Dartagan Shepherd

The TOS also puts all the liability back on the user, for what rights they have to what they upload or contribute. This new agreement does however, increase LL's liability because they're more vested in the works. Especially if they expand their usage and handling of the product. If they ever do use content in multiple products, they will increase their liability further.

The newer mesh content is more a prize than the older content. However, as LL has also allowed themselves the right to derivative works, any content can be re-skinned to create new mesh including prim and sculptie builds, etc. And that process can be somewhat automated, depending on the content. Desura may or may not be part of the plan, that's true. If you've been listening closely to the interviews and watching the hiring that LL is doing though, you'll see that they're building more games themselves, including some with Unity. So yes, I'd have to say that coupled with the CEO's comments about offering us "more ways to sell", that part of the plan is to use this content in other products and give creators less profit and take a bigger piece from the content in the future. Letting us (or rather forcing us) to sell content beyond SL is our cookie for being good little content creators and signing away nearly all rights for the privilege. A sale of SL is doubtful, but there's more to the plan here than LL protecting themselves. That we don't rate enough to be told the plan and have to guess beforehand what will be done with our content is further telling as to the motives.

Participation here will get you multiple answers at once if you but ask a question or three. We'd be glad to have a law student as part of the discussion. Or give you a synopsis if you haven't grok'ed the main talking points from here and the links provided to other bloggers and companies that are beginning to forbid their content to be used in SL. If you want a refresher on some past legal thoughts by an attorney during the history of SL you can start with: http://virtuallyblind.com/ And when you get out there in the real world, remember regulatory law is as much a function of lobbying as it is the legal bits. I'd start with the flaws in current IP law that allow a company to claim rights, including retroactively outside the realm of contract.

Chic Aeon wrote: Hey looks like I beat the wonder kid with the link to a new post: http://virtualoutworlding.blogspot.com/2013/09/2013-help-new-terms-of-service-for.html I admit the link was sent to me, didn't mine for it A few bits there to chew on. Basically it comes down to LL trying to get work for hire rights without having to pay for those rights. The only right they don't get their hands on really isn't much of an issue for them. It is further complicated when you get into the various types of media that they're trying to pull that off on. As business associates go, LL is a most inconsiderate lover.

1) They're counting on most not bailing. 2) Our virtual goods, according to the CEO has been worth roughly $3-4 billion in sales to date. There's potentially far more income to the goods than tier and services and cheesy in-world monetization. 3) He already stated in so many words that they're going to continue to offer us "more ways to sell". 4) The agreement speaks, not the verbal or conjecture and it has spoken very clearly that LL is taking everything but exclusivity for any reason they see fit. Obviously there's more to the plan than protecting themselves or the agreement would have been worded very specifically to cover the marketplace and Desura. 5) It's not stealing if you can try to TOS it, pay less in settlements than your profit and carry merrily on. Well, it is stealing but it's profitable and calculated stealing, playing off the complexity of IP law. 6) It has the potential to turn some millions into more millions for LL. 7) You grossly underestimate the dollar value to virtual goods and games and the stakes involved. 8) The issue is only partly that they'll "steal" content. Maybe, maybe not. Content creators need to be very careful with the agreements that claim all rights but exclusivity. This is a far over-reaching agreement that very few artists in real life would ever sign or agree to with a click. It needs cancellation or serious revision to get those clauses out. That they "probably won't steal" is a non starter. What matters are the details of the agreement. Anything else is naive.

To say the least. There's so much legally wrong here, it'd be funny if it weren't so unethical. Hoping they find out in a spectacular fashion. @Toy: Also done. Thanks much.

