Legal Questions

My company Robo Studios www.robostudios.com is currently filming a SL documentary.

I was wondering if anyone had some links or information they could point me to, to better define the need around Land Release forms and permissions for filming stock footage in SL.

It seems to be a "grey" area, and our attorney has no clue as this is such an emerging technology. Maybe I have the wrong attorney or maybe its just to new an idea.

I am just trying to dot the i's and cross the t's. Any help would be welcome.

Anders von Reis Crooks
Robo Studios

hey, i have been pondering similiar questions in this thread
/278/66/110371/1.html

And maybe its obvious, but since i didntat first: did you read the TOS ?
Section number 3 is on intellectual property.
find it here http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php
If you havent, there is some useful stuff in there.
hope that helps and i would love to have more info or
case studies from this area.

EDIT for further thoughts: I have thought a lot about the fact that LL is encouraging the making and spreading of SL machinima. In the current trailer competition there is a reqiurement to release your subimisson under a CC(creative commons) license.
Now this is only possible(legally) if you hold complete rights to your video..and that you couldn't have for a video shot in SL without express permission from LL and other possible
copyright holders such as individual builders and designers.

I might have misunderstood the TOS but but. .Im NOT wanting to discourage anyone in experimenting with machinima but there are no clear rules on what goes...as in most intelectual property situations it will largely be up to where your content is used and for what purpose...

Thanks for the links.

That has been my understanding. That you not only need to get a waiver for the interviews that you might do, but also need land release waivers from anyone who owns recognizable stuff used in your primary footage. Ie, you cant film on someones land without their permission. Just like RL.