😡 Why Our Items are Being Removed for Intellectual Porperty Policy

[Gabs Voom]

I'm helping @Chaplin Tomorrow to manage his store: V-Twins Bikes

Before you start, I know what copyright is and I know what trademark is. I also know the differences between both. That's why I have been trying to help Chaplin with his bikes and how to brand them so that they do not infrindge anything.

Today some of our bikes were removed for Intellectual Porperty Policy  and this is the only explanation we have from Linden (completly useless) :  http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Intellectual_Property
Linden has not given us any specific comment about the violation. Chaplin has not received an email either. So we don't know what we are doing wrong and we don't know what kind of intellectual propierty we have violeted publishing our bikes on the marketplace. Bikes have been removed randomly, some of them, not all of them.

For example:  Racy Rider Bike Collection  (This is only one of the models affected)

 

The FAt Pack and 2 colors have been removed, but not the rest of the colors. 🙄 This can mean 2 things. Either someone flagged those 3 model in particular and forgot to flag the others and the "linden drone" removing items just worked by default. Or the system has "randomly" decided that 3 of these items were in violation of some intellectual propierty. All bikes have basically the same description.
I don't know what to think because you can revise the bikes still online and they don't use any trademark that I am aware of. I have googled "racy rider" and it is not a brand and bobber ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobber_(motorcycle) ) at least wikipedia says it is a style not a trademark. A bobber is a style, like a SUV or a sedan or a sports car.

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/V-Twins-Bikes-Bobber-Racy-Rider-single-color-Red-model/15347403

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/V-Twins-Bikes-Bobber-Racy-Rider-single-color-Black-model/15347399

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/V-Twins-Bikes-Bobber-Racy-Rider-single-color-Orange-model/15347401

 

We have also checked the original creator of the bike components and the avatar is selling on the marketplace his/her parts so we are pretty sure we haven't infringed any copyright from the original creator. We have also paid legally for the KCP scripts (actually twice) for the bike to run. I'm also quite sure, we are fine with copyright owners and, of couse, we are not selling ful permissions.
As far as I know I would dare saying we haven't infringed not a trademark not the copyright.  Please, if someone can spot or understand where the problem might come from,  please  .. let me know and we will try fix it or address it or have it solved.  I have no problem in rebranding or removing the bikes, but I need to have a rational and coherernt explantaion of why this is happening to us.

Does someone know how we can contact Linden to know what's going on ? Chaplin and me are not premium so we can't fill up tickets to ask for an explanation.
I assume there should be a way to appeal the decision, but this is Linden ...  I don't assume. Does someone know if or how we can do that ?

 

Exactly the same problem occurs with another of the bikes models: savage

One model of the bikes has been removed, but not the others. These ones are still online so you can check if we are violating any trademark, I'm pretty sure we are not.

Silver model:  https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/V-Twins-Bike-Cruiser-Savage-Silver-ltd-Model/5890392

Desert Storm model:  https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/V-Twins-Bike-Cruiser-SavageDesert-Storm-Model/5890390

Bicolor Model:  https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/V-Twins-Bike-Cruiser-Savage-Bicolor-Model/5890328

 

We have been in Second Life for more than 11 years and we are feeling very upset and frustrated.  The main reason is because Linden refuses to do their part professionally, so now we have to waste our time trying to guess what the hell is going on. Linden should inform in the 1st place,  exactly what we have violated ..a brand or a copyright ?? after that we should be informed the name and the problem ( not necessarily in detail, but at least a short explanation) and then a link to contact Linden in case we want to appeal or say something about the violation.  Linden only does the lazy part: remove the item and inform with a vague and generic comment that does not provide enough information to know what we have done wrong ( if we have done wrong, which I doubt it in my case).  Right now, after 11 years working in SEcond Life, this is the first time I feel defenseless, upset and defeated.

If someone can help us or point out what to do or detect what might be causing this problem, I would appreciate it. 😥😅

 

Edited July 16, 2019 by Gabs Voom
not sure what happened

[Alyona Su]

The owner of that market place store should have received an email stating that items were taken down under the DMCA Take-Down Notice (A law in the U.S.) That person now has the right to file a counter-claim against the take-down. They must provide full information to Linden Lab, including legal name, address, phone numbers, etc. (Read there wiki page for all the details of what must be done and how.)

