Warning Artists in SL: LL's New TOS Hi-Jacks Your IP

[Toysoldier Thor]

I am not sure if my fellow Artists & Photographers within SecondLife are aware of the serious issue / concernt that has recently been caused by Linden Lab with the recent change of their TOS (Terms of Service) on August 16 which I would assume most of you were forced to agree to in order to log into the SL grid.

Often most of us do not read all the changes that LL makes in these occassional updates to their SL TOS and forces you to accept unless you do not ever want to log into SL again.  Often the LL TOS changes are not anything serious to you as a customer / user / creator / artisan in SL.

BUT... you need to know this the Aug 16th TOS has a very serious and downright boneheaded change that directly impacts any Artist or Photographer with a presence in SL and uploads their Copyright content into the SL grid.  This issue has created a ton of serious concerns by all the SL Content Creators / Merchants as well as external sources of content (like textures) who have even begun executing counter-measures to LL's recent TOS change in order to protect their content from LL's new TOS.

Basically, effective August 16th or when you accepted the recent LL TOS, you have given LL's full complete unrestricted equal rights to ALL your content that you upload into SL.  This means that any of your RL art or photography that you uploaded into SL after Aug 16th is now fully available to LL to do what ever they want to do with it.

This is what has been changed in SECTION 2.3 of the LL TOS...

"2.3 You grant Linden Lab certain licenses to your User Content.
...you agree to grant to Linden Lab, the non-exclusive, unrestricted, unconditional, unlimited, worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, and cost-free right and license to use, copy, record, distribute, reproduce, disclose, sell, re-sell, sublicense (through multiple levels), modify, display, publicly perform, transmit, publish, broadcast, translate, make derivative works of, and otherwise exploit in any manner whatsoever, all or any portion of your User Content (and derivative works thereof), for any purpose whatsoever in all formats, on or through any media, software, formula, or medium now known or hereafter developed, and with any technology or devices now known or hereafter developed, and to advertise, market, and promote the same. You agree that the license includes the right to copy, analyze and use any of your Content as Linden Lab may deem necessary or desirable for purposes of debugging, testing, or providing support or development services in connection with the Service and future improvements to the Service."

You read this yourself and decide for yourself if you are now comfortable bringing in any more of your art into SL.  I can tell you that many SL Creators have already decided that this change of TOS is far to dangerous for them to upload any more content (textures, mesh, sculpties, etc.). 

This topic has had very large growing concerns and discussions in the Merchant Forum of SL Forums. I would strongly suggest all Artists and Photographers educate themselves on this serious issue by reading up on this forum:

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Merchants/Updated-LL-TOS-Claims-FULL-RIGHTS-to-ALL-CONTENT/td-p/2201477

Also there is an excellent discussion about this topic at:

https://plus.google.com/101371184407256956306/posts/iGGJ3gnAhhc

Personally, as an Artist within SL, I will no longer be uploading new artworks or mesh sculptures into SL until LL backs away from this draconian move.  I have also joined many of my fellow content creators to get the word out about LL's content hi-jacking move in hopes that LL will bow to pressure and undo this stupid move.

What are the thoughts of my fellow Artists and Photographers?

[Toysoldier Thor]

I am not sure if my fellow Artists & Photographers within SecondLife are aware of the serious issue / concernt that has recently been caused by Linden Lab with the recent change of their TOS (Terms of Service) on August 16 which I would assume most of you were forced to agree to in order to log into the SL grid.

Often most of us do not read all the changes that LL makes in these occassional updates to their SL TOS and forces you to accept unless you do not ever want to log into SL again.  Often the LL TOS changes are not anything serious to you as a customer / user / creator / artisan in SL.

BUT... you need to know this the Aug 16th TOS has a very serious and downright boneheaded change that directly impacts any Artist or Photographer with a presence in SL and uploads their Copyright content into the SL grid.  This issue has created a ton of serious concerns by all the SL Content Creators / Merchants as well as external sources of content (like textures) who have even begun executing counter-measures to LL's recent TOS change in order to protect their content from LL's new TOS.

