SL News Alert
At some point late yesterday night (24th October 2013) Peter Gray who is the Director of Global Communications of Linden Lab sent an email response back to Kylie Sabra regarding the concerns that the UCCSL (United Content Creators of SL ) group have. So far the UCCSL group inworld has 439 members and it’s growing on a weekly basis. This is a quick response from Linden Lab which always good to see happening when issues occur. Hopefully communications will continue in the coming weeks to work something out. 🙂
Summary so far:
- It appears that Linden Lab have declined the invite for a meeting inworld with the leaders of the UCCSL group to try to resolve this.
- Linden Lab are now currently reviewing what changes can be made to resolve concerns of content creators in Second Life, specifically protecting content creators intellectual property ownership.
- Linden Lab mentions “as an agent of content creators (such as yourselves), licensed to sell and re-sell such content”.
- Linden Lab are “optimistic” and working hard to provide a “mutually agreeable and beneficial way forward”.
Check out the full email below from Peter Gray…
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What do you think about this response and what should happen next ?
Daniel Voyager 
Personally I think Linden Lab are treading on rocky ground with the sell and re-sell issue, this might come to bite them on the backside. Sites such as eBay go out of their way to insist they are not sellers and re-sellers and they do that for a very good reason, sellers and re-sellers have additional legal responsibilities than those of agents who just put buyers in touch with sellers.
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I agree. However Linden Lab shut that door years ago, when they started creating their own Second Life content and giving it out as rewards.
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Thanks Ciaran. I agree it’s rocky ground and hopefully something will be sorted out soon.
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Translation: “We’re aware of community concerns – but we’re not going to talk to the community. We’ll dictate our terms when, and as, we want – we might change them again.”
Silly lawyers LL have – that letter/statement is added evidence of a Contract of Adhesion, as if holding our accounts and content ransom wasn’t enough.
M bought in the corporate think, Rodvik has furthered it.
LL is failing to learn any lessons from the culture they’re a part of – alienate your users and they’ll simply leave for less stressful entertainment.
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Exactly, JubJub. Once again, the problems is not in LL or their ToS but in the attitudes of the residents. Haven’t we been there before?
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I’m sure LL will learn from this and change the TOS soon to resolve the concerns.
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Isn’t acting as an agent mean selling or aproving the use of goods or services on behalf of their client. Taking a commission from the sale of a percentage previously agreed upon. It is not an agent’s place to take over ownership unless the right is sold to them by the owner/creator of the product. It is a pure case of intimidation of the owner by way of the use of their position with money. It is wrong whichever way you look at it.
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Thanks Robyn. 🙂
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InWorldz is looking better and better. I will NOT upload any content to Second Life every again.
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Oh right, thanks for the comment Justin.
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It seems they want to make it clear to us that they think they have the right to use our stuff any way that they want. They either don’t know or don’t care that this doesn’t work for people who already have exclusive agents and rights and contracts. Anyone who has these kind of concerns has already (or should) consult their lawyers. Anyone thinking of building projects for which they need exclusive rights are going to go elsewhere.
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Thanks for your response, Shawn. 🙂
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I cry Bullshit……
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Ahhhh
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As I predicted earlier in this debate, Linden Lab have again reiterated their refusal to “…revert[ing] to the prior wording.” Their assertion that the language of the new ToS eases their ability to “…act as an agent of content creators…” is pure unadulterated poppycock. They could easily create a cross-platform program that allows content creators on Second Life to customize and offer their content on all of the other Linden Lab properties, said service provided for either a flat fee or an ongoing commission. Instead they have chosen to assume total control of that cross-platform process, stated unequivocally that they do not owe the real content creator anything whatsoever, and even stated that they do not even have to assign attribution for the content to the original creator.
@Peter Gray: Your sugar-coated reply is unacceptable to this Content Creator. It falls far short of demonstrating respect for my intelligence and sophistication. You can rest assured I will assign it the full weight that it deserves. Nada!
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Thanks Darrius for the comment and views.
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It’s interesting to see the names that show up to this kind of “crisis”. What do you think Daniel, is this something to “jump ship” over?
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It’s a very big issue at the moment affecting alot of people on the grid. It will be interesting to see what the lab will do next I think.
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We need to remember this TOS issue is directly impacting a small but absolutely critical community that has made Second Life what it became and even still is – for now. The Artistic and Commercial content creators within the vastly larger general community of SL residents are in LL’s IP content hi-jacking cross-hairs.
Sadly, there is no common SL Residents communication challenge where any important issues of SL can be broadcast out for most of the community to see. And most SL residents blissfully log into SL and only stay within these sheltered confines. So SL forums, twitter, blogs, FB, etc. are out of their line of sight. As such, it takes a VERY LONG TIME for even news like this TOS issue to effectively get into the minds of most content creators. This process of spreading the news continues and will not stop.
I think LL has realized with the lightning quick creation and growth of the UCCSL with very little inter-community squabbling (that normally happens about merchant and creator communities when someone tries to formalize an association), that this backlash from the creator community will not be going away and must be taken serious.
The fact that Peter from LL formally responded to UCCSL head means that LL might even be taking this issue seriously now. If they don’t, they are seriously running the risk that their poor strategy and poor handling of this TOS as well as their now-not-so-secret plans to offer SL content to Desura could be at risk because of BAD PRESS MEDIA DEATH BY A 1000 CUTS.
They need Desura to be something amazing and that attracts a new population to Desura – the indie game developers. This will become a PR nightmare if potential indie developers read growing press reports about how LL deals with its current content creators and then says “wow if they treat their current content creators this way… what will they do with our gaming IP??? Best we don’t get into a mess like that.”
At least if the LL Execs were strategically smart they would be thinking like this. BUT, we have seen Rodvik sit like a Roman Emperor for 2 months and watch parts of LL Rome burn as his team sat quiet and let this issue burn out of control in the media around LL, SL, and now Desura. So the ball is in LL’s court. Lets see how smart they are.
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