SexGen Take-Down order??

Sorry for getting so defensive, I just deal with these sorts of things a lot and people seem to have a 'care free' sort of attitude. Especially within SecondLife, they really do assume that they have some sort of extended rights and cannot be touched because nobody knows their name. But seriously a close friend of mine was just involved in a lawsuit inworld for a slightly different reason, but his lawyer did manage to get Linden Labs records and prosecute a man living somewhere in Europe, and he is an American. So international laws are getting very grey right now within SecondLife. I just wanted to stress that as a business owner myself inworld, that if somebody came to my shop and made illegal copies of my items, which do happen do be sexual as well, and flooded the grid with cheap illegal knock offs, I would do the same thing.

I actually wasn't taking a stand one way or the other, I am still undecided on the issue. Just pointing out that there is a line of thought opposing them.

I think the thing that irritates me the most about this case...is that Stroker was basically seeking to copyright sex in SL. Now...don't fly off the handle and nitpick, here...I understand good and well that he was merely copyrighting the scripts and animations and trademarking a name.

But on the surface...when most people look at this...they're gonna scratch their heads and ask..."He owns the copyright to sex?"

This is just the first of what I forsee as a number of discontinuities between SL and RL that will attract lawyers like freakin' sharks to a hemophiliac's pool party.

And that...means its time to get outta the water, baby.

well yeah,

In this case they are using his product name too.

Sex-Gen really doesnt have the best sex animations in SL.

Its easy to use and its reliable, but so is some of the competition.

What it has is a Name.



Id be pretty upset if someone opened up a "Colette's Body Shop" and started stealing what little name recognition I've got left.

Hes not trying to copyright sex in SL.

Why do you think that?

(As I understand it) Trademarks aren't designed to first let a term gain popularity and then register it to wipe out the competition and claim sole ownership of the now generic term though.

If "Do you have a sexgen?" is now analogous to "Do you have a scripted sexbed?" for most people then you let the mark slip into generic use and you could loose the rights to it. It's the responsibility of the owner to prevent that erosion of their specific product name (again, as I understand things, but I'm not a trademark lawyer ).

Karl Marx would agree with you. So would millions of people who want something for nothing.

If you'd worked hard to create content and had others benefit from your work without your permission, you might have a better idea what intellectual property laws are for.

If you think more content should be free, then MAKE IT and give it away. I do, it's fun. But I do it voluntarily, and nobody should be forced to give away the results of their own efforts.

I'll admit that the laws are often over-applied, e.g., by RIAA. But this isn't a good case. Otherwise, how are we to tell products built using Stroker's technology from imitators? Should Ford be able to market a car labeled as a BMW? Isn't it useful for us to be able to tell the difference, before paying and trying it out?

"SexGen" isn't a generic term. "Sex bed" is, and anyone can sell a sex bed and call it a sex bed. So, what harm is Stoker causing here? Nobody is restrained from making a good, competitive product. They just can't ride Stoker's reputation without his permission.

For folks who didn't realize they were infringing, a simple cease and desist letter should be sufficient, and it needn't come from Stoker himself, but from someone representing him. Just as in RL, you'd get a letter from an attorney.

Like I said...I know that...and you know that...but folks like the OP are going to be the common denominator that run afoul in this instance. People who probably have no idea they're doing anything wrong.

My point is this...you get lawyers involved in anything...ANYTHING...and the level of brown, stinking, fluid in your life will only increase. And they'll never, never, ever go away.

SexGen Trademarks
http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=77202601

Oh, the drama.

My entire point revolves around the unfortunate arrival of more litigiousness into what is essentially the Land of Make Believe.

And the boogeyman has arrived on the back of the digital winkie wanker.

And do I want something for nothing? Sure. So does everyone. I'm more than willing to pay for what's not being given away for free, though. And I'm willing to build what I can't find or buy. But now...I get to worry about possibly creating a derivative work from something I might've seen in world six months ago? I don't see an upside to that at all.

By protecting your mark from day one, not all of a sudden after 3 years because you find it's suddenly in your best interest.

In RL companies have to work to keep their trademark from becoming generic. Xerox campaigned to encourage people to replace "xeroxing it" with "photocopying" it, Adobe wants you to use "The image was enhanced using Adobe® Photoshop® software" instead of the generic "photoshopped", etc.

They're all documented attempts to protect their mark, but I don't think there's any documented attempt by Eros to get people to abandon their generic use of their mark (please do point to one if I'm wrong ).

(Edited to point out I'm not against sexgen as a trademark, just that I feel Eros is at least partly responsible for the current mess by letting things slip for so long)

It is quite common in the UK to say "doing the hoovering" when you are vaccum cleaning your house, it is also common for loud speaker sytems which broadcast announcements to be called "a Tannoy".

Both Tannoy and Hoover are trademarks, they are the companies that make these devices, and the first to become a household name.

Although its common for people to use these words, you do not see Dyson or Panasonic selling their vacuum cleaners and calling them a "Hoover", neither do you see other electrical companies calling their speaker systems a "Tannoy".

I would think these other companies would be seeking to make their own name a "standard", rather than trying to ride on someone elses reputation.

Ahh I see what you are saying.


But we should take this case at its simplest


------------------
Someone has a business named "Tree"

They have a product called "Leaf-gen"

Other people see how popular "Leaf-gen" is so they decide to name their, similiar product "Leaf-gen"

Its a hit - their competing products take off mega viral in a way only internets stuff can.

