Trademarking of SL, and when it comes down to semantics

Earlier today, a company I co-own and run known as Second Life Championship Wrestling was hit with an email (more specifically, my partner received the email) stating that we had violated the terms of usage of the words Second Life and SL. Simply put, we've had the name Second Life Championship Wrestling since before the guidelines were in place, and used the abbreviation of SLCW on many occasions. We've been showcased, we've had lindens come to our shows, and never once in over a year did we hear a peep...until today.

Now, my problem isn't that they have guidelines on the use of the terms Second Life, SL, and inSL...it's the level of how it's handled, and what is "ok" and what is "not ok". For those that are unaware of which is which, check out:

http://secondlife.com/corporate/brand/trademark/sl_insl.php

As it stands, we're being told that being called Second Life Championship Wrestling is not allowed, as well as SLCW, but SL Championship Wrestling (which is the name on the land, as well as the showcase info) is ok. It's the same exact thing, but we're not allowed to deviate from SL Championship Wrestling. As well, acronyms can be used apparently only for domain names, but use on things like logos is not allowed. As it stands, the following were the "suggested changes":

SLC Wrestling ---> SL Championship Wrestling Organization
SLCW Staff Group ---> SL Championship Wrestling Staff Group
SLCW Fan Group ---> SL Championship Wrestling Fan Group
SLC professional Wrestler Fed. ---> SL Championship Pro Wrestler Fed

As it stands, they are not even allowing us to use a domain for a site purchased, again, a year ago that is SLCWrestling.com. SLCW.com is alright, but SLCWrestling.com is not. Direct from the email we received:

"So, for example, under the license, the domain name http://slcw.org would be OK for the name SL Championship Wrestling, but the domain name http://slcwrestling.com is NOT OK."

As it stands, we've been given a grand total of 2 days to change everything. This includes...site domain name, groups, logo, name of the organization, and everything that involves the use of SLCW or SLCWrestling (which is only a group name and the domain for our site). So again...acronyms are fine, but only in domains? How is SLCW.com ok (it's taken or we would have gotten it), but slcwrestling.com is not? And why is SL Championship Wrestling ok, but SLCW and Second Life Championship Wrestling a sin against god and man?

Forgive the rant, I'm just a bit upset over this happening, and then the very nonchalant way of them handling it. We have two days to literally change everything we've had for a year, have had nothing but the best of standings with SL, and it comes down to name semantics. Any opinions? Insights? Anyone else get one of these oh-so-fun letters?

By the way, as a fun aside, we have two days to completely remove anything with SLCW or Second Life Championship Wrestling from the following (but again, SL Championship Wrestling is fine!):

Please also remove your other uses of "SLCW," "Second Life Championship Wrestling," and "SLC Wrestling," including all uses in:

* Your domain name http://www.slcwrestling.com/
* Your website logos, banners, and content
* Any video or other content you create after the date of this email
* Your Second Life avatar profile
* Your parcels and parcel descriptions in the Russo region
* Your images, signs, objects, content, and locations in Second Life
* Profile picks, event listings, and classified listings in Second Life

Ouch. Sorry to hear about that.

You probably don't have a lot of choice in this - you're going to have to change things. Have you tried sending them a _polite_ note asking for more time?

Nothing to do with sin, I expect. It's just a reflection of existing precedent in trademark law.

(I'd guess that the 'all-initials is okay on the Web, but prohibited inworld' part is because in the context of all that exists in the Internet, "SLCW" could be just about anything---but inworld, anything starting with "SL" might be presumed to have a legal connection with Linden Lab.)

Dear god, again the heavy fist against the users... (is not our world our imagination anymore)<-- maybe i get in trouble for this o_O

2 days plus however long it's been (6 months?) since they told everyone that they had to stop using "Second Life" and "SL" in brand names.

It's all very sad and everything but welcome to the real world where contracts and copyright and trademarks are actually enforced by lawyers.

I'd say if you make a good faith effort to get it done as soon as possible the two day limit won't be enforced but don't take my word for it IANAL.

I thought the words "Championship" and "Wresting" were in fact nouns?



cham·pi·on·ship (chăm'pē-ən-shĭp')
n.
1. The position or title of a winner.
2. Defense or support; advocacy: her championship of the elderly and their rights.
3. A competition or series of competitions held to determine a winner.

wres·tling (rĕs'lĭng)
n.
1. A sport in which two competitors attempt to throw or immobilize each other by grappling.

Perhaps you just need to move your hyphen from SLC-W to SLCW-?

Perhaps this is the section you're running afoul of:


Honestly, it looks like you should Abandon the "SLC" part, and switch to SLChampionshipWrestling. In my non-expert opinion, the name "SLCWrestling" looks like "just the wrestling arm of a larger entity called "SLC". SLC is what looks (to me) like it's in violation. SLCFootball, SLCBaseball, etc..

I think if you want to keep your business having the "SL" in the name, you might want to change it around a bit. Personally, to me it's not worth the bother. I'd suggest moving on to "Virtual World", "Cyber" or "Metaverse" since clearly SecondLife doesn't want to become the AOL of the 3d internet.

Virtual World Championship Wrestling? VWCW?

Remember to not "get cute" and take on the WWF or WWE's trademarks in the process. (VWWE isn't gonna fly)

Oh, even more fun in this on-going saga! They're going against their own policy with the 2 days thing too!

"If at any time your use of "SL" or "inSL" does not conform to the terms and conditions of this License in Linden Lab's sole opinion, Linden Lab shall have the right to request that you modify or terminate your use, and you agree to comply with Linden Lab's request within seven (7) days after it was made."

By the way, the whole point of this is that we use SL Championship Wrestling as our main name, which is fully allowed, but any variation for any reason is not allowed. I can use an acronym of the SLCW on a site domain, but not in world? Plus, it's not like we run around calling ourselves SLCWrestling, we used it for domain purposes and a group name only.

In the end, what blows my mind is this...

1) SL Championship Wrestling is fine, but ANY use of the variation Second Life Championship Wrestling is not.
2) SLCW.com would be an allowed domain, but using SLCW as our logo is not
3) SLCW.com is alright, but SLCWrestling.com is not. By the way, good luck finding any site that's an acronym .com site after the dotcom boom.

Oh, and the fact that we've been showcased and had lindens come to our show and just NOW they're going "oh, wait, we cant allow this". Now I'm having to run around and go "Oh, you cant have that in your profile pics! LL said so!" It's ridiculous.

EDIT:

To answer on the SLCWrestling thing, we only used it as a domain name because slcw.com was taken. As well, we made a new staff group and just used SLCWrestling for it because our original staff group was manned by someone else who decided to leave SL a month into our starting and noone else had rights to it. Beyond that, the term SLCWrestling is not used.

If your SL business were worth real money, you'd sue and settle. Linden Lab sat on its trademark rights, gave you tacit permission to use the trademark, and happily collected your money all the while. Now they are giving you an arbitrary, unreasonably short period to change. Fraud and breach of contract come to mind.

I'm guessing though you are like most people. You don't make enough money to avail yourself of the legal process, in which case you have to suck it down.

In the course of complying, file a Better Business Bureau complaint, and publicize the story. There are only two things that are going to force Linden Lab to change its behavior. One is for them to accidentally screw someone with the money and inclination to sue them. The other is for the press about the fact that Linden Lab is untrustworthy and incompetent to catch up with the Second Life as wave-of-the-future press.

Write this up professionally and matter-of-fact, and submit it to the serious media that write the articles about Linden Lab as a business. If enough of these appear, maybe someone will finally start reporting on Linden Lab's business practices.