Is it against the tos to use the sl avatar in advertisement for animations?

[Ichago Dougall]

I plan on making an advertisement for my animations sometime soon. What I would like to know is if it is against the TOS

to use the sl avatar that you can download, to make a video. Not filmed in sl but in a third party aplication. Mainly to avoid having to change up avatars or recruite models, but also to make the videos about the animation. Not about the avatar.

Thanks for any help on this.

[Melita Magic]

As far as I know you can play SL machinima outside SL without a problem.

If you were more specific what your intended end result is it would be easier to answer.

[Vegro Solari]

I heard the actual SL avatar still used to date is an old mesh from the Poser series, so any videos or stills made with that royalty free mesh, which the Lindens borrowed from Poser anyways, is way unlikely to get you into any kind of questionable copyright waters.  Besides, renders made with any 3d mesh are not really subject to mesh copyright. You can render anything you want, any way you want, as long as you're not selling the mesh to people illegally, you're fine on the mesh copyright front.  I'd say go ahead with it and don't worry.

Mainly what you want to avoid is content suggesting  "LINDEN LABS ENDORSES ME", excessive commercial usage of their corporate logos etc. Other than that, have fun with it!

[Ichago Dougall]

Thanks for the help. This answer's everything I need.  8)

[Ann Otoole]

I recommend you restrict your advertising efforts to imagery taken inside SL. People that fake pics with poser and what not usually do not last long.

If you need a rotating pose stand then drop a rotation script in it with your animations. Hop on and film away. You can see some vids I made using this technique here: http://www.youtube.com/user/annotoole

Not too sure what reception an animating noob is going to get so you might reconsider your disdain of using well made SL avatars for your models.

IMHO

[Chelsea Malibu]

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Ann Otoole wrote:

I recommend you restrict your advertising efforts to imagery taken inside SL. People that fake pics with poser and what not usually do not last long.

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Ditto, that is such a misleading practice and becoming way too prevalent.

 

 

 

[Ichago Dougall]

Not too sure what reception an animating noob is going to get so you might reconsider your disdain of using well made SL avatars for your models.

 

wth, I never said anything about using it as a fake image, I plan to model them in a third party and in sl to show the making and the one in sl. I just wanted to use the sl avatar image in a third party to show the dif. Thank you for your kind words and assumption. Have a great day!

 Edit: I did say filmed outside sl, but I mean filming the sl avatar itself not in sl. My old animations are really noobish yes. I am currently working with motion capture footage I made. Not downloaded or stolen or bleh. I dont really need to explain myself, but da** you piss me off!!!! Get off your high horse and just help someone with a question instead of bashing them.

[Ann Otoole]

You are being over sensitive. There was no bashing or negativism at all. Just constructive criticism and recommendations based on years of experience.

Good luck with your endeavors.

ETA: In response to your question the only valid answer can come from LL so you might open a support ticket and ask LL. LL makes the models available for download and use in modeling apps so I doubt they care. But confirmation is always a great idea. There are utilities to export your avatar shape to an OBJ file which would remove any and all doubt. Sadly the rules forbid posting merchant listings.

[Montana Corleone]

It's a tricky one, since the mesh itself is code, which is copyright, though I guess LL don't own that, but it is in effect only the carrier on which other copyright material is used, a bit like the paper in books, and it's the content not the media that is copyright. So then you are down to the copyright in the textures used. Although you can then create a new render, that would probably not be qualified as a new work, but a derivative work, since it still relies on the textures and there are limited (even if large) settings so there is not really a creative process involved. Derivative works of course are allowable only with the permission of the copyright holder.

Altogether a bit tricky :smileyhappy:

As for the ToS, it's often regarded as law, but it doesn't supercede the law, and it's against the Bern Convention to compel someone to give up their copyright, which in places the ToS effectively does.

It would be a nice little earner for the lawyers :smileyvery-happy:

If LL does own any rights, I suspect that as long as the usage conforms to the ToS guidelines, you are effectively advertising SL for them, and they would let it pass, unless you were using it for parody, which is an allowable fair use in any case.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Actually the TOS specifically forbids you to do this.  You may take pictures or machinima IN WORLD and use them outside, but may not export your avatar to use outside of SL and do as your asking:

FROM TOS:Section 7.7

Linden Lab provides access to Linden In-World Content and hereby grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, limited, revocable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Linden In-World Content solely In-World as permitted through the normal functionality of the Service and under these Terms of Service, except that photographs, images, films, and videos of Linden In-World Content may be used in other areas of and outside the Service as provided in our Snapshot and Machinima Policy. To be clear, and without limiting the foregoing, you may not use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display or perform any Linden In-World Content, whether modified by you or not, outside the virtual world environment of the Service except as provided in the Snapshot and Machinima Policy or as expressly agreed upon in a written agreement with Linden Lab. The foregoing license is referred to as a "Linden In-World Content License."