Now people think the SL WORD for this type of product is "Leaf-gen"

So other competitors call their similar products "Leaf-gen" having no idea the history of "Leaf-gen"

But the Tree company is being hurt over it and want people to stop calling their stuff "leaf-gen"

They don't want other people to stop making competitive products, the owner of Tree said it clearly. But they dont want anyone using the name "leaf-gen"



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No just replace Tree with "Strokers" and Leaf-gen with "Sex-Gen"

Becuase this is what happend.

I think Craig's point is valid on this.

everyone calls a facial tissue a "Kleenex" but Kleenex's competitors still aren't allowed to call their facial tissues Kleenex.

Yeah. You get my point...and I'm actually a strident supporter of commonwealth copyright laws. But in the real world, not here.

I can now just imagine some legal beagle sniffing around in-world, and spying a shoemaker with a line called "Reebox"...and beginning to sharpen his knives while reaching for his rolodex. And before you know it...the guy who spent months working on his building skills has just been served a cease and desist order from a shoe company in RL. And in a week or two, he'll have his ass handed to him in court.

I know. Paranoid. But sometimes...they really ARE out to get you.

There was someone here who posted a while back who was not Stroker, but was associated with his partner. Clearly, English was not his first language, and he had a legal concepts conflated in his head. This is probably that guy.

Basically, there are not enough facts here to make a judgment about whether or not the usage of the word SexGen violated Stroker's rights. Pepsi doesn't market itself Coke, but it is not banned from using the word "Coke" in its ads - it all depends how. If they say something like 39% more people prefer Pepsi to Coke, it is not a trademark violation. Or simply, "we're better than Coke!" "more refreshing than Coke" or stuff like that, they are entitled to do so. The cannot, however, market Pepsi as if it were Coke. Without knowing what Dementia's friend did, we cannot say if he was being bullied or if he really was violating the rights.

You know what? I'm comfortable with that, I think.

Yes...a number of former product names have become household words...kleenex for facial tissues, aspirin for pain relievers based on acetysalicylic acid, etc. The trademark owner does need to protect his mark from falling into general use.

Stroker did that...a few months back, he began a vigorous campaign of notifying people to take the word "SexGen" out of their advertising for scripted sex furniture.

I'm straddling the fence with Chris on the whole IP morass...as the creator of various original written and visual works, I'm all for protecting the creator's rights. But as a consumer of popular music and videos, I'm in favor of content being readily available, and in favor of being able to back it up, or transfer it between different devices that I own.

The current copyright laws were not designed for the digital age, that's for sure.

The success of iTunes may be a sign of future things. It's the closest we've come so far to a real "microcurrency" that functions in the real world, and being able to access content at a very reasonable price while still rewarding the creator.

Yeah they should just say "1/2 the price of a comparable sex-gen" or something and they should be fine.

Which shouldnt be hard since the real Sex-Gens are crazy expensive.

Yes, I remember that, and it could be that sort of situation. But as you say it should really be quite simple.

"Am I selling something and implying it is a SexGen product? e.g. 'buy this SexGen bed which I made'" Yes? Don't then, you are claiming your product is something which it isn't.

"Am I referring to SexGen in a way that doesn't suggest that this product is a SexGen product? e.g. 'it works like SexGen', 'it is better than SexGen', 'it is compatible with SexGen'" Fine, no problem.

I agree with protecting IP, Trademark and Copyright as long as it's within limits. Seeking reembursement for such is fine. However, most go WAY to flippin' far. As in the "I'm sueing for 50 millin dollars" type lawsuit. That's jsut wrong.

In Stroker's case, I believe what he is sueing for is within reason. Esspecially given that the defendant was with the "you can't catch me, so I'm going to keep doing it" attitude.

~Jessy

The way I see it, is that he is taking one for the team. Just not your team. I highly doubt he'll get much money out of the 19 y/o who lives with his parents (the first case). At least not to compensate for the time he's putting in which could be better spent making new stuff. He's taking one for the content creator's team who keeps getting screwed over by people who find exploits to steal people's hard work. The ones who's IP is protected by law and SL TOS which LL doesn't have the time to deal with eventhough they are legally obligated to do.

You can despise any law that you like, you can lobby to get them removed or changed (which I doubt you even do), but the fact remains that it is a law. If I despised the laws against murder, it doesn't mean that if I kill someone I won't go to jail if caught.

Quite frankly, people who fake trademarks _are_ the enemy. They are not on my "team". They are on the opposing team.

I would be very happy to see everyone selling things using famous RL trademarks, or anyone else's trademarks, prevented from doing so, not because of any sympathy for the poor starving multinationals, but because by doing that they are perpetuating the importance of trademarks, helping to maintain and promote a situation where brand is more important than actual quality.

Put on your tinfoil hat.
Now, go ahead and *shoot* someone in SL. Really.

SL isn't the real world. But when you start pretending that it is...things get ugly.

Oh, and you can suck on my EFF membership until your face turns blue.

I can see this is a very hot topic, just shows you how much SL can impact RL. I understand completely though when it comes to copyright infringement or stealing of another persons work. I as a business owner myself would be upset if someone stole a design on one of my products or completely copied it from top to base and called it theirs.

So it was no problem for my friend to remove "sexgen" from his product description. However, I do agree that the name "sexgen" has started to become generic already.

Thank you all whom provided useful links and information. This was not in any attempt to steal the trademark or classify it as his, he just didn't know it was trademarked.