Machinima is against Linden Labs TOS

A friend pointed this out to me:

"Section 3.4 Linden Lab licenses its textures and environmental content to you for your use in creating content in-world.

During any period in which your Account is active and in good standing, Linden Lab gives you permission to create still and/or moving media, for use only within the virtual world environment of the Service ("in-world", which use or include the "textures" and/or "environmental content" that are both (a) created or owned by Linden Lab and (b) displayed by Linden Lab in-world."

So, it appears that making machinima and doing things like entering contents, HBO buying that one machinima series, uploading our movies to services like Youtube and Blip.tv... its all against Linden Labs's terms of service.

So it seems to be a case of "Your World,Your Imagination" only as long as it remains "In World".
Aurgh..what a way to stifle creativity.
As I am just really starting to enjoy creating Machinama ,I only hope LL doesn't take this to task.

Btw Geuis..just purchased one of your filming path huds the other night..and I'm looking forward to having some spare time to give it a good try out .

It may only affect those textures that Linden provide. For others the following section seems to apply:

Section 3.2:
You also understand and agree that by submitting your Content to any area of the Service, you automatically grant (or you warrant that the owner of such Content has expressly granted) to Linden Lab and to all other users of the Service a non-exclusive, worldwide, fully paid-up, transferable, irrevocable, royalty-free and perpetual License, under any and all patent rights you may have or obtain with respect to your Content, to use your Content for all purposes within the Service. You further agree that you will not make any claims against Linden Lab or against other users of the Service based on any allegations that any activities by either of the foregoing within the Service infringe your (or anyone else's) patent rights.

That's a good addendum. I'm not one to make noise over nothing, but seeing as how a number of us have machinima in various contests, are selling our services to clients, and in many cases producing video that is being used by 3rd parties on television and other services, this is potentially worrying.

Usual disclaimer: I am not a lawyer because my momma raised me better than that.

Ask yourself, "Which do I care more about: the art, or the lawyer FUD?"

Simply put: the TOS clauses only matter if you let lawyers involved in your art.
So, how do lawyers get involved? You use stuff in your art that is not yours.

I know that the real attraction to SL Machinima is the ready-made library of "found" sets, costumes, props, etc.

Remember, all of those things have DRM permissions which can actually be your friends here.

If the object or texture allows "copy" enabled, then that allows use in machinima as far as I am concerned. You have *permission* to *copy* it.

For sets where your camera may be pointing at buildings or scenery, there are 3 real life options used in cinema that can help out:

1. Film in private areas where you have agreement with owner to shoot in whatever direction.
In the agreement with the owner, make sure there is a clause that says the owner represents all objects in his space are cleared for use in this film, and agrees to indemnify and hold harmless (filming company). How many movies are filmed in the Valley of the Gods Arizona, because its easy enough to get a park permit to film there? (Note: land owners might want to consider film releases and film passes in their convenants!)

2. Build sets. Throw together a building, build your set inside, and hang backdrops. Take a look at how THE MATRIX was made... the whole helicopter scene with Neo freeing Morpheus is filmed with a helicopter rig hanging in front of a translite (image printed giant curtain) inside a building. Throw in greenscreen backdrops for in-camera projection work too, and you can get a lot done. Controlling your space like this is generally recommended in SL, to keep Curious Georges from ruining your shots. Set up your film crew with an SL group. Own the land to the group, and restrict all others. Put a film office outside where gawkers can buy passes. It's what the big studios do. Run tours. Open a gift shop.

So, if you have taken steps not to picture other people's property textures by building a space to film in, and taken care to only use items and textures that the DRM terms encourage you to copy, and make anything else you need yourself, then you should be fine.

I don't think you fully understand the problem, Allen, and your solutions have only minimal impact. The problem seemingly is Linden's textures, and only Linden's textures. Anybody else has already given a perpetual, royalty free licence (see the aforementioned Section 3.2) for ALL content in secondlife. So it's any land textures, or anything else in the Linden library that seems to be at risk. Given that then filming in private areas and building sets only works if there are no Linden textures used or, for that matter, windows allowing views outside. That would also include any avatars used.

I'd be surprised if this turned out to be a problem because of the potential to pee-off so many people, not just the ones like us, but all the developers that use video to showcase their works and the real biggies like the tv production companies that are using Secondlife in their shows. That said, it needs to be clarified and amended, if only because - as the saying goes - the law is an ass and it could come back to bite us later.

The real thing is that the textures you upload AUTOMATICALLY become property of Linden Labs according to the TOS. But the first one I mentioned specifically says that video made in SL can only be used in SL.

They get a perpetual, royalty-free licence. Not quite the same as becoming their property.

LL not likely to ban public use of video content? Sure. But if you sell the content, LL may start to want a piece of the action.

