Yesterday’s Linden Lab blog post about the new TOS has unsurprisingly generated a fair amount of discussion. I’ve looked again to see if I feel any different about the changes in the cold light of day and the answer is no. I still feel the TOS goes too far and asks for too much.
Over at Insert Funny Name Here, Second Life user and real life attorney Vaki Zenovka posts on the issue and summarises :
They moved “sell, re-sell, or sublicense (through multiple levels)” from the beginning of the list to the end of the list. And then they added a totally unclear parenthetical: “(with respect to Second Life, Inworld or otherwise on the Service as permitted by you through your interactions with the Service)”.
That is all.
Vaki also pokes Linden Lab about their use of parenthesis in the new terms of service and points out that it’s unclear whether “(with respect to Second Life, Inworld or otherwise on the Service as permitted by you through your interactions with the Service)” applies to sublicense, re-sell and sublicense or everything before the phrase “(with respect to Second Life, Inworld or otherwise on the Service as permitted by you through your interactions with the Service)”
In their blog post Linden Lab state :
First, the modified version limits our rights with respect to user-created content in Second Life by restricting our use “inworld or otherwise on the Service.” Additionally, it limits our right to “sell, re-sell or sublicense (through multiple levels)” your Second Life creations by requiring some affirmative action on your part in order for us to do so. This language mirrors the corresponding User Content License currently in Section 2.4, which has been part of the Terms of Service for years.
This is all still very muddy. However have the changes convinced the likes of CG Textures to reconsider their decision to forbid new uploads of their content to Second Life or any other Linden Lab product? Jo Yardley asked CG Textures whether their stance had changed in light of the new TOS and the answer was still a no :
I’m afraid this does not change the situation for us. The new ToS still contains the words:
.. 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. ..
I can’t say I’m surprised about this as CG Textures are an outside of Second Life venture and therefore not as tied to the platform as many Second Life content creators.
CG Textures have quite a friendly license agreement, but as they explained not long after this all blew up :
The previous Second Life TOS (Terms of Use) was appropriate and reasonable: when you uploaded your work, you gave Linden Lab rights to use it in Second Life and not much more.
With their latest TOS update they go way beyond what is reasonable.
From their angle, nothing much has changed. They understand that Linden Lab need certain rights in order to provide the service, they have no objection to that at all, it’s the parts about exploiting content in any manner whatsoever that are at the heart of the problem.
Another concern for Linden Lab is the wrath of Second Lie on Twitter!
Think of it this way: if it takes the Lab 11 months to write 20 meaningless words, there’s no way they can intelligently steal your content.
— SecondLie (@SecondLie) July 16, 2014
The only way Linden Lab could have made the ToS changes even less meaningful would be to put them in Comic Sans. — SecondLie (@SecondLie) July 17, 2014
If you miss using CGTextures in Second Life, you can always use Linden Lab’s new ToS and blog post as the “Whitewash” texture.
— SecondLie (@SecondLie) July 17, 2014
.@Ebbealtberg Thank you, Ebbe. I thought I’d run out of Linden Lab mistakes and screwups to mock and laugh at. You’re a godsend. — SecondLie (@SecondLie) July 17, 2014
I remain bemused and disappointed about the new TOS changes. I’m really not quite sure what Linden Lab are playing at but it’s almost a year since this controversy landed and we don’t seem to be much further forward, I suppose that being a little bit further forward is some progress, but it seems to be such a tiny step.
CGTextures’ and Renderosity’s announcements were nothing but drama-whoring.
http://monaeberhardt.wordpress.com/2013/11/06/revisiting-the-announcements-of-cgtextures-and-renderosity-re-lls-new-tos/
Would I be Captain Obvious if I pointed out that banning use of their textures in SL, but not in OpenSim, where intellectual property enjoys little to no protection is stupid? At least Turbosquid says “don’t use our stuff in SL, OpenSim and other virtual worlds like them, because no one can guarantee it won’t be ripped.”
