and Gooseberry.

 

And, not trying to open a can of worms again but    -- even if the files are free to use and under a creative commons liscense, the person uploading to SL would not have any clear copyrights (unless I am misunderstandng here) so it seems that using these resources would be against the current terms of service.   I haven't read the TOS again in the last month but  ...... (wish I had a cute little exasperated icon to go here ).  

 

Again, I can't get to the pages but that seems to be what this is about.

Darn,  I really miss the spell-checker.

[Drongle McMahon]

I think the situation with CC BY licenses is unclear. The TOS requires you to waive YOUR attribution rights when you upload, but it doesn't say anything explicitly* about third party attribution rights. So I can't see anything in the letter of the TOS that stops you uploading a CC BY asset, as long as you attach the required attribution. If that is so, then when they proceed to exercise the other rights they claim, they are presumably still bound by the CC BY attribution reqirement. However, that's a very odd situation. They would be free of attribution requirements on content that was entirely yours, but bound by third party attribution requirements for content you got under the CC BY license. I suspect this is a drafting error, as it appears to be inconsistent with the evident intent is to be free of anyone else's moral rights with all content.

I am not a lawyer. So none of this constitutes legal advice, It is merely puzzled reflection.

*or implicitly, as far as I can see (which isn't very far, of course).

[Gaia Clary]

thanks for the hints. I fixed the links in my post (cut & paste is not my frioend today :matte-motes-confused: )

About the TOS hrmm.. now that is insane   I think we have to figure this out quickly.

[Scooter Hollow]

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Drongle McMahon wrote:

I think the situation with CC BY licenses is unclear. The TOS requires you to waive YOUR attribution rights when you upload, but it doesn't say anything explicitly* about third party attribution rights. So I can't see anything in the letter of the TOS that stops you uploading a CC BY asset, as long as you attach the required attribution. If that is so, then when they proceed to exercise the other rights they claim, they are presumably still bound by the CC BY attribution reqirement. However, that's a very odd situation. They would be free of attribution requirements on content that was entirely yours, but bound by third party attribution requirements for content you got under the CC BY license. I suspect this is a drafting error, as it appears to be inconsistent with the evident intent is to be free of anyone else's moral rights with all content.

I am not a lawyer. So none of this constitutes legal advice, It is merely puzzled reflection.

*or implicitly, as far as I can see (which isn't very far, of course).

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You cannot use CC BY in SL under the current TOS. Either you have to be the owner yourself, it's public domain (CC0) or almost public domain (the owner allows it to be used commercially and without attribution and to be re-sold as content etc etc etc). Second Life is not bound by the CC BY requirement because when you upload it, you are claiming that it has no such requirements. Or rather, they're only bound to remove it once someone files a complaint about it being uploaded against the TOS.

[Drongle McMahon]

"when you upload it, you are claiming that it has no such requirements"

That's the problem. What it actually says is that you are claimimg you have the rights to grant the rights needed for the uses contemplated in the ToS, but there is nothing I can see in the ToS where any contemplated use excludes attribution to third parties. In that case, your claim does not need to include the right to waive the requirements for attribution to third parties. Can you point to a contemplated use that requires this waiver? Do you think "uncondional" implies that? Only theuploader's attribution rights are explicitly excluded.

As I said, I am sure that isn't what they intended. The intention is clearly to enable them to ignore absolutely all rights of anybody and everybody in all circumstances. For that reason, I have treated it as having the meaning you indicate, and avoided uploading anything with any license except CC0, even though I'm not sure that's what it says.

For most people, it may be the retrospective aspect that is the problem. As far as I can see, nobody could have agreed to the ToS if they had ever uploaded anything with a CC BY (or any nore restrictive) license. I have little doubt that this has been widely overlooked, at least by people who didn't read the ToS, or who read it but didn't didn't appreciate its retrospective action. It means that there are likely very many residents who have technically made fraudulent claims, effectively violating bith the ToS and the licence. From my point of view, that is the most serious aspect of the ToS.

 

 

[Scooter Hollow]

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Terms of Service wrote:

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.

 

 

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The key words are unconditional and unrestricted. Requiring an attribution is a restricting condition.

 

Edit: The ToS are not retroactive and could not be, from a legal standpoint. It only applies to content uploaded after the new ToS went up (August 2013 iirc).

[Drongle McMahon]

The key words are unconditional and unrestricted. Requiring an attribution is a restricting condition.

I guess that is a reasonable interpretation, in which case, I am glad I have been cautious.

The ToS are not retroactive and could not be, from a legal standpoint. It only applies to content uploaded after the new ToS went up.

