Catherine Cotton

My sentiments exactly. I have not, nor will I log in under the current TOS. It is utterly pointless to accept Linden Lab as my agent, this contract is purely one sided. If taken to task highly it is unlikely that it would hold up in court. If I know from the start that it is to the unfair advantage of Linden Lab, I would do as I have done; refuse it in its entirety. No they have not taken advantage yet. Do I believe they will? I have witnessed Linden Lab do some shady sh!t to their customers. Faith is gone. Put it in writting Linden Lab, or lose the basis of your game; content.

*not a reply to anyone in particular. Maybe everyone should do their homework on where indie game developers get their content. I am not saying all of them, I am however saying many don't buy content at all. "indie games content piracy" there is your google reference. It's not a secret for goodness sake. Many feel they give away their content, so they should just "get" their content. Just a realistic thought here.

Unfortunately I am not seeing a huge outcry over this new tos change yet. That is the right of those that do log in. Personally I think it has to a lot to do with most ppl thinking the tos does apply to them but they just don't care about those tos. How many times do we just agree to a tos without thinking. I know I have in the past. Tos agreements have become at least for me irritating statements, that get in the way of what I want to do with the program; I am trying to install/use. Until LL acts on this new tos in a way that will affect SL users negatively , ppl simply won't care about their content and the fact that they gave away unlimited authority to LL. Hell they may not care if LL blatantly undersold them. I feel; really feel, for those who feel they have to log in take care of customers. They are between a rock and a hard place. I would in their position be looking for an exit strategy if for no other reason but the fact that this tos was dropped on pp. There are no longer any reassurances that the next tos won't be worse. Unlike years prior, SL isn't the only grid in town.

Thanks for the replies

Cerise Sorbet wrote: LL doesn't have the BVH files. The viewer converts them to a format that only SL uses, and it's a lossy conversion. That, the limited skeleton support, and the reliance on built-in viewer motions, make these assets really unappealing for reuse in other environments. That is correct but if they are claiming all assets now fall under the new tos, doesn't that infact make the animation LL property within SL; to include the original bvh file. After all they are claiming that with mesh, textures, sounds, art, and so on. In theroy LL themselves could file a DCMA against creators after they upload these assets if they find the assets on other sites. Since they evoked "agent" status for all creators. I am not assuming anything here, I am openly asking, because the tos left me with more questions than answers.

bvh files are not exclusive to Second Life. Motion Capture is used in many mediums. If LL resells your animations, their value elsewhere goes down. Same goes for everything sold in SL. Scripts can be converted to C as well as other formats, meshes can be converted to obj files, music, art, poetry, have never been exclusive to the SL format. Legitimate creators convert their work to work in SL or create specifically for the SL format. SL is unique but I personally don't think it's smart to make LL agents assets sitting on their servers created by the community. Since the rights they have given themselves would not EVER fly in the real world. If LL wants our assets then they must come to the table with a real life compromise that also to the advantage of the creators in SL, not just to the advantage of LL.

Pixels Sideways wrote: I'm particularly happy that Linden Labs has appointed itself as my attorney. I will now direct any legal actions toward me to their offices. However, I will need the private numbers of the Linden Lab legal team in case I need bail or have a pressing legal question that keeps me up at night. I assume that will be forthcoming? I should have Rod's personal number too, just in case the legal team is tied up writing the next version of the TOS. Thank you Linden Labs for covering my ass -- I'll never have to worry about being sued or having to use some pro-bono or court appointed attorney now that you represent my legal interests. NOTE TO LL Legal Team: I may be in touch soon -- apparently there will be a huge protest against Fracking coming up and I plan on chaining myself to a fracking rig and will likely be arrested so please hurry up with those 24/7 phone numbers. xo Omg I love you!

That makes sense thanks Perrie

LL has always had the right to remove any illegal content from SL I don't think anyone would disagree that it is in LL best interest to remove illegal content. All the recent changes to the tos and contributor agreements is now a red flag imo. Not exactly sure what they are up to but my question remains; "Why is it necessary for LL to own it all". I personally am thinking this is connected to HighFidelity.io. As I understand it its SL in a cloud, my sim runs on your machine your sim runs on someone else's and so forth. To allow all content to move within that cloud, I believe they would have to have some control over it. Orrrr SL is just a socialism experiment lol. I don't know but LL presentation of the changes so far, stinks to high heavens, and is just causing distrust between themselves and us the customer base.