@RiftRaven Thanks for posting these links. This particularly struck me in the Tuna interview: "We have a multiverse, a whole Internet. Part of it is 3d, and all of it is us." "From the angle of some Second Lifers it is only there though.," Tuna added, "This needs to change." This was true before SL, and it's what drew me to SL in the first place. Those of you who began pioneering virtual worlds pre-SL know of which I speak. It was a metaverse until SL came along and tried to bundle into their closed garden and then tried to sell "your world" while continually controlling, minimizing and monetizing it. We already knew they were our worlds, we built them. When SL built one, we knew it was "their world". And now that's painfully and rightly obvious to what extent something so creative can be so monetized by the unethical. It doesn't so much need to change, it needs to go back to where we were before LL came along and held virtual worlds back by 10 years. It is indeed a metaverse. It always will be and aside from the sky is falling mantra ... it is nonetheless a slowly dying world hastened by years of bad management and monetization-before-customers. @Rya: Replied to you because I was both a bit suprised and impressed by your stand particularly. Bravo, and count me as another who will not be contributing any content to a company that can't be bothered to specifiy what exactly they're going to do with my content. It has been before SL and will be long after: "Your metaverse, your imagination".

"Your concerns will be forwarded to superiors for review though." Rod will personally start reading the forums every day. Somewhere out there Mark Kingdon is muttering "how do you like me now?".

Madelaine McMasters wrote: Darrius Gothly wrote: You should have also quoted the reply to Cypherfox that explains a bit more why their statement is not correct. The language in the new ToS specifically assigns rights of ownership to Linden Lab for all content uploaded. That is a massive legal difference from copying and distributing the uploaded content via the platform for others to see and use. The previous iteration of the ToS only gave LL the right to use the uploaded content in order to make it available for display and use within Second Life and no where else. The new language grants them universal, incontrovertible rights of ownership over that content. Many platforms (games if you will) have ToS that specifically state they will use your uploaded content to share with others within the space of the platform. Allow me an analogy: You sign up for a web site that requires your email address so they can contact you and provide you with information relevant to the game. Their ToS and Privacy Statement say that they will only use your email address for that purpose. All's good, right? Linden Lab's new ToS takes that a step further. They proclaim they can sell your email address to spammers, marketers, anyone else that might want it. Furthermore they reserve the right to use your email for their own purposes, sending and receiving messages when they feel like it and without notifying you. That's a FAR cry from "reasonable use" which is what the previous ToS provided. The new version? It flat out grabs ownership from you, and because you agreed to it, you haven't the slightest hope of recouping any damages, sharing in any profits, or recovering from any harm that may come from it. I still think it's more likely that LL doesn't know what they're doing than that they intend to steal from the creators. So the ToS may have been changed because they thought they were legally vulnerable in some way. I've worked with plenty of clients who could be easily bamboozled into doing things by potential investors (who often don't know anything themselves) or lawyers. Recall that LL cannot prevent copybotting. Imagine that their legal counsel advised them that this technical vulnerability in their system is perhaps not up to the level of best practices in the industry and therefore leaves them vulnerable to IP lawsuits. I'm just making that up, but something like that seems more likely to me than LL deciding they're going to take our creations and sell them for their own profit. The moment they try that, the Grim Reaper will come for Rodvik, if he's not already dead. What matters are the terms of the agreement to anyone who cares about their IP on a commercial level. If there is any intent to be found, the intent is by LL to profit further with or without the consent of their users, past, present and future, because that's what they spelled out. Intent in business is the exact purpose of an agreement. To spell out the intent and expectations of each party. LL's intention in the agreement is not to have to ask permission to do anything they're thinking of now, or that they might think of in the future. That's not ignorance on the part of a company that has reduced every liability to fictional currency, fictional business, implemented multiple monetization schemes, stopped communications with their customers and most importantly provides absolutely nothing in return in the agreement, no matter what level you spend at. At least other places are starting to put them on the list of bad actors. They've become the slumlords of content creation.

I took a break for a couple of weeks and came back to the $1,000 advertising and all of this. The only thing I can say is that LL has always been a sweatshop in a creativity suit. At least they're getting better at making that obvious, it's the least they can do for their paying customers. There are alternatives for the mesh creators that truely do treat your content as yours, with clearly spelled out and limited terms of use. I used to think Prok was wacky for saying all LL wanted was open source content to monetize however they saw fit. Now, not so much. As for their TOS ... bah, they'll settle.

Heheh, no. I may pay $10 for a Rod bobble head though.

