creators in SecondLife
Julian Dibbell and I taught a class last term about the law in virtual worlds. The part that was most surprising to me was that none of the commercial ventures gave users rights over the content they created -- until now. Second Life by Linden Lab is not only an extraordinarily cool new virtual world. It is also the first commercial virtual world to make it explicit that users own the content they create. As this release describes, a revised TOS "allows subscribers to retain full intellectual property protection for the digital content they create, including characters, clothing, scripts, textures, objects and designs." And, if this wasn't cool enough, Second Life has also "committed to exploring technologies to make it easy for creators to license their content under Creative Commons licenses."
Creative Commons has had an iCommons project for sometime now. I guess now we'll have to begin the vCommons project.
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Comments (15)
It would be wicked cool if they implemented an online common law court system for settling property disputes.
What a playground for checking out the effects of rulemaking, etc....
“vCommons projedct’, it is a fun idea!
Practically, the idea of “vCommons” may get stable support (i) when this idea brings enough profits to game companies –e.g. it makes them to seduce more gamers commercially-or (ii) dreamingly when the virtual spaces themselves become common places.
If the value of ‘vCommons’ is pervasively accepted, the online games may be divided into two categories; One is to allow gamers to keep their creativity as much as they want and then to let them have the right on their creatures. The other one is that the game companies hold control as much as possible so as not to be caught by the disputes with gamers about those rights.
In either way, gamers may have to understand that the right to use the image of their creatures does not directly mean the right to let their creatures alive in virtual worlds.
(However, who knows whether this will be challenged someday. That will be fun, too. I don’t know how, though. Hey, Crazy peoples, give us some crazy ideas!)
Great idea but not the first. Check out www.there.com
They have been recognizing the copyright of the content submitted by their developers since April, 2003 in their Developer Agreement (which is separate from TOS). In fact, There merely asks all developers to warrant that the developer is the copyright holder of the content they submit. In other words, they are not explicitly granting them a right; the developer grants There the right to use the content.
Developer content is submitted to There for approval. By submitting, the developer grants There a license to use within their service.
There has also been very helpful in policing infringers and have removed products that are copyright violations whether another developer or a third party.
Their TOS still contain the "we own everything" clause but I think that is a bug in the TOS since the developer agreement clearly states something different.
Thanks, Zombo. You're right. There's policy may be the first one to ask developers to grant it to use the developer’s content within its service. (I guess Tom may be a brilliant and idealist CEO.)
On the other hand, different legal issues may be caused by Linden Lab's policy because their users may license their content under Creative Commons licenses. (see Larry's blog and Linden Lab's release.)
As my friend (Ung-Ki Yoon) pointed out to me, when an MMORP policy allows users to own the copyright of their content, the actual benefit of the policy-from the perspective of the users-may be in the relation between the users and the third person, rather than the relation between the users and the company:
(1) users do not have to get permissions from the company when they use their contents out of the game space (e.g. on the user’s website, e.tc); and
(2) users can sell their contents to other users inside of the game.
About the second point, There policy simply prohibits members from selling member accounts to another member.
On the other hand, Linden Lab may adapt the Creative Commons agreement. This may be a new step of MMORPG because it will bring new legal issues.
There provides a very complete auction system within the service so that people who want to sell their items may do so easily. It is literally several mouse clicks for each item. These transaction are 100% secure and guaranteed. It is incredibly cool to click through what must be thousands and thousands (tens of thousands?) unique items created by their developers. You see incredible diversity and creativity.
When their TOS says that members cannot sell accounts but you can sell everything in the account via auction, I believe that this really means that they do not want you selling the avatar name.
Do anybody know how does activeworlds manages de content licence?
As a Member of Second Life(tm) and one of the Front Runners of the "Licensing" Arena
(I currently hold a Trademark Licensing agreement with Linden Labs to sell clothing articles through my online store. "www.slvisions.com")
I have encountered several areas within copyright law that could prove formidiable when people start enacting their rights on Objects created inworld.
My partners and I were initialy planing on creating Custom Imagery based on people providing us with their avatar and our group taking the pictures and putting them on "Real World" Clothing.
In exploration of the Copyright Laws and Copyright Infringement there is still a lot to overcome in that arena.
If anyone has any other information on Digital property rights/intelectual property rights or references to other legal sources therin. I would greatly appreciate the support and the general reading to enhance my abilities to offer custom Items to the public at large and to the consumers of Second life(Tm)
Thank you for making this Blog accessable for public opinion and support.
You can contact me at "ShadowWeaver@slvisions.com"
Thank you
About the second point, There policy simply prohibits members from selling member accounts to another member.
On the other hand, Linden Lab may adapt the Creative Commons agreement. This may be a new step of MMORPG because it will bring new legal issues.
You can contact me at "ShadowWeaver@slvisions.com"
Thank you
I have encountered several areas within copyright law that could prove formidiable when people start enacting their rights on Objects created inworld.
About the second point, There policy simply prohibits members from selling member accounts to another member.
On the other hand, Linden Lab may adapt the Creative Commons agreement. This may be a new step of MMORPG because it will bring new legal issues.
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