That RL information is then sent to the person or people who made the take-down request. They then have 14 business days to take legal action. If they take legal action, they *must* provide proof to Linden Lab that they have done so. If they do not take any legal action, then after two weeks (14 business days) you can demand that Linden Lab replace (put back) those listings on Market Place, which they must do by law. DO NOT Put them back by yourself! Linden Lab must do it.

Read the wiki page that you were directed to THOROUGHLY and COMPLETELY and understand your rights and do it correctly.

OR: You can just leave those items off-line and never sell them again.

[animats]

This is why "sole discretion" terms of service are unacceptable for any business activity.

DMCA notice and counternotice, fine.

Maybe "babygirl" triggered some automated takedown.

[Aquila Kytori]

 tyres ?

 

 

 

Edited July 16, 2019 by Aquila Kytori

[Gabs Voom]

 

2 hours ago, Alyona Su said:

Read the wiki page that you were directed to THOROUGHLY and COMPLETELY and understand your rights and do it correctly.

The wiki page is a legal page that I read years ago and says nothing that I am not aware of. It's useful to review just in case, but nothing else.

 

40 minutes ago, animats said:

Maybe "babygirl" triggered some automated takedown. 

Other babygirls items have not been removed plus it's a not a trademark that I'm aware of

10 minutes ago, Aquila Kytori said:

Dunlop 491 Elite II  tyres ?

Agreed. But other items removed do not have Dunlop tyres.
I will discuss with Chaplin the case for replacing these tyres.

[Gabs Voom]

Ok. . I got an email from my partner Chaplin

Who knows? Maybe someone read this topic and thought it was a good idea to send the email. My partner received the email 1 hour ago  😳

 

Quote

--------- Forwarded message ---------
Da: Intellectual Property Team <ipteam email>
Date: mar 16 lug 2019, 19:33
Subject: Notice re: Your Second Life Marketplace Listings
To: <my partner email>

Dear Chaplin Tomorrow:
This is our *second* warning to you about your use of branded items, brand names, or other items containing intellectual property in your Second Life Marketplace listings.
**Please be aware that any future warnings may result in your further  suspension or termination from Second Life.**
Your Second Life Marketplace listings include the following branded items, brand names, or other items containing intellectual property:

HARLEY-DAVIDSON

*Marketplace Listing Guidelines*

Great because we never received the 1st email to begin with.

They say our bikes are branded as HARLEY-DAVIDSON   FALSE

The search for HARLEY-DAVIDSON Marketplace  on the marketplace is this:   click here  (None of our bikes is there)

The search for Harley  gives 2 bikes ... but it must be a MArketplace Error because they are not branded as Harley Davidson

 

 

Edited July 16, 2019 by Gabs Voom

[Gabs Voom]

How am I supposed to know if the MArketplace says our bikes are harleys, but we do not tag them as harleys or call them Harleys or use the word harley   ???

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

Could it be "Savage"? Any other words with Harley Davison connections there?

[Gabs Voom]

Let me show you something really funny !!

 

 

One bike from a competitor and one bike from my partner, I give you the links:

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/BCR-Abbot/9697799

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/V-Twins-Bike-Chopper-Road-Hog-Lone-Wolf-Model/6363906

None of these bikes use the word Harley in the description or in the words and probably none of the others. But they do appear in search .... how is that possible ? 😳

It would be bad joke if my partner gets banned for infrindging a trademark that he is not infrinding  ...

[Fionalein]

8 minutes ago, Gabs Voom said:

None of these bikes use the word Harley in the description or in the words and probably none of the others. But they do appear in search .... how is that possible ? 😳

bad machine learning algorithms...

[Gabs Voom]

5 minutes ago, Bitsy Buccaneer said:

Could it be "Savage"? Any other words with Harley Davison connections there?

No ... they have randomly removed one or 2 from each model for the same reason. One savage, one xtreme, 1 road hog, 2 racy riders, 1 comando etc.

My assumption 👈  is that someone from Harley Davidson searched the word "Harley", (because Harley Davidson does NOT appear). The marketplace gave them a few items and they filled up a dmca against the first ones. If you scare a few merchants, you draw a line with a few scapegoats. I bet a thousand dollars, none of the IP team department bothers to check the dmca claims. They saw Harley Davidson, they saw a motorcycle and they didn't bother to check more.   End of assumption.

