(That's not to say that domain registration laws for any given jurisdiction don't have additional restrictions about using others' trademarks in registered domains.)
And for a bit of humour: it also doesn't forbid using sl in the top level domain -- so if you can get a domain name in Sierra Leone, go for it! "www.ilove.sl", anyone?
Anyway, the guidelines do explicitly permit using SL in subdomains (e.g. SL.Dell.com) or in paths (Dell.com/SL), so that would be the safer way to go. But that's only if your domain contains the name of your organization, or an abbreviation of it (as is true for both Massively and Reuters).
Of course, this topic is all very confusing, and we graciously thank our trademarked overlords for giving us 90 days to have the oracles interpret their demands.
Cat Magellan
· 1 year ago
As you know, Gwyn, I'm blogging my head off for a long long time and before that I used to use foruns and such, so I can say that I am writing on the net for the past 10 years or so. SL blogs are fairly new (as is SL), so i would guess that a fair amount of them became bloggers with SL and not start blogging about SL because they fond SL. They do not have a lot of practice...:D What I mean is: I haven't seen anywhere the logical step for a blogger who just doesn't want to write about a subject within the limits imposed by that subject. I would never ever write about something just on *these* terms (the nice ones) because I have to behave. No way. If I want to say that nespresso sucks and I have never in my intire life drank such a puke-coffee, I will say and write that (in fact, I love nespresso, but just for argument sake) and I will not have to prove my opinions with facts .You only write nice things all the time about something if you work for advertising that particular brand. Or if you are afraid of what "they" might do to you. And that, we had a lot here in this country, and not so long ago. Memories are very short and I was myself quite young at the time, but I still remember, dear, the day that somebody told me "from now on, people can speak freely".
I dont want to give you a inflated speach, but just to remind you what happens when people can not write the way they want and are always carefull with words: they either give up or go undercover. Now, LL(R, for your sake) is closing the way for people to mention some names, but they will still be searched in Google; I bet in 6 months, the searches will give back a fairly amount of hate sites, anonymous, so that these people cannot be banned. You are going to tell me "no one will read these sites"? well, just think what is the most popular twitter at the moment...
I understand your point of view, is very ok, I just don't agree with all this.
http://openid.claimid.com/lems
· 1 year ago
"For trademark issues, banning would be a last resort."
True. And "ONLY" 6 high-ranking Al Qaeda members were tortured.
How often LL will use banning is not even that important. Even just holding that as a threat over our heads is outrageous enough. I think that the inclusion in the TOS was LL's biggest mistake and has been at the root of most of the negative reaction from the SL users. It buys LL so little and it costs them so much, they should just get rid of it, and do it with a heartfelt apology.
Gwyneth Llewelyn
· 1 year ago
Oh, actually, I don't agree with Linden Lab. In fact, I totally disagree with the way they're treating us.
However, there is quite a difference in "disagreeing" and "doing something about it". In this case, it means a legal fight: getting hold of a good lawyer in California that works pro bono and file a lawsuit against Linden Lab, very carefully stating that they have no further claim on the trademark in the manner they've stated, ie. that essentially they cannot trademark the "name for a community of people".
Now, this obviously means a much stronger fight — not one of raising awareness (which LL can suppress easily), but one of going to court. As we saw on Bragg vs. Linden Lab, when forced against the wall, LL prefers to settle on an agreement than endless pursuing their case (which is damaging against their interests). So my feeling is that by going to court, LL will negotiate much friendlier terms.
Now that is my personal point of view :) I think we did what we could to stay away from the courts, and we saw what came out of it. The fight now needs more powerful weapons :)
However, in my case, I'm not willing to sponsor a lawsuit against LL, nor encourage anyone to do that. It'll get nasty. Bragg, for instance, got his avatar, his land, and his money back — but his reputation was hopelessly ruined in SL and RL. Nobody will ever make a deal with him, even if, technically, he "won" the case (or, rather, forced LL to settle on an agreement).
And, who knows, perhaps Bragg's lawyer is reading these lines and thinking "hey, what a cool idea, why don't I sue LL for this...".
Rui Clary
· 1 year ago
Once upon a time, in a Small Country, many, many years ago, people couldn't freely say what was going thru their minds. The few of them, that had the courage to say what they really where thinking, were banned(i mean, they went to jail..). But one day (25th of April) a man or a woman,( I don't really remember because i was a kid and i couldn't even speak) had the idea of going to the streets whid the weapons. Instead of shooting that weapons, they put one flower on each gun, and no one was injured , because, there were no shots. Despite this, the revolution was made. I Now i'm a grown one and i live in that small country, but now, i can say whatever goes thru my mind. I will keep doing it, and i thank that man or woman that had the idea of puting flowers instead of bullets. I Will keep the flowers in all my blog posts, but i'm sorry Linden Lab, I will say whatever i want i will not permit anyone, to guide me in the way i must say my words, even if they happen to be Lies or truths.