Basically, effective August 16th or when you accepted the recent LL TOS, you have given LL's full complete unrestricted equal rights to ALL your content that you upload into SL.  This means that any of your RL art or photography that you uploaded into SL after Aug 16th is now fully available to LL to do what ever they want to do with it.

This is what has been changed in SECTION 2.3 of the LL TOS...

"2.3 You grant Linden Lab certain licenses to your User Content.
...you agree to grant to Linden Lab, the non-exclusive, unrestricted, unconditional, unlimited, worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, and cost-free right and license to use, copy, record, distribute, reproduce, disclose, sell, re-sell, sublicense (through multiple levels), modify, display, publicly perform, transmit, publish, broadcast, translate, make derivative works of, and otherwise exploit in any manner whatsoever, all or any portion of your User Content (and derivative works thereof), for any purpose whatsoever in all formats, on or through any media, software, formula, or medium now known or hereafter developed, and with any technology or devices now known or hereafter developed, and to advertise, market, and promote the same. You agree that the license includes the right to copy, analyze and use any of your Content as Linden Lab may deem necessary or desirable for purposes of debugging, testing, or providing support or development services in connection with the Service and future improvements to the Service."

You read this yourself and decide for yourself if you are now comfortable bringing in any more of your art into SL.  I can tell you that many SL Creators have already decided that this change of TOS is far to dangerous for them to upload any more content (textures, mesh, sculpties, etc.). 

This topic has had very large growing concerns and discussions in the Merchant Forum of SL Forums. I would strongly suggest all Artists and Photographers educate themselves on this serious issue by reading up on this forum:

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Merchants/Updated-LL-TOS-Claims-FULL-RIGHTS-to-ALL-CONTENT/td-p/2201477

Also there is an excellent discussion about this topic at:

https://plus.google.com/101371184407256956306/posts/iGGJ3gnAhhc

Personally, as an Artist within SL, I will no longer be uploading new artworks or mesh sculptures into SL until LL backs away from this draconian move.  I have also joined many of my fellow content creators to get the word out about LL's content hi-jacking move in hopes that LL will bow to pressure and undo this stupid move.

What are the thoughts of my fellow Artists and Photographers?

[Tamara Artis]

I am aware of it and following blogs and threads here and on SLU forum. Can't say that photos I make would be valuable for anyone else besides people who ordered it and until I actually see LL selling more items besides their old premium members gifts I will continue to do my work.

[Toysoldier Thor]

---

Tamara Artis wrote:

I am aware of it and following blogs and threads here and on SLU forum. Can't say that photos I make would be valuable for anyone else besides people who ordered it and until I actually see LL selling more items besides their old premium members gifts I will continue to do my work.

---

It is good you are aware of it and have made your own personal assessment / actions based on your awareness.

This warning goes out simply to make sure all SL Content Creators are now aware of LL's changed TOS that gives them full unrestricted rights to their content (i.e. the change from previous TOS wordings is that before the TOS explained clearly for what purposed LL would exersize their rights to your IP ... now they have removed any intent / purpose for their new found unrestricted rights).

This new TOS might not impact you based on the value you have personally assessed of your IP and/or our believed risk this new TOS has on your IP and if you feel there is no risk then that is good.  The only point I will mention is that you stated you will continue to upload your content into SL "UNTIL" you see that LL is abusing your IP rights.  Unfortunately, if/when this happens, it will likely be too late for you since you have pretty much willingly agreed to the terms since you were aware of the TOS and you continued to upload content being fully aware of the risk.

The reason many content creators / artists are protesting and fighting hard to force LL to revert / correct their TOS now is to ensure that in a year or two later, this TOS is not an option / risk for them to leverage.  In situations like this, its best to be proactive and defend / protect your rights now while there is no risk then to try to fight LL when you will have little to stand on in the future.

