There are a couple of issues doing the rounds at the moment, which initially seem unrelated but at the heart of them there is a link, well I’m going to link them anyway!<\/p>\n
The first issue is the Star Trek CBS Copyright infringement thread<\/a>. The thread has some interesting commentary, in particular on page 4<\/a> where KellyO Mayo suggests Linden Lab come to an arrangement with CBS and introduce a system that pays a percentage of sales to a CBS account in return for allowing Star Trek items\u00a0 to be sold on the grid.<\/p>\n Edie Shoreland gives the idea short shrift and suggests it should be residents who negotiate any such deals.<\/p>\n Both of them make good points, but really, there should be room for both arrangements, the glaring problem for a Linden Lab initiative is that the grid is not PG only and many brands get the heebie jeebies about being associated with any sort of image of a female nipple, although they’re happy as Larry to see their brands being perused on beaches in hotter climates where there are female nipples aplenty. I won’t get into a rant on the silliness of this but it does tie in with another issue, the IHeartSL fashion feed<\/a> has gone PG according to reports, including a report over at New World Notes by Iris Ophelia<\/a>.<\/p>\n One of the suggested reasons for the IheartSL change of heart …. oh dear… oh where was I, oh yes, one of the suggested reasons for the change of policy is that IheartSl runs Google Adsense and the guidelines for participating<\/a> are basically that your site should be PG. Which links in with the issue of whether Linden Lab would be able to gain traction with brand partnerships whilst large parts of the grid are not PG.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n However, it should be noted that there have been unconfirmed reports of Coca Cola allowing their brand to be used within Second Life. Let’s take a journey back in time, let’s go back to 2007 and the heady days of Vint Falken being an excellent Second Life blogger. Vint received a notification from the then, SLExchange, that a freebie Coca Cola outfit listed on SLExchange was in violation of\u00a0 trademark policies. Coca Cola hadn’t filed a DMCA, but hey, it’s a Coca Cola item and SLExchange felt it was a violation.<\/p>\n The thing was that Coca Cola had ran a campaign in Second Life calling on users to create Coca Cola content. Vint spoke to someone and then a message was received from SLExchange saying the listing was allowed and:<\/p>\n