Thursday, September 26, 2013

Linden TOS = Theft?

Location: State of Shock

The new Linden Terms of Service raised many hackles at today's VWER meeting, which I agreed to host as Kali was away.

Note the clauses here:
"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"
I'm glad I'm done teaching with Second Life. Never again. And the Lindens must have good lawyers. Vassar still has content there; the new TOS means that Lindens could use Vassar's logo or re-sell it, if one applies the TOS literally.

Yet another reason to set up one's own grid and distribute the work under  a Creative-Commons license.

3 comments:

Elaine Greywalker said...

I wonder how these TOS would make out in a US court of copyright law which gives the copyright straight to the creator the moment the piece is created. Sure, you have to prove creation which can be aided by registration, if you go to court. I also wonder what some of these "businesses" would do with all that content. If anyone could make money out of it, I would think the creators would be first in line. There's a lot of dross to go through to find the gold. And if these people are spending all their time coming out with ways to own stuff they don't make, where will they find time to make money out of it? Or what's the point in claiming it?

Deanya Lattimore Schempp IFL / Deanya Zenfold ISL said...

I think the point of this is to tidy up the company into something that Microsoft would buy.

I honestly believe that the great wisdom of Rod Humble has resulted in the general belief that they should sell as soon as possible and unload the dying mule.

He has no love for the product and no understanding of it.

If only Rosedale had not, like Iggy, lost heart over it, there might be some hope.

Iggy O said...

Only Microsoft could love the kluge of outdated technology that is SL.

Lost heart? No. More like "Lost my f*cking patience with Linden Lab."