New blog post on LL's Content Management Roadmap

You only have a license to use them from LL, and the ToS grant LL the right to take that license back any time they want.

But how legally watertight are ToS? In the UK, certainly, it's not always that easy to escape your legal responsibilities by sticking something in a contract to the effect, "such and such a law doesn't apply to us".

Pretty darned good. So far, the only part that has been thrown out is the "binding arbitration in a venue of our choosing" clause, thanks to Bragg.



Well, nothing in the SL ToS has been shown to be against any particular law, with respect to content. As far as I can tell, there shouldn't be, either.

Also, I don't think there is any clause related to it which says or even implies such a thing.

Doesn't work in the US, either.

Quite possibly you are correct, but we won't know if something in the SL ToS is or isn't against some particular law unless someone asks a court what it makes of it. My point was that, even though, as Argent says, " the ToS grant LL the right to take that license back any time they want," I'm not sure that's the end of the matter.

LL takes assets back every time they ban someone. They trashed all of Stroker's sex beds no matter who owned them, and didn't have to pay for any of that.

Here is a crosspost from my SLU post

Various people
Quote: I think I'll just wait and see what happens.

I'd like to propose a plan of action.

Whereas - LL is saying that export import tools should conform to industry standards then suggest what industry standards should be though their are some technical problems with the suggested standards. Specifically with regards to preserving creator information. First while SL dose record the creator of individual prims and components it just list the creator of the root prim as the overall object creator. This creates two problems with "preserving creator information" The first is determining who the overall creator is. The second is potentially a showstopper, most of the backup tools are clients when they recreate an item i believe they simply cannot set any name other name than the name they logged on as the creator of of individual prims or components.

Whereas - LL has said that they intend to implement sticky licenses for creator that want to sell to their behind the firewall corporate clients clients. The problem with that is that their definition of sticky license probably won't match most creators idea of what a sticky license should be. In fact from what i am hearing i suspect that the sticky license might be a check box or two on the SLX listing indicating the item is to be released under CC license. What i suspect creators envision a sticky license would amount to would be equivalent to a custom note card permanently anchored in the inventory of the item.

What i propose is that those who make 3rd party clients that backup items do is do an inspect and copy all the prim info to a file and then when they recreate the item add a notecard called backup_log to each prim inventory and paste the old inspect info onto it.

While they are at it look in the inventory for a notecard called attached_ license and if they find it automatically upload & copy it to. Next it should check this notecard for a line with allow_grid_transfer or allow_transfer_to, grid-x, grid-y. Further such clients should not allow the deletion or editing of such named notecards.

Of course this will provide no more real security than the no robots text file that protects websites from gogle. However it will allow creators some abillity to indicate weather they want to allow off grid export.

Also LL seems to be in a fear funk and if given a Lead, follow or get out of the way ultimatum they might change their viewer code to conform. hopefully

That as well for sure

because they're not on sl servers. they're stand alone, behind the firewall corporate offerings.


As for the rest of the post. I'm not going address your and Talarus' other points again because both of you appear to believe that the ToS in this instance applies to resident to resident transactions where I believe that it is part of the contract between the resident and LL. Two entirely different things.

As none of us are lawyers none of us can know for sure.

I'd like to see both yours and Ceera evidence for this assumption.

There has been no rush to fill the mall/vendor space on Zindra. Feel free to ask any of the space providers.

The land values for land that has been put up for sale is on par with the rest of the mainland and as far as I can see none of it was snapped up by anyone during those brief periods they were for sale - so the prices are potentially on par with the bottom reaches of mainland prices i.e. not even as valuable as the same kind of mature land.

Unless the two of you have some kind of vested interest in whipping up people so they foolishly pay extortionate prices for land at auction (because by the look of it LL will not allow land sales before then so people will actually have no idea of its true market worth) I don't see what information you are using to base your opinion.

The bottom line appears to be that most people want to take their chances on the old mainland.

They're still being presented by LL as part of the SL service.

You're completely misunderstanding our points.

Of course it's part of the contract between the user and LL. As part of the contract, you license your content to LL for use in the SL service. When you look at something in SL, you're allowed to see it because the contract gives LL the right to display it to you. When you buy something in SL, you buy the right to perform certain operations on it on the SL service. Linden Lab is still providing access to it under the terms of the contract between the creator and LL. Unless the creator enters into a separate contract with you, that's all you're allowed to do with it... request LL, via the SL servers, to perform operations on the content.

Yes, I realise that. What I'm asking, though, is if they were acting lawfully in so doing without some sort of court order. Did Stroker seek a legal remedy for the nuisance they'd caused him, only to be told by a court that LL were perfectly within their rights to act as they did, or did he just let the matter go by default?