Gwyneth Llewelyn
· 1 year ago
For the sake of the argument, Cat, writing on your blog saying "I hate LL because it's my personal opinion" is not disparaging ;)
Writing "I hate LL because they're crooks and are cheating us out of our money and SL is just a pyramid scheme, so stay away from it" is!
There's a lot of difference in the content of those statements, even if the form is similar.
Rheta Shan
· 1 year ago
Dear Gwyn,
as always, an eloquent statement. For once, however, it rings hollow. Allow me to quote something to you :
We want LL to revert on the policy in both points, by
1. generously licensing established sites, blogs, forums, services and such created under the provisions of the old policy and obviously not intending to infringe on LL's trademarks (intent is the cue).
2. ascertaining that they do not presume to ban residents for exerting rights to free speech they have under local legislation off-world. Ideally, section 4.4 of the terms of service should be removed entirely — it provides no legal use to LL, except as scare tactics against their own users. LL would not be any worse-off legally if they removed it, and removing it would restore some good faith with the community that LL have lost.
This is part of a document several SL residents created together to present to Robin Linden on her office hour. The part quoted here was the final edit, and it was written by the spokesperson of the group (who did present the key points to Robin later with her usual eloquence).
That spokesperson was called Gwyneth Llewelyn.
This is what you condensed as the goal of our protest, as our aspiration in this protest : 1) make sure nobody is banned without warning for perceived trademark infringements happening in-world, 2) make sure nobody is banned at all for perceived trademark infringements off-world (there are courts to handle this) and finally, 3) find a lenient grandfathering agreement for established community sites.
The Lindens have acceded to only one of these : not to ban without warning. As to the other two, they have affirmed their will indeed recur to banning for off-world disputes, thus putting the ToS over the law ; and they have refused any kind of grandfathering agreement (pretending that we do not have to rewrite old posts is such an agreement verges on the ridiculous ; that was never an issue. You are splitting fine hairs indeed finding some kind of compromise there).
Gwyn, had you stated that, now that the Lindens have made clear they will enforce the trademark guidelines by force if need be, banning where courts would not let them proceed, yielding to superior power is the only way, I might have disagreed, but I would have understood. But you didn't — instead, you told the world that, against all evidence, all is well and that we can make merry again.
You know full well we did not fight for the right to promote LL's products and trademarks. We fought for fairness, and consideration, and the right to speak as freely on our blogs as the law allows us to, without having to fear losing our Second Lives.
At least, most of us did. Maybe we were just wrong to assume you were with us on this.
Goodbye, dear Gwyn. I wish I could say it has been a pleasure, but I can safely say it has been an education. For what's its worth, you have my blessing promoting the Linden agenda henceforth. I have decided on another course for me.
I am finally claiming the world Philip made as my own.
Gwyneth Llewelyn
· 1 year ago
Rui, take into account that the Portuguese laws on freedom of speech are quite different from the US laws. The biggest difference in our tiny little country is that our freedom of speech is protected against everything (and so is the right to fight back in court against defamation and libel).
This means that if you send an email to a colleague at work saying "my boss is an utter idiot", and that message is intercepted by your boss, three things happen:
1) Your boss has committed a crime by reading your email. Even at work, the right to privacy to your mailbox is guaranteed, even if the mailboxes are property of the company you work for. 2) You cannot get fired arbitrarily without due disciplinary process. So your boss would have to file an internal disciplinary process to prove you've been actively disrupting the work environment to justify firing you. And he can't use your email as proof. 3) Finally, nobody can be fired for emitting their opinion. In fact, that's an universal right that is guaranteed to all Portuguese citizens: you cannot commit crimes when expressing an opinion, and this holds true in all circumstances. (An "opinion" is "ideology", and you cannot be arrested for defending an ideology, no matter how crazy it might sound)
Now contrast that to the situation in the United States. What the US Constitution protects is the right to express your opinion against the Government. That means that the Government cannot pass laws that prevent you from speaking against them — no matter in which form. They can't also press charges against you if you emit a contrary opinion against your Government (that's why I have such a difficulty to understand how the Patriot Act was approved by the Houses...). More interestingly, they have an extension towards "public figures" (ie. not necessarily Government officials — but people like actors, popular speakers, etc.) which basically state the same thing.