Then again, who can guarantee that Turbosquid, Renderosity, CGTextures, etc content used in proprietary games that one needs to install on their PC won’t be ripped and uploaded for sale into any sodding virtual world? No one. SL’s marketplace is chock-full of content ripped from video games. So, maybe these stock content providers should also say “please don’t use our content in video games, because someone might rip it and sell it in SL”?
Nobody anywhere can guarantee Turbosquid content won’t be ripped. If you can see it on your computer it can be ripped.
If it passes through a computer’s innards, it can be ripped. This is something certain content providers have yet to understand, and are being completely prokanoid about it.
Hell, there’s no guarantee we won’t get hit by a truck, so maybe we shouldn’t cross the sodding street too?
If LL ran into Mona’s house and murdered her family, stole her jewels and burned down her house, she would still blame us and compliment LL for being “pro-active” and “direct”.
Watch the screaming lady scream!
Here again I have to say that Mona spreads disinformation like some zelous reactionary. Over on Jo Yardley’s blog she makes the same rant and claims against Opensim worlds so I will repeat my reply from there…
The fact is LL has the TOS statement they can do what they like with your content while no Opensim grid, large or small, has such a statement (having no TOS at all also means the grid is making no claim either). Fact is CGtextures have every right to withdraw license from the Linden grid if their new TOS breaks the terms of CGtextures license which they claim it does. No amount of argument and insult from Mona is going to change that.
It is also clear Mona is using this issue to score points against Opensim while, in fact, there are many honest people who use both Second Life and Opensim these days that do respect license terms. In fact most grid owners and not just the closed grids like Inworldz, Kitely and Avination, actively try to educate their residents to respect licenses and avoid rip-offs. Kitely has even gone to the length now of introducing export permissions to help in the process of distributing properly licensed content to the hypergrid connected worlds of the open Metaverse which is all part of the changing, more responsible culture. But, of course, someone who demonstrates a phobia against Opensim is never going to accept other people’s freedom to choose what they want.
As for IP protection? No grid, neither Second Life nor Opensim, can stop determined thieves so stop arguing that SL and closed grids have IP protection because all they have is just the crude protection of an easily broken closed door. Export perms and respect for licenses make far more sense these days.
Finally I want to applaud CGtectures for recognizing that Opensim grids do not break their license terms.
The Opensim grids probably should include required permissions for content to run the service but yes, Linden Lab’s TOS still goes too far with their claim on exploiting content for any purpose whatsoever, that’s at the heart of the issue and still hasn’t been addressed.
Oh dear… Again with the OpenSim v Second Life crusade…
Anyway, I’ll bring to you once again what Vaki Zenovka had said, which I confirmed with two, independent of each other, RL intellectual property lawyers (then again, what do lawyers know about IP law?) – and they both said Vaki was 100% spot-on.
From the transcript at http://modemworld.wordpress.com/tos-changes-legal-panel-transcript-5-q-and-a-session-2/
14:37 AF: There is nothing that has changed in the Terms of Service that drastically affects CG Tech’s (editor’s note: The company’s name was mistaken here) and Renderosity’s terms to the point that they should have reacted the way that they did. If they don’t allow reselling, then they should never have allowed uploading to Second Life in the first place. And that they have gone off the rails and said, “OK, you can never allow use of our stuff in Second Life now” is, I think, an over-reaction; I think its them jumping on a bandwagon and taking the opportunity to get some press and bash Second Life. I think it’s silly, and I’m irritated and disappointed in both of them for rabble-rousing and poking at what is already a very sensitive hornet’s nest. It’s embarrassing.
15:49 AF: You have always been able to sell stuff in Second Life; they should never have allowed upload to Second Life if they had a problem with reselling textures. Businesses can always be sold. If they had a problem with the idea that you could upload stuff to a business that might someday be sold, it’s just silly. There. I’m done.
I guess Vaki is another… reactionary. Another… SL zealot. Eh?
At any rate, if your beloved CGTextures only had a problem with the really offending part of LL’s ToS, they’d have highlighted only that part in their announcement.
Not the rights that every virtual world provider needs in order to operate.