I don't know anything about American civil law, but a lot of LL's behaviour strikes me as pretty whimsical and arbitrary and I'm not at all sure it would all stand up to legal scrutiny.

My point is that, the more they try to regulate stuff in-world in a way that costs people money, unless they clean up their act considerably, the more likely they are to find someone who's sufficiently upset, and thinks it worthwhile, to ask a court to intervene to protect his or her interests. Then we will know if they're acting lawfully, and I suspect Linden Labs may get a nasty surprise in some cases.

My evidence is the past behavior of land speculators in Bay City and Nautilus City, where some speculators snapped up vast amounts of land at auction or from individuals who bravely offered parcels for sale at reasonable rates, and immediately those speculators were asking extortion prices for the land they obtained, while putting up out-of-theme megaprim griefer towers on the parcels, to encourage people to buy them out and rid the land of their eyesores, while Linden Lab did NOTHING to stop it. And in those cases, it was a "take it or leave it" choice for most Residents as far as buying there. No one HAD to move to Bay City or Nautilus. In Zindra, it will be pretty much "The only game in town" if you want Mainland and intend to use it for Adult purposes. There will be a lot of people who LL denied a free move to Zindra, because although their Adult Content is Publicly accessible, it wasn't a "Commercial Business". There will be a lot of Adult merchants who were ineligible for the free swaps because they only rented mall space, and whose landlords will evict them rather than reduce mall traffic by relocating to Zindra or an Adult Rated private sim. Those people will be forced to buy in the auctions or from the speculators who will, I am certain, snap up all the most desirable land and then jack the prices sky high. Just like they did in Bay City and Nautilus.

My evidence is several Linden replies to Resident concerns about land speculators, which were a terse "Land Speculation is not against the TOS". LL does not CARE what land prices do, as long as either the land speculator or their victims are paying the tier on the sims. If auction prices get insane, that is just more profit for Linden Lab.

Land is not yet LEGALLY for sale in Zindra, except as being handed out for the free land swaps from the mainland. While some Zindra Residents may have already tried to transfer land between themselves (Which LL encouraged them to do), LL has NOT yet made it legal for anyone else to buy land there. So of course there has been no rush yet. You stated yourself that LL will not allow land sales there before they start the auctions for the remaining land, and the Auctions haven't opened yet. The start of the auctions was when the feeding frenzy occurred in Bay City and Nautilus City.

I don't want to see anyone paying extortionate prices for land, anywhere. I think the speculators who made land extortionately priced in Bay City and in Nautilus ought to be permabanned from SL. And I think that, if my predictions are right and speculators do snap up the land, the average Resident would be wise to tell the speculators to sit on their overpriced extortion parcels and rot. Refuse to bid on an auction that goes unreasonably high, and refuse to pay extortionate rates for land. But this also means that many people who NEED to move to Zindra will get screwed, because they will not be able to get the land they need at a reasonable price.

My only interest in this whole thing is that I don't want to see other residents screwed over by LL's lax and stupid policies. I don't own any Mainland, and I don't own any Private Island land that I use for anything other than my own personal use and that of my friends in my household. I NEVER buy land to rent or resell to anyone else. But I do see the Linden's policies on how they are handling this as being extremely harmful to a lot of residents, while allowing a handful of land speculators to reap fat profits at everyone else's expense.

I would be overjoyed to be proven dead wrong, and to see land prices in Zindra stay at sane levels in the auctions and in subsequent parcel sales. But I think that is extremely unlikely, based on past history in Bay City and Nautilus.

LL could fix that by continuing to grow Zindra and auction new regions until people stopped buying them.I really hope LL does this if the speculators that pounced Bay City start buying there.

I agree with you wholeheartedly over past performance and I'm certainly not happy that there will be people who are effectively conned into buying land at auction that will be way over market value because of the speculators.

My assumption is that everyone who advertises bar those who have mall space where they don't advertise have known for a week now. So the renters would either have been told their future by the mall management or would have gone shopping for space here - and yet the rental spaces are not full (and really there's not that many of them around at the moment) or if they own the land they should have applied for the swap. So I assume that those who didn't apply were either on holiday and they'll have to sort it out with LL when they get back or they have made the decision to stay on the mainland.

I do believe there were people who did sex up their land to get a move and there were also speculators who did so. What surprised me though was how few applications they got all up also they said they had a last minute rush after that email but it took them around a week and a half to not only clear the majority of those but the majority of the others previously lodged. It took them something like 2 weeks just to process the first days applications originally.

For me the only unknown is how much pent up demand by non commercial residents there is. I'm guessing very little. There will be some residents that want to move because they enjoy their outdoor play more than hate the thought of leaving their land or moving everything. I do suspect though they will be a minority.

