Is it legally safe to sell trading cards of avatars?

[Gageisgone]

So I made trading cards featuring a lot of my friends on second life. They all have custom features and accessories, so none of them are basic out of box avatars. They all consented to this and are aware of it.

I plan on selling them in a gacha machine. Everyone loves the idea, but I had someone tell me that there are some stingy avatar creators who have tried to sue in the past for making money off their creation

I'm not sure how true this is, but is this something I should worry about? 

Technically the money earned from this is going directly back into the making of these cards, I don't have a bank account attached to my account so I wouldnt be making any actual money from it

And all the avatars were payed for by the user and have since been customized in various ways

 

Anyways, any insight on this would be helpful

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

 I don't have a definitive answer, but you asked for any insights...

Anyone can try to sue anyone for anything, so there's always the risk of that. More relevant might be the fact that if someone claims to have IP rights on the things in your pictures, they can have LL take down your items. There's nothing you or LL can do about that. You can file a counter-notification, but that means you will have to send a signed letter with your personal information. You can read about the DMCA policy here.

The Second life TOS say the following:

2.5 You also grant Linden Lab and other users of the Service a license to use in snapshots and machinima your Content that is displayed In-World in publicly accessible areas of the Service.

You agree that by uploading, publishing, or submitting any Content to or through the Servers for display Inworld in any publicly accessible area of the Service, you hereby grant other users a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to photograph, capture an image of, film, and record a video of the Content, and to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the resulting photograph, image, film, or video in any current or future media as provided in and subject to the restrictions and requirements of our Snapshot and Machinima Policy. The foregoing license is referred to as the "Snapshot and Machinima Content License."

(Don't forget to read the Snapshot and Machinima Policy link)

So it looks like you can use your snapshots. Whether that means you can use them commercially is not very clear.

 

Another link

and another (oldy)

[Lindal Kidd]

Kwakk is quite correct.  However, I'm not sure the quoted section of the TOS really applies to what you're proposing.  That quote is the one that gives Linden Lab a draconian grant of rights to use YOUR creations in their advertising.

The photo and machinima policy basically allows you to use photos you take of anyone or their creations in Second Life, provided they give you permission to do so.  So (in my opinion, I am not a lawyer, your mileage may vary, void where prohibited by law) it's OK to do what you are proposing.