October 2013 – Page 2

October 28, 2013

TOS – The Desura Connection

Being a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes, it doesn’t take me long to don a deerstalker and a pipe. However for this modern day version, I require a couple of Watsons, namely Nalates Urriah and Inara Pey. The TOS debate rolls on, it’s getting ugly in some quarters. There has been much speculation about what it all means. Quite frankly I’m now coming to the conclusion that it means very little, but a window of opportunity may have been opened for content creators and Linden Lab.

Now let’s get into speculation mode, the first person I saw making the Desura link was Nalates Urriah. In that post Nalates makes the point that the terms of service change is a Linden Lab terms of service change, not just a Second Life terms of service change. For example the same terms of service apply to both products, although there are a couple of sections in the TOS that are product specific, it’s a one size fits all TOS.

Nalates also speculates that this TOS change could be a means to eventually allowing Second Life content creators to sell on Desura. This speculation has been growing as the debate has rumbled on. Some have said that it’s not likely because Second Life content is specific to Second Life, but if the opportunity to sell to the Desura market was there, that would change. Others have welcomed the idea of extending the markets in the Linden Lab product catalogue, one person even said the concept was “Freaking awesome“. That’s where opportunity knocks.

I do think there’s potential in this area and that plenty of content creators would find the idea of selling content to other markets “Freaking awesome“. However the wording of the TOS would mean some content creators would be reluctant to participate. Then there’s the damp squib part, that’s brought to us by Inara Pey who in her own post on The Desura connection points out that sections of the TOS that many find objectionable, are actually pretty much taken from the old Desura TOS.

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October 25, 2013

TOS – We Fade To (Peter) Gray

Just when you’re talking about Linden Lab’s lack of response to the TOS issues (still need a name for this folks) Kylie of the United Content Creators Of Second Life (UCCSL … see acronyms, it’s all about acronyms) has received a response.

When Linden Lab need to get all official and make a measured and official response they have a man for the task, a man who possibly wears a suit, sunglasses and carries a briefcase with a combination lock.

One man on a lonely platform
One case sitting by his side
Two eyes staring cold and silent
Shows fear as he turns to hide

Ah, we fade to grey, Peter Gray

Look, there’s always room for some Visage! Anyway more importantly, the reply. I’m not going to copy and paste the email, it’s in the link above, but the email is the most encouraging sign yet that Linden Lab are actually listening to the concerns of content creators. There is also other intriguing information in the email, such as Linden Lab looking to open avenues for people to sell content across platforms for their other products.

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October 25, 2013October 25, 2013

TOS Applies To Nearly All Linden Lab Products

The TOS debates continue, over at SLUniverse Desmond Shang suggests: “We need a name for what’s happened. The great User Rights Theft of 2013?” Personally I’m not sure that’s catchy enough, previously we’ve had names such as GOM, when Linden Lab took over the money business and of course there’s The FIC.

Then at other times things just end in fiasco or debacle, such as The Open Space Fiasco or The Adult Content Debacle. Something catchy and short is needed, answers on a postcard to ….

However on a more serious point I’m seeing a lot of speculation that the terms of service change is a sign that Linden Lab are getting ready to sell Second Life. There’s one big flaw with this theory, the same terms of service link appears on the pages of other Linden Lab products such as Dio, Blocksworld, Patterns, Creatoverse and Desura. This ties in with the statement Linden Lab sent to Inara Pey in September, which in part said:

“Recently we updated our Terms of Service to unify the existing terms of service for our various products into a single version. This updated version included a clarification with respect to the specific rights which a user grants to Linden Lab when submitting user-created content (referred to as the ‘Service Content License’) and, except as set forth in any related Linden Lab policies (referred to as ‘Additional Terms’), the right to ‘re-sell’ such user-created content.

“As previously indicated, the updated Terms of Service encompass a wide variety of Linden Lab products and services. We made every effort to incorporate Second Life’s existing policies in a distinct manner. We realize that the general nature of portions of the new Terms of Service may have led some individuals to believe, mistakenly, that Linden Lab was renouncing existing Second Life policies and practices or attempting to expropriate content created by Second Life residents. To that end, we want to further elucidate and reiterate our practice with respect to the Service Content License (and specifically Linden Lab’s right to re-sell user-created content) in Second Life.”

Whereas that statement has not placated Second Life content creators, it does suggest Linden Lab are trying to implement a one size fits all TOS across their product range, with the exception of Versu, which may well have been an oversight. Will Versu ever appear on Android? Anyway, I digress.

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October 22, 2013

TOS Debate – It’s A Cyn

The TOS debate goes on, there’s an epic three hour (TLDL) video of a legal panel meeting inworld, which you can view here: http://youtu.be/jifM2n4ttSE. Now if that’s too daunting for you, Bixyl Shuftan comes to the rescue with a summary of the meeting (although Bixyl does point out that the video really helps to understand the details).

Personally I feel that the TOS oversteps the mark and really, Linden Lab should explain to their users where this is headed because the new TOS makes very uncomfortable reading. However when concerns like this are raised others see opportunities. Kitely have already done this with a blog post explaining their more friendly sounding TOS when it comes to content creators.

Now into the fray comes Cloud Party. Hamlet Au over at New World Notes posts information regarding a blog post from Cloud Party’s Cyn Skyberg. Cyn Skyberg used to go by the name of Cyn Linden and parade around Second Life as a pirate with a peg leg whilst being a fearless leader of the support team, she also had a taste for eels …… oh wait, that was the band, The Eels! I’m not making this up! More of that later, for now, the blog post from Cyn states:

“In short, our TOS states “Cloud Party does not claim any ownership right in any Member content”.

Photos, textures, materials, objects, models, scripts and all other content uploaded to our platform are owned solely by the user. We do reserve the right to use them for shameless promotion of the platform via marketing, but the content you create is, and always will be, yours. In fact, there is a “download original” button for everything you put into the service, so you can grab it whenever you like.”

The devil of course is in the detail and below the cut I’ll go into more detail about the detail, unless you’re already below the cut, then the detail will be right below this sentence!

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