Where US law is fundamentally different is that it doesn't cover the freedom of speech rights inside a corporation. Basically, in private, you're able to do what you wish, set the rules you want, impose what you like, and nobody — not even the Government — can interfere. The right to privacy is not guaranteed on the US Constitution, although I think that all States, on their own constitutions (yes, each State has one), do respect privacy. However, corporations are absolutely free to restrict "freedom of speech" exercised against themselves by their employees, clients, partners, etc. They have the right to do business to whomever they wish — and are not compelled to provide service to whom they dislike. They can also fire whomever they wish.
The fundamental point here is that Linden Lab is not required to provide service to a customer (a resident) that aggressively attacks them in public — specially if that resident comes from a different culture where freedom of speech is universal and not restricted to "special cases" (eg. only against the Government). They are fully entitled — legally — to prevent access to service to whomever they wish. That's also constitutionally guaranteed, and embodied in a lot of laws — namely, the ability to sign with your clients any type of contract you wish (so long as they don't violate any existing laws). This is very typical of common law systems, where basically "everything is allowed which is not explicitly forbidden".
Except for the British, we Europeans are more used to civil law systems, which operate on the exact opposite terms: "everything is forbidden, except those things that we have a framework of laws to explicitly allow it." Thus, corporations in Portugal cannot prevent their customers to exercise their freedom of speech — and cannot deny them service — and furthermore they cannot sign "any type" of contract with their clients, but have to work within a specific framework.
In fact, the LL ToS is almost completely void in any European country, since it doesn't "fit" in any of the frameworks. The most notable case is the one about LL seizing your money and your assets if you are banned — this would be a crime in Europe, but in the US (and, to a degree, on most common law systems, of which there are just a handful in the world), it's just a clause in the contract — which you either sign, or don't. But if you sign them, all are valid.
So this issue is not really a legal one, but a moral one, coming from a different culture. It revolts us Europeans that corporations have the right to deny service based on our opinions. But, the plain and simple fact is... we've signed a ToS under the Californian jurisdiction, and we can't avoid it.
Morally, of course, I'm revolted — but that comes from my education, my social background, the context I live in. Legally, LL is right — they have the right to do as they please. And we have the right, of course, not to sign the ToS if we dislike it.
But once we sign it, we forfeit the right to discuss it under our jurisdiction's legislation, but have to abide by Californian law — even if we dislike it.
Rui Clary
· 1 year ago
Thanks Gwyn! Every time i came here, I learn something newfrom you. Be back soon :)
Gwyneth Llewelyn
· 1 year ago
Oh, I don't think that all is well, Rheta. All is not well. I might point out Tateru's article on Massively, where she clearly states the fundamental aspect of this clarification by LL: that from now on, LL will, in extreme cases, refuse to provide service if we disagree with them. This is a novelty in LL's official position. So far, to the best of everybody's memories, they never made such a strong statement.
The other thing is — what did we "win"? Well, awareness was raised. A new procedure — also unique — was established where residents are allowed to reply to bans due to trademark infringements, and even a form of appeal. Of course, ultimately, LL might ignore that all — but if they did, they would be really going over the top by publicly claiming something and behaving otherwise.
The two other issues were much more trickier to "win". What LL basically did was simple: say "no" to the rest of our requests.
Where do we stand now?
We have three choices:
1) Continue the protest, but making it louder (or make it more creative). 2) Fight in court. 3) Accept a compromise.
Rheta Shan
· 1 year ago
Dear Gwyn,
had you outlined these three options, be it on your blog, be it privately among those who helped you make the protest what it has been until now, and concluded after discussion that for you, option 3) is the only valid one, as you personal choice, no conclusion intended for the issue at large, nobody would criticise what you did. Retreat can be the better part of valour. I'd be sad, but it will always be your own choice, as it is mine to go through with 1) first, 2) second, because I can't see where 3) would be an option. But that is not what you did.
What you did was decide, alone, that your own choice would dictate what to do with the whole protest movement, and carried over that choice from the personal realm to that governed by your standing as the spokesperson of the protest. Without consulting anybody, you cancelled the rally on the Governor Mansion. Without consulting anybody, you told the press the protest was off. And you stated, here and on Twitter, that keeping the protest alive would be splitting hairs, suddenly calling things non-issues you fought vehemently against a few days back.
Dear Gwyn, unlike mine, your business is Second Life. I can understand how that makes you wary of risking further protest now the Lindens have donned war garb, and I respect that conclusion. It would be unfair and preposterous to do otherwise. Was I in your position, I might do the same.
