One of Eve Kazan’s snapshots (from Flickr) showing Prometheus’ products (robotic arms) and their competitor’s (Neurolab) logo
Second Life Blogger Eve Kazan returned from a holiday abroad in Spain to find WordPress had taken down three snapshots she published on her blog post. Prometheus Creations Studio, owned by Second Life resident Irine Abbot, filed the DMCA with WordPress’s owner, Automattic Inc on May 22nd.
Creator Irine Abott of Prometheus Creations first communicated with Ms Kazan on May 14th about the alleged infringement of the snapshots she published on April 3, 2014, via Facebook:
I was happy to see the robotic arms used in creative ways. However I was not happy to see my products used in commercially advertising a competitor, presenting the impression that they are from Neurolabs. I would appreciate it if you could please either remove the photos or add the product listing of the arms in the post as you did with…
Or have we become so eager to use the ‘latest’ app or software or service that we simply hit ‘agree’ and move on?
There was a LOT of brouhaha (I love that word 😀 ) over the changes to the TOS in Second Life a while ago.
Content creators up in arms over the wording. Some left SL.
I’m not a content creator, so while I understood their upset, it didn’t affect me.
I do passionately believe in copyright and protections for intellectual property. However, it’s becoming harder and harder to protect yourself and your rights.
Everyone is online.
And if you are, you need to protect yourself.
At least read the fine print.
I was looking a social media site the other day and went to read their TOS.
Here’s what it said (and no, it isn’t from SL):
“We claim no ownership of any intellectual property rights over the Content that you upload to the Service. Any intellectual property rights in the uploaded Content belong solely to you (or your licensors). However, by uploading the Content to the Service, you grant -company name retracted- a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, perpetual and irrevocable right to use, reproduce, modify, distribute, sublicense, and prepare derivative works of, such Content, in any format or medium now known or later developed, solely on and through the Service, subject to these Terms of Service and our privacy policy. You represent and warrant that you have sufficient rights to grant this license.”
Wow.
So they claim no ownership, but then in the next sentence say that you uploading content allows them to basically do anything they want with it, in any format (now known or invented in the future), in perpetuity.
PERPETUITY.
You know what perpetuity means right?
In case you don’t, here’s the definition from Dictionary.com: ‘endlessorindefinitelylongdurationorexistence;eternity.’
That means they can use your stuff however they want, whenever they want, wherever they want, FOREVER.
Even though they said you own the content.
Just because you used their service.
And you can’t revoke their right to use the content, because the TOS says that not only is your agreement perpetual, it’s irrevocable.
Now, this particular TOS does say that they can/will use your content ‘solely on and through the Service’ of their site.
I miss one day of posting, and suddenly there’s an explosion of news and happenings!
I will be writing individual posts on some of these topics, but I wanted to hit some highlights while they were fresh in my memory, so here goes:
The Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education is this weekend and included a speech by new LL CEO Ebbe Altberg. He talked about many issues, including the LL TOS (you know, the one that has content creators up in arms because it’s worded so that LL owns everything), new mesh avatars for new accounts, and how SL needs to do some work to repair its reputation.
If you want to read more from about Ebbe’s speech, check out Jo Yardley’s blog here.
Inara Pey posted quotes from Ebbe’s speech regarding the TOS and what is in the works (we all hope). I’m not a content creator, so the TOS hasn’t been a huge deal to me, but I can certainly agree with those who have taken exception. And I’m not an attorney, but a good first step, it seems to me, would be to remove the wording that LL ‘owns’ the content for ‘perpetuity.’ Pretty simple, in my opinion, to solve the issue.
If you want to get a glimpse at one of the new mesh avatars, Ebbe debuted one at the VWBPE conference. Jo Yardley took pics, so check them out here. I personally don’t care for the look of this avatar (is it just me, or do the eyes seem bloodshot?), but choice is good. It also remains to be seen how fitted mesh and other new improvements will change/enhance the SL experience. I’ve read a couple of articles on changes LL wants merchants to make, and I just ended up more confused. 😛
Apparently there was a policy about allowing Lindens in-world, and Ebbe indicated that policy has been removed. So we will perhaps see more ‘Lindens’ wandering around soon. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. 🙂
Jo Yardley noted that Ebbe’s new avatar was not the typical ‘tall’ avatar, but a properly scaled one. It seems there may be lots of changes as SL prepares for new technology like the Oculus Rift.
I really am going to have to go visit the 1920’s Berlin sim. It’s been on my to-do list forever and I just haven’t done it. After reading this blog post, I want to not only visit, but donate. A wonderful cause and one that touched my heart: Sponsoring a monument to victims of Nazism. If you can visit and give, please do so.
One of Eve Kazan’s snapshots (from Flickr) showing Prometheus’ products (robotic arms) and their competitor’s (Neurolab) logo 
A Kat and A Mouse 