Toysoldier Thor

Chosen Few wrote: Thanks, Toy, but unless we get some form of a binding agreement from LL, I don't thnk we can't rely on things like forum responses. The TOS says "your User Content" period. It does not say "whatever portions of your User Content were uploaded after August 16th." I'd love it if I were wrong, but I'm not convinced claims on older content would be unenforcible. Contracts of adhesion are generally those in which the weaker party has no choice but to comply. But we do have a choice. As I said in my earlier post, none of us here are forced to use SL. We choose to use it, and we're free to choose not to use it if we don't like LL's terms. While you're absolutely right that the company couldn't arbtarily claim additional rights retroactively, they did not do it arbitrarily. They drafted a new set of terms, and asked us all to agree to them. Those of us who refuse to agree are free to stop doing business with LL. Again, I'd love to be wrong about this. ohhh but Chosen... they did do it arbitrarily as we didnt ask for them to have these additional rights given to LL. And... IF (which I disagree with your position) they did claim these additional rights retroactively... then they did force us to accept the new terms. Let me ask you.... if you wanted to 100% disagree with the new terms how would you have disagreed? By not logging into SL any longer? Hmmmmm... so lets think this thru... so you have decided NOT to accept the new TOS and you do not log into SL any longer. First of all this is a form of blackmail since LL wont let you accept your large investment in SL and your content that you had full access to until Aug 16. The only way you could is if you logged in. To log in you HAD TO agree to the TOS. If you did this simply to access your content... you were just forced to agree to the terms under duress. IF you never logged into SL ever again in order to avoid agreeing... all the content is still in the SL grid for LL to use - including all the residents. You are no longer a customer of SL since you refused to agree to the TOS. How do you now go and tell LL .... I want ALL INSTANCES OF MY CONTENT REMOVED FROM YOUR GRID? Sorry... I believe what many others believe... retroactive content rights would be a BIG NO NO in the courts for LL. But I guess we wont know until its challenged. Just guess on yours and my part.

All the responses I have read so far regarding if the new IP Hi-Jacking TOS pertains to any content uploaded prior to Aug 16th, the answers have been NO. This topic was talked about in the largest of the TOS forum theads in the Merchant Forum. There is no wording in the TOS that anyone has pointed out that they are laying claims retroactively to content uploaded to the grid while previous TOS versions were in effect. And this is likely on purpose since LL Legal would know this would provide a clear opening where the TOS is unenforceable because it was an unconscionable contract of adheasion? You cant lay arbitrary additional rights claims retroactively to content that was uploaded under previously agreed to conditions. So... from all I have read on all these blogs and forum on the TOS, the only content that falls under LL's new IP rights hi-jacking is content uploaded after aug 16 (or whenever you logged in the 1st time after this date). and to cover my butt... all this posted is my open personal opinion with no legal experience.

jjccc Coronet wrote: ok read it and sorta understand what all the fuss is about. Only thing is what i dont get is why would Linden labs take the trouble to take a low rez image of a bunch of artists in second life then set up an art gallery and start selling the images as there own. Like ive seen alot of art in second life and most of it is crap but some of it is really cool and unique but the quaulity for transfering it into real life and making a high rez image from it, in my opinion isnt worth the effort So to answer your first question on WHY LL would go through all this trouble and squat on this new IP Rights hi-jacking TOS and allow the entire creator community to explode in anger, shut down uploading, move content to other grids, 3rd party sites banning them, major supporters walkin away from them? Once you figure it out maybe you can tell all of us because LL refuses to explain it officially. As for wonderng why LL would cause themselves so much grief for as you refer to it as mostly crap.... I guess you can compare your question to .... Why would oil companies want to have land mineral right..... most of what is under the grass is gophers dirt bugs rocks and crap. Right? But as you are asking yourself these questions of... Why would LL want to cause so much trouble for having full unrestricted rights to "crap"? Does that not in its own right raise red flag to you? It sure as heck raises major flags to me and countless others.