But doing so is your personal decision. Which means that once you've taken it, you have lost all right to speak of « we », and to present yourself as part of the protest against Linden Lab's policy.
You're not part of that any more Gwyn. If you won't fight, please stand by gracefully.
Ciaran Laval
· 1 year ago
Gwyn you're such a good writer but you've completely caved on this issue. Nothing has really changed, the clause that there is no need to have is still there. They already have "any reason or no reason" this extra clause is made redundant by that but putting it in the terms of service makes it a threat to freedom of expression, no matter how they dress it up with niceties.
The grandfathering of domains that abided by the previous policy guidelines is an important one and one that should be respected. Those who were in breach of previous guidelines I feel for them, but they were in breach and have little room for complaint but SLUniverse (for example) was not breaching previous guidelines and to move the goalposts on that issue is not a good move and is one that should be debated.
We should have been having this debate before the policy was announced, whereas it's too late for that now it's a point that we should be hammering home to Linden Lab, communicate with us, not at us.
Naima Aya
· 1 year ago
Ok, now I am sure about what I understand in their actions. That trademark issue really didn't borrows me, and I don't really want to wast my time making "circles" around the subject. What borrow me is that Linden labs is worried with their trademarks, while in the grid the copywriter (between residents) still up. :/
They just think in their things and all the residents for them are just a couple of NOOBs who doesn't deserve nothing or almost.
When I've created Myspace profile I really took care of posting the words "Copyright: “Second Life® and Linden Lab® are trademarks or registered trademarks of Linden Research, Inc. All rights reserved. No infringement is intended.”". Why?
Simple. Because I don't work for them, I really don't want to promote them ansd their weird work. Just to promote my Avatar and other Identify where am I. Nothing more to say about It. But nice they make the things clear to other Avatars.
Cy
Gwyneth Llewelyn
· 1 year ago
Rheta, I'm obviously available to discuss other strategies for protest, that goes without saying. The call for clarification was what motivated the 3-day strike. LL just posted their clarification on the last day of the strike. That was the first step.
LL made their move with that. Yes, they provided clarification. No, they're not willing to concede in any point, except the one of "banning without fair warning" — that was the only thing that was really clarified.
They made their position more clear. Instead of "legalese", they answered our questions — and questions that so many asked — in plain English. For me, their answers were quite clear:
1. Section 4.4 was not removed, not changed, and LL reinforced that they would use it — within reasonable limits, but definitely use it — to refuse service to avatars whose owners don't comply with their trademark policy.
2. There is not going to be any grandfathering of domain names.
3. Old content written in the past 4 years will not be subject to LL's analysis, but new one certainly will.
4. Dubious and doubtful cases will be settled with LL individually, one by one, at their will.
So, the protest was to get clarification, and clarification we got.
Now the issue is — the clarification didn't make things better. Quoting myself again: no, all is not well. There is a compromise by LL to restate more clearly what they intend — and I think it's reasonable to assume that they made an effort to be clear — but the compromise doesn't go as far as compromising on the issues (except for, well, minor issues).
So it's clear to me that LL is not going to change their position (like they didn't change so many other things), and they're pretty stubborn at that.
So what should the next step be? I'm repeating myself, I know. Protesting for protest's sake will not make LL change — we know that now. There are no "openings" in their argumentation where we might breach their wall. In my mind, this means that the fight now has to be targeted directly to fight against their trademark claims. As said, that's a nasty business, and it means that people have to be aware of what it means: suing LL in court.
Now, many, including Cat Magellan, have asked for legal advice by Californian lawyers. There is a pretty good chance of fighting LL in court and winning the issue. It will, of course, be a nasty battle — one where all parts involved will invariably lose something (namely, reputation) — but there are reasonably strong arguments for winning.
So again I ask you: between the three choices — protest louder, suing LL in court, or accepting compromise — what do you wish to do?
Personally I'm against "protesting for protest's sake". We can't say that LL didn't "address our concerns" — they did exactly what was asked, making their position clearer, and refusing to go beyond that. So to continue to insist, it needs to be a different protest.
The only suggestion I can make is to meet again in-world and throw some suggestions around, write a new document, get a few friendly IP lawyer to assist in the discussion, and see what we can come up with as a next step on the protest. Very likely it will have to involve a "threat of a lawsuit" to catch LL's attention.
