Comments on: More of The Same on Trademarks http://www.vintfalken.com/more-of-the-same-on-trademarks/ Exporting an SL photographer's Second Life Mon, 13 Feb 2012 03:51:39 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 By: Magan http://www.vintfalken.com/more-of-the-same-on-trademarks/#comment-97827 Magan Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:49:12 +0000 http://www.vintfalken.com/more-of-the-same-on-trademarks/#comment-97827 Yes, you are right, they can play dirty and force you to accept their demands even though you are sacrificing your time to help create content for them and giving them free publicity. Obviously they have more customers than they can shake a stick at or else they wouldn't be playing hard ball. Such is life... or at least second life! :) Yes, you are right, they can play dirty and force you to accept their demands even though you are sacrificing your time to help create content for them and giving them free publicity. Obviously they have more customers than they can shake a stick at or else they wouldn’t be playing hard ball. Such is life… or at least second life! :)

]]> By: Vint Falken http://www.vintfalken.com/more-of-the-same-on-trademarks/#comment-97069 Vint Falken Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:33:13 +0000 http://www.vintfalken.com/more-of-the-same-on-trademarks/#comment-97069 Interesting, Magan. I think the biggest problem - larger than lawsuits here - is that LL does not need a reason to terminate your in-world (avatar) account, according to their ToS. So they could easily punish one by doing that, or just restricting access to his/her account until they dropped the domain? Being refrained from accessing your account keeps you away from your asset, land, payments you need to make (or receive), etc. That's probably near to illegal & blackmail, but then you'll be the one suing over this and risking spending a lot of money on that. Interesting, Magan. I think the biggest problem - larger than lawsuits here - is that LL does not need a reason to terminate your in-world (avatar) account, according to their ToS. So they could easily punish one by doing that, or just restricting access to his/her account until they dropped the domain? Being refrained from accessing your account keeps you away from your asset, land, payments you need to make (or receive), etc.

That’s probably near to illegal & blackmail, but then you’ll be the one suing over this and risking spending a lot of money on that.

]]> By: Magan http://www.vintfalken.com/more-of-the-same-on-trademarks/#comment-97002 Magan Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:03:27 +0000 http://www.vintfalken.com/more-of-the-same-on-trademarks/#comment-97002 In the U.S. you are allowed to Parody a trademark/logo under the Fair Use Doctrine. http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/oth1/parody.htm LInden is regulated by U.S. and state laws. It doesn't matter what is in their policy or what kind of threatening letters they write you, if their policy goes against law. Corporations are famous for bluffing in their policies because people don't know any better. This bluffing is of course mostly at the instigation of the attorneys writing the documents. The company owners believe their attorneys without question. Study up on domain name law for the U.S. and internationally and you will find that you can buy any name you want, however, if the owner of the company asks you for it, you have to sell it to them. There is no price mandated, so what the heck, jack the price up to your heart's desire! DISCLAIMER: I am not an attorney so you should not accept my statements hook, line and sinker. Do your own Googling using my words as inspiration. :) :) :) In the U.S. you are allowed to Parody a trademark/logo under the Fair Use Doctrine. http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/oth1/parody.htm LInden is regulated by U.S. and state laws. It doesn’t matter what is in their policy or what kind of threatening letters they write you, if their policy goes against law. Corporations are famous for bluffing in their policies because people don’t know any better. This bluffing is of course mostly at the instigation of the attorneys writing the documents. The company owners believe their attorneys without question.
Study up on domain name law for the U.S. and internationally and you will find that you can buy any name you want, however, if the owner of the company asks you for it, you have to sell it to them. There is no price mandated, so what the heck, jack the price up to your heart’s desire! DISCLAIMER: I am not an attorney so you should not accept my statements hook, line and sinker. Do your own Googling using my words as inspiration. :) :) :)

]]> By: Tao Takashi http://www.vintfalken.com/more-of-the-same-on-trademarks/#comment-42479 Tao Takashi Sat, 19 Apr 2008 13:13:52 +0000 http://www.vintfalken.com/more-of-the-same-on-trademarks/#comment-42479 My issue is not the TM-sign, it's all those rules to use SL or Second Life (or soon Grid) in domain names. If I want to express my excitement about this platform I want to use names like people use these days. This worked perfectly fine IMHO with the old policy. I don't see any benefit in the new one. What does it bring as an advantage? I know it's what everybody is doing and I know it's all what the law says. But first of all I think this law probably needs some adjustments for being ready in an internet world (see also T-Mobile sueing engadget mobile for using the magenta color) with social media and all that. And the other things is that even then it makes sense to run a relaxed policy on that. I agree that you should fight people using it for virtual worlds other than yours but I don't see it useful in fighting you fansites. So for me it's mostly about using it in domain names and such and of course it's an issue of trust as they now change the rules and who knows if they are not going to do it again. This costs a lot of mones and time to some and that obviously sucks. Besides that we were asked to put a notice of who own the copyright on these terms on our fansites before. My issue is not the TM-sign, it’s all those rules to use SL or Second Life (or soon Grid) in domain names. If I want to express my excitement about this platform I want to use names like people use these days. This worked perfectly fine IMHO with the old policy. I don’t see any benefit in the new one.