However since LL hasn't actually bothered to tell the majority of the populace about the adult content changes the final outcome really is an unknown.

You're certainly right to be afraid of the land speculators blowing prices out of proportion and I can see LL manipulating it for all they're worth. Can't you see it now? The first time a lot of people will find out about it is when LL starts trumpeting it all over its spaces.. you know.. "want to be able to do adult things? well, we're releasing special land just for you!!" and I'll lay bets they'll manage to send everyone an email about that.

What I do think though is that for those who do know about Zindra they'll have seen no one has a good word to say about it.

Every fora I go to there's nothing but comments about they tacky builds, the ugly infrastructure, the proliferation of ad boards, glow and all manner of things that seem to have upset those who visit. So they're be no cachet from being here. Which again leaves us with only those who want to have the freedom to do their outdoor thing without the worry of ARs and again, except for a small minority I think most people will sit tight and see how it plays out.

yes, there are holes in this theory you could drive a truck through because we know that not all businesses were told through that email (all the non English keyword people at least) and I know that not everyone who was sent the email actually received it as the two i was sent were put in the spam filter but I think in general for the English speaking group directly affected they know.

There is nothing we can do to stop the deep pockets of the speculators lining LL pockets through the auctions and then their own by gouging people and it is an interesting quandary for people who want to move. Either they will have to fight it out with the speculators at auction or they'll have to buy inworld at outrageous prices from the speculators afterwards.

The real market price appears to be very reasonable for the land but unfortunately the auctions are going to distort this in ways that are unknowable yet. In a way I'm hoping that the speculators end up with white elephants and that when the dust settles and the proper resident to resident transactions start they'll either have to drop their prices or hold onto and hope for another bubble. I'm fine with them losing money over it.

Which is possible if I'm right about there being no seriously large pent up demand.

The only thing we can be sure of is that whatever happens it won't be in the best interests of the majority of residents but LL will make money.

My assumption is that most people who need to take action still don't think it applies to them, and we won't see the real magnitude of the problem until a significant number of people actually start getting busted.

If they got the email then they have a pretty good idea it applies to them. Despite the almost incoherence of the mail itself.

Your assumption certainly applies to non commercial residents though. My assumption is that those who know are actually doing your assumption.

You're right that once we see whether or not LL are going to swoop down on people we'll know how serious they are. At the moment I'm leaning towards businesses being busted and the occasional private resident where someone kind(not) soul has ARd them and I do think it will be token.

Of course I could be wrong, particularly if LL feel there is PR mileage to be gained by actually cleaning it up - or if they want to boost the auction take up/prices. On past performance though you've got to admit the likelihood is not high once their honeymoon period has passed and they're sidetracked by something else.

Content Management anyone?

Didn't that email only go to mainland owners?

It does apply to resident-to-resident transactions, ones that occur inside of SL. It contains two parts: one part between the creator and LL, and between the consumer and LL. LL acts as a default mediator of rights with regard to who can do what with a creator's content. You're right, it most definitely is part of the contract between the resident and LL, AS WELL AS being part of the contract where LL acts as the mediator between residents. If your content could only ever be viewable by you, then they wouldn't be acting as a mediator, and they wouldn't need any part of the ToS regarding mediating rights transfer and assignment. However, SL is not a single-user service, as that defeats the whole point.



The ToS is a contract. It isn't a black box that you blithely sign your name to when you join SL. You should read it before agreeing to it and, if you have questions about it, you should contact your lawyer for advice to clear up any misunderstandings before you assent to be bound by LL's contract. Now, you can blithely go ahead and sign it, then fight it out with LL later, but that's usually a significantly more costly step. Even still, whatever you do in this regard has no bearing on what others have done to understand the document before signing it, so your gross generalization does not apply.

Weren't you talking about low rental rates in Zindra were an indication of low demand? That's what I thought I saw... and renters didn't get any email.

do you know for sure renters with ads didn't get emails? I've not seen that anywhere.

If the emails got sent to the land owner of the ad referred to then there must be an incredible amount of evil mall owners that have not told their renters that they're about to be turfed or of course the mall owner is prepared to keep them there and run the risk of the shop being ARd..

Wasn't the sarcasm not clear enough? and with the work I have put in with all the others over all this I would have thought you of all people would have understood that would have been the furthest thought in my mind ah well we live and learn

I am well aware of the lack of interest btw on mall take up, we run one.

well, it looks like we're even since I would have thought that you would have understood that the comment was at odds with the truth but you didn't recognise the ridiculousness in mine. As you say, we live and learn.

I apologize for being short at you in my wording, its been a hard week RL as well as everything here

Everybody play nice.