I actually like Vint Falken's Trademark Parody Contest as a way of protest. Parody is very well established as a legitimate way to both use trademarks and make fun of them as a means to criticize a company's position. It might be an idea...
silpol
· 1 year ago
it was Prok and other proponents (not in any order) of virtual law in S-bloody-L, biting LL arse, whining & begging them for law-as-mechanism to come and regulate S-sheise-L -- and they had (as usual) very short sight and even shorter mind and brain, forgetting altogether old saying "beware what you are asking for - you might actually get it"
now it came as you asked, boys and girls, and there is no foreseeable end to this - welcome to S-crappy-L end-of-Eden-on-living-platform. You were asking to substitute immersion with law-augmented-virtual-reality, same time blaming augmentalists as if there is no tomorrow... Law comes only ones and for very long - welcome to metaverse working on real/meat world rules. You've got what you deserve.
Rheta Shan
· 1 year ago
Let's discuss this somewhere less public, shall we :) ?
Niko Donburi
· 1 year ago
While I typically am loathe to add yet another verse to what is becoming a rather lengthy song, I think that this subjects deserves inclusion, don't you?
"Dear Linden, Dear Linden, I just don't understand The new terms of service About using your brand. Registered trademarks And copyright signs, Must I use them all of the time? Signed, a blogger
Blogger,Dear blogger We hear what you say And at Linden Lab (R) We don't like things this way But our lawyers insist That it must be done We sincerely hope it won't ruin your fun Signed, a Linden (TM)"
--Niko Donburi (aka The "Weird Al" of the virtual world formally known as Second Life)
https://me.yahoo.com/cecksol#0
· 1 year ago
But what it is, right now, is the only collaborative virtual world with user-generated content.
The discussion about the trademark policy in interesting enough in its own right. But what's MORE interesting is your insight into the reasons why LL has chosen this moment to fight this particular battle. And I think you've hit the nail on the head regarding the future of the Second Life environment (did I do that right?) and, in particular, regarding where we can expect LL to focus their competitive efforts.
All Comments
(That's not to say that domain registration laws for any given jurisdiction don't have additional restrictions about using others' trademarks in registered domains.)
And for a bit of humour: it also doesn't forbid using sl in the top level domain -- so if you can get a domain name in Sierra Leone, go for it! "www.ilove.sl", anyone?
Anyway, the guidelines do explicitly permit using SL in subdomains (e.g. SL.Dell.com) or in paths (Dell.com/SL), so that would be the safer way to go. But that's only if your domain contains the name of your organization, or an abbreviation of it (as is true for both Massively and Reuters).
Of course, this topic is all very confusing, and we graciously thank our trademarked overlords for giving us 90 days to have the oracles interpret their demands.
What I mean is: I haven't seen anywhere the logical step for a blogger who just doesn't want to write about a subject within the limits imposed by that subject. I would never ever write about something just on *these* terms (the nice ones) because I have to behave. No way. If I want to say that nespresso sucks and I have never in my intire life drank such a puke-coffee, I will say and write that (in fact, I love nespresso, but just for argument sake) and I will not have to prove my opinions with facts .You only write nice things all the time about something if you work for advertising that particular brand. Or if you are afraid of what "they" might do to you. And that, we had a lot here in this country, and not so long ago. Memories are very short and I was myself quite young at the time, but I still remember, dear, the day that somebody told me "from now on, people can speak freely".
I dont want to give you a inflated speach, but just to remind you what happens when people can not write the way they want and are always carefull with words: they either give up or go undercover. Now, LL(R, for your sake) is closing the way for people to mention some names, but they will still be searched in Google; I bet in 6 months, the searches will give back a fairly amount of hate sites, anonymous, so that these people cannot be banned. You are going to tell me "no one will read these sites"? well, just think what is the most popular twitter at the moment...
I understand your point of view, is very ok, I just don't agree with all this.
True. And "ONLY" 6 high-ranking Al Qaeda members were tortured.
How often LL will use banning is not even that important. Even just holding that as a threat over our heads is outrageous enough. I think that the inclusion in the TOS was LL's biggest mistake and has been at the root of most of the negative reaction from the SL users. It buys LL so little and it costs them so much, they should just get rid of it, and do it with a heartfelt apology.
However, there is quite a difference in "disagreeing" and "doing something about it". In this case, it means a legal fight: getting hold of a good lawyer in California that works pro bono and file a lawsuit against Linden Lab, very carefully stating that they have no further claim on the trademark in the manner they've stated, ie. that essentially they cannot trademark the "name for a community of people".