I would like an explanation from Linden to know more and to avoid possible mistakes in the future, but I know hell will freeze before that ever happens.

[Fionalein]

1 minute ago, Gabs Voom said:

I bet a thousand dollars, none of the IP team department bothers to check the dmca claims.

They don't have too, they could even get into trouble for doing so - the whole DMCA thing is a bad joke - LL just plays along and so should you. Find an attorney and find out what you must do to counter a false DMCA takedown.

[Ansiri]

Could this be because at Features reads: Harley Style Bike?

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

9 minutes ago, Gabs Voom said:

No ... they have randomly removed one or 2 from each model for the same reason. One savage, one xtreme, 1 road hog, 2 racy riders, 1 comando etc.

My assumption 👈  is that someone from Harley Davidson searched the word "Harley", (because Harley Davidson does NOT appear)

I doubt it.

My information is over 25 years out of date, but way back when I did some work for a friend who was writing software to do automatic checks on copyright infringements. My job was to do manual searches to generate data to compare the automated processes to so we could see how much they missed. It's easy to get the software to find some, it's tricky to get it to find all.

The automation and processing power behind it are ridiculously better now, but so is the size of the internet and the amount of data it has to trawl. That their searches found some but not all is absolutely no guarantee of anything.

 

[Gabs Voom]

22 minutes ago, Fionalein said:

They don't have too, they could even get into trouble for doing so - the whole DMCA thing is a bad joke - LL just plays along and so should you. Find an attorney and find out what you must do to counter a false DMCA takedown.

So far Linden has not contacted us explaning how we have to do a counter false DMCA.

First they removed the items, and a few hours later they sent the email explaining briefly why. They have been completly opaque with this issue.

The most hilarious part of this takedown is that they have removed "segways" for infrindging the HARLEY-DAVIDSON trademark. 

 

9 minutes ago, Ansiri said:

Could this be because at Features reads: Harley Style Bike?

I thought about that, but not all the items have that line "harley style" and the email from Linden clearly says that the trademark in violation is:  HARLEY-DAVIDSON

However, thank you very much for the appreciation,  this could be a reason.  But as I said before ...  this guy:   https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/BCR-Abbot/9697799     is not using the word "Harley" and his bike appears on search with Harley.

Edited July 16, 2019 by Gabs Voom

[SerraWeckerly]

keyword on mp listing?

[Gabs Voom]

16 minutes ago, SerraWeckerly said:

keyword on mp listing?

No

These are the keywords

Quote

V-TWINS BIKES, CRUISER BIKES, CHOPPER BIKES, MOTORYCLES, OLD SKOOL BIKES, CUSTOM BIKES, INDIAN BIKES, BIKER LIFE, USA BIKES, AMERICAN CHOPPERS, CHOPPERZ, IRONHEAD, PANHEADS, INDIAN

 

Edited July 16, 2019 by Gabs Voom

[SerraWeckerly]

I thought that might have been why you turned up in a search for Harley without using the word Harley in any of the customer facing advert.   

[Gabs Voom]

Ok, the bad news is that my partner Chaplin Tomorrow has been banned for a 1 week and he has done nothing to deserve this.
We have not misused Harley-Davidson brand ...  not pretend, not once or two. In fact we have always stayed away from those guys.

Now my partner (he is not premium) can not contact linden to know what to do.
He can't access the marketplace to remove the bikes  ( as a safety measure )  ... 
His store is online, but he can't access the merchant home. Ridicoulos and propostreus.

The idiotic thing is that now Linden could say that he is infrindging another trademark, and he would not be able to log in to the Marketplace to fix his items.

This is so unfair. we feel impotent and treated badly by Linden. We have been a serious business in Second life since 2007.

[Scaler Rexen]

You stated none of these have the word "harley" in them.. I checked and they all have harley in the features..

Edit: I just saw @Ansiri has already stated this and I missed that but that's why it comes up when you search harley.

Edited July 16, 2019 by Scaler Rexen

[Gabs Voom]

9 minutes ago, Scaler Rexen said:

You stated none of these have the word "harley" in them.. I checked and they all have harley in the features..