Even more troubling -- an immediate problem -- if you sell something that may violate TOS, the buyer may later incur loss or costs if LL takes action. You may be obliged to warn customers of this risk and/or to offer them indemnity in the event of action. (If you know of a risk and don't warn them, they may have grounds to sue you.)
TM

Skribe, this applies to patents, which are not relevant here at all.

I am not a lawer either, since both of my parents raised me better than that, being lawyers themselves.

Jeff

Please show us where the TOS says that. What I read states quite clearly that, except for patents, intellectual property rights are supported: you retain ownership to copyrights.

Geuis's interpretation seems to be pretty sound. Allen's solution doesn't quite solve the problem, because you need to make sure that all textures are NOT Linden textures.

This means, no Linden trees, no clouds, no Linden ground textures, no built-in wall textures, no newbie avatars ... the list goes on and on.

HOWEVER, there is hope. Copyrights don't extend to all things that end up in an image. For example, if I'm filming in public and we see a Coke vending machine in the background, Coca Cola can't sue us for infringement of their trademark or copyrights on the art on the machine, because it's not significant and substantial -- it's just something in the background. The same goes for a copyrighted artwork that the camera happens to catch (but not train on and study).

Therefore, LL would have no claim to make in-world against the people who buy machinima that happens to have some LL textures in the background. The worst they could do in that case would be to ban the customer that made the machinima, siezing all in-world assets. And note that LL could not sell or distribute any of such assets whose copyrights are owned by the banned avatar (i.e., any textures or objects created by them), since that would be a DCMA violation.

Lear, the one thing I would point out in your statement is the logo-in-background stuff. Notice how on TV so often that they blur out logos from generic tshirts, buildings, bottles, etc.

Yes, and notice how often they don't?

I suspect that's more a matter of kowtowing to their sponsors than avoiding lawsuits, because the law is pretty well established. (Do you remember that for many decades, they did NOT blur this stuff? They only do it now that it's technically easy.)

JMHO, of course. If there's anyone with the legal credentials to clarify, please do.

I know this is being discussed better than this but from the original statement.. if Machinima was against the TOS, why would they provide a forum based on it?

Dare we accuse LL of being consistent? LOL

Hey, I'm no LL basher. SL is huge and complex, and I wouldn't want the job of running it. This kind of inconsistency is all too common in business in general.

The programmers giveth, and the lawyers taketh away! (PS: I'm an engineer.)

Like many laws on the books, it's not the rule but how it's enforced. I suspect it is a contingency rule to be used only if someone misuses Second life to make videos that are grossly offensive and/or show SL in a bad light. For instance someone were to make a vile racist or child rape video and LL caught wind of it, this rule could give them the power to stop distribution and penalize the maker. Sort of like the EPA, you think Richard Nixon gave a flip about the environment? Hell no, it is a set of laws designed to allow the federal government to dictate what you can and can not do with private property without changing the constitution.

What this all means is that if they catch us making any money they want some of it. Best way to destroy SL and keep it RL.

No one really needs SL to make machinima, but it makes it easier.

I know one thing though. Their TOS is broken and their advertising contradicts the TOS.

1. Most of the TOS is unenforceable, and Dan Linden has admitted it in public statements.
2. In the latest legal challenge to the TOS, LL lost...or at least, called it a draw (Bragg).
3. The clause mentioned by the OP is not currently enforced, further weakening LL's position should it decide to attempt enforcement in the future.
4. You guys are wasting time arguing about a non-problem.

Machinima is being made, and shown outside the SL world. LL is not howling at anybody about "misuse of Linden textures" when SL landscapes form a part of the machinima. Stop making mountains out of oceanic trenches and go back to filming, fer gossake.

I think you've hit the nail on the head, Lindal.

mmm is gossake as good as hot sake? In complete agreement with ya.

TOS was written way back when there was wooden computers.. as most things in SL were 'provided' for us to create content by LL. Looking back, it shows how narrow minded it was to include that statement, when the platform clearly gives everyone the ability to create.

What I create, I keep, my machinima is my creation... I created this statement for LL to perhaps think about... If SL is my canvas, my keyboard/mouse my paint brush.. then my imagination will be my content.

I do not make content OF SL, I make it WITHIN.... what I do with it, is none of their business. As for only playing machinima in-game, well LL break their own rules by hosting all their own machinima on YouTube

It defys logic that this platform is about content creation, machinima maybe the one element that is always taken out of game at the point of creation, therefore it is no longer within the platform. Should I decide to bring it back into SL, I do so from my own servers and directly onto my own textures and it is streamed directly to each viewers client for rendering, at no point does the media 'touch' the SL servers (using the Silver Stream Network Media System).

Let them try and claim IP rights over any of our media, and see what our lawyers make of it .