Now, this obviously means a much stronger fight — not one of raising awareness (which LL can suppress easily), but one of going to court. As we saw on Bragg vs. Linden Lab, when forced against the wall, LL prefers to settle on an agreement than endless pursuing their case (which is damaging against their interests). So my feeling is that by going to court, LL will negotiate much friendlier terms.
Now that is my personal point of view :) I think we did what we could to stay away from the courts, and we saw what came out of it. The fight now needs more powerful weapons :)
However, in my case, I'm not willing to sponsor a lawsuit against LL, nor encourage anyone to do that. It'll get nasty. Bragg, for instance, got his avatar, his land, and his money back — but his reputation was hopelessly ruined in SL and RL. Nobody will ever make a deal with him, even if, technically, he "won" the case (or, rather, forced LL to settle on an agreement).
And, who knows, perhaps Bragg's lawyer is reading these lines and thinking "hey, what a cool idea, why don't I sue LL for this...".
The few of them, that had the courage to say what they really where thinking, were banned(i mean, they went to jail..).
But one day (25th of April) a man or a woman,( I don't really remember because i was a kid and i couldn't even speak) had the idea of going to the streets whid the weapons.
Instead of shooting that weapons, they put one flower on each gun, and no one was injured , because, there were no shots.
Despite this, the revolution was made. I Now i'm a grown one and i live in that small country, but now, i can say whatever goes thru my mind.
I will keep doing it, and i thank that man or woman that had the idea of puting flowers instead of bullets.
I Will keep the flowers in all my blog posts, but i'm sorry Linden Lab, I will say whatever i want i will not permit anyone, to guide me in the way i must say my words, even if they happen to be Lies or truths.
Writing "I hate LL because they're crooks and are cheating us out of our money and SL is just a pyramid scheme, so stay away from it" is!
There's a lot of difference in the content of those statements, even if the form is similar.
as always, an eloquent statement. For once, however, it rings hollow. Allow me to quote something to you :
This is part of a document several SL residents created together to present to Robin Linden on her office hour. The part quoted here was the final edit, and it was written by the spokesperson of the group (who did present the key points to Robin later with her usual eloquence).
That spokesperson was called Gwyneth Llewelyn.
This is what you condensed as the goal of our protest, as our aspiration in this protest : 1) make sure nobody is banned without warning for perceived trademark infringements happening in-world, 2) make sure nobody is banned at all for perceived trademark infringements off-world (there are courts to handle this) and finally, 3) find a lenient grandfathering agreement for established community sites.
The Lindens have acceded to only one of these : not to ban without warning. As to the other two, they have affirmed their will indeed recur to banning for off-world disputes, thus putting the ToS over the law ; and they have refused any kind of grandfathering agreement (pretending that we do not have to rewrite old posts is such an agreement verges on the ridiculous ; that was never an issue. You are splitting fine hairs indeed finding some kind of compromise there).
Gwyn, had you stated that, now that the Lindens have made clear they will enforce the trademark guidelines by force if need be, banning where courts would not let them proceed, yielding to superior power is the only way, I might have disagreed, but I would have understood. But you didn't — instead, you told the world that, against all evidence, all is well and that we can make merry again.
You know full well we did not fight for the right to promote LL's products and trademarks. We fought for fairness, and consideration, and the right to speak as freely on our blogs as the law allows us to, without having to fear losing our Second Lives.
At least, most of us did. Maybe we were just wrong to assume you were with us on this.
Goodbye, dear Gwyn. I wish I could say it has been a pleasure, but I can safely say it has been an education. For what's its worth, you have my blessing promoting the Linden agenda henceforth. I have decided on another course for me.
I am finally claiming the world Philip made as my own.
This means that if you send an email to a colleague at work saying "my boss is an utter idiot", and that message is intercepted by your boss, three things happen:
1) Your boss has committed a crime by reading your email. Even at work, the right to privacy to your mailbox is guaranteed, even if the mailboxes are property of the company you work for.
2) You cannot get fired arbitrarily without due disciplinary process. So your boss would have to file an internal disciplinary process to prove you've been actively disrupting the work environment to justify firing you. And he can't use your email as proof.
3) Finally, nobody can be fired for emitting their opinion. In fact, that's an universal right that is guaranteed to all Portuguese citizens: you cannot commit crimes when expressing an opinion, and this holds true in all circumstances. (An "opinion" is "ideology", and you cannot be arrested for defending an ideology, no matter how crazy it might sound)
Now contrast that to the situation in the United States. What the US Constitution protects is the right to express your opinion against the Government. That means that the Government cannot pass laws that prevent you from speaking against them — no matter in which form. They can't also press charges against you if you emit a contrary opinion against your Government (that's why I have such a difficulty to understand how the Patriot Act was approved by the Houses...). More interestingly, they have an extension towards "public figures" (ie. not necessarily Government officials — but people like actors, popular speakers, etc.) which basically state the same thing.
