Check this week’s issue of the Metaverse Messenger for a Perspective piece — essentially an editorial or op-ed — by Phoenix Psaltery on the trademark and branding situation; or what, for short, I believe I shall begin referring to as “Trademarkgate©.” [1] Two key paragraphs:
You know, I totally understand LL’s desire to protect their branding. I know it’s important for a company to protect its trademarks, its logos, and its intellectual property, but for Linden Lab to have permitted residents to use domain names such as SLExchange, SLProfiles, SLTrivia, and SLBoutique (now OnRez.com) for the last four years, and then to suddenly try to say that they’ll all have to change their established business names is cutting the throats of the very people that helped to popularize Second Life as a platform, a game, a social networking site — however you look at it.
What’s worse is how it affects residents who have worked long and hard to establish their businesses and were very careful to follow Linden Lab’s previous branding guidelines to the letter, only to now be told that they aren’t in compliance with the new regulations because their URL has “SL” in it. Talk about changing horses in midstream!
Please read in full; the article starts on page 5, and jumps to page 19.
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Additionally, Hamlet Au has completed the survey he was running at New World Notes, and he publishes the results, along with a distillation of 10 questions concerned Residents are wanting answered by Linden Lab.
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[1] “Trademarkgate” is a copyrighted term of the avatar known as Harper Ganesvoort, and all rights are reserved in perpetuity, unless you are a fellow Second Life blogger. Linden Lab will have to pay royalty through the nose for the right to use this term (grin).