BTW: Lay off the persecution syndrome, please. No one is out to get OpenSim. There are no conspiracies against it. The only things that really act against OpenSim as a platform are:
1. The fact that it’s derivative.
2. The fact that it depends on:
2.a. The time offered by volunteers, whose time, ability and willingness to contribute should never be taken for granted;
2.b. Reverse-engineering the source code of SL TPVs (since LL abandoned ODE for Havok, which they believe to be superior).
3. The general public’s attitude towards open source software.
Now, back to the announcements at hand. CGTextures’ announcement not only includes an objection to the very rights a virtual world provider needs in order to provide its services, either by using its own data centres or by sublicencing things to an external host (such as Amazon’s cloud services, which are used by LL), but also play on the fears that SL and OpenSim content creators share. Which part am I referring to?
This one:
“In theory their updated TOS gives them the right to take your model and start selling it on 3rd party market places like Turbosquid.com without giving you anything in return.”
Why in the world LL would take the stuff SL users have uploaded and start selling it left, right and centre, risking lawsuits and a major PR fiasco eludes me. From what I’ve seen, I’m led to believe that Marcel and you think that it does make business sense for LL to do so, even though it would be suicidal. This particular bit of the announcement is pure FUD.
Now, on the ToS of OpenSim grids… I’m not sure if Ciaran is correct in saying that they should list what rights they need in order to provide their services. I’ve listed and analysed them in depth and at length, but here goes:
Copying
The provider needs to be given the right to make copies of our material. Otherwise:
1. We will not be able to rez copies of our material to work on and create variants of said material.
2. We will not be able to even set permissions on our material.
3. The provider will not be able to deliver copies of our material to the people who buy it from our in-world and/or marketplace stores.
Modify
Without this right:
1. When we rez a copy of something we made and try to work on it in-world (and this work can be something as simple as renaming the object, or some quite complex editing and rescripting), we simply will not be able to, because the provider’s system will not be enabled to, as no such privileges will have been given by us.
2. Without such rights, the provider will not be able to identify the causes of undesirable behaviour in our objects and scripts and work on troubleshooting and bug fixing (such as the problems encountered during region crossings while using vehicles). They also will not be able to work on ways to quell the efficiency of objects and scripts created for griefing.
Distribute
This one also includes sell/re-sell, and I’m not sure LL should have added them – they’re redundant. Without this right, no in-world or web-based marketplace can exist. No virtual economy can exist without this right. Plus, you won’t even be able to give a copy of something to someone else.
As for the sublicencing bit… I’ve already said it. Let’s say virtual world provider X finds out that by hosting 50% of its services with an external hosting provider is cheaper than runnning a big data centre. If they can’t give that external hosting provider the green light to do the same stuff they themselves do, for the purposes of running the service, they won’t be able to do so, period.
Commercial OpenSim grids don’t list those rights in their ToS. I don’t know if this is good or bad. Well, at least it’s kept them from being a target for CGTextures.
But still, whether the ToS list these rights or not is neither here nor there. These functions are performed anyway. If CGTextures has a problem with them (which it implies with the highlighting of the aforementioned rights), then OpenSim grids and users are not in the clear.
And this is where you miss the point completely, because your view is Manichaean: black or white, with nothing in between. SL/LL = enemy, OpenSim = ally.
The point is that EULAs and announcements like these should worry every VR enthusiast, every virtual world enthusiast, everyone who wants to use virtual worlds as an outlet for their creativity and self-expression. I don’t take Peter Gray’s words at face value (he kept on saying how LL is “working” on the ToS thing and what we ended up with is something that’s even worse – and, to top it all off, it was announced with a lot of fanfare), I don’t take Marcel’s words at face value, I don’t take any corporate or government representative’s words at face value, even if they say what I want to hear.
What matters is actions and what is in document form. LL made an even bigger mess out of its ToS this time, CGTextures’ reaction to the ToS thing was way out of proportion, deliberately vague and, from a semiotics standpoint, it does leave a hint that – despite what Marcel says – any virtual world that performs the same functions that SL and OpenSim perform is merely tolerated by his company, and I personally wouldn’t feel safe purchasing stock content from there. Even if I were in Kitely or InWorldz or AviNation.
