Brand Names From Real Life to be Banned on Xstreet

On August 11, Pink Linden posted some “Updates to XStreet SL Listing Guidelines.” Among them were some “Branding Guidelines” which dealt with Real Life brands reproduced within Second Life.

Branding Guidelines

Branded items may be listed or sold only by the brand or intellectual property owner or its authorized agents. A "branded item" is an item that:

* contains or uses a brand name or logo;

* replicates or closely imitates the appearance of a real-world physical product of a brand owner (for example, items that replicate the appearance of brands of cars, jewelry, or shoes that are available in the real world);

* replicates or closely imitates the appearance of a celebrity, famous person, or fictional character from a copyrighted work (for example, avatars that replicate the appearance of movie stars or characters from a book, film, television program, or game); or

* replicates or uses an artistic or creative work that is the subject of copyright (for example, virtual artwork that replicates artwork available in the real world or a sound clip that includes part of a song recording).

"Brand names" include product names; service names; company names; organization names; trade names; designer names; trademarks; service marks; celebrity names; famous persons' names; the unique names of well-known books, films, television programs, games, and other works that are the subject of copyright; and the unique names of well-known fictional characters from copyrighted works.

Be careful not to make comparisons to a brand name or say that your item is "like," "inspired by," or "based on" a brand name because this can be misleading and can lead to intellectual property infringement.

When including pictures in your listings, use a picture that accurately represents your item so that buyers are not confused about what you're selling. Never copy or use someone else's pictures or logos without their permission.

If you are a brand or intellectual property owner or the authorized agent of one, consider making others aware of this information by including it in your listing.

If we receive a complaint from a brand or intellectual property owner, or if we believe in good faith that your listing violates these Branding Guidelines or intellectual property law, we reserve the right to remove your listing and content (including content in Second Life associated with the listing) and in severe or repeat cases revoke your Xstreet SL and Second Life privileges.

You are responsible for ensuring that your listings and content comply with applicable intellectual property laws. Please be aware that your compliance with these Branding Guidelines does not guarantee your compliance with all intellectual property laws. For general information about intellectual property and our intellectual property complaint procedures, please go here. If you need advice on intellectual property law, we suggest you contact an attorney.

Examples

This Is Acceptable:

* An item that uses a brand name (like Gucci®, Nike®, or Rolex®) can be listed only if the item is officially offered or authorized by the brand owner (for example, Gucci America, Inc., Nike, Inc., or Rolex Watch U.S.A., Inc.).

* An item that uses a celebrity or famous name (like Angelina Jolie or Barack Obama) can be listed only if the item is officially offered or authorized by the celebrity or famous person (for example, Angelina Jolie or Barack Obama).

* A virtual car that looks like a particular brand of cars (like Mercedes-Benz®) and uses the logo of the brand can be listed only if the virtual car is officially offered or authorized by the brand owner (for example, Daimler AG).

* An avatar that has the appearance of a fictional character from a copyrighted work (like Darth Vader or Wonder Woman) and uses the character name can be listed only if the avatar is officially offered or authorized by the intellectual property owner of the character (for example, Lucasfilm Entertainment Co. Ltd. or DC Comics).

* Virtual artwork that replicates copyrighted artwork that is available in the real world (like the artwork of Andy Warhol or M.C. Escher) can be listed only if the virtual artwork is officially offered or authorized by the intellectual property owner of the artwork (for example, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. or The M.C. Escher Company B.V.).

This Is NOT Acceptable:

* A virtual sneaker named after a sneaker brand available in the real world (like Adidas® or Converse®) cannot be listed if the listing party is not the brand owner (for example, Adidas America, Inc. or Converse Inc.) or officially authorized by the brand owner.

* A virtual t-shirt with the logo of a real-world brand (like a Mickey Mouse® logo or an NFL® logo) cannot be listed if the listing party is not the brand owner (for example, Disney Enterprises, Inc. or the National Football League) or officially authorized by the brand owner.

* Virtual furniture with the distinctive appearance of a brand of furniture available in the real world (like the Eames® lounge chair and ottoman) cannot be listed if the listing party is not the brand owner (for example, Herman Miller, Inc.) or officially authorized by the brand owner.

* An avatar that has the appearance of a celebrity (for example, Elvis Presley or Marilyn Monroe) cannot be listed if the listing party is not the owner of the celebrity's right of publicity (or the right to use the celebrity's appearance, for example, Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. or Marilyn Monroe LLC) or officially authorized by the celebrity rights owner.

* Lists of unrelated brand names cannot be included in a listing or hidden by using white-on-white text, tiny fonts, special HTML code, or other means intended to circumvent the rules. (See also Keyword Spam below.)

* Misspelling brand names or adding, removing, or swapping some characters to try to circumvent the rules, for example, using the number "1" instead of the letter "I" or a dollar sign "$" instead of the letter "S," is not allowed.