So, if you are willing to risk your IP or not, it would be prudent to help send a message to LL Corp by opening a support ticket, or blogging, or emailing LL staff, etc. that this latest TOS is unacceptable and must be backed out or better clarified as to LL's intent to use these rights.

There are artists in SL that have been uploading images of their RL artworks which they make a RL living on these copyrighted works... and they are doing this with an understanding of the TOS that was in place.  This warning goes out to these Artists that highly value their uploaded art and feel there is a need to protect it.

 

[Madeline Blackbart]

Welp there's always opensim. Where you can own a closed off grid on your own server. Though what LL is doing with content is wrong to be sure.

[Toysoldier Thor]

And to know that this latest TOS change from LL is being considered as a dangerous / risky threat to content creators...

Not only has CGTextures banned their users from allowing their content to enter SecondLife, as of yesterday, Renderosity has also officially taken risk mitigation actions directly against SecondLife's new TOS... they have also banned their users from uploading any Renderosity content into the SL Grid.

http://www.renderosity.com/news.php?viewStory=16783

 

[Armany Thursday]

you agree to grant to Linden Lab, the non-exclusive, unrestricted, unconditional, unlimited, worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, and cost-free right and license to use, copy, record, distribute, reproduce, disclose, sell, re-sell, sublicense (through multiple levels), modify, display, publicly perform, transmit, publish, broadcast, translate, make derivative works of, and otherwise exploit in any manner whatsoever, all or any portion of your User Content (and derivative works thereof), for any purpose whatsoever in all formats, on or through any media, software, formula, or medium now known or hereafter developed, and with any technology or devices now known or hereafter developed, and to advertise, market, and promote the same.

 

 

I have never in my life known any serious artist or one who wishes to be taken with any degree of seriousness agreeing to terms such as this.  I think the language in this new ToS is atrocious and very damaging to the creative community as a whole in Second Life and beyond.  I have joined the thread in hopes that artists in SL would be interested in taking action to protest this clause.  If members are interested in doing so, I will gladly give my time and energy to help however I can.   

[Mertoa]

I'm a new SL member but I aint new to winning real life supreme court battles :smileyvery-happy:

I will gladly join you in fighting a scam. Its obviously a scam. a violation of intellectual property and copyrights that this business is trying to claw their pork chops into your bread and butter. It is patronizing to your membership to feed off your creative enterprise. 

NO terms of service like this should be accepted,.. Its a scam and everyone should beware. They want to play hard ...I love playin hard.

Mertoa

[Armany Thursday]

Hey Mertoa...AWESOME, that's great to know!  Thanks so much for your response and supporting the cause.  I have been so concerned for the artists but also for the future of our gallery here in SL.  According to this TOS, the artists really can't upload any new work to SL without giving free full license of their creations to Linden Lab.  That is unacceptable.  Also, we are unable at this point to build anything new on our sim as might be needed because the same would be true for our builds. 

I don't know yet what this will mean for our gallery/arts center.  Certainly we can't go on showing only older works from the artists.  Nobody will be interested in visiting the gallery or buying the art.  I'm not sure what this means for the performers either.  I am concerned that they can no longer safely perform their original music.   We have spent over three years and lots of money to build this project.  At this point we can't even invite new artists or performers into SL and subject them to the risks of this ToS.

At this point it seems that most of the outrage against the new ToS is coming from builders (creators of virtual goods that sell on the marketplace).  I hope more artists will speak out and help work to change this horrible situation.  Thanks again so much for your support!!

 

 

 

 

 

[Toysoldier Thor]

A SURVEY TO ALL SECONDLIFE CONTENT CREATORS THAT UPLOAD TO SECONDLIFE (includes all artists)

I created a Survey Monkey survey.  It asks 6 questions around the topic of Section 2.3 of the Aug 15 TOS change so we can get a more full understanding on how the TOS Change is impacting the Content Creators.