That's was my initial assumption too, although the consensus of discussion, here and from the (apparently) legally qualified panel that held an open discussion, was that it was indeed retrospective - more or less on the grounds that you were not forced to accept the ToS if you didn't want to or were not entitled to provide rights to existing content, and that there is nothing in the ToS that restricts its effect to content by the date of uploading. The term "all or any portion of your User Content " does not say anything about when it was uploaded, The definition ""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." , even appears to explicitly refer to past uploading.

However, I am certainly not legally qualified. So I will defer to your opinion. I would certainly expect difficulties for a retrospective effect it it were ever to come to a court, but then it probably never will, as the ToS also binds us to accept Arbitration.

[Gaia Clary]

I have posted a question about this in the agenda for the weekly content creator meeting:

Due to the recent appearance of the Blender Cloud we must need to know if the import of [By 4.0 licensed content] will violate the TOS. The TOS is not very clear about that. I understand that this is a legal issue, but you can not force every single user in the world to clarify this important question on his/her own with the LL legal department. We need an official yes/no answer to this very simple question: Can CC By 4.0 content be legally uploaded to SL ? yes/no ? Best would be to answer this right in the TOS

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Content_Creation/Mesh_Import_User_Group

[Drongle McMahon]

Thanks Gaia. Clarification on thid and other related issues "from the horses mouth"* is what we all really need.

*this is an English idiom meaning from the most reliable or definitive source.

[Chic Aeon]

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Edit: The ToS are not retroactive and could not be, from a legal standpoint. It only applies to content uploaded after the new ToS went up (August 2013 iirc).

---

While I personally agree that the logic is such, many attourneys have stated that it IS retroactive. I have even been in panel discussions where that was stated. The only thing that we do know about the TOS is that we won't know until it is tested and apparently (again attourneys stating this not me) there are lines in the TOS of August that we "signed" that state we cannot sue them or have a class action suit.

 

So even if you are an attourney there are plenty of others that do not agree with your statement. Sorry and darn! 

[Chic Aeon]

It took me awhile to find it and it does seem like the TOS has changed a bit since August (we agreed in signing the August TOS that we don't have to click through any longer it is up to us to check the VERY VERY LONG TOS from time to time - insert sigh here -)  but here I believe is the important part:

 

2.7 You agree to respect the Intellectual Property Rights of other users, Linden Lab, and third parties.

You agree that you will not publish, or submit to any part of the Service, any Content that is protected by Intellectual Property Rights or otherwise subject to proprietary rights, including trade secret or privacy rights, unless you are the owner of such rights or have permission from the rightful owner to upload, publish, or submit the Content and to grant Linden Lab and users of the Service all of the license rights granted in these Terms of Service.

 

Even CC Attrib keeps some rights.

I believe that public domain work is acceptable but that creative commons is not. Each person can do what they want of course including ignore the August TOS altogether. All this posturing did nothing to stop the very blatant theft and sale of items in SL. It only hurt the content creators that were attempting to follow the rules.

 

 

[Drongle McMahon]

I think that bit of 2.7 hasn't changed since the copy I have from August 2013. CC Attrib does retain rights for the originator, but it gives anyone permission to do just about anything with the work, EXCEPT to remove the attribution. So the question is whether the uses contemplated by the ToS imply removal of attribution. If they do, then you can't upload it. If a requirement for attribution is inconsistent with "unconditional" and/or "unrestricted", then they do, and you can't upload it. If they don't, then I don't see why you can't. My own, ill-informed interpretation is that the explicit waiver of the uploader's own right to attribution implies that the contemplated use does involve removal of attribution, and therefore that it is unsafe to upload CC BY stuff (if you care about complying with the ToS). CC0 and public domain stuff is rare. So that is severely restrictive.

[Chic Aeon]

Agreed on the very restrictive assesment . I remember we talked about this many months ago and the only thing that seemed to comply was textures made by the designer on his computer from scratch (using original photographs if that is part of the process). Honestly the whole thing is pretty ridiculous when you look at the larger picture. Oh well.

 

The parts of the TOS that I felt had changed (and I don't care enough about it to research again as I spent at least 40 hours on this inthe past ) had nothing to do withi 2.7. I wasn't clear on that; sorry.

 

Happily I am on another grid where I can upload CC and CG Textures and other free works. Here I don't. That's me. I may turn into a rebel at some point in time (one never knows) but for now I am in compliance.

[Drongle McMahon]

"The parts of the TOS that I felt had changed ... had nothing to do withi 2.7"

Ah. That explains it. Is there anywhere that keeps up-to-date records of the changes?

[Gaia Clary]

The LL TOS also Says:

Because the law may or may not recognize certain Intellectual Property Rights in any particular Content, you should consult a lawyer if you want legal advice regarding your legal rights in a specific situation. You acknowledge and agree that you are responsible for knowing, protecting, and enforcing any Intellectual Property Rights you hold, and that Linden Lab cannot do so on your behalf.