I read the linked page above, and the pdf agreement. Changes made 25 Oct 13 Contribution Agreeement. This is an odd move from LL. Isn't the spirit of open source to freely exchange. "Grant of Copyright License. (a) You hereby assign to Linden Lab joint ownership in all worldwide, common law and statutory rights associated with the copyrights, copyright applications and copyright registrations in Your Contribution, and to the extent allowable under applicable moral laws and copyright conventions, You agree never to assert against Linden Lab or its licensees or transferees any moral rights therein. 2 You understand that (i) this Agreement may be submitted by Linden Lab to register a copyright in Your Contribution, and (ii) Linden Lab may exercise all rights as a copyright owner of Your Contribution, including enforcement against infringers." Looking forward to hearing from the open source community on this one. Seriously scratching my head now. What are you up to LL?

If they are confident that it will make them money, they will devote the resources to it. ETA, and this is just meant in general here, not as a specific response to you. The SL economy may be an economy based on micro-transactions, but all those transactions add up to a lot of Real Money. How many real dollars did Rodvik say traded hands in SL? It sure was not peanuts. So I am not so fast to discount the value of SL content. "...according to Linden CEO Rod Humble. Those users typically rack up 1.2 million virtual goods transactions per day and have accounted for $3.2 billion worth of transactions over the life of the game." source: http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/06/20/second-life-readies-for-10th-anniversary-celebrates-a-million-a/

You have every right to your own EULA for your content, provided it does not conflict with SL ToS. LL still claims DMCA protection and has published procedures for you to follow for making a claim against violations. In the end, disputes between users will stay between users - LL involvement will be limited to what they see DMCA protection requires of them; nothing more. I agree that this has always been the case. If content piracy and protection is your area of expertise, then you should know that losing DMCA protection would be the single most damaging action that could befall an online service provider that accepts user content in such large scale quantities. The alternative, having to defend themselves against each accusation of infringement, is something that no provider could take on and expect to stay in business for very long. This inability however, is not by itself the determining factor for being eligible for protection. I would be curious to see the outcome of court challenges in this nature, because the distinction between being the service provider and the actual infringer is being eroded by their own choosing. When uploaded pirated content is known to happen at the levels it does in Second Life, and by anonymous users, attempting to fall back on blaming the user instead of 'us' as the infringer probably won't survive the first court challenge (in this case of claiming far-reaching rights). Sure, the uploader is guilty, but so are you. Now you are trying to repeat the failed arguments that brought down file-sharing services, with the addition of owning the content also. Turning a blind eye toward known illegal activity will only bite you in the ass in the end. I believe the most complications will involve 3rd parties. Texture providers have and always have had their own terms. They normally would have no reason to monitor SL TOS, or any other company's TOS, nor do they have to know of these companies' existence. LL has no authority to decide what rights they have. The only reason they may have needed to comment on usage in SL after this TOS change is because they had already published specific guidelines allowing usage in SL; they basically had to retract the permissions they had previously given their users in writing. I don't think LL has any intention of directly profitting from user content to the extent the ToS seems to now allow; I don't think they would make it to first base in an attempt to fall behind DMCA protection if they did. The real question I have is whether or not the ToS wording alone is enough to endanger that protection. Bolded is mine. I believe this is the root of the issue all creators now face when deciding to a) Agree or Disagree to the new TOS; and b) upload or create any content on the SL platform. LL told us to create you world world imagination, fast forward 10 years and suddenly, without warning SL becomes; your world, our content. I do believe LL forgot they are a service provider. I find it wrong for LL to claim they are the agent, and the contract negotiator. This is not in anyones interest but LL. Agent (LL) to creator (Content provider/You): I am going to market you big time! Seller (LL) to Agent (LL): I am not giving your client 1% off any future earnings, matter of fact they can pay for uploads, tier, land costs, and premium accounts. As well as extra fees if they want to buy or sell L$. Agent (LL) to Client (Content provider/You) Sorry I couldn't get you even 1% of any future earnings from your content you provided to LL. More so you must pay the following fees if you wish to continue to give us your content; uploads, tier, land costs, and premium account fees. As well as extra fees if you want to buy or sell L$. Client/Content Provider: Sign me up???

Its not just the Desura connection that Peter Gray has pointed out now, no need for further speculation; he made that intent from LL clear.. It also bothers me that there is a direct connection to the HighFidelity.io platform that Philip Rosendale is now working on. As well as the new handheld console LL is working on. Again, if LL had approched this from the point of asking instead of telling I would of been much more comfortable. I wouldn't of necessarily agreed (no one can forcast what those terms would of been). More so this final letter from Peter Gray I found to be dismissive of the SL community of creators as a whole. It did notihng to calm the situation, I find that also alarming.

Amethyst; how do you feel this new TOS relates to the new handheld version of SL? I agree with ya so far too

Well that was overly insulting. I will let the mods handle it.