You can only do the survey once.  You can also post the link to your sphere of fellow content creators / artists.  This is a FREE survey so there is a limit of how many responses we can register.

Here is the link:

 

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7DDP3Z5

 

I will post the result as soon as the survey is full or in the next several days.

[Armany Thursday]

I am just now seeing this, Toy.  I saw your post in FB though, and completed the survey.  Great that you're doing this, thanks!!  I hope everybody participates.

[Remington Aries]

Just a quick note;

 

Empyreal Dreams, an art sim of some time has been completely removed from Second Life as of tonight. I cannot agree to anyone or any company using a click to access TOS to gain what is effectively full control and ownership of my work.

 

Legally it would be shot to peices in court, as you are agreeing to the terms, before you can log in to disagree with them and alter or remove anything.

 

The only safe course of action is complete removal of all items, including from avatar inventory.

[Rya Nitely]

---

Remington Aries wrote:

The only safe course of action is complete removal of all items, including from avatar inventory.

---

I wonder about this too. I wonder if deleting the items from your inventory really gets rid of it. When we send an item to the MP it is actually not the item itself but the UUID that is representing the item to be sold, I believe....or somethng along these lines.

From the Wiki

Inventory as it is thought of is really only a permissions layer. The inventory item, is really just a wrapper around an asset. The wrapper contains the permissions, creator & owner of the asset and a link to the asset. The link is the asset UUID.

and this

Assets that are no longer inventory and are not referenced by any script are eventually deleted. Before they are deleted they are place in a database where they await deletion but can still be revived.

[Toysoldier Thor]

---

Toysoldier Thor wrote:

A SURVEY TO ALL SECONDLIFE CONTENT CREATORS THAT UPLOAD TO SECONDLIFE (includes all artists)

I created a Survey Monkey survey.  It asks 6 questions around the topic of Section 2.3 of the Aug 15 TOS change so we can get a more full understanding on how the TOS Change is impacting the Content Creators.

You can only do the survey once.  You can also post the link to your sphere of fellow content creators / artists.  This is a FREE survey so there is a limit of how many responses we can register.

Here is the link:

 

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7DDP3Z5

 

I will post the result as soon as the survey is full or in the next several days.

---

 

AN IMPORTANT NOTE ON THE SURVEY....

I made an error on setting up the survey which I cannot correct now with 45 responses collected....  The OTHER COMMENT will not work unless you click on any of the main option.  I forgot to click a critical option button.

As such, IF YOU WANTED TO SELECT "OTHER" ... click the option closest to your opinion and then in the comment text, start it with the word.... OTHER OPTION... xxx xx xx xx xx

 

Sorry about that folks - this was my mistake!

[Toysoldier Thor]

Posting an Emergency Meeting event that will be held today (sunday Sep 29) at 12 noon SLT regarding this issue.  Here is a copy of the inworld note and all those that are interested in this topic and meeting are invited....

*****  Beginning of Notice / Invite  ***

The Rose Theatre and Galleries has been an avid supporter of art in Second Life from it's very inception nearly seven years ago. We are deeply concerned about this volatile change in the Second Life Terms of Service, which is an utter break of trust between Linden Labs and all content creators.

Ernie Farstrider of EAST-WEST Galleries has offered up his Amphitheater to host a meeting of artists and all content creators to discuss this change, its effects and our consequent response.

Please don't think this doesn't affect you because you are a "small" creator. Not my choice of word, but rather some of the responses I've heard. With the loss of Renderocity and CGTextures as resources for textures, we may well be seeing just the beginning of a full-scale protest against Linden Labs for this unconscionable action. When creators and third-party materials providers stop permitting uploads to SL, don't think for a minute that you are not affected.

As new work can't be sold, tiers can't be paid. Galleries will close, Stores will close. It is a domino effect.