So, how did you react, Talla? Rather than say “why is she saying that? Let’s sit down and read the announcement again”, you jumped the gun, fuelled by your belief that the blogosphere is full of anti-OpenSim preachers.
Tell you what? The vast majority of internet users don’t know SL and OpenSim, and they don’t give a damn if these two platforms exist. Let me also remind you that these platforms are mere TOOLS for certain things, and obsessing about them and getting fanatical about them is obviously immature, to say the least – after all, they could both become obsolete any day now or yesterday.
So, no, nobody’s out to “score” against OpenSim.
I forgot to close the bold tag after “Distribute”, and this made the entire comment text after that word bold. Ouch.
“14:37 AF: There is nothing that has changed in the Terms of Service that drastically affects CG Tech’s (editor’s note: The company’s name was mistaken here) and Renderosity’s terms to the point that they should have reacted the way that they did. If they don’t allow reselling, then they should never have allowed uploading to Second Life in the first place. And that they have gone off the rails and said, “OK, you can never allow use of our stuff in Second Life now” is, I think, an over-reaction; I think its them jumping on a bandwagon and taking the opportunity to get some press and bash Second Life. I think it’s silly, and I’m irritated and disappointed in both of them for rabble-rousing and poking at what is already a very sensitive hornet’s nest. It’s embarrassing.
15:49 AF: You have always been able to sell stuff in Second Life; they should never have allowed upload to Second Life if they had a problem with reselling textures. Businesses can always be sold. If they had a problem with the idea that you could upload stuff to a business that might someday be sold, it’s just silly. There. I’m done.”
That’s completely misreading CG Textures objection. They did not object to content being resold in Second Life including their textures. They objected to the concept that their terms of not selling a texture as a texture could be ignored under Linden Lab’s new terms.
These are standard terms for pretty much every texture seller in Second Life, they generally include a EULA that states their textures cannot be sold as textures.
As for the part about the company being sold, that’s an absurd stretch to bring into the equation, that was never even a consideration in the objection from CG textures.
“So they do absolutely recognise that it’s reasonable for Linden Lab to ask for certain permissions for running the service, it’s when those limitations disappear that they object.”
Correct, up to a point. But, had it been only this way, they wouldn’t have highlighted the list of permissions (use, copy, etc); they’d have highlighted only the “in any manner whatsoever…, for any purpose whatsoever” bit, which is the really thorny issue.
I don’t take anyone’s word at face value. When Ebbe was saying “we’re working on the ToS,” I was thinking “it’s just one small paragraph; what takes you so sodding long to change it to inspire confidence again?”. When everyone on Plurk posted the news of LL’s announcement that they “fixed” the ToS, I didn’t believe they had fixed anything, and went to read the new ToS again, and compared it to the post-8/15/2013 version, and saw that things were the same, only more confusing.
Likewise, I’m not taking Marcel’s word at face value, not only because the semiotics of the announcement don’t inspire any confidence (at least for me), but also because the rest of the announcement is confusing – the whole old/new uploads bit. And, of course, I had to reject the claim that “[they] can’t determine if a texture was modified enough”. Not to mention that this announcement is like beating the saddle to punish the mule, with the saddle in this case being CGTextures customers from SL, and the mule being Linden Lab.
Now, regarding the part that LL or SL might be sold off to another company, Vaki is right on this one too. You see, it doesn’t mean a thing if it never crossed Marcel’s mind. If LL consider it a possibility and believe they need to have something in their ToS to cover them in such a case, they’ll include a clause for it. Or two. Or many.
This, of course, doesn’t make the current version of the ToS good. But you know what they say: Two wrons don’t make one right, and here, both CGTextures and LL are in the wrong.
Most sensible people are on to Moan-ah’s blatant -smoke and mirrors’ ranting.