If anyone is posting here they have a stake in something related to SL. I am not going to question the motives of others. If you want to question my movtives go ahead. Yeah I read where my motives too were questioned. So let me clear this up for ya. I have been in SL for 10 years, I have created vast amounts of content as well as run entire sim wide projects. I have taught countless newbies. Currently I am creating on another grid. Will I ever create in SL again? I dunno, will they change the TOS? There is my stake in this.

Your a clever bunny lol

Over the past 10 years, 11 come March. I have have seen how LL does business, I have often spoken out against what I thought were very bad business decisions. Its true this avatar moved on a year ago to another grid. Being with LL/SL so long of course I held out for a sign of hope that things would once again be what I signed up for. I believed the promises of Philip LInden. I know naive right, dreamer, artist, what ever. I thought at least I might still have a presence on this grid if even in a small way. Of course we all have alts, so I was here in that respect. Fast forward today: I don't trust that LL will have our best interest in mind. I have seen one bad business decision after another; and I have not see many cases where LL put the needs of the user base above the needs of their corporate bottom line. I understand fully they are in the business of making money. $100 million in user to user content per year...I read the facts on concurrent users; and how many grids have been closing weekly now as well. They are making money hand over fist, they do not need to add my content to the corporate pie. Perhaps if they had asked rather than just drop this on ppl we might be in a better place, I don't like anyone assuming what is mine is there's. Just because this is a virtual grid does not mean that it is not a tangible thing. My content will not be used to improve their bottom line. There are so many things wrong with the current TOS, this is how they do business. This is how they will continue to do business. It is not in my best interest to have those that wrote this tos and those that have explained their position on this tos to represent my best interest with zero limitations on those rights. I cannot agree to the new Tos. I think that is all that remains to be said. Perhaps you should delete the Catherine Cotton account as well as her content. If I want to agree to this new world order I will create an alt knowing full well where I stand from the get go and not be angry over an age old bait and switch routine. Or maybe my *BLEEP* cup just exploded. EDITED TO "BLEEP"

nods

Dude why are you starting with me again. I am rude to those that do things I don't morally agree with. Oh well, you don't have to converse with me. Dont assume you know what my motivations are. They are simply none of your business.

Apparently the term "alt" is foreign to you.

Perrie Juran wrote: Catherine Cotton wrote: Toysoldier Thor wrote: Welll Well Well.... Peter Gray of LL has formally responded to Kylie of the UCCSL... Peter Gray Response Basically he is saying that LL cannot go back to the old wording because they want to have the ability to let content creators share creations / transactions among many of LL's lineup or products but they are looking into the wording to see how they can re-word it to satisfy all the concerns brought up by the creators in the communities. I just read it, that really is a damn shame. As I posted I was fearful they were going the route of the "agent" within the Desura platform. I realize it extends past that now. The fact this is their intent in writting. Well I have no words left. Cat I don't understand your concern here. Is it that LL now has it's fingers in more than one pie? What is or would be wrong with them acting as an "Agent" as long as the content providers are remunerated? I myself am encouraged by this. "To that end, we are currently reviewing what changes could be made that would resolve the concerns of Second Life content creators," I have myself maintained that since this happened that because SL is so unique that the TOS for it needs to be separate from the other properties. This is one of the issues that comes up in the Legal Panel Discussion. It's uniqueness sometimes can make it difficult to apply case law, that a Court's decision is needed to know how the laws should or do apply. And while he has ruled out 'dialogue,' that should not stop us from providing input. For instance, in the reworking of the Terms, a content creator should have the right to decide and mark their content whether it is only for use in SL or if it could be used in another of LL's property. Similar to how Kitely handles their licensing. Of course the letter could be nothing more than a lot of PR blow, but at least it isn't full of half truths or misstatements like the letter sent to certain Bloggers. No its that they put their fingers in my pie without asking, without giving me options, without proper channels of communication in reguards to my copy right work. The rest of my answers on the other thread that was created for this part of the discussion.

Toysoldier Thor wrote: Welll Well Well.... Peter Gray of LL has formally responded to Kylie of the UCCSL... Peter Gray Response Basically he is saying that LL cannot go back to the old wording because they want to have the ability to let content creators share creations / transactions among many of LL's lineup or products but they are looking into the wording to see how they can re-word it to satisfy all the concerns brought up by the creators in the communities. I just read it, that really is a damn shame. As I posted I was fearful they were going the route of the "agent" within the Desura platform. I realize it extends past that now. The fact this is their intent in writting. Well I have no words left. Cat

Your right. By the same token, I don't take kindly to being pushed, I push back. I do apologize to the guild for this being in this thread however. I am leaving it to the experts on the law and how it applies to the tos, and will be watching quietly from the side lines.

Storm Clarence wrote: ...The more you write the more I can understand they were intended to be nasty and discrediting. Dito.