Imagine this. You are invited to display in a real life gallery. You're so incredibly excited and you hang your work on the walls and have your reception and the gallery owner turns to you and says, "Oh, by the way, I own all of your work now. I have full rights to it to do with as I please. It is mine."

How would you respond to that? This is precisely what Linden Labs has done.

Apathy can spell the end of this world as we know it. Come and be heard. Come and have a voice. Come and be a solution to the problem.

ALL content creators are encouraged to attend. Please forward this to your groups.

Kylie Addison Sabra, Curator
The Rose Theatre & Art Galleries
===========================

THE FOLLOWING FROM ERNIE FARSTRIDE

WHAT: Special -- "Emergency" -- Discussion Meeting

WHY: Second Life Terms of Service (ToS) Changes

WHERE: EAST~WEST Amphitheater

WHEN: Sunday, September 29, 2013 12:00 (noon) to 1:00 p.m.

WHO: Anyone who now or intends to hold and maintain, import, buy, or sell User Content in Second Life.

HOW: Principally by written chat.

PLEASE: Be prompt and take a seat in the Amphitheater quickly.

HOST: Ernie Farstrider, EAST~WEST~NORTH Galleries owner Gallerist

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Georgiana/128/202/28

(take the second door from the right labeled "Amphi")

[Toysoldier Thor]

The following link takes you to a place where you can download the PDF transcripts from the September 29th 12 noon SLT Secondlife inworld Emergency Meeting held to talk about the Linden Lab Aug 15 TOS change and what next steps Creators / Artists should do in response.

Following is the link to the open public chat transcripts that were captured, compiled, and published

http://toytalks.weebly.com/1/post/2013/09/transcripts-from-sep-29-sl-inworld-meeting-on-ll-tos-issue.html

[Armany Thursday]

I am interested in connecting with residents who are interested in taking serious action to protest the new TOS.  Please feel free to contact me in SL or in Facebook.  I'm very busy so I don't have a lot of time for social gatherings in SL, but I would be interested in helping to organize residents, and developing a plan of action.  The only way this might be rectified in my opinion is if residents are willing to take drastic measures.  Please contact me if you feel the same.  Thanks  

[Toysoldier Thor]

The Survey that was put out to SL Content Creators via the free version of Survey Monkey has reached its 100 respondent limit.  As such, I have compiled the results and observations from this quick survey for you all to analyze.

 

You can see all the results in my blog:

http://toytalks.weebly.com/1/post/2013/09/secondlife-content-creators-survey-on-linden-lab-tos-issue.html

 

 

[Kylie Sabra]

As a result of the meeting of Content Creators held yesterday in Second Life, a new group has been created. United Content Creators of SL is an open group. We strongly encourage all content creators to join the group. Any current member can send you an invite or you can search for the group and join that way. There will also soon be group joiners all around the grid. 

The group is communications central for this grassroots effort to effect change in the TOS. All communications will be funneled through the group.  If you post a blog, host a forum, have ideas, learn new information (vetted for accuracy), want to participate on one of the teams; then post to the group.  Currently there is information everywhere, and gathered by talented writers and long-time SL residents, but that is the problem--it's everywhere.  By posting links in group, we will have one place we can turn for information. 

At this point, anyone can speak in group chat and send notices. We'll keep it this way unless problems develop. There are currently three group moderators and will be more as the various Committee Chairs volunteer or are appointed.  The more professional we are in our approach to this problem, the more effective and credible we will be. 

You can look for a couple of key items to be sent to the group later today. The Code and Structure document, which includes a "talent" questionnaire and a group joiner.  Be thinking about what your special skills are and how you can most effectively contribute to the group. Be sure to complete the questionnaire and return it to me at Kylie Sabra. Teams will be built--and quickly--to get us on our way. There's a role for everyone. We have a lot of mileage to cover. We encourage you to place the group joiner at your locations or your friends' stores. You will need to change the group (general tab of build menu) to United Content Creators of SL group for the joiner script to work properly. It will also contain a notecard explaining very briefly who we are and why we are united. In some sims you have to be an estate manager to use our group in the object, but in most you should be fine.  Just click it and make sure it is inviting to OUR group and not the sim group.