Funny. And more proof positive that god gave out more intelligence than he did common sense. Keywords are not necessary for commerce, given a title, description and category but then neither are engineers that don't quite understand the importance of relevence and how to implement it. +1 for disorganized yard sales, I spend far too little time and far too much money in a well organized department store anyway.

It's just a matter of time. Like it or not, if it quacks like currency, then it needs to be regulated like currency. The only irony is that the reason for using virtual currency on the part of a company is to be able to play at finances and monetize it without the costs and regulations. No such luck, sooner or later everyone has to play by the same rules with money. Also, it really doesn't matter at this point how much L$ relates to Bitcoins or other currency. Virtual currency will be classified as virtual currency no matter who owns it or what they call it. It's long overdue, a company that attempts to funnel real value into something fictional without proper oversight or protection IS the source of fraud to begin with.

Perrie Juran wrote: Dartagan Shepherd wrote: I don't know about you, but after about the 20th DMCA, my legal thoughts would be that this DMCA thing is starting to look pretty useless in the face of the company that's complicit in letting it happen so easily in the first place. And how do you propose that they stop it? And mind you, your proposal needs to be DCMA compliant and not interfere with "My World, My Imagination." In a post in this thread I listed some ways that other affiliate sales sites handle things without having too much of a theft problem. Like I said, any reputable affiliate is a good point of reference. Someone else mentioned in this thread, Tari I believe that it's not likely that LL is going to do anything any time soon. You don't need to look any further than LL's farce of a "test" that they use for people to be able to upload mesh. In their mind the DMCA and a disclaimer is all they need to be absolved of the liability. In reality it doesn't and they don't see enough court cases to test it. Also, the DMCA isn't the only legal means to pursue someone for theft ... problem is that LL has fictionalized the other elements that allow people to make use of the law. Some partial thoughts on what we can do without LL: When you see ripped content from a reputable site, also contact the site maintainers and explain to them how this item is ripped from one of their own merchants. It may eventually result in some legal action by the site and those artists as a class action. Pose the problems to discussion forums where the highest level professionals hang out on. The forums on CG Society are a good place to start. Many of the people there are top artists in film and games and may offer some ideas or help. Let them know that this threatens the entire industry of professionals and their income. http://www.cgsociety.org Perhaps a discussion over there on the possibility of putting a non profit organization together for professional 3D artists, with enough donations and traction you can hire your own lawyers to initiate legal action against companies allowing theft. Basically branch beyond SL. Also offer your mesh on some other reputable sites. Then you're part of the communities that people are doing the ripping from, this may help develop more contacts and resources and ideas.

I don't know about you, but after about the 20th DMCA, my legal thoughts would be that this DMCA thing is starting to look pretty useless in the face of the company that's complicit in letting it happen so easily in the first place. In fact there has a case brought against LL for their complicity. As usual LL settled quietly. So here we are, trying to identify and educate without going through another Redzone. When the DMCA process isn't working because the company too easily enables theft and refuses to act responsibly and allows their TOS to bypass the very thing (the real money) that would provide more legal options you do what you can until the next court case bubbles up. Remember LL is the one that said these little things called L$ are just worthless tokens until the federal government defined it as virtual currency subject to the same fraud requirements as real money. There's more to this than just the DMCA and a poor little helpless company in the face of thieves and millions of products that they could never possibly manage to police. LL sells stolen goods, they profit from the sale of stolen goods. Eventually this argument is not going to help LL much at all. But to dismiss it lightly among merchants trying for a solution outside of DMCA isn't quite fair. Because merchants unwittingly carry their own legal liability for selling stolen goods. That bit hasn't happened yet, but it could. This is kind of the end result of LL trying to bypass every law known to man when it comes to their customers "money".

