New World Notes‘ Wagner James (Hamlet) Au reports that a press representative for Linden Lab has told him that the Lab will issue a statement on the Second Life branding issue concerning many of SL’s bloggers sometime Friday or Monday.

In his article, Wagner states that he received an E-mail from Peter Gray of Lewis PR, the public relations firm working for Linden Lab, promising the statement. No specific time was announced for its release, nor was any information disclosed on what the statement would contain. Wagner is a former in-house blogger for Linden Lab. The statement may be in response to the call for clarification issued by Gwyneth Llewelyn on her blog, which has been reprinted in the same article by Wagner along with the note from Peter Gray. Gwyneth is calling for a 3-day strike of SL bloggers, beginning April 15, if no satisfactory response is made to her request; this call is meeting with support from some bloggers, based on reading of the ongoing discussion at the SL Bloggers group on Ning.

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It’s uncertain at this point just how much notice the larger community of Residents is giving to the trademark flap. In a thoroughly unscientific examination, I wore Kit Meredith’s attachment (pictured above) yesterday to the daily Morning Coffee at the Blarney Stone in Dublin. Nobody asked me to explain it, and I was there for two hours. I presume they all thought I was wearing a Funny Hat, and left it at that. I intend to repeat the experiment today for a span of time, and see if the results are better.

The more libertarian bloggers worry that another freedom is being cut out from under the community without its noticing, citing such examples as the gambling and banking ban. I myself, though, don’t see this turning into another Tea Crate Rebellion at any time in the near future. It all depends on how much the SL public perceives this as affecting them. It could affect them by putting a chill on discussion and reportage; if bloggers don’t know what the exact requirements are for them, or can’t meet those requirements easily, then they’ll likely stop writing. This is already threatened, at least in part, by the strike action planned by Gwyn. If the bloggers shut down, then Linden Lab will be losing tons of free publicity that their previous easy trademark policy fostered — the publicity that drove knowledge of the Second Life brand to over 10,000,000 people who have signed up.

Linden Lab does have the right to defend their brands; there is no question there. But, since they have created the community that has, in return, helped drive subscribers to their service, it is incumbent on LL to clarify the situation at the very least. It would also be a simple courtesy as well.

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UPDATE, March 29:

Ham hasn’t published any statement on NWN from Linden Lab, so we appear to need to wait for a word from them until sometime Monday. If it appears before 12:00 p.m. SLT, I’ll work to get at least a link to the comment in a new article.

In the meantime, check out the following for fresh discussions from important bloggers in this controversy:

• NWN, “Two Lawyers Puzzle Over Second Life®’s Trademark Policies” (Make sure to read those comments Hamlet links to!)
• Kit Meredith, “Hamlet Au Owes Me Two Hours”