Where US law is fundamentally different is that it doesn't cover the freedom of speech rights inside a corporation. Basically, in private, you're able to do what you wish, set the rules you want, impose what you like, and nobody — not even the Government — can interfere. The right to privacy is not guaranteed on the US Constitution, although I think that all States, on their own constitutions (yes, each State has one), do respect privacy. However, corporations are absolutely free to restrict "freedom of speech" exercised against themselves by their employees, clients, partners, etc. They have the right to do business to whomever they wish — and are not compelled to provide service to whom they dislike. They can also fire whomever they wish.
The fundamental point here is that Linden Lab is not required to provide service to a customer (a resident) that aggressively attacks them in public — specially if that resident comes from a different culture where freedom of speech is universal and not restricted to "special cases" (eg. only against the Government). They are fully entitled — legally — to prevent access to service to whomever they wish. That's also constitutionally guaranteed, and embodied in a lot of laws — namely, the ability to sign with your clients any type of contract you wish (so long as they don't violate any existing laws). This is very typical of common law systems, where basically "everything is allowed which is not explicitly forbidden".
Except for the British, we Europeans are more used to civil law systems, which operate on the exact opposite terms: "everything is forbidden, except those things that we have a framework of laws to explicitly allow it." Thus, corporations in Portugal cannot prevent their customers to exercise their freedom of speech — and cannot deny them service — and furthermore they cannot sign "any type" of contract with their clients, but have to work within a specific framework.
In fact, the LL ToS is almost completely void in any European country, since it doesn't "fit" in any of the frameworks. The most notable case is the one about LL seizing your money and your assets if you are banned — this would be a crime in Europe, but in the US (and, to a degree, on most common law systems, of which there are just a handful in the world), it's just a clause in the contract — which you either sign, or don't. But if you sign them, all are valid.
So this issue is not really a legal one, but a moral one, coming from a different culture. It revolts us Europeans that corporations have the right to deny service based on our opinions. But, the plain and simple fact is... we've signed a ToS under the Californian jurisdiction, and we can't avoid it.
Morally, of course, I'm revolted — but that comes from my education, my social background, the context I live in. Legally, LL is right — they have the right to do as they please. And we have the right, of course, not to sign the ToS if we dislike it.
But once we sign it, we forfeit the right to discuss it under our jurisdiction's legislation, but have to abide by Californian law — even if we dislike it.
Be back soon :)
The other thing is — what did we "win"? Well, awareness was raised. A new procedure — also unique — was established where residents are allowed to reply to bans due to trademark infringements, and even a form of appeal. Of course, ultimately, LL might ignore that all — but if they did, they would be really going over the top by publicly claiming something and behaving otherwise.
The two other issues were much more trickier to "win". What LL basically did was simple: say "no" to the rest of our requests.
Where do we stand now?
We have three choices:
1) Continue the protest, but making it louder (or make it more creative).
2) Fight in court.
3) Accept a compromise.
had you outlined these three options, be it on your blog, be it privately among those who helped you make the protest what it has been until now, and concluded after discussion that for you, option 3) is the only valid one, as you personal choice, no conclusion intended for the issue at large, nobody would criticise what you did. Retreat can be the better part of valour. I'd be sad, but it will always be your own choice, as it is mine to go through with 1) first, 2) second, because I can't see where 3) would be an option. But that is not what you did.
What you did was decide, alone, that your own choice would dictate what to do with the whole protest movement, and carried over that choice from the personal realm to that governed by your standing as the spokesperson of the protest. Without consulting anybody, you cancelled the rally on the Governor Mansion. Without consulting anybody, you told the press the protest was off. And you stated, here and on Twitter, that keeping the protest alive would be splitting hairs, suddenly calling things non-issues you fought vehemently against a few days back.
Dear Gwyn, unlike mine, your business is Second Life. I can understand how that makes you wary of risking further protest now the Lindens have donned war garb, and I respect that conclusion. It would be unfair and preposterous to do otherwise. Was I in your position, I might do the same.
But doing so is your personal decision. Which means that once you've taken it, you have lost all right to speak of « we », and to present yourself as part of the protest against Linden Lab's policy.
You're not part of that any more Gwyn. If you won't fight, please stand by gracefully.