I have to point out yet again that the ball is and always has been in LL's court. I'm not saying that LL should do these things now (although morally and legally they actually should), but these are some of the differences between LL and a reputable affiliate company in any industry. 1) They use real money and thus merchants and thieves are subject to real consumer protection, laws and legal recourse. Real money legitimizes the business of content creation in a way that no TOS or even the DMCA process can. 2) They require real ID and binding agreements, not a free for all with a TOS that mostly wouldn't hold up in court. 3) They restrict free content to those authorized sellers, and put strict limitations on the amount of free content available. 4) They put a minimum price requirement on items that sends a message to people that this item has real worth. It also has the bonus of both the affiliate and the artist making money. 5) The system is engineered so that the higher the price of the item, the more both sides make, rather than monetizing things to the point that freebies equate to free labor and free content for the affiliate company. 6) Because the affiliate company isn't busy pissing company money away on supporting a free play model, they can afford to police their sellers and promptly flag and/or ban repeat offenders (Not that LL couldn't now, if they can afford to invest in new products they can afford to police content.). 7) Related to the above, an affiliate can also ban buyers if they abuse the terms of content purchased from them. 8) Plans are in place to distinquish between average sellers and sellers with good track records, establishing even higher levels of trust among their own sellers. I could go on here, but you get the idea. Some merchants wouldn't want some of these things to happen, some would. We've had debates about various aspects of this in the past not really worth going into again here. But the bottom line is that LL sets themselves and their merchants up for abuse with fake money, and a TOS based on keeping the entire business "fictional". Because of this SL is more like a game with people ripping models and mods than it is like a platform for professional content creators. It is what it is, but the solutions and blame don't start with merchants and users who are so easily allowed to steal and profit from it, it starts with LL as very effective enablers of criminal activity.

Rya Nitely wrote: Luna Bliss wrote: Another thing to consider in your disturbance over how LL does not respect creator rights - if LL does not respect our desire to receive compensation for our time and content creation they will not respect creators rights - kind of goes hand in hand. My concern isn't really with LL not respecting creators rights. The task of controlling it all might not be an easy one. What I am more concerned and disappointed about is other creators who do not respect creators rights. And these are creators who consider themselves established and respectable - not your newbies or those hiding behind alts to sell stolen content. Actually it still comes down to the company. Related to the other thread as an example, Turbosquid doesn't have much of a problem with stolen goods or people selling others goods without permission in their marketplace, nor do most reputable affiliate marketplaces. The reason is because these companies have policies that respect their customers and content producers and enforce them promptly. I'm afraid the entire thing does come down to a lack of respect on LL's part. Lack of respect to provide a marketplace that does more than optimizes sales the way LL wants them optimized. Lack of respect to enforce good tools, prompt payments, protections for consumers, communication, etc. We'd be having less of a conversation about whether being an entreprenuer as a content creator was a wise move if LL were acting as a mature company rather than a monetization machine for suckers. Sorry, but this far less of an issue on sites that do take the entrepreneur bit seriously. It's well understood that you're on your own if you risk self-employment. It's not whether the entrepreneur is valid as a risk taker, it's whether the company is worth trusting as a valid business partner. LL doesn't offer that level of professionalism needed in the first place. In fact, by its very nature of free play mechanics it caters to the lowest denominator, while at the same time the various CEO's of LL have praised the amount of money generated by users content, as well as the ability to make money. In fact, that's pretty much the current message in their press releases and their intended goal by acquiring Desura ... so that they can promote even more business opportunities for indie game developers and content creators. Not only does LL promote the entreprenuer, they're picking up their efforts to do so. Dealing with proper tools, a professional environment for creators, a stable market and theft is a ball that has always been in LL's court. Other affiliates manage it all just fine. LL does not.

Frawmusl wrote: I don't understand the flaming, LL allows you to use their interface to make and sell creations..And be paid real money, I guess I've never understood why people are so hateful on LL. "Oh let us put our virtual world for people to access and use for free, and even let them make money! Im sure they'll all hate us for it, It'll be awesome!" Wee bit backwards, LL resells our goods for their own profit both direct and indirect. If there's a privilege, it's LL's for gaining users willing to go through their systems that aren't up to date with comparable services. As for relying on reasonable payment periods of course people do this by the millions every day, whether that's your paycheck through a payroll company or from your customers and clients. Sometimes people even get a big red PAYMENT DUE when they don't pay promptly. It depends to what standard I suppose you hold those affiliates for selling your goods.

