SL Brand Center — Followup
As I was getting ready to write this, I punched up Reuters’ Second Life site to see what the latest was from the professionals, if anything. Only I was greeted with — silence. At the best, secondlife.reuters.com is churning without loading a page, or Firefox told me that the domain was “taking too long to respond.” We can interpret this in four ways:
- secondlife.reuters.com is overloaded right now.
- It’s Maintenance Time. (Hopefully not PM — as in “provocative maintenance,” which creates more problems than it solves [grin].)
- Reuters is taking the subdomain down (”by order” of their lawyers) to set up a new domain name, and it hasn’t propagated through the DNS yet. (Though a redirect could be quickly set up as well….)
- The one consistently publishing source of professional news in Second Life is pulling the plug, so as to take no chances with the new branding policy.
Only time will tell which one. I’ve been trying to connect since 7:00 a.m. RL, and nothing yet. (It’s currently 9:30.)
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In the time since Linden Lab’s announcement of the new SL branding policy, reaction in the out-world from Residents has been loud and thick. Here’s a list of the blogs and news reports I’ve found so far (after the break):
New World Notes does a good sum-up of the situation, and includes something Reuters missed in their initial report: reaction from the community. Ham’s final paragraph:
There’s a lot of vinegar flying, though if past history is a guide, most of the grousing will be cathartic, and the new rules will gradually get absorbed with relative ease. Then again, with so much tumult at the top, maybe past history is no longer the best guide.
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IYan Writer suggests that this might be a blessing in disguise for the SL Resident community — in a very American sense, it should be said, of uniting against a common foe. (We always seem to do better when we have a common foe to fight….)
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Benjamin Duranske at Virtually Blind is something of a virtual law expert, and supports their legal right to enact the policy.
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Mar at SL for Nowt steps aside from the search for great freebies to express her concerns over the issue, and wonder if, as a national of another country, she is subject to the rules.
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Kit Meredith of Second Life, First Person has two good posts on the question (first, second), and has created an attachment to wear in world as an expression of your concern, if any. (I model it above in my favorite morning hangout, the Blarney Stone.) Make sure to keep up with Kit, as she plans at least one more post examining her conclusions — she’s a lawyer in RL.
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Dusan Writer is strongly in the anti-policy camp:
Linden Labs sent out a Trojan horse into the community - a spiffy (and useless) new logo, perhaps thinking bloggers, content creators, educators and businesses wouldn’t notice the fine print which many are speculating is all prelude to an IPO.
I find myself increasingly furious. I suppose Philip is way too busy interviewing new CEOs to take the time to review substantial policy changes and branding decisions, but if that’s true then WHO IS MAKING THESE DECISIONS?
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Gwyneth Llewelyn, the dean of Second Life bloggers, is respectfully demanding a clarification of the policy as regards bloggers and others, and is gathering support for a 3-day writer’s strike if this is not forthcoming. Read in full!, but this is her first paragraph.
Your recent change of policy regarding the usage of your trademarks — Second Life®, Linden Lab®, and others registered by Linden Research Inc. — will effectively prevent the operation of the very vibrant community of bloggers, forum posters, websites, community portals, and even 3rd party services, that have provided Linden Lab® with links and driving traffic to your blog, and raising brand awareness for free for your product Second Life®.
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For a bit of quick levity, Cleo Bekkers’ piece at Education in Virtual Worlds is…mysterious.
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Second Life Bloggers, the organized group of Grid writers, has an extremely lively and (of course!) interesting discussion in its Forum. You can begin reading here; but, to comment yourself, you must be a member.
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Ciaran Laval was worried at first, but since concludes that it is essentially a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, etc.:
I sat down this morning at work, the first day back after the easter holiday, switched on my PC, sipped my coffee and then in a scene reminiscent of the closing stages of The Usual Suspects the scenery around me told its own story.
There in front of me were logos for AMD, Microsoft, Nvidia, it all suddenly made sense. The evil empire wasn’t on the march to silence the minions, we weren’t all being told to be silent at the back, we were being asked to treat the Linden Lab brand as, well a brand.
