LL, rights, and SL Pictures?

Can any one point me in the direction of a portion of the SL website that will tell me what exactly I can use from SL and LL in relations to a RL business?

Let my try to clarify...

I work for a small table top gaming company. I'd like to put some SL photographs taken in world of avatars in our table top manual to promote SL and the possibility of an RPG sim. Is this legal?

Can I use the term Second Life legally on our website promoting an RPG sim that goes along with the table top world?

I've seen it done with other websites, but it seems like a sticky area....I was hoping someone may know more than me.

Technically, no, per the ToS (http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php), specifically:
However, there's YouTube machinima and Flickr photo sets all over that completely flout this in-world-only restriction. I can't guess whether LL's lawyers would give your company explicit permission for this, but at least you have lots of precedents in your favor.

Definitely not, although there is the "inSL" logo and other licensing that you could get, following the branding instructions on http://secondlife.com/corporate/brand/.

Probably not the answers you wanted, but hope it's helpful anyway.

This is probably a good place to start.
http://secondlife.com/corporate/brand/

Edit: Or what Qie said.

I'm not sure anyone here in Resident Answers can answer your question. Your best bet would be to contact Linden Lab directly with your questions. That may save your company some embarrassment and, possibly, some legal issues.

Thanks guys! Always so helpful!

/me goes off to research.

I don't think that 3.4 of the TOS prevents use of an SL screen shot.

3.4 is about content creation. It allows LL textures to be used for creating in-world content. It would prevent exporting textures to use in another 3D program (like Poser, for example).

A screenshot isn't content. Any textures used in the screenshot are already rendered. The texture can't be lifted from the screenshot (unless the screenshot is of the un-rendered texture itself).

A texture is a building block in creation. What you see on the screen is the creation.

This sounds to me like the kind of thing you and LL would both want to discuss together.

isn't it only a problem if you are using the name to gain a profit from that name..
to me it sounds like more of a promoting of something inside second life..in turn advertises second life..

i never heard of DR pepper or Coke getting upset over free advertising hehehehe

I wouldn't assume your idea of how SL wants to be portrayed is necessarily exactly theirs.

yes but if i am just giving a location to something and it's in sl i don't need their permission..

if it were the case we couldn't say the name in here..
they could take every bad media story to court for using their name..

"I work for a small table top gaming company. I'd like to put some SL photographs taken in world of avatars in our table top manual to promote SL and the possibility of an RPG sim. Is this legal?"

You may see that as promoting SL but Linden Lab may see that differently.....such as you promoting your game/RPG sim using Second Life as the 'hook'. Discuss this with the people who matter.......Linden Lab.

"Can I use the term Second Life legally on our website promoting an RPG sim that goes along with the table top world?"

Again, a question to the people who matter.......Linden Lab.

"I've seen it done with other websites, but it seems like a sticky area....I was hoping someone may know more than me."

Yes, I think everyone has seen things similar to this on websites. Is it legal? I would say the only way to make sure of the legality is to talk the people who matter......Linden Lab. And the best hope you have for someone knowing more than you (and the rest of us here) is Linden Lab.

A phone call, an email, or even a support ticket would be much better than a post in the Resident Answers forum.

I agree with your conclusion (mostly), but for totally different reasons. I don't agree with your analysis.

Section 3.4 refers specifically to textures owned by LL. Depending on the picture, it's easy to imagine absolutely nothing in the image that's derived from content owned by LL. People who put effort and L$ into their avs are likely to be wearing totally non-Linden clothes, skin, and hair. Background may be more variable, but it's certainly common enough to create a background with no LL content. So it's easy to create an image with no LL content, and then section 3.4 (as quoted) is irrelevant.

However, the quote does mention the creation of "still and/or moving media". So it applies not just to the textures (in the SL technical sense of the word) but to the images created from those textures. So it seems to me they're not just limiting the textures for creating content, but that they're also limiting the images created from rendering those textures. (Whether they have the right to impose such limits is another story, due to fair use arguments.)

Merely mentioning a name is not the issue. The use of that name to further your cause or your business is the issue. The OP has a game that is, I'm assuming, a business venture of some type......that changes the rules.

thats what i was getting at before hand..if it is promoting something that is in second life and you need to use the name second life as part of the directions to it..then all you are doing is giving directions but at the same time Second life gets a little promotion on the side..
just like saying in a news paper ..our biker group will be meeting at the Jack Danials plant before we head off to Stergis this week..it's just directions and you don't need permission..

now if it is a product and they will be benefiting from having their name next to their products name..that's where they need permission..

LL making the name second life protected doesn't take it out of our usable vocabulary..
only out of the usable market for anyone but them unless they give permission..

Well, purely based on the technicalities of wording, I'm not so sure, in that it specifies both "textures" and "environmental content"--and I'm frankly unclear how they might choose to interpret this amorphous "environmental content." Could it include the avatar mesh itself, or the skeleton? That's certainly content, as is scene illumination by Windlight, and lots of other stuff, but whether their lawyers would want to entail any of that in their "environmental content" seems an open question. In any case, all this stuff *and* full-up Linden builds with Linden textures are common in machinima and images all over the web, and I doubt LL has a lot of angst about any of it.

I'm also not sure it would be any better if one used third-party textures and avatars and backgrounds, etc.; a resident's license to use those, too, is generally limited to the SL service itself. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be allowed to just post purchased textures to Flickr, for example. Unless the content creators explicitly granted that permission to me, they've only permitted other users in-world use of the content and permitted LL to use it externally for marketing purposes (all in one huge paragraph of section 3.2 of the ToS). And yet, as with Linden content, it happens all the time with nobody ever objecting.

You will probably need to study these guidelines carefully on the Second Life trademarks.


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