I didn't state that. I said that some of the have, but others don't

Quote

I thought about that, but not all the items have that line "harley style" and the email from Linden clearly says that the trademark in violation is:  HARLEY-DAVIDSON

 

Some have been removed without Harley and others with the word "Harley". For example, Segways don't have the "Harley" word, whatsoever ...  and they have also been removed.

[Eva Nova]

I've just been reading on thefashionlaw dot com about Harley Davidson suing a company called Urban Outfitters for copyright infringement in January 2017.

On there it states '' In addition to federal trademark protections for its full name and various logos, Harley-Davidson has several federally registered trademarks that extent (sic) to the word, “Harley,” on its own ''. 

So I would assume that it is indeed down to the use of the word Harley as that is a trademark of Harley-Davidson. That doesn't explain of course why the segways were removed.

[Mollymews]

6 hours ago, Gabs Voom said:

Some have been removed without Harley and others with the word "Harley". For example, Segways don't have the "Harley" word, whatsoever ...  and they have also been removed.

Segway like Harley when used to describe a vehicular product is a matter of judgement as it relates to trademarks

now while Segway, and Harley also, on their own are not trademarks, your friend has judged that the words Segway and Harley are ok to be used to describe his vehicular products

the LL Marketplace admin has judged that this is not ok. Hence the first notice given to your friend about this.  LL Governance has also judged that it is not ok.  So the 1 week holiday from SL on this second notice

your friend did have to heed the first warning and never did. If they don't heed this second warning and gets a third warning about the exact same thing, it will most probably be their last warning

my advice to people who get caught up in these things is to not go all clever. It is a matter of judgment. Getting banned is not clever. Getting banned is a final judgement

[Gabs Voom]

3 hours ago, Mollymews said:

your friend did have to heed the first warning and never did. If they don't heed this second warning and gets a third warning about the exact same thing, it will most probably be their last warning

My friend never got the 1st warning in the first place. In fact the second email was sent hours after the items were removed. If we discovered the items flagged first is because we are an active store in Second Life.

When they ban you, you can't acces your merchant home. So now, even if he wants to fix  this, he can't modify the marktplace items. 👈 Insert any ironic joke here

4 hours ago, Mollymews said:

Segway like Harley when used to describe a vehicular product is a matter of judgement as it relates to trademarks

now while Segway, and Harley also, on their own are not trademarks, your friend has judged that the words Segway and Harley are ok to be used to describe his vehicular products 

Have you checked any item from the marketplace, .. for example this one:  https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/V-Twins-Bike-Bobber-Racy-Rider-single-color-Purple-model/15367003

No Harley davidson logo, no harley or harley davidson words on title, description, keywords, features, content reviews, pictures.  ZERO  and thus 3 items exactly like this one were removed for trademark violation of harley-davidson brand.  I insist that email says "HARLEY-DAVIDSON".  If Harley-davison has subsidiary brand or mark that we are not aware of,  Linden could be more specific and say that we have violated the "XXXX" trademark as part of "Harlely-Davidson" global trademark.

As far as we are concerned (except harley style) we have used common words. But again, I insist, some items without the "harley style" words have also been removed.

 

5 hours ago, Evarne said:

I've just been reading on thefashionlaw dot com about Harley Davidson suing a company called Urban Outfitters for copyright infringement in January 2017.

😅 I know what you are saying, but it's probably trademark infringment and not copyright.  Copyright infringement would be the scenario where a company copies or copycats the logos and/or the clothes and/or the clothing style.

[Mollymews]

11 minutes ago, Gabs Voom said:

As far as we are concerned (except harley style) we have used common words. But again, I insist, some items without the "harley style" words have also been removed.

as you say "as far as we are concerned." Which is something different from "as far as LL are concerned"

i am not going to audit your friend's stuff for them. Others answering here have already done that for some of the stuff.  Which you as a result of their audit have since corrected  from "as far as we are concerned" to "except harley style"

i am not sure what you are wanting to achieve here. Have readers help you audit your friends' listings ?  Have readers agree that your friend is being treated unfairly ? Have readers agree that the LL Marketplace admin is incompetent ?  Have readers agree that the information provided to your friend by LL regarding Segway while wrong literally is true in substance ?  Have readers agree that RL trademark rules when applied to sounds-like products are vague and ill-defined ?  I am not sure what you wanting here