Regrets, I have a few, but then again, too few to mention. I’m not in a good place with my Second Life right now, entirely my own fault and Linden Lab have been extremely wonderful. However, one area where I cannot praise Linden Lab is with regards to the new TOS.
Many of you will have seen it, many of you will have heard about it, many of you will be in fear of it:
“Except as otherwise described in any Additional Terms (such as a contest’s official rules) which will govern the submission of your User Content, you hereby grant to Linden Lab, and 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. The license granted in this Section 2.3 is referred to as the “Service Content License.”
I’ve bolded some of the problem, but the simple fact of the matter is that this one size fits all TOS change goes way too far and is quite simply offensive to any content creator within or outside of Second Life. I have no idea what Linden Lab are playing at here.
Third party sites are quite rightly, running in fear.