*****

Near the bottom of the “Updates” page, Pink Linden stated those with “listings or content that do not comply” had until September 14 to change or remove them in order to get a refund for the remaining time. After that, “Linden Lab may remove listings and content that do not comply” with no refunds.

Please leave your comments below.

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Court of inquiry - re Armidi

A step to far in protecting designs?
So what was it all about?
Yesterday I got an IM and a notecard from a good friend Eymerich Lane, now Eymerich is not one to get upset over nothing and when I saw the images he sent me I could understand it.
He had been shopping it seemed at Armidi - Eymerich is one avatar that takes his dress seriously - He had bought the {Gisaci} Cambridge Cuffed Shirt, a lovely design with rolled prim sleeves and prim collar open neck and available in many colours, when he put it on he got the result you see on the left; there were copyright notices all over his hands and legs! The same happened when his wife also tried the same shirt in a different colour.
So I did what any good reporter would do, I went and bought the same shirt and tried it on to see if the result was the same.
While there I bumped into Eymerich and his wife Roselinda with Joppa Linden trying to solve the mystery - now I didn't have the same problem when I tried the shirt on and no more did Joppa, although both Eymerich and Rose could see the notices on Eymerich we could not, although the place was incredibly laggy! When he tried another suit in the Classic style we immediately saw the problem especially on the pants layer - yet on me it looked fine?
Trying on another suit I made the discovery of the actual texture: It was covered in copyright notices - but only in the places where it could not be seen. My guess would be that Armidi have had instances of their textures being stolen and tried this method of preventing it.
The sliders that set the sleeve length and the pants length (the bottom of the shirt) that Eymerich and Rose had bought were set to 100 so that the copyright notices were visible and once reset - which took a while in the lag - the copyright notices disappeared; Problem solved?
In a way yes but none of this explains how the copyright notice came to be on Eymerichs' hands as even set to 100 length a shirt sleeve does not include gloves which would need to be worn to cover the hands, no-one could explain this mystery including Joppa. It will have to remain a mystery and there may have been several factors involved including lag, graphics card, Macbook pro or just a glitch.
My main concern was actually the attitude of Armidi in all this - of course the note Eymerich sent to me he also sent to the Armidi representative who replied that the fault lay with him and that he should clear his cache etc...... basically they were not helpful and there is no doubt that the item was not set right, although MODIFIABLE so you could yourself fix the problem IF you were aware of what was causing it, at the end of the day this was a mixture of causes but you would have thought that a company with the reputation of Armidi in Secondlife would have taken the trouble as we did and Joppa Linden did to try to get to the bottom of it.
That Armidi was at fault here is undeniable - that they are trying to protect their textures is also, sadly, understandable - but shoddy workmanship is not acceptable and if it happens then apologies at the very least should have been forthcoming instead of basically bad advice.
Conclusion: Texture theft is a sad fact in Secondlife and the extremes some designers are going to to try and protect their hard work is understandable but there is never an excuse for bad consumer care - if a mistake has been made own up to it and apologise, you will not lose respect for making a mistake only for ignoring one and trying to pass the buck!

UPDATE:
There appears to have been a JIRA relevant to this and it is suspected that it is a problem with NVIDIA drivers and can sometimes be fixed by either upgrading or downgrading drivers for your graphics cards - the JIRA can be found HERE

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Content theft continues

Some may mistakenly believe that content theft, texture theft, copybots, primjacking or whatever else you want to call it, is either being dealt with or just isn't your problem.

I believe this is EVERYONEs problem after all if you can't build/make something new without the risk of it soon appearing all over SL, with someone else profiting, then what is the point of creating?

Maybe you are just looking for great content at the lowest possible price?

Aren't we all, but please remember if the original content creators stop bringing in anything new where are we then?

At a recent discussion held at Hawthorne and hosted by FlipperPA Peregrine for content creators Frank Taney, avatar name Extinct Darwin, answered questions on content creators rights in Secondlife.

The discussion was well attended and I don't intend to copy the full transcript, it can be found HERE.

Frank started by explaining the four different intellectual property types and how they relate to Secondlife he went on the explain what a DMCA (Digital Copyright Millennium Act) was and how it worked to protect copyright.

One of the things that struck me was the level of frustration over Linden Labs lack of action and also how difficult it can be to prove that an object/texture has been stolen, even once a DMCA has been proven, it is still up to the original creator to track down all copies and report on where the infringement is occurring rather than LL removing the article from the inventory as it should:

'Nyte Caligari: I was told by my own IP lawyer that LL isn't exactly following the DMCA by not removing the texture or whatever from the offenders inventory. How valid is that statement?'

'Extinct Darwin: I can only speak from my personal experience . . . .

Which is that they have not gone into inventory. I don't think that is living up to the requirements of the DMCA.'