I would just hope that, when SL residents bring a class action against LL after the world fails, they also include bloggers who knowingly spread disinformation that made residents lose money by staying in-world longer than they needed to.
Really, anybody whose agenda is to mislead the good, honest paying residents need to be held legally accountable.
Furthermore… If you want a legal expert’s opinion…
http://modemworld.wordpress.com/tos-changes-legal-panel-transcript-5-q-and-a-session-2/
Here’s what Vaki Zenovka/Agenda Faromet had to say (emphases mine):
In this case Vaki misunderstands the point. CG Textures don’t allow the sale of their textures as textures. They are happy for items that include their textures to be sold.
These are pretty standard terms for texture sellers inside and outside of Second Life.
CG Textures did not have a problem with the previous TOS because it had sensible limitations, the new one does not, they are right to object and they have changed their TOS accordingly.
No. CGTextures’ announcement was not about the resale of their textures “as is” within SL. They even included content that was created using their textures – and, of course, textures that used theirs as part of their composition. The excuse was that they couldn’t determine how much a texture was altered before uploading, which is pure and utter bullshit.
Vaki is 100000% right on both Renderosity and CGTextures, period.
I’m sorry, you’re wrong. CG Textures point was about selling textures as textures. They did not include content using their textures at all.
“Attention Second Life users: from 6 September 2013 you are no longer permitted to add our images to Second Life or other Linden Lab products. The use of textures downloaded prior to this date will be subject to the terms available when you downloaded the textures.”
Therefore they announced that from that date forth their textures could not be uploaded to Second Life, existing textures were fine, which was a sensible policy.
From their announcment :
“I used your textures in Second Life Builds in the past, do I have to remove them now?
No, nothing changes for textures uploaded to Second Life previously. If you have used our images on builds uploaded before 6 September 2013, you can continue to use, sell, give away those builds just like before.”
Also from the announcement :
“The CGTextures Terms of Use does not allow resale of our images as ‘Textures'”
This was about selling their textures as textures and Linden Lab having the right to do anything they wanted with that content. Vaki was wrong on this one.
Hogwash. What happens when a creator wants to use part of one of those old CGTextures-infested builds to make a new one, or a new version? Marcel is being a drama whore, potentially looking for a little notoriety, as Vaki suspects. And Vaki is correct in that the post-August 2013 ToS contained no changes that affected CGTextures as a business. Personally, I’d rather not do business with CGTextures at all, than have their propensity for unwarranted drama limit my creative options.
And still, I don’t see Marcel try to block usage of CGTextures’ textures in video games. Do you know how easy it is to rip them and resell them from there? No, only SL is his problem.
And what about the various private OpenSim grids? Are they any safer than SL? NO. Yet, they’re all right with Marcel. Enough with the drama whore.
Ciaran,
I like your blog writing. You try to be balanced.
But you are not going to win an argument with somebody like Heather-Mona who, for some strange reason, acts like she has a million dollars invested in SL.
Her increasingly high-pitched rants only punctuate the fact that SL is being destroyed and she knows it but cares not to say it. Strange.
… and he writes all that on Twitter, where the ToS are even *more* draconian, insane, and unenforceable. 🙂
Sweet dreams, chickadees.
-ls/cm
I’m not sure how he gets away with it!
@Mona “Hogwash. What happens when a creator wants to use part of one of those old CGTextures-infested builds to make a new one, or a new version? ”
It’s all explained on CG Textures website, old textures are fine, the old CG Textures TOS applies to them, builds including them can still be sold.
CG textures are happy for their textures to be used in video games.
In video games, from where they can be easily ripped and sold in SL. The guy is stupid beyond fix.
Also… Why would I trust a merchant who would suddenly tell me it’s not OK for me to use their stock content in one of my biggest markets? CGTextures and Renderosity are being completely unprofessional here.
BTW, you’re still not addressing the fact that they’re so full of shit that they’re OK with usage of their stuff in OpenSim grids, most of which offer no IP rights protection…
I’m pretty sure if OpenSim had similar terms to Linden Lab they would forbid usage there.