Lots more to come, and I'll post this in group as a notecard as well.  Thank you everyone for your concern, your hard work and camaraderie.  We're going to get through this. 

Kylie Sabra Skyborne

 

[Kylie Sabra]

Kylie Sabra art on its way out  of Second Life.  

I have placed UCCSL Group Joiners over the top of my art in my space at The Rose Art Galleries. There they will remain until this is resolved. Should there be no resolution, I will empty my gallery and my inventory of my work. This is a painful decision. I don't buy into the idea that it's no big deal, or that my work isn't going to be affected. This issue is larger than me. It's just wrong and I can't bury my head in the sand and go on like everything is fine. Everything is not fine. We don't make these hard choices just for ourselves, but for the greater good of those we live, love, play and work with in this world we call our Second Life.

Kylie Sabra Skyborne

[Trinity Yazimoto]

Cross posting from : http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Merchants/Updated-LL-TOS-Claims-FULL-RIGHTS-to-ALL-CONTENT/m-p/2233959#M41786

I just got a comment on my Google + from Will Burns on my Google + 

For him, LL plans are clear.

Selling our contents to game devs for a lil fee on Desura.

he allowed me to paste here his comments : 

"Some food for thought: The TOS changes make perfect sense if you think about the bigger picture. what they are doing and where their priorities actually are -

This is the sort of behavior you would expect when they're circling the wagons to suck the life out of the old in order to prop up the new. The pieces are in place with Desura and their new games, in conjunction with the new TOS laying claim to everything on the servers from user-generated content.

All they need now is a compelling service offering to entice indie game makers to use Desura, and what better service than to tell cash starved indie devs "For a nominal fee, you can have access to a wealth of assets to expedite your game development. Need a car for your racing game? We got it. Countless clothing options for your main characters? Right here. Sign on to Desura and we'll help you out with all the assets you need!" -

The content wouldn't be useful for AAA titles, but to an indie game developer, it's a no-brainer. Now that LL has a TOS laying claim to all the assets in SL, to resell as they see fit, this would be an easy way to exploit that while bolstering Desura and their other endeavors."

And asked me to add this : 

"You may quote me, but include the following food for thought along with it:

I believe the following about the TOS:

1. They won't change it, because it is too lucrative.
2. Content Creators pulling a mass exodus only encourages them to act on that TOS to make ends meet
3. Which leaves maybe a Class-Action Lawsuit to rectify the situation.

Would be an interesting class action to say the least. Whether or not agreeing to a Catch 22 TOS agreement is enough to warrant damages. Only way we'll know is if such a situation happens.

Not that I believe wholly that LL is going to siphon off the assets to Desura like I outlined, but if I were in the same position... and given the situation and those priorities... with a TOS that claims everything on the SL servers for resale... that would be my obvious guess for how to tie it all together from a business standpoint.

I'd be wholly surprised if LL suddenly did a 180 with the TOS... but miracles happen all the time, so one can hope."

 

For one year allready, i never stoped to say that Rodvick plans are to undress SL for dressing his other projects. Taking out all money generated by SL and putting it in new games without reinvestissing this money within SL. 

Will insight makes it all clear now and really confirm what i was already thinking.

Beside have some comminments for 2 fairs in october that i will do in respect for the ppl who invited me, i had also the plan to renew my whole Art Gallery. 

For now I wont. I will delay this till we see some changes. There is no way i allow them to resell my art without my consent.

after ill be done with my commintments for this 2 new fairs with my fashion design, i will also stop uploading any clothing textures for now.