What does it bring as an advantage? I know it’s what everybody is doing and I know it’s all what the law says. But first of all I think this law probably needs some adjustments for being ready in an internet world (see also T-Mobile sueing engadget mobile for using the magenta color) with social media and all that. And the other things is that even then it makes sense to run a relaxed policy on that.

I agree that you should fight people using it for virtual worlds other than yours but I don’t see it useful in fighting you fansites. So for me it’s mostly about using it in domain names and such and of course it’s an issue of trust as they now change the rules and who knows if they are not going to do it again. This costs a lot of mones and time to some and that obviously sucks.

Besides that we were asked to put a notice of who own the copyright on these terms on our fansites before.

]]> By: Soraya Elcar http://www.vintfalken.com/more-of-the-same-on-trademarks/#comment-42267 Soraya Elcar Sat, 19 Apr 2008 04:50:22 +0000 http://www.vintfalken.com/more-of-the-same-on-trademarks/#comment-42267 It's a trademark, Vint. Companies have trademarks. Second Life is owned by a company. Always has been. We're lucky Linden Lab has been so generous with the licensing thereof so far. Read, please: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark I dont see why this is such a big thing. All LL is basically saying is "Hey, from now on, when you mention our stuff, make sure you tell people that it's a trademark, 'K?" It’s a trademark, Vint. Companies have trademarks. Second Life is owned by a company. Always has been. We’re lucky Linden Lab has been so generous with the licensing thereof so far.

Read, please: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark

I dont see why this is such a big thing. All LL is basically saying is “Hey, from now on, when you mention our stuff, make sure you tell people that it’s a trademark, ‘K?”

]]> By: Vint Falken http://www.vintfalken.com/more-of-the-same-on-trademarks/#comment-42240 Vint Falken Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:12:22 +0000 http://www.vintfalken.com/more-of-the-same-on-trademarks/#comment-42240 'Always look on the bright side of virtual life....' Well, as then continue to screw up in the same direction, I can easily recycle my old graphic of me cuddling my precious brave new virtual world. Trying to hold on to the promises they once made... . And this is a real :mrgreen: comment (I like Torley, don't get me wrong) but besides being - despite the circumstances - hilarious, there's a whole lot of truth in this one: <em>'BTW everyone, next video tutoral coming from Torley Linden: “How to put Copyright and Trademark Keyboard Controls (aha!) In Your Second Life Literature!” “Hi, this is your favoriet watermelon connoseur, TORLEY LINDEN (copyright tradmark). Since the recent LL announcement of trademark policies, a lot of you have been wondering how you can conduct everyday speech, since you don’t know how to place TM and (c) symbols in your writing (such as I just did.. AHA!). Well, I’m here to tell you how…”'</em> <p align="right">Anonymous on the Official Linden Lab Blog (I think the person posting this must be Dutch or Flemish, 'favoriet' is our word for 'favorite'. Probably Dutch. A Flemish person would know 'connoseur' is connaisseur. :)</p> ‘Always look on the bright side of virtual life….’ Well, as then continue to screw up in the same direction, I can easily recycle my old graphic of me cuddling my precious brave new virtual world. Trying to hold on to the promises they once made… .

And this is a real :mrgreen: comment (I like Torley, don’t get me wrong) but besides being - despite the circumstances - hilarious, there’s a whole lot of truth in this one:

‘BTW everyone, next video tutoral coming from Torley Linden:

“How to put Copyright and Trademark Keyboard Controls (aha!) In Your Second Life Literature!”

“Hi, this is your favoriet watermelon connoseur, TORLEY LINDEN (copyright tradmark). Since the recent LL announcement of trademark policies, a lot of you have been wondering how you can conduct everyday speech, since you don’t know how to place TM and (c) symbols in your writing (such as I just did.. AHA!). Well, I’m here to tell you how…”’

Anonymous on the Official Linden Lab Blog (I think the person posting this must be Dutch or Flemish, ‘favoriet’ is our word for ‘favorite’. Probably Dutch. A Flemish person would know ‘connoseur’ is connaisseur. :)

]]> By: Tao Takashi http://www.vintfalken.com/more-of-the-same-on-trademarks/#comment-42239 Tao Takashi Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:00:55 +0000 http://www.vintfalken.com/more-of-the-same-on-trademarks/#comment-42239 "With the growth of the Second Life community and a greater awareness of Second Life by those outside the community, it was increasingly important to take precautions to ensure that when people saw our trademarks (particularly people less familiar with Linden Lab), they knew it was a product or service of Linden Lab." So this apparently depends on what "Second Life" means. So it does not mean a world we all created but it's Linden Lab's thing alone. I would liked to have known this before ;-) “With the growth of the Second Life community and a greater awareness of Second Life by those outside the community, it was increasingly important to take precautions to ensure that when people saw our trademarks (particularly people less familiar with Linden Lab), they knew it was a product or service of Linden Lab.”

So this apparently depends on what “Second Life” means. So it does not mean a world we all created but it’s Linden Lab’s thing alone. I would liked to have known this before ;-)

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