After several question relating to bring a class action against LL Frank had this to say:

Extinct Darwin: Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (governing federal lawsuits) sets forth a number of requirements a putative class action must meet before it is certified as a class action by a court

generally, to be viable class actions, the issues to each plaintiff class member must be common, and involve common legal and factual issues . . .

the common issues must predominate over the individual issues, in other words,

to fully go through all of the requirements as the pertain to this situation would take a while indeed.

More and more ways of copying are pouring into SL and the only thing we as purchasers can do is be very careful who we buy from! But as copying methods get better it is harder and harder for the mere consumer to know which are the originals

It appears most of the Lindens do not even know its a problem and those that do simply point to the DMCA and Abuse Report system obviously with no knowledge that these are temporary fixes at best, yet one more sign that 'The Lindens' no longer have any clue what is happening in Secondlife - stop looking at numbers and get in world! Use an alt if you have to, talk to your residents and creators see for yourselves what really is going on.
I can fully understand the designers' and content creators' frustration over this issue I just wish just for once the Lindens would stop worrying about user numbers and start worrying about the users themselves!

Dana *ends rant*

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BREAKING NEWS: Copybot is Back!

Back in November 2006, Second Life was in uproar for a whole week. And I mean complete mass panic. Businesses were leaving SL, protests were there, it made Real Life news, it was announced that it would be the end of Second Life. Fact was that Libsecondlife created a tool, a piece of software outside the standard viewer, that was designed for backup purposes with all good intentions. It duplicated any object in SL and made it full permissions.

Of course it was only a matter of time before people started using this to their own advantage. When that happened and was discovered, all hell broke loose. The CopyBot, as it was called, was dealt with in a swift and secure manner by Linden Lab, and the civil unrest came to an end.

Nowadays, people tend to think that if they create content in SL, that it is safe from copyright infringement. But rumours and accusations have been starting to fly around again, about expensive skins (up to L$ 5000 a piece) being copied and resold for a lot less by thieves. We reported on this just over a month ago.

Yesterday, I received a freebie skin saying "I'd rather go naked than wear stolen skin", created by Laynie Link. Ms. Link is a clothing shop owner and I bet she has a passion for protecting her content. But not only that, she must have a good reason for it. Ms. Link was unavailable for comments, but this made me research the issue again.

I talked to a scripter, and he claimed that he was able to do it within 10 minutes. And you know what? I'm not a scripter, but after I fllowed a false lead and ended up on a dead-end street, I followed another lead and managed to do it myself within 10 minutes !!!

So, for me it is confirmed, it is true. CopyBot II is here !!!

Now, what can this thing do? It can copy any texture in Second Life. When I tested it, I had access to any texture that my virtual eyes could see, starting with the moon and ban line pictures in Second Life, but also including complete skins, eyes, clothing, the sand that I was standing on ... EVERYTHING!

The fact is that it's not too hard to build things in SL. The true art lies in texturizing it properly. And with the arrival of Scuplties in May 2007, this has been taken to a whole different level. Well, this thing can also copy complete sculpties.

Imagine that you have created a true work of art. You're a sculptie artist and have created something that you have been working on for many many hours. Imagine that you're Light Waves (or Starax, as he's commonly known), and that you have created the best art there is in SL and that you're selling it for up to L$ 25,000. And then imagine that someone just copied your blood, sweat and tears and is selling it inworld for only a fraction of that price.

Would you leave SL over it? Well, I bet you would, if you know that just about anyone can do this, and that Linden Lab is unable or unwilling to do anything about it. And I bet that you would feel the same if you were a skin creator like Naughty Designs, X2 or RaC, or if you were a successful clothing designer like Blaze Columbia or Nicky Ree. This thing could put you out of business. Or imagine that you are a RL photographer and are selling your art in a gallery, and that anyone would be able to grab your photos without having to pay for them. What would be the point of having a gallery anymore.

Linden Lab has been made aware of this in several ways, amongst others on the JIRA, the SL bug reporting system for residents. The number of votes on this particular issue has sky-rocketed and will continue to do so, up to the moment where Linden Lab will take action.

LL has dealt with the original CopyBot in a quick and decisive manner. They haven't done so with this one. Knowing what I know about this issue, it is now not as simple as with the CopyBot. Just for the record, if you are wondering if this is actually a legal way to copy textures ... it's not. There is a very specific USA law that applies to these cases, and LL has claimed that it is in compliance with those laws. Well, it seems that they are not.

Now, I have solid proof that it works, that Linden Lab has been aware of this security breach from early 2006 and that they have not taken any action against it. And they probably will not, unless this issue causes widespread panic and anger amongst residents, as it did with the original CopyBot. And it seems that now the time has come for that panic.

The protest skin is available for free from SL Exchange, so please all wear it, and go to the JIRA article to vote for the topic. Not only is it the right thing to do morally, taking action now will also protect your content.

For the record, I have deleted any stolen content that I retrieved in this way. I will also not provide proof here, because it might lead to revealing this security breach. Just know that anyone with a few basic computer skills has access to this.

SL Newspaper will continue to follow this story. Please look forward to more news about this as the story develops.

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