The guy is concerned about granting Linden Lab permissions he doesn’t feel comfortable with, that’s a perfectly sensible position for anyone to take. He didn’t forbid use of content already uploaded or already downloaded, that was a sensible compromise.
There’s a major difference between having your content ripped and granting someone permission to exploit your content in any manner whatsoever.
“IF”. History is not written in conditional sentences. Fact is, most private OpenSim grids have no provision for the protection of CGTextures’ and Renderosity’s resources. But neither Renderosity nor CGTextures prohibit usage of their stock content there, although they’re very much aware of the complete lack of any kind of ToS in many of those grids (and all that this entails as to the grid owners’ willingness to accept responsibility for what’s going on).
I’ll be blunt: If it gets put in something that goes online, it will be ripped. Hell, it’s not “safe” even in a sodding video game. So, restrictive EULAs that say “don’t use our stuff in virtual worlds” (like Turbosquid’s) or “don’t use our stuff in creations you’ll put online” or the idiotic “SL = BAAAAAAAD, OpenSim = you can use it there” (even though content ripping is even more widespread in OpenSim) stance of CGTextures and Renderosity are idiotic.
They remind me of Macrovision’s “copy protection” snake oil thing that wasn’t even compatible with Philips’ Orange Book standard (Philips themselves went against record companies that used it, demanding they remove the “Compact Disc Digital Audio” label from their “copy protected” records), causing half the CD players of the world to not play “copy protected” CDs right – oh, and ripping “copy protected” CDs has always been piece of cake.
Here, we’re not just talking about an anti-LL stance on behalf of CGTextures and Renderosity; we’re talking about a copywrong policy that’s straight from the 1980s. People need to check their calendars and stop pining for the “good old days” when they could order people around (because that’s what EULAs like CGTextures, Renderosity’s and Turbosquid’s are all about). And no, this has nothing to do with LL. It’s got everything to do with certain content providers’ desire to control what their clients do post-sale.
When you bought your car, did it come with a contract that said “you can’t resell it to someone”, or “you may not drive it in the following counties”, or stuff like that? No. When an interior designer buys wallpaper, does it come with a contract that says “you may only use it to decorate your own home and not your clients’ homes and/or shops”? No.
THAT’S what it all boils down to.
If I had leased my car it would most definitely have come with a contract that said I can’t sell it and in Second Life we generally have a licence to use, we don’t own them. That’s a massive difference.
You seem to be arguing that because content can be ripped, content creators should give up any concept of Intellectual property rights and just give their stuff away, that’s not going to happen.
Plenty of software provides us with a licence to use, not ownership, this happens day in, day out.
I’m talking about textures. As for the intellectual property rights bit, you’re mistaken. What I’m saying is that the EULAs forced upon people are stifling and even unenforceable.
Let’s look at Renderosity’s EULA for a bit, shall we?
It’s non-transferable. So, let’s say you’re working with someone. Let’s say you have formed a creative team, or that you have contracted someone more skilled than you to make something for you. Renderosity’s EULA prohibits you from telling that other person to use the content you bought from them in order to make what you want.
“The Buyer shall not redistribute the Product, in whole or in part, in any file format for sale or for free. The Buyer shall not store the Product any place where it could be used by another person or party (whether it is on a network or on the Internet). The Buyer shall not convert or recreate the Product to any other media format and re-distribute the files, regardless of whether it is for sale or free.”
This doesn’t only put the kibosh on using this content in SL (even before 8/15/2013, it was still not OK for you to use Renderosity products in SL, but Renderosity turned a blind eye on it, as it was very happy to take your money and then decided to throw a tantrum), but also in AviNation, Kitely, InWorldz, Cloud Party (RIP), Blue Mars (RIP), Utherverse, IMVU, Kaneva, etc. What the hell, it even prohibits you from using cloud or network-attached storage if you’ve set up those folders as shared.