If Rodvik made statements in any nature that he would like to replace the ameteur, hobbyist, non-professional creators with a new era of industry expertise Graphic Artists and commercial-grade professional content creators.... His actions fly completely in the face of this intended strategy. Honest, what commercial professional content creator would spend an hour of his/her talents to create content for SecondLife (or any of LL's products) whereby their valued IP content would be all but handed over to LL? So this new LL TOS Change will not only shutting down and scaring off the vast majority of these so-called "ameteur content creators" from SL (as LL and even some SL residents like Poenald Palen believe the content in SL is junk with little value), but it will be a major SHOW STOPPER for any of these commercial "professional" creators that Rovik wants to attract. As such, I think Rodvik was just blowing smoke up the industry rear ends to make it look like he is taking SL into the more serious "Gaming" world. Related to this exact topic.... There are a small percent of these commercially classed professional content creator houses that are populating SL with high grade content... My puzzling question is... WHY would they not be concerned about this new TOS? OR are they concerned? IF so, have they stopped uploading new content? Orr....... Becaause of their clout and likely direct access to LL management, were they allowed to sign a Special TOS that was actually negotiated between them and LL? Why do I believe that there is a secret special non-general negotiated TOS for these creators? Does anyone with connections to these large scale creators or within LL know if they have their own TOS?

Flea Yatsenko wrote: ... With the old TOS, LL was completely handcuffed when it came to people reporting content. If they removed it without getting a DCMA, IIRC people were saying LL would actually get in trouble for it. That problem is now gone. LL owns it now and if they think it's stolen (or they want it gone for whatever reason), they can actually remove it because it's theirs and they're free to use their property how they want to. It's a lot of power given to LL and I don't think I've seen this point made. It's up to LL to use this for good and not evil, but considering LL runs off of user generated content, I don't see them intentionally using this for evil. Just to clarify the wording... although I believe I know what you are saying.... LL does not technically "OWN" the content but they have 100% full rights to do with the content what ever they wish to do with the content - including their rights to delete any instances of the content on their servers at their discretion. But I am not 100% convinced that this new power will in ANY WAY change or improve LL's motivation to clean up illegal uploaded content. They are NOT the IP Owners of the content nor does their position change as to the enforcement of content ownership dispute and remove as requested by the owners of the IP. Since they do not own any of the content - just have full rights to it, if a dispute were to arise from the SL community that 10 or 20 residents say.... "LL... this content on MP is stolen content because I know the real owner - remove it", LL still is not in a position to legally arbitrate who actually owns the content. This is still up to the IP owner to come forward formally and tell LL "I am the true owner and here is my DCMA instruction telling you to take actions on the SL grid on my behalf". IF LL were to change their role, they in effect become the Virtual World DCMA. I don't think LL wants this role. Just my thoughts.

Awe Thor wrote: Toysoldier Thor wrote: This is another MAJOR BLOW to LL's credibility You mean they had any in the first place? Yesterday's announcements from AVASTAR and Gaea Clary where they are distancing themselves from the SecondLife branding and focusing now on a more generic level of service in direct response to the TOS. Not to mention the blows from two major external sources of content to SL early ... CG Textures and Renderosity whom have both banned their content from entering SL. Do you not think those would all be considered major blows? If you are not aware of any of these announcements then you are out of the loop on the entire LL TOS Content Creators Hi-Jacking issue. I would advise read all the forum threads on this issue - if you are a creator and uploader of content into SL.

Yes Storm, you are correct that this was a difficult decision for her to make and not one she made lightly. Also, as she stated, where many of the founding LEA members have left, she has endured through all the challenges that have caused others to leave. As such, please do not water down her statement to be just a matter of "shrugs I guess she felt it was time for her to move on" and that others will fill her spot. If that is what you read from her resignation posting then you should read it again. It also IMHO is a bit of an insult to Bryn and her decision. Bryn Oh is with little doubt one of the most notable and respected artists in SecondLife... so much so that it was a reason why LL reached out to her as one of the founding members of LEA. She left her role as a direct result of the Linden Lab Aug 16ht TOS changes and how it was violating and disrespecting the rights of the Artist / creators of SL. She did not say she was sorta planning on leaving anyway and this was the final straw because she has better things to do. Her departure is a clear and strong public statement against LL's TOS Changes. Posting to interpret that it was for other reasons to me is a disrespect to her. As for you pointing out that we all will have to wait and see. If you read it again... she is meaning that lets all wait and see if LL will correct the TOS. Sorry if I sound a bit annoyed by your posted interpretation of her announcement but it did annoy me.