The grandfathering of domains that abided by the previous policy guidelines is an important one and one that should be respected. Those who were in breach of previous guidelines I feel for them, but they were in breach and have little room for complaint but SLUniverse (for example) was not breaching previous guidelines and to move the goalposts on that issue is not a good move and is one that should be debated.
We should have been having this debate before the policy was announced, whereas it's too late for that now it's a point that we should be hammering home to Linden Lab, communicate with us, not at us.
What borrow me is that Linden labs is worried with their trademarks, while in the grid the copywriter (between residents) still up. :/
They just think in their things and all the residents for them are just a couple of NOOBs who doesn't deserve nothing or almost.
When I've created Myspace profile I really took care of posting the words "Copyright: “Second Life® and Linden Lab® are trademarks or registered trademarks of Linden Research, Inc. All rights reserved. No infringement is intended.”". Why?
Simple. Because I don't work for them, I really don't want to promote them ansd their weird work. Just to promote my Avatar and other Identify where am I. Nothing more to say about It. But nice they make the things clear to other Avatars.
Cy
LL made their move with that. Yes, they provided clarification. No, they're not willing to concede in any point, except the one of "banning without fair warning" — that was the only thing that was really clarified.
They made their position more clear. Instead of "legalese", they answered our questions — and questions that so many asked — in plain English. For me, their answers were quite clear:
1. Section 4.4 was not removed, not changed, and LL reinforced that they would use it — within reasonable limits, but definitely use it — to refuse service to avatars whose owners don't comply with their trademark policy.
2. There is not going to be any grandfathering of domain names.
3. Old content written in the past 4 years will not be subject to LL's analysis, but new one certainly will.
4. Dubious and doubtful cases will be settled with LL individually, one by one, at their will.
So, the protest was to get clarification, and clarification we got.
Now the issue is — the clarification didn't make things better. Quoting myself again: no, all is not well. There is a compromise by LL to restate more clearly what they intend — and I think it's reasonable to assume that they made an effort to be clear — but the compromise doesn't go as far as compromising on the issues (except for, well, minor issues).
So it's clear to me that LL is not going to change their position (like they didn't change so many other things), and they're pretty stubborn at that.
So what should the next step be? I'm repeating myself, I know. Protesting for protest's sake will not make LL change — we know that now. There are no "openings" in their argumentation where we might breach their wall. In my mind, this means that the fight now has to be targeted directly to fight against their trademark claims. As said, that's a nasty business, and it means that people have to be aware of what it means: suing LL in court.
Now, many, including Cat Magellan, have asked for legal advice by Californian lawyers. There is a pretty good chance of fighting LL in court and winning the issue. It will, of course, be a nasty battle — one where all parts involved will invariably lose something (namely, reputation) — but there are reasonably strong arguments for winning.
So again I ask you: between the three choices — protest louder, suing LL in court, or accepting compromise — what do you wish to do?
Personally I'm against "protesting for protest's sake". We can't say that LL didn't "address our concerns" — they did exactly what was asked, making their position clearer, and refusing to go beyond that. So to continue to insist, it needs to be a different protest.
The only suggestion I can make is to meet again in-world and throw some suggestions around, write a new document, get a few friendly IP lawyer to assist in the discussion, and see what we can come up with as a next step on the protest. Very likely it will have to involve a "threat of a lawsuit" to catch LL's attention.
I actually like Vint Falken's Trademark Parody Contest as a way of protest. Parody is very well established as a legitimate way to both use trademarks and make fun of them as a means to criticize a company's position. It might be an idea...
now it came as you asked, boys and girls, and there is no foreseeable end to this - welcome to S-crappy-L end-of-Eden-on-living-platform. You were asking to substitute immersion with law-augmented-virtual-reality, same time blaming augmentalists as if there is no tomorrow... Law comes only ones and for very long - welcome to metaverse working on real/meat world rules. You've got what you deserve.
"Dear Linden, Dear Linden,
I just don't understand
The new terms of service
About using your brand.
Registered trademarks
And copyright signs,
Must I use them all of the time?
Signed, a blogger
Blogger,Dear blogger
We hear what you say
And at Linden Lab (R)
We don't like things this way
But our lawyers insist
That it must be done
We sincerely hope it won't ruin your fun
Signed, a Linden (TM)"
--Niko Donburi (aka The "Weird Al" of the virtual world formally known as Second Life)
The discussion about the trademark policy in interesting enough in its own right. But what's MORE interesting is your insight into the reasons why LL has chosen this moment to fight this particular battle. And I think you've hit the nail on the head regarding the future of the Second Life environment (did I do that right?) and, in particular, regarding where we can expect LL to focus their competitive efforts.