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What Is This Crap? fears for his domain…then he doesn’t…then he does (I think)….
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One way you can fight something you don’t like is with sarcasm and satire, and Caledon Air Marshal Zoe Connolly does that twice (first, second).
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There are many more, and probably more that I’ve missed; but this is turning into the Epistle to the Romans right now. I’d suggest running “second life” in quotes through Technorati, or “second life brand center” in quotes through Google, for more takes on the subject.
Second Life birth date: October 11, 2007
I asked Eric Reuters all these questions last night when I twittered about this very interesting challenge SL faces, where this company they invited to put a bureau in their “world” now becomes not a “world” or a “place” like, say, the Moscow bureau or the Washington bureau, but “a product”. They are now embedded, and have created a bureau in, another company’s product. Yuck.
He said “it was being taken under advisement” and didn’t have a definitive answer yet. I don’t see that they are closing, however, probably just revising.
BTW, in my blog posts I:
o nominally supported the policy, as they are legitimate actions legally in pursuit of a trademark, which is something I respect under the rule of law (I’m not an open-source extremist):
http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2008/03/trademarking.html
but noted that it made all our businesses seem like toys inside another company’s product, limiting our sense of freedom and expansion (we can’t take these businesses now to other virtual worlds with these SL names).
o noted that it opens up the largely question of whether SL Grid is in fact a project I have dubbed SL Rid, to get rid of those who don’t become licensed and sanitized contracted partners of Linden Lab.
http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2008/03/sl-rid.html
And I think even if you don’t have a business using these logos or these letters SL or whatever, the mere fact of your presence on the grid with an independent business will increasingly come under the scrutiny of LL and its lawyers under pressure of an IPO or some other expansion/liquidity events, and they will eventually want everyone to become a contracted vendor of services, not independents using the platform freely.
Reuters’ site is alive and kicking as of 5 AM Fri, and has a post from around 2:30 PM Thu. No change yet for the site name, so it was probably just busy.
–Timothy Kimball
aka ‘Alan Kiesler’
Clarification if I may - I am not against protection of trademarks. I’m against how they handled the enforcement (although tend to believe that the lawyers got a little too anal about the whole thing as well)…in particular the way they offered a NEW logo (and one with no meaning to the outside world) on top of the others - the hand, the Grid, inSL coming out of a broken prim…who outside SL knows what SL stands for????
They should have been absolutely clear. They should have done some community outreach. They should have polled for opinion ahead of the change. Their press officer shouldn’t have become engaged AFTER the fact (see NWN).
They might have even sent out a note to the blogs and businesses under separate cover. And Catherine shouldn’t have run for cover after one snarky little reply in the forum “90 days IS enough time Ciaran, I’m going home”.
They’re cleaning up and prepping for - hmm, what? Trademark protection so they survive due diligence for a sale (will be interesting to think how many Google returns now spit out all the comments on “brand mismanagement”)? Or maybe simply to start “opening up” the grid (we no longer mean open source when we say open, good thing) and sending it into the world while trying to assure that their brand is protected - let’s face it, inSL is a lot like “Intel Inside” and I suspect this has less to do with an IPO and more to do with their idea that they’re in the box selling business, and I don’t mean prims, I mean servers.
In many cases it seems like it isn’t WHAT Linden does, it’s HOW they do it that’s the issue. The one POSSIBLE upside in all of this is if they actually manage to make the right HOW hire in a new CEO…and it will be very instructive if said person hides on the SL blog or whether he comes out into the Windlight of day to say hello or not.
[...] Second Arts Second Life Portugal AirDiogo Liberdade Perfeita Warm Winter Nights Lost in Bananaverse Around the Grid with Harper Laetizia Coronet - virtual village voice SL for Nowt Second Life® Bloggers Education in [...]
[...] Second Arts Second Life Portugal AirDiogo Liberdade Perfeita Warm Winter Nights Lost in Bananaverse Around the Grid with Harper Laetizia Coronet - virtual village voice SL for Nowt Second Life® Bloggers Education in [...]
I don’t think “fears” is the right word.
Whatever happens, happens.