Trinity Yazimoto wrote: Toysoldier Thor wrote: One of my tweets to @RODVIK (as he is known in Twitter)... To @rodvik We've created a formal United Content Creators of SL to fight LL TOS. Woes to any giant that angers a million ant! ive myself twitted rodvik since several days, but he seems to be hard of hearing (or blind ) LOL... Ohh I suspect Rdvik is avoiding his twitter account to his customers. This does fall well within Rodvik's position and directions for LL... It has become extremely clear that Rodvik has set a policy to close almost all direct LL to Customer communications avenues except where the communication is critical to the operation of SecondLife. That explains his orders to Gag the Resident JIRA what was a critical important communicaiton flow from the community to LL. You rarely see any LL twitter accounts active or used. LL has pulled away from almost all inworld major events. The Commerce Team only communicates with the Merchants on what appears to be a semi-annual basis. So... its not surprising that the man that has set the policy to CHOKE OFF ALL INTERACTIONS BETWEEN LL AND ITS CUSTOMERS would ever respond back via twitter.

One of my tweets to @RODVIK (as he is known in Twitter)... To @rodvik We've created a formal United Content Creators of SL to fight LL TOS. Woes to any giant that angers a million ant!

ANOTHER MAJOR BLOW TO LL's TOS CHANGE STANCE.... This news had already been mentioned by the newly created United Content Creators of SL (UCCSL), but now she has formally announced it in her own blog with a full explanation of her decision. This is another MAJOR BLOW to LL's credibility on their recent TOS Change that hi-Jacks IP content rights of all creators and artists of SecondLife. Bryn Oh, one of SecondLife's most notable and famous Artists and a huge supporter of the art community in SecondLife has decided to resign from the Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA) committee as a direct result of LL's recent TOS changes on Aug 16. http://brynoh.blogspot.ca/2013/10/farewell-lea.html

This news had already been mentioned by the newly created United Content Creators of SL (UCCSL), but now she has formally announced it in her own blog with a full explanation of her decision. This is another MAJOR BLOW to LL's credibility on their recent TOS Change that hi-Jacks IP content rights of all creators and artists of SecondLife. Bryn Oh, one of SecondLife's most notable and famous Artists and a huge supporter of the art community in SecondLife has decided to resign from the Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA) committee as a direct result of LL's recent TOS changes on Aug 16. http://brynoh.blogspot.ca/2013/10/farewell-lea.html

Big news related to LL TOS and many Mesh Creators.... Another big shot over LL's bow that the Creators of SL are angry and scared... and wont stand around naively when LL makes such serious moves..... Today one of SondLife's biggest names in 3D content development, Sculpties, Mesh... Gaia Clary has announced how Avastar is taking actions in response to LL's recent TOS changes to better protect their customers and send a message.... This is a big move ... http://blog.machinimatrix.org/2013/10/03/linden-labs-changes-in-tos/

Another big shot over LL's bow that the Creators of SL are angry and scared... and wont stand around naively when LL makes such serious moves..... Today one of SondLife's biggest names in 3D content development, Sculpties, Mesh... Gaia Clary has announced how Avastar is taking actions in response to LL's recent TOS changes to better protect their customers and send a message.... This is a big move ... http://blog.machinimatrix.org/2013/10/03/linden-labs-changes-in-tos/

Another big shot over LL's bow that the Creators of SL are angry and scared... and wont stand around naively when LL makes such serious moves..... Today one of SondLife's biggest names in 3D content development, Sculpties, Mesh... Gaia Clary has announced how Avastar is taking actions in response to LL's recent TOS changes to better protect their customers and send a message.... This is a big move ... http://blog.machinimatrix.org/2013/10/03/linden-labs-changes-in-tos/

Darrius Gothly wrote: Kylie Sabra wrote: Pulls her chair into the growing circle. I get it that my not uploading content into SL is not likely to amount to more than a breeze attempting to move a rock, but I am furious with LL's attempt to commandeer my hard work, my passion. I have a voice and, even if it be but a squeak, I will use it. It's always important to remember that floods that have washed away entire civilizations .. are made of small, insignificant, almost invisible drops of rain water. One tiny drop, added to another, and another .. and another .. and soon there is a wall of water descending on those unwilling to recognize the power of a single drop of rain. Totally agree with this... and the inspirational video posted earlier in this thread that basically offers the same message. Thousands of small voices make a thunderous choir.