 

Im also trying to alert the office of the Bern convention from the UN... it seems that they ask fees for acting... i dont know, im really bad with law things...  Ive already sent an email to them pointing to the new SL TOS and a brief explanation and asking to them if they can help. Im waiting their answer, Ill give updates as soon as i ll have ones.

[Xavier Novelli]

It's spelled out very clearly in the Desura blog that they indeed changed the ToS in SL in order to make your content available in other games through Desura. Amazingly they try to make it sound so positive, while at the same time saying "We're currently undermining people with changes of terms of service in order to profit off of their content. Heck, they even pay US to upload it."

From the Desura Blog posted by Oz Linden............

Read Full Blog Here

 

Project Direction

We are excited about improving and expanding Desura.  Retaining open source for the client is important to us because we believe that will keep it focused on the needs of both game developers and end users. A primary emphasis of Desura’s vision has been to provide game developers with ways to integrate capabilities and services provided by the platform into games - providing community features through the platform within and between games while allowing game developers to focus on game development.  We believe that keeping the client open is the best way to support such integration, and some of our plans for how to proceed are specifically motivated by our desire to make that simpler.

We are still in the early stages of prioritizing the many things we would like to do with Desura as a whole, but we are already working on some requests from the community, including a Mac port and replacing the use of MFC. We are also constructing a continuous build and test infrastructure to support the project.

Licensing

 

We would like to make the open source project licensing easier than it currently is for game developers, including non-open-source games.  Specifically, we would like to change the open source license that the project uses to the one that we have been using for the Second Life Viewer for several years now: LGPL version 2.1.  We believe that will help to clarify that game developers can incorporate Desura client technology in their products however those products are licensed, and remove the need to drive software design in order to insulate non-open source games from the viral aspects of the GPL.

We would also like to use a Contribution Agreement substantially similar to the Contribution Agreement that we use for the Second Life Viewer; it has worked well in that capacity. Essentially, contributors assign a copyright to the company while retaining their own copyright (bits have the nice property that we can each have rights to use them without interfering with the other party’s rights). Having a single entity holding a copyright to all of the code makes future modifications to the project licensing much simpler; for example, there is no way to know how future changes to the legal environment may necessitate changes. There is also some language in the agreement designed to ensure that patents do not become problematic for the project or its derivative works.

As has been pointed out in your discussions, any change that we make to the license used by the project in the future should not affect the existing license to the code - contributions from both Desura and others remain under the GPLv3 as documented now in the source files, and could be used by anyone under those terms. We would rather do new work under the new license because we think it best meets the needs of our customers and collaborators.

Changing the license will require that we initiate discussions with past contributors. If some contributors are uncomfortable with this new structure, we may need to evaluate the impact that could have and whether we may need to make any adjustments. Contributors should each expect to hear from us soon.

The very sad thing is, SL continues to suffer because LL is spending time on expanding other projects, making changes slow coming, and all in the name of profit. The very LEAST they could do is make uploads to SL free and invite SL content creators with an option to  submit content to Desura games with a profit sharing agreement (They already profit everytime you content sells on SL through the SL  MarketPlace) But no, it's the new way in America with this new communist corporate mindset..."All for me, none for you."

[Freya Mokusei]

---

Xavier Novelli wrote:

It's spelled out very clearly in the Desura blog...

Contribution agreement...

---

I think you've gotten this confused, LGPL v2.1 is the licence used to distribute the SL viewer. LL are referencing their own work (how they'll keep Desura LGPL as well), not the work belonging to their customerbase.

Your post has nothing to do with SL UGC.

(Also, lol at sneaking in making uploads free. Nooope.)

[Trinity Yazimoto]

i bet you will lol less the day you will see your work or your art sold on Desura without your consent ....Whatever its their purpose or not, the TOS give them right to do it and this is an open door to everything.

[Armany Thursday]

@Trinity Yazimoto....I completely agree.  This is the explanation that makes sense.