Turbosquid isn't the only place that specifically disallows Second Life, either. Most are sold for final rendered product or games and certainly not for sale for a fraction of what they're worth outside of Second Life. Their terms, service and marketplace are volumes better to boot. And they don't use funny money. Turbosquid and friends make more money with higher priced items, unlike LL that makes more money in general the cheaper your products are, leaving more money to spend on advertising, tier, etc. and keeping their people grinding for couch change, go figure.

"How would you go about sueing them for something that "are not redeemable for monetary value from Linden Lab." ?" By pointing out to a judge that when you pay for something and it suddenly stops providing you with any product at all, that LL's TOS is worth less than his first year law textbooks. There's not much defense to spending and then receiving nothing at all at that ending period. Although some of this is moot, because dividing up what's left if the sky were to really fall would be out of LL's hands to decide at that point. How to distribute the remaining assets is not entirely LL's choice. [Edited to clean up some personal flaws.]

"It's like watching someone use a chainsaw to cut more and more chunks off their right leg, all the time saying "It's okay, I still have my left leg." All the while their left leg is planted firmly in a pool of quicksand." Thinking quickly, I removed my belt and threw it out to them. They snatched it from my hand it used it as a tourniquet. I'm not going to remove my pants now.

One of those assets to freeze would be the real money behind the float in the Lindex. Users would be one of those in the "pecking order", so right ... they might be standing in line, but there's a good case for them having first dibs on particular assets. Also a reminder that the court case I mentioned where LL settled for $170,000 was for keeping peoples assets after terminating their account. There's a case for the TOS not protecting LL after the customer is gone. They'll be owed both recent monetary purchases including L$ and land sales and tier as well as have a right to demand access in some form to their virtual assets. Not disagreeing with your initial statement that after closing the L$ would no longer hold value, but the value of something paid for with real money will always have some value in court. If LL closes, the TOS will become as worthless as L$ in that long line of people looking for their money and assets back.

Perrie Juran wrote: Darrius Gothly wrote: From the TOS: 5. "LINDEN DOLLARS" ARE VIRTUAL TOKENS THAT WE LICENSE 5.1 Each Linden dollar is a virtual token representing contractual permission from Linden Lab to access features of the Service. Linden dollars are available for Purchase or distribution at Linden Lab's discretion, and are not redeemable for monetary value from Linden Lab. "... not redeemable for monetary value..." which means "have no worth" which means "worthless" Yes, that's a very clear definition of their value ... clearly defining their value as worthless. How can the two be different Perrie? Well, Drake beat me to it. But I will give you this one cavaet, if LL shut down SL or should go out of business, all our Linden Dollars would become worthless. Actually, even if they went out of business they'd still have to pay debts, and that very part of the TOS would bite them: "Each Linden dollar is a virtual token representing contractual permission from Linden Lab to access features of the Service." ... would mean that those who purchased L$ (or possibly anyone with a L$ balance) have legal recourse after no longer being able to "access features of the service". The bits that they try to make fictional in order to dodge the liabilities and responsibilities of real money can still bite them, especailly now that virtual currency has the attention of the federal government.

The Lindex is not a direct user to user trade, rather it's a pool of money designated as such, seeded by LL. User A doesn't sell directly to user B. There are many areas of the currency that don't apply in a direct user-to-user trade scenario, such as cash purchases on the marketplace that are automatically converted to L$ and then given to the merchant on down to things like the court case recently settled by LL where they paid out $170,000 USD to users in Linden Dollars or a couple dozen other non user-to-user trade uses of L$. The direct user to user trade thing is a myth. The only user to user trade that applies is the pool of money set aside and manufactured to maintain relatively fixed prices that everyone as a whole buys and sells from.

We're agreeing so much that we should probably have our lawyers draw up the details for the D&D show after all. I like the quote by the way, which I'd steal if not for the copyright notice. Let the bromance continue! Alright, that was a little creepy, but the sentiment is in there somewhere.