True Poenald. You qualify better than the first one You said in 15 chapters the same worthless meaningless statements the other one did in 2 sentences. Feel bad you wasted soo much of your own personal effort and time when you could have accomplished your insults and trolling in 2 sentences like the other one (if that was your alt) Anyway... 99% of the rest of SL residents disagree with your personal beliefs of the amazing content created within SL. And proof is in the pudding as many including me have made $1000's and more in just hobby efforts to create our Junk. Amazing artists have been spawned from SL because of the so called junk you see. In fact I am having my first Real Life 6 week art exhibit showing up 40 of my artworks to a major international corporate art gallery... ohh sorry... 40 of my JUNK works. And I know my art is not even half as good as the amazing creations from other artist in SL. So, I would engage into proving you wrong but I can tell that would be a waste of time to engage with you. You are not here posting to prove you have a valid idea... you are here to flame and anger those that create amazing content in SL. So debating with you would be a losing battle. Just a bit shocked that a man/woman whomever you are.... and all your alts ... have SecondLife accounts if it sooooo filled with all this junk! It must be a pure insult to you even being here. Soooo exactly why are you here? Thanks for your valued opinion POe.... apologies if few wont bite on your flames. Have an Awesome Night!

So there has been a lot of comments / opinions regarding how valid / enforceable the LL TOS actually is if challenged in court. So far more of the thread opinions as well as the recent survey of opinions have sided with the belief that the LL TOS would not hold water in a court of law. With respect to this, there is related thought on past challenges to the LL TOS and how LL lost in that challenge as it continues to relate to all us creators: Apparently there was litigation in 2006 whereby Bragg sued LL for access to his account that LL removed. From what I read, Bragg won the case by settling out of court with LL. So we would not know a final legal ruling on a SL account holder's rights vs. the LL TOS, but that a major factor going into the eventual settlement favoring Bragg seemed to be a previous court that ruled that parts of the SL TOS were unenforceable due to it being an unconscionable contract of adhesion. So what is "Contract of Adheasion"? The link below explains it quite well and explains why these types of contracts (also commonly referred to as "Boilerplate" Contracts or "standard form" contracts) often could be considered unenforceable in a court of law because of some restrictions these contract place on the party that didn't write the contract. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_of_adhesion Some of the factors I read that seem to relate to the situation that the LL TOS has imposed on us residents include: The contract was a forced "Take It or Leave it" scenario whereby the user party has no say to negotiate parts of the contract. Similar to this would be that the contract exploits an unequal power relationship (such as us content creators having a well established virtual store / art gallery within the SL service with all our content inside the SL service and LL forcing us to accept all the terms of the new version of the TOS or else we cannot access our investment on the SL grid - even if we do not fundamentally agree to the new terms). So then what did the courts mean when they ruled that parts of the LL TOS was not enforceable because it was an unconscionable contract of adheasion? That same wiki... describes this term as: Unconscionability in standard form contracts usually arises where there is an "absence of meaningful choice on the part of one party due to one-sided contract provisions, together with terms which are so oppressive that no reasonable person would make them and no fair and honest person would accept them." So this seems to tell me personally in my own non-legal brain that its further evidence the LL TOS would fail in court related to Section 2.3 if challenged in court. Of course... that is a big "IF" unless there was possibly a class action suit against LL to stop LL if they have had plans to start using out content for any purposes other than what was described in previous versions of the TOS whereby intent was much more clearly spelled out. JUST SOME THOUGHTS / OPIONS BY TOY who has NO LEGAL EXPERTISE to base these thoughts on. What are the thoughts from others?

It would be unfair to label Drake1 as a Troll. His postings do not fit the definition. He has a different educated perspective of this issue and his posts are providing content into the topic that can be considered for debate. A Troll is one that posts with the pure intent to emotionally inflame others by using insulting content that presents "ZERO" value to the actual discussion. This was the case in the TOS thread on the ART forum where some basically said... "Good riddance. Second Life needs less junk makers." to the artist/creator community. I understand Drake's opinions... I dont agree with his approach on how the situation should be resolved. His is more "passive / reactionary" and others are more "aggressive / proactive".

RobertEroicaDupea wrote: Toysoldier Thor wrote: Bryn Oh, long an avid and powerful supporter of the arts, resigns her role with the LEA (Linden Endowment for the Arts) in response to the August 2013 Terms of Service. Do you have a link for that? Kylie from the UCCSL group talked to Bryn directly and Bryn gave her permission to post this announcement. So I cannot post you a link to the Internal group notice. This was posted in the UCCSL group notices. I asked Kylie if Bryn will be officially post this herself and she mentioned yes she would be announcing this as well. I personally would like it if Bryn would post a response here in this thread to re-validate this announcement.