Exactly in what sense is Renderosity (whose example I have chosen to use here) protecting its intellectual property while allowing buyers to actually use its merchandise creatively (as it pretty much promises)? It doesn’t. If you read it, it’s a pile of stifling, unenforceable copywrong crap that wouldn’t look out of place in a SOPA-fuelled dystopia’s legislative corpus.
You’re rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic.
Pep (The ToS statement still exists that Linden Lab may take any action they like without notification.)
It’s more like Mona is complaining we aren’t drinking enough in-flight coffee as we fly in a burning plane directly into the ground.
Mona knows that she feels betrayed by the ones that she defends,
It is natural to deny, the truth sometimes is unbearable.
And the plain truth is that the Tos allows LL to:
Destroy = shutting down SL.
Sell = Selling Sl as it is to another company.
Take = Start a new Second Life using all the assets of the 1st one.
Whatever = Put any other reason here.
What it does not make is:
Users more confident about Linden Lab!
@Mona Eberhardt I agree that some of the texture sellers terms are far too restrictive, that needs to change too.
Yes, they do have to change. They think they have the right to dictate where you’ll sell your content, for instance.
It’s exactly like 3M or any other chemical manufacturer sticking a EULA on its paints, telling you, for instance, that you may not sell something you’ve painted with their product. It’s bloody idiotic, and these companies need to be boycotted. In fact, they’re even worse than the worst LL can show.
They are allowed to state where you sell their content, as it remains their content even when it’s part of your build. That’s the way IP rights work. There are restrictions with some software regarding which countries it can be, for example you can’t ship Microsoft Windows to : Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria. Other companies have similar restrictions.
Where they are too restrictive is in terms of distribution, which at times is incompatible with the needs of virtual world and game production and performance.
In the absence of any TOS, the Opensim case would be covered by existing IP law (Creator decides the license and sales rights.)
It is Second Life’s aggressive TOS claiming the right to license and sell your creations that creates the problem. (Second Life decides the license and sales rights.)
In the absence of ToS, the grid owner & users may easily be led (by their own thinking) to believe they can get away with anything. And I’m talking about private grids here.
As for the rest of the rights that CGTextures and Renderosity object to (use, modify, copy, distribute), virtual worlds cannot operate without them. CGTextures and Renderosity are hostile to OpenSim as well.
CG Textures initial objection to use, modify,copy and distribute was due to Linden Lab’s change of terms which changed from being for the Second Life service only, that was the game changer.
They are still objecting after the recent change because Linden Lab still have the part about exploiting for any reason whatsoever without limiting it to the Second Life service only.
Rendersosity’s license was never compatible with Second Life in the first place, that one is a better example of a company who don’t quite seem to grasp the rights needed for content to appear in a virtual world.
That’s not what their announcement implies. If they objected only to the “for any purpose whatsoever”, they’d have highlighted only that part. To me, they’re either every bit as incompletent at producing a coherent announcement as SL, or they’re being deliberately vague – and I’m inclined to think the latter.
As for Renderosity, things are even worse. They not only fail to grasp how virtual worlds work, they also fail to grasp basic notions of collaborative teams that host stuff in corporate or private networks, private cloud storages, that move resources around so that one person will do the texturing, someone else will do the meshes, etc. Well, either they’re that stupid, or they’re out to make a buck and put a Damocles’ Sword of Litigation above the heads of their clients. My slant is to the latter.
The announcement was based on the original change which removed limitations completely. LL have now put a limitation back in but CG Textures still object to the exploit for any reason whatsoever clause.
They had no problem with the old old TOS, as they point out :
“The previous Second Life TOS (Terms of Use) was appropriate and reasonable: when you uploaded your work, you gave Linden Lab rights to use it in Second Life and not much more.”
So they do absolutely recognise that it’s reasonable for Linden Lab to ask for certain permissions for running the service, it’s when those limitations disappear that they object.
Absolutely agreed, the problem is LL’s, as you put it, aggressive TOS. That TOS insists you give them those rights, a world without those statements, cannot claim those rights.
No one can ensure that Turbosquid content won’t be copied. If it’s visible on your computer, it’s susceptible to being ripped.