However i believe that Linden Lab should at least give us an official statement if they will accept uploads of CC BY attributed content and thus treat CC BY attributed content properly. The Linden Lab lawyers have made the TOS, they should know what it means, so they should be able to answer that question without any doubts.

And should Linden Lab want us to be (or not to be) able to upload CC BY attributed content then they should  comunicate this to us in a doubtless way. The best would be a simple "yes, you can!", or "no, you can't!" And honestly, i do not see any way to answer with a "maybe yes, maybe no" to that. But well, i am not a lawyer.

What an ugly mess that is:matte-motes-sick:

[Scooter Hollow]

I haven't been real thrilled with their responses on the topic so far. The best we've gotten is that they have no 'intention' of doing any of the things that prevent us from using 3rd-party content, but so far this intention hasn't gone so far as to re-word the ToS so that we can legally go back to using them again.

 

I'm no lawyer myself, but I don't see how the ToS being retroactive would be at all workable. Even if everybody had perfectly understood the ToS the very first day they went up, and everybody who had ever uploaded 3rd-party content had never logged in again (which would have been their only legal option in a retroactive interpretation), all of that content would have still been in world and still been used by other people. There would have to be two classes of content no matter how you sliced it.

[Chic Aeon]

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Gaia Clary wrote:

The LL TOS also Says:

Because the law may or may not recognize certain Intellectual Property Rights

in any particular Content,

you should consult a lawyer

if you want legal advice regarding your legal rights in a specific situation. You acknowledge and agree that you are responsible for knowing, protecting, and enforcing any Intellectual Property Rights you hold,

and that Linden Lab cannot do so on your behalf.

 

 

Edit: Sorry I typed within the quote field. The text below is mine.

The problem is that MANY folks that made thier real life incomes on SL DID consult their lawyers. Quite a few of them left the grid; happily some stayed. The lawyers couldn't agree on anything except that the wording was to stringent and broad with no apparent need for it to be.

@ Drongel     I don't know of anyone on TOS watch. That would take a superhuman and terrifically picky person -- to delve through all those pages on a daily basis. I am sure there must be a comparision program out there but probably not for us mere mortals.  Once The Lab inserted the statement about  --this agreement can be changed at any time and it is up to you to watch for it  -- type code we lost even the warning bell sign.

In my history, the largest online retailer was the first to instigate that type of clause and it was well over a decade ago. I closed down my store there because I thought that was so underhanded. I still shop there, but they have continued to undermine the folks that they partner with.

Big business, little fish in the pond. Not a new story. Sadly.

[Drongle McMahon]

It depends whether the asset database includes an uploader ID. If it does, they can easily check whether they accepted the new ToS. If not, then I guess it couldn't be retroactive because they would have to rely on the datestamp to know that it was uploaded by someone who had accepted the ToS. If there's no uploader ID or datestamp, then I don't see how they could tell at all. Maybe some other time-indicating versioning information? I would guess they have both uploader ID and datestamp, but I could certainly be wrong.

[Gaia Clary]

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Chic Aeon wrote:

The problem is that MANY folks that made thier real life incomes on SL DID consult their lawyers. Quite a few of them left the grid; happily some stayed. The lawyers couldn't agree on anything except that the wording was to stringent and broad with no apparent need for it to be.

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That is why i believe the only realy good solution for everybody would be that LL clarifies this in an understandable way. It would be great to get a list of licenses that LL would accept. Then creators can check without doubt if their work matches the rules or not.

It would be ok even, if LL would tell us (the content creators) in clear words, that they accept none of the CC licenses at all. Then users would at least know that for sure. And can decide to leave or stay based on facts, instead of deciding based on guesses. it is already insane that even lawyers can not tell for sure what goes, what not.

[Chic Aeon]

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That is why i believe the only realy good solution for everybody would be that LL clarifies this in an understandable way. It would be great to get a list of licenses that LL would accept. Then creators can check without doubt if their work matches the rules or not.

It would be ok even, if LL would tell us (the content creators) in clear words, that they accept none of the CC licenses at all. Then users would at least know that for sure. And can decide to leave or stay based on facts, instead of deciding based on guesses. it is already insane that even lawyers can not tell for sure what goes, what not.

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LOL. I am NOT arguing with you!   It is all beyond rediculous really. 

 

But it has been eight months now. I think they plan to keep quiet indefinitely OR until they actually do something with all the power they declaired with the August TOS . 

 

 

[Cerise Sorbet]

Ebbe said at the education shindig this weekend that he has been working with LL lolyers on that ToS wording, Since this came from Ebbe, I'm inclined to believe it's actually being worked on.