Hey Rodvik..... Related to my last posting.... If you are really nervous on how you are going to explain to your Corp Board members that your new business model for Desura was based on getting critical content that LL would hi-jack from the SL Content Creators, let me provide you a solution to keep your business model more viable (so you dont have to tell the board that your idea has a major flaw)..... Why don't you consider OPEN NEGOTIATIONS with all the SecondLife Content Creators.... offer thing a VALUE PROPOSITION to be actually a willing and engaging partner to your new Desura Indie Game Developer business model. Develop an OPT-IN Content Licensing model for all SL Content Creators whereby LL will compesate / pay us content creators for LL to be ALLOWED to offer our content to these Game Developers? Us content creators would have to meet certain criteria - i.e. it is our IP and not a license from another external IP owner. We would have to agree to what ever terms set up for our content to be transferred into the Desura platform. AND, LL would develop fair compensation to all us participating content creators. How is that for a radical idea Rodvik..... Ask Us To Participate.... Set Up The Terms To Participate.... and Pay Us Fairly To Participate.

Yes I know full well that Protests against poor LL policies do work - if they are both intense and persistent. The Freebie Tax fiasco started in November and LL Commerce Team finally conceded defeat in late May. Although I believe this victory was more so accomplished because all the Technical warning on it it not being feasible were finally realized internally. We have also had successes only a few months ago when the Commerce Team changed MP transaction processing & reporting system with all its not-surprising bugs. One of them was that the LL Developers figured there was no value in recording $0L Sale transaction in MP onto the main SL Transaction log. Myself, Darrius and several others took on the public charge to "INFLUENCE" the LL Commerce Team how poorly thought out this decision was since these $0L transaction are used for transaction auditing and problem diagnostics. After a lot of Merchant Forum pressure, they agreed to restore $0L transactions. Remember the REDZONE fiasco? LL finally got off their butts and took decisive action ONLY AFTER a hugeeeeee outcry from the majority of SL residents on how this was an invasion of privacy using a technical loophole / weakness in the Audio Streaming service. So Drake.... for anyone to say that LL never takes action when a lot of pressure is applied to them and their reputation / credibility / operation.... its simply not true. LL has a long standing history of many enormous bonehead moves and then fixing it "kicking and screaming". I suspect this will eventually be the case with the TOS Change. The pressure LL sees now within their SL customer base and in the public virtual world media / gaming industry is continuing to grow. And now that there is a very formalized UCCSL group being formed to orchestrate the effort of carrying the LL TOS Hi-Jacking message out onto the open industry media even further.... LL will have to bow to this pressure. If LL's intent for hi-jacking our IP rights is to use our SL content for their new Indie Game Development business model, it likely will not be an attractive model for LL to promote when all the potential customers to this new gaming development platform are reading in all the gaming press how LL's platform is based on content that has been illegally (based on the assumption that the TOS wording is proven to be a violation of IP rights holders) hi-jacked from its SL user base. If you were an Indie Game developer looking to develop a cool new low cost game and were reading all over the net that the LL Desura platform uses ill-gotten questionable content that could potentially be ripped away from you because of court challenges.... would you develop a business based on this risk? So.... I figure that Rodvik is currently nervously fidgeting in his little office as he watches this LL TOS CHANGE protest grow in strength and breath.... and saying.... "OMG... I thought we would get away with this ... now where are we going to get the needed content from to offer these Indie Game Developers on our new platform? These darn SL Content Owners are poisoning our idea before it even gets out of the gate!" That is my guess.... we will soon hear from LL Corp on TOS wording changes.

A3123 wrote: Good riddance. Second Life needs less junk makers. sniker... i was waiting for one of the trolls to sneak out of the woodwork to provide such constructive input to the threads and topic. To call Bryn's content junk??? the best artist in SL? lol lots of credibility on your statement.

Well more news that adds more significant pressure and symbolism to the cause to tell LL that their TOS will not be acceptable.... this big news for all of you that know the art community. We all know that LL knows Bryan Oh very well. Bryn Oh, long an avid and powerful supporter of the arts, resigns her role with the LEA (Linden Endowment for the Arts) in response to the August 2013 Terms of Service.

Well more news that adds more significant pressure and symbolism to the cause to tell LL that their TOS will not be acceptable.... this big news if you know anything about LL's art community - I sure know that LL knows who Bryn Oh is... Bryn Oh, long an avid and powerful supporter of the arts, resigns her role with the LEA (Linden Endowment for the Arts) in response to the August 2013 Terms of Service.

I have not uploaded any new content since the TOS. No plans to until the TOS is fixed. LL's recent TOS change has no additional rights to my content upoaded prior to the recent TOS. And I dont think any of us can get a stat from LL on the change of Daily UPLOAD counts before and after the TOS.