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.
CG Textures were on the case by September 6th:
“6th September 2013: Terms of Service update, using our images in Second Life is no longer allowed.
What has changed?
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 is allowed.”
Why? Well they explain that in the linked post:
“As you can see from the highlighted portions, as soon as you upload any content to Second Life you give Linden Lab unlimited and irrevocable rights to do whatever they want with your work.
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. We would even go as far as to say it’s plain greedy, because they claim any right they could possibly claim and show no respect for you as a user. As soon as you upload your model or texture, they can do literally anything they want with it. 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.
The CGTextures Terms of Use does not allow resale of our images as ‘Textures’. The updated Second Life TOS allows unlimited resale of user generated content. Put these two together and it is easy to see that they are no longer compatible.”
Did CG Textures read this wrong? Absolutely not and Renderosity soon followed:
“In the past, we have allowed a Buyer to use Renderosity products for their use in the Second Life virtual world, as long as the Buyer does not sell or give away the files. However, the new TOS at Second Life gives Second Life the complete ‘rights’ over anything uploaded at their site as of the date of their new TOS. Second Life’s new TOS conflicts with our Renderosity license”
The comments on that post should alarm Linden Lab, because their reputation within the modelling community is taking a bashing here:
“I don’t blame you guys, and I can’t believe that SecondLife is doing a copyright grab.”
“How nice! Legalized stealing is what this is then. I will have to change my TOU for my freebies too then. No one can use any of my stuff in Second Life either. Will up-date my website tomorrow! ”
“That is plain theft… they have to know this.”
“Wow — that’s kind of messed-up on Linden’s part. A user purchases something or creates something to use in SL, and by doing so, Linden claims dibs on it? Sounds like a great way to drive away their user base and/or to stifle creativity in their community. ”
Linden Lab are a growing company, they have diversified, why the hell they would want to shoot themselves in the foot with this silly TOS change I have no idea. Part of the problem is trying to apply a one size fits all TOS to all of their products, it simply does not work.
Linden Lab need to back off here, they do not want a reputation as the company who will happily steal your content. I do not believe there is any malicious intent from Linden Lab here, but they need to rectify this and the need to rectify it quickly.
Inara Pey, amongst others, was contacted by LL regarding the changes with Peter Gray quoted: .. (Inara contacted the lab, big point of order and apologies for getting it arse about face, see comments for clarification).
“Additionally, Linden Lab often acts as an intermediary between Second Life residents (for instance, in its capacity as the operator of the Second Life Marketplace) which necessitates that Linden Lab have certain rights (such as the right to re-sell) in order to effectuate such exchanges or transactions”
This is an 11 on a 1-10 scale of absolute balderdash because Linden Lab do not resell on the marketplace in my opinion, if they did they would leave themselves wide open for lawsuits in terms of dodgy deals, which they distance themselves from by saying they are resident to resident disputes, which they are. Resellers are in a very different position to service providers when it comes to such issues. Peter Gray is also quoted as saying:
“As evidenced by Second Life’s extensive history, functionality and well-documented policies for providing a platform on which users can create and profit from their creations, Linden Lab respects the proprietary rights of Second Life’s content creators. We regret that our intention in revising our Terms of Service to streamline our business may have been misconstrued by some as an attempt to appropriate Second Life residents’ original content. We have no intention of abandoning our deep-rooted dedication to facilitating residents’ ability to create and commercialize such content in Second Life. In fact, we strive to provide Second Life’s residents with evermore opportunities to do so.”
There, I believe him, with all my heart. I do not believe there’s any malicious intent, but the TOS needs to be rolled back to assure content creators, this can be done and the sooner Linden Lab do it, the better.
Thanks for the mention and link :).
Small point of order, though. The Lab didn’t contact me. I contacted them and received the response, which was subsequently passed on to others.
I’ve attempted to engage with them in a follow-up, but sadly, there has been no acknowledgement to that letter to date. I should still have a follow-up post out on the matter in the next day or so, however :).
Apologies, have edited post to say that you contacted them.
Thank you for blogging on this hot topic. I am no longer uploading my art into SL because of the TOS. Shame on me for having not read when they came out. We are so fast to hit that accept button. Now that I have read the TOS, I am beyond furious and covering this mess in my blog as well. Good work.
I must add, however, I have no intention of trusting a company who says one thing in a letter and something else entirely in the legal TOS. If their intentions are so benign, then why the drastic language in the first place. They had to know the impact. No, I don’t trust them with my hard work.
I own a gallery in SL and host only 3 artists per month as guests. So, not a huge place like Kylies, but to me this is very grievous and worrying behaviour from LL.
I have come to believe through sad experience, that when anyone demands or takes the right to do something they are likely to exercise that right at some point. Are we going to trust them with artworks and other content when they have so clearly stated that is what they can do? Do we have to wait until they tell us HOW AND WHEN they are going to do this to us?
Some have said to me, “What possible use could they have for my content?” or “This is just scare-mongering. Things like this have happened before and will happen again. People in SL get all upset and then it’s all okay again. A few will leave, but that’s all. Don’t worry.” I can’t help but think of other current events and historical situations in which people reacted similarly and were sadly proven wrong. Many wish they had acted or listened.
I would not willingly give anyone the right to sell or resell my art as they chose to do it in any way and in any place they choose. Not even my best friend would dare ask for this. For me it is that simple. But not so simple is to make a decision to pick up all I have worked for over the last 5 and a half years and say goodbye. So I am between a rock and a hard place, not knowing when or if this complete abandonment of my SL life and work will be necessary. I still log in. My gallery is still open. I grow increasingly worried.
Maybe that is foolish of me, but I hope change will come soon. If not I’m gone from SL and will grieve for a long time afterward the loss of my community and my work there.
This is certainly an extremely serious issue and the way LL revised its ToS is unprofessional. However Ciaran, by reading CGTextures’ and Renderosity’s announcements, I see that all is not entirely well with their announcements either, as I explain in my relevant (and perhaps exceedingly long) scrutiny of this debacle. For instance, Renderosity invokes its marketplace EULA to inform us that LL’s new, far-reaching ToS (which greatly surpasses any reasonable use LL would have for our content) runs afoul of it.
But Renderosity’s marketplace EULA is written in such a manner that, if you are to use any of its stock content, you must never rez or sell it in any grid-based virtual world – Second Life, OpenSim, it doesn’t matter. And, unfortunately, much of the furore and
noisediscussion on the new ToS has been caused by the fact that, as usual, far too many people in SL reach for their keyboards well before they understand what they read.How much time should we give them to revise the tow. Its been over a month now. I personally am moving to another grid where I can feel freely creative again. Sad to go but this leaves me no choice.
In some ways it’s good for people to extend their horizons by trying other services. I feel LL really need to compromise here, the sooner the better.