Although I’m getting a laugh…. NWN links a few days before I plan on changing subdomain names.
There is no mystery nor levity in my “piece”. This was just the way I found to express my feelings on the subject. When opinions spreed out I rather prefer to give an image and a critical “shortcut” than repeat the same ideas (as you can see in my last post named “A beautiful day”) :-)
My position is clear: I’ve subscribed Gwyneth Llewelyn’s call for clarification.
/me sighs. No love for the weary “reporter.” This is what I get for trying to summarize, like one of my favorite newsblogs.
Additionally, /me grins largely.
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Prokofy > Very interesting on what Reuters is going through. LL may have shot themselves in the foot with the one news organization which reported routinely from in world.
Tim > Thanks much; I finally broke through myself after a while, but just haven’t mentioned it, which isn’t good reportorial technique (sigh). (”I’m a librarian, Doctor, not a correspondent.”)
Dusan > I apologize for making it seem as if you were completely against trademark defense. I was not meaning it that way at all, and I believed that my phrasing did not imply such at the time. Anyone who clicks through and reads your piece should see this.
Crap > Ah, Crap…(grin)! And sympathies on changing domain names; I’ve had to do this twice on another blog for differing reasons: getting off of Blogger, and then getting off of Yahoo. (And everyone — avoid Yahoo Blogs Hosting like the plague!)
Cleo > I stand by this to a degree, though I apologize if you take offense or are otherwise “ticked.” The bare picture in your article is just too ambiguous to my brain, but the contemplation of it brought a smile to me in the long run. And it made for a break in the middle of my article.
To all > Hopefully, I’ll learn from this experience. I’m sure this won’t be the last major news piece we all tackle, and I plan to continue doing summary links when one comes — or even continue summarizing for this story, since it’s going to run for at least a few more days.
[...] I would like to thank the following residents, who helped fleshing out the above document, provided insight, comments, and rewriting of several sections, as well as some minor legal advice.Cat Magellan and Ana Lutetia, for their encouragement in writing the petitionRheta Shan, for the extensive revision and adding several sections and changesSignpostMarv Martin for comments and more external linksJamie Palisades, for comments on estoppel and genericideiAlja Writer, Tateru Nino, and several others for taking a look at the document and making some private commentsPalUP Ling, for the T-shirt (and his promotion)The unofficial community of Second Life® residents on Twitter, for a lot of comments, input, and ideasAn even larger group of bloggers that wrote about the issue, providing lots to think about, and including, but definitely not limited, to the following articles:http://www.vintfalken.com/insl-your-world-your-imagination-our-trademark/http://sl.governormarley.com/slpress/?p=27http://codebastardredgrave.com/2008/03/26/so-they-owe-us-a-sl/http://dedricmauriac.wordpress.com/2008/03/25/a-generic-post-to-avoid-copyright-infringement/http://www.technovia.co.uk/2008/03/the-huge-kerfuffle-over-second-life-trademarks.htmlhttp://harperganesvoort.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/sl-brand-center-followup/http://laetizia.wordpress.com/2008/04/02/clarity-there-is-movement-there-is-not/ http://www.massively.com/2008/04/02/making-your-mark/ http://getasecondlife.net/2008/03/second-life-geral/a-comunidade-portuguesa/ (even more links here)Robin Linden, for some early clarifications before Catherine Linden posted her article on Linden’s Official Blogand Everett Linden for reading this document before it was publicly posted.Permission to copy the above text, modify it, or translate it into other languages, is granted by the author. [...]
Remember that the issue is less about the right of Linden Lab to make claims on their trademarks (which nobody contests, except a few extreme libertarian lawyers, who think that “Second Life” is, after four years, very close to “genericide”), but more on how Linden Lab, though their ToS, can ban avatars without appeal or recourse, if they think they’re violating their ToS — and you have to sue them back to prove your innocence.
[...] http://www.technovia.co.uk/2008/03/the-huge-kerfuffle-over-second-life-trademarks.html http://harperganesvoort.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/sl-brand-center-followup/ http://laetizia.wordpress.com/2008/04/02/clarity-there-is-movement-there-is-not/ [...]