New Branding Policy

Went to log in today, and was confronted with a mandatory TOS change. Agree or leave. What was the change? Why, our hosts are taking steps to protect their trademarks and branding.

As I read it, we can no longer use the words Second Life, SL, Linden Lab, LL, or even SLurl in text without permission, and without putting that silly little "registered trademark" symbol after it. The one that isn't on any keyboard and takes five minutes of resarch to figure out how to type. You can't use the SL eye-in hand logo without permission. I guess that means the cute mentor tag I have that has a sculptie SL hand logo has to stay in the inventory now.

I haven't yet accepted the TOS, so this one last post is still OK, I guess. After I hit the Submit key, I'm going to accept the new rules. So you won't see any more posts from me that use the forbidden words. I'm too stiffnecked to use "registered" symbols in the company's own goddam web forums. So I'll just have to come up with a few words that they haven't trademarked.

I shall refer to Linden Lab henceforward as Our Hosts. The virtual world they created, and which we all enjoy will be referred to as Pixel Universe, or PU for short. A PU web address will be, of course, a Purl.

Gee. The Place That Must Not Be Named just got a whole lot bigger.

So let me get this straight the Lindens(TM) don't want us saying Seocnd Life(TM) in game in text without putting little copyright symbols on it when they(TM) take weeks to respond to a typical DMCA complaint?

LOL talk about some nerve.

What the heck?

So even when I type in IM's and on any board post I can no longer talk about P.U. ?

I like the P.U. cuz this stinks.

BTW I have not had this thing to agree to pop up for me yet.

http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/03/24/introducing-the-second-life-brand-center/

We all just need to learn how to use the correct noun in the correct place and everything will be fine and we all have 90 days to learn the new lingo in the brave new virtual world.

The list of how to refer to the brand would be comical if it wasn't so serious.

They didn't say anything specific about "in game". Just that you need permission to use their registered trademarks. Presumably anywhere.

Or LindeX, or Second Life Grid, or SL, or inSL, or Linden Lab and I'm sure others I didn't bother with. I figured this was enough to violate the TOS.

There are in-world groups that have Second Life in the group name. Group name aren't user changeable.

There are groups in facebook, for one example of a place where the Second Life name is used, such as Second Life Residents, one called Second Life Link, and the fan page I created called "Second Life" specifically so that members could have the phrase "is a fan of Second Life" appear in their profiles like it does for other things like the Flock browser, for example.

I suppose I can delete my various Second Life wikis and other web pages that have Second Life in the url. They aren't changeable, but the sites can be deleted.

More rules just to have some Lindens say they ae doing thier jobs so they don`t get fired.............

I have accepted and am in PU now. How do I get the PUViewer to add the (R) symbols to the built in text?

submit a ticket on that

Isn't it a bit late for this?

hmmm

I can say Pepsi Cola

and Coca Cola

and McDonnalds

and Enron,

Google,

Krispy Kreeme.

Is it like those where I couldnt make a "Coca Cola" Website and claim to be from the company?

or literally if I say (comes after first) Life, I am in violation.

Actually, you CAN use the "inSL" text and logo. They WANT you to. So if you have a commercial website or real world business, you can proudly say that you also have a presence "inSL". Pfft. Free advertising.

I don't think so. PU has always referred specifically to the virtual world developed by Our Hosts. It never got accepted into the language as a generic term, like "aspirin".

But itwould still be interesting to see someone bring an action against them for it.

I wonder how much this has to do with those other grid projects?

I guess I'm being dense. What does PU mean? Is that you say when you smell Second Life or what?

See post 1: Pixel Universe

I'm not planning to get too exercised about this. I suppose if I had to refer to Second Life-related trademarks outside the web domain, I'd be careful. But here, if they don't protect their trademarks with language on the front page that applies throughout the domain, it's their damned fault, not mine.

Thanks, I skimmed the first post.

Peeyuuu! is still something one might say after smelling Second Life, isn't it?

For those wishing to comply with the latest change of TOS:

ALT+ 0169 = ©

ALT+ 0174 = ®

ALT+ 0153 = ™

Thats by holding down the "Alt" key (not sure about Mac version) and using the NUMBER PAD.

We now return you to your usual SL Forums™ Silliness.

Exactly

Good night all and have fun in -

(RR)(TM)Second©®™ Life©®™(TM)(RR)(patent pending)

Lindal, did you trademark PU?

Another good reason to refer to "That company in San Francisco that Produces an online multi-user 'platform'" as "Linden Labs"... rather than "Linden Lab™"

I wish them good luck defending a trademark on "SL".. the country "Sierra Leone" may have something to say about that with their top-level ".sl" domain... and I'm pretty sure that "SL Industries" (http://www.slpdq.com/ SLI on AMEX) and "Sherrill-Lubinski Corporation" (http://www.sl.com) might have something to say about that trademark as well. Not to mention that "Microsoft Dynamics SL" uses the letters also.

I do wonder what this might mean to places like "SLExchange, SLUniverse, etc"

Oh, no! We have to sign up for three alts just to comply?