I love the Second Life. And yet, I am very aware of the rules it plays by. Are you? Take for example its Terms of Use, sometimes called Terms of Service. Do you know what they mean?
The Second Life (“SL”) has been a defendant in several lawsuits over the past few years. In the coming years, we’ll likely see many more suits dealing with the virtual worlds in general, and SL in particular. One issue that is sure to arise is the question of who really owns your content, and what can other SL users do with your content. By way of illustration, let’s look at the SL
Terms of Use / Terms of Service. In part, Section 7.3 reads as follows:
7.3 You grant certain Content licenses to users of Second Life by submitting your Content to publicly accessible areas of the Service.
You agree that by uploading, publishing, or submitting any Content to any publicly accessible areas of the Service, you hereby grant each user of Second Life a non-exclusive license to access the User Content through the Service, and to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content In-World or otherwise on the Service solely as permitted by you through your interactions with the Service under these Terms of Service. This license is referred to as the “User Content License,” and the Content being licensed is referred to as “User Content.”
Do you know what this says? Means? Warning: You may not like what I’m about to say! This statement arguably says, once you upload, publish, or submit any content to a publicly accessible space within the SL, you give up a lot of rights. In particular, not only do you give SL permission to do anything it wants to do with your content (e.g., reproduce it, share it with others, and repurpose your work), you also give other SL users permission to do the same thing. No published case has addressed this issues, as of yet, but once users really understand what they have done, it is sure to happen. Just think about it, one defense to copyright infringement is permission, so it would be hard for someone to say their content is being infringed if they in fact granted permission through the SL Terms of Use..
What are your thoughts about this?
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it is my opinion that what this clause is addressing, is the fact that users of Second Life will look at, interact with, and hopefully appreciate your content. that means that they will use their hardware to view your content. to do that means that you have effectively published it for them to view. once you create a work in SL, that “work” exists as an .xml file on a server somewhere. Linden Lab owns that server. it’s not hard to argue that they own the files on their servers. when you “view” an object, that object has been downloaded to your own computer. the .xml file is read. the textures are in a cached directory on your computer. in Real Life, if you come across a sculpture (let’s say), you can admire it and even take a picture of your family posed in front of it. i have witnessed episodes in Second Life where creators of content went so far as to say the viewers of their content had no right to even take a snapshot of it. i am a builder myself and i routinely have to face the concern i have when i make an artwork public, that it can be copied and it can be photographed. this is not so far different from Real Life. to refuse to make your work public due to fears that someone might abuse the privilege is certainly counterproductive, neurotic and in the extreme psychotic. in Real Life we can’t create our art in a vacuum. what’s the point in that? are we going to say that visitors to an art gallery have to have the memory of their visit to your artwork removed upon leaving the gallery? what really matters is what someone might do with the “information.” i don’t think these issues are as simple as demagogues seem to like to say they are. i think ultimately the definition of “ownership” of content in SL will be determined in the courts, and that definition will evolve with time as it is tested over and over. what that means is there will be real people like ourselves looking at the issues and making a judgment about what is reasonable. i think reasonable people would agree that Linden Lab has the right, even the obligation, to protect their shareholders. that’s what they are doing with their TOS. i don’t agree with all of their recent changes. i find them somewhat alarming. i’m concerned about it. but i can also see how they are making reasonable attempts to address the issues that they are facing.
I don’t have laws knowledge but as far as I understood and that is why I’ve made some public post taking about the license (and everything on virtual world becomes license matter) that I am concerned. I guess most of the residents didn’t undertood the entire terms of the “new” service, but I felt that everything I own on the virtual world has “gone”, in the perspective you mention here. I am trying not to be so predictable but this new TOS will mess a lot of content creators (that owns their original IP), when they realise that a simple upload into an asset server, gives others a non-exclusive permission (well this might depends on how content is used).
There is still protection of your IP rights, if you read this in context. Particulary, read this in a following paragraph:
“Your interactions with the Service” may include use of the Second Life permissions system and the copy, modify, and transfer settings for indicating how other users may use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, or perform your Content In-World subject to these Terms of Service.
So you can still set your content to be no copy, no modify, no transfer.
Admittedly, there has been a lot of confusion and suspicion over the new ToS, but in my opinion (I am not a lawyer) they are a step in the right direction for a business trying to grow in an economic climate where other virtual worlds are hitting the wall.
(full disclosure – I do occasional commisioned work for Linden Lab)
I’m not sure why you would site a part of 7.3 and not the whole thing. For anyone that bothers to read the entire thing there is much more verbiage regarding what the resulting “user content licence” actually grants.
“Your interactions with the Service” may include use of the Second Life permissions system and the copy, modify, and transfer settings for indicating how other users may use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, or perform your Content In-World subject to these Terms of Service. Any agreement you make with other users relating to use or access to your Content must be consistent with these Terms of Service, and no such agreement can abrogate, nullify, void or modify these Terms of Service.
So as a content creator here I use the permissions system to protect my rights…
You acknowledge that when you receive a User Content License you receive only licensing and use rights: You therefore do not acquire ownership of any copies of the Content, or transfer of any copyright or other Intellectual Property Rights in the Content. You acknowledge that with respect to the use of the words “Buy” and “Sell” as used in this Agreement and throughout the Service in the context of User Content: (a) the term “Sell” means “to grant a User Content License in exchange for Linden dollars or other consideration in accordance with the Terms of Service,” (b) the term “Buy” or “Purchase” means “to receive a User Content License in exchange for Linden dollars or other consideration in accordance with the Terms of Service,” and (c) the terms “Buyer,” “Seller,” “Sale” and “Purchaser” and similar terms have corresponding meanings to their root terms. This includes User Content that may be Bought or Sold on the Xstreet SL online marketplace.
And above users of my content do not “not acquire ownership of any copies of the Content, or transfer of any copyright or other Intellectual Property Rights in the Content”. As far as LL rights, I use their service so they get to poke around in my account just like any company in the US has the right to look at all the E-Mail and Voice mail stored on their servers. Clearly I’m no lawyer but if you look at all of 7.3 I don’t see where I’m giving up any rights. I just see this as legalese that covers the function of a virtual world.
(as I posted on my blog to the comments referencing this post) –
As far as 7.3 I would agree that not just this section, but the TOS as a whole basically say by using this service (SL) you agree to give up a lot of rights. However, I interpret section 7.3 a little differently. Section 7.3 states:
I would argue that “solely as permitted by you” can be interpreted to mean that content can be used only as you permit (i.e. give permissions copy/mod/trans) and only in SL.
I don’t think LL put this section in to take away our rights, but to be able to reduce their own burden in content theft cases, and to be able to provide rights such as the new Snapshot and Machinima policy.