SexGen Take-Down order??

By the sounds of things neither you nor your friend knew about either the controversy, nor the origin of the term "Sex-Gen"

So I can hardly see where you did any wrong on purpose.

Good luck to you and your friend with his store.

I wouldn't call those arguments strong. You have to realize that the article is focused on an intra-libertarian debate on intellectual property rights. Outside of the context of libertarian versus libertarian arguing about intellectual property rights, the strength of those arguments as a whole become quite easy to take apart if for no other reason than you can attack the underlying libertarian premises that support them.

yes because liberty is such a flimsy premise.

Liberty and libertarianism are not interchangable terms. Swing and a miss at your attempt to be sarcastic.

Liberty is the cornerstone of Libertarianism. It is the only premise that matters.

The rest of it is just Rhetoric.

SexGen is trademarked therefor no you cant sell them using the name SexGen or shouldn't. Its just like advertising nike or anything else and it depends upon the agressiveness of the company protecting its trademark. If they go on a binge they will contact LL and ask that all things with the word SexGen be removed and probably visit a bunch of places at the same time.

Its like anything else that your not supposed to do. Yes others are doing it and they might even get away with it. Doesn't make it right to follow suit. Its basically taking a chance that if you do it you wont get caught. If your okay with that kind of moral way of thinking and I know a LOT of people are then well when you get caught realize that what you were doing was wrong to start with and all those other guys are also doing something wrong. Justifying it with a "but he does it too" wont help. Wrong is wrong its up to everyone to decide how wrong they want to be if that makes any sense

Liberty is also the basic premise for many other political philosophies which are not considered to be libertarian. So clearly it is not the only premise that matters in libertarianism or we would be calling a multitude of other political philosophies libertarian which we do not. If it were then there would not be rights theorists libertarians and consequentialist libertarians. There would not be libertarians disagreeing on issues ranging from abortion to war. Oh and there would not be libertarians arguing with one another about intellectual property rights which is why Long wrote that article.

One can argue against libertarian premises without arguing against individual liberty. Libertarianism and liberty are still not interchangeable terms. Second swing and a miss. Strike two.

OMG you guys are gonna make my head splode with all this liberty and libertarianismismsms isms..

All this over a trademark violation even

Just reviewing the USPTO site, SexGen(TM) is a trademark, but apparently not yet a registered trademark (which would be denoted by "R)". Which means he's claimed it, but it hasn't withstood challenge, nor been granted any review by the USPTO beyond acceptance of a filing.

That said, using the Mark at this point without the (TM) attribution is subject to take-down notices and possible litigation. On the other hand, the Mark filers have apparently continued to use it on products without the "TM)" symbol after their filing was accepted, which would be harmful to them if challenged on whether or not it was truly something other than a generic term.

So anyway, if one really wanted to fight their lawyers about whether that particular term can still be claimed as indicating brand identity as opposed to referring to a class of products, there may be some space to make a case. But it would be expensive, and anyone's guess who'd win.

For my money, it's a pretty lame term anyway, whether used for a brand or a product class. And especially now that the name has gotten so much attention, if I were selling a similar product that I thought was any good, I wouldn't want it tainted with that name.

I said the premise of Libertarianism is liberty. I didn't say they were the same thing. You are just saying thats what I have said in order to play baseball for some reason.

You have some sort of dislike for the Libertarian party or their platform evidently, big deal.

The whole concept of libertarians in lock step ascribing to some political party's agenda is an oxymoron.


-------------

A political party can call themselves whatever they want it doesn't mean anything.

The Communists claimed to be communist, they weren't they were socialists.

The Democrats claim to be democrats, they aren't they are republicans.

The Republicans could be argued to border on being oligarchs at the higher levels.

/me chuckles.

You try devoting thousands of hours of your life to products and making hundreds of thousands of dollars off of that product and havng it "stolen"

One of the worst feelings you can get in second life is logging in to an IM saying "Hey, someone has your products and is selling them" you tp there, and some theif has taken your products and is redistributing them without your permission acting as if they are the creator.

This guy has had his bed ripped and people using his name. He should just sit back and let it go on?

I for one, am extremely glad he has brought the RL law into this. He did take one for the team, the team of us content creators who spend hours of our lives making this place a little bit more enjoyable for all of the consumers out there.

At some point, one of his depositions spoke of a market of 100,000 of his SexGen beds. At the prices he was charging, that comes to US$4.5 million. That's enough money to induce anyone to be very serious about playing legal hardball over it. I'd suggest you not get in his line of fire.

How ironic -- I despise people who don't respect others' intellectual property rights.

Oh, I know, everybody and their dog calls most kinds of soft drinks a "coke" -- I'll just invent my own soft drink and call it a coke, too! Coca-Cola won't care -- they can just take one for the team!

Stroker is a businessman and a damned good one, and someone I am proud to call a friend in both SL and RL.

I hope you enjoy it when someone takes one of your ideas and tries to steal it. Oh, wait -- I forgot, you obviously don't have any of your own.

P2

Which team? What do you make? would you stand in front of him and take one in the face for the creators in SL on his behalf?

SL isnt a rp game. There are elements of SL that are very much real life, and content creation is one of them. Content creation is content creation in SL or RL. Its not a fantasy just because its here, and the issue of what the content does is beside the point .. "a piece of digital softare that allows people to rub their digital winkies together" is irrelevant. Would you have been less tolerant if it had been for some other purpose?

imogen

The arguments on that page don't seem to address trademark law, however. I believe that there is strong justification for trademark law even if you accept the argument against other forms of intellectual property, so that representing (say) a product as Coca-Cola when it is not made by the Coca-Cola Company would be prosecutable as fraud.

Stroker has never claimed that the IDEA of a menu-driven sex bed was protected in any way. If it WERE possible to protect that at all, it would be under patent law; in any case, there is prior art. He claimed that the name SexGen was protected by trademark, and he claimed that his specific implementation of the idea in scripts, animations, textures, and prims was protected by copyright.

By the way, Briggi Bard was the co-developer of the SexGen; although she now has her own store that sells slightly different versions of the product than Strokerz does (different packages of animations), both are authorized SexGen products.

Here's the deal. Stroker is a helluva creative guy. He put a lot of time and energy into creating what he did. I applaud him for that. People thought it was great. They bought his stuff. I'm happy for him.

But somewhere along the line, good old fashioned greed rears its ugly head. Someone steals his scripts and starts selling their own knock-offs using Stroker's branded name.

Stroker decidecs to protect what has become quite a lucrative operation...with a potentially huge commercial market. In come the lawyers...out comes a legal decision - and that's where the root of my problem with the situation lies. You've just opened the door a bit wider for more litigiousness to enter into SL.

In an environment rife with creative, technically savvy people, not to mention organizations like LibSL, who are actively working to reverse-engineer practically everything they encounter in-world, I think it's insane to try and count on this incredibly buggy, evolving, grief-infested world as a good place to do business.

Instead of being the place I remember...where I'd travel to look and explore and ask myself "gee...I wonder if I could make that?" SL is taking step after heavy step in the direction of a cloistered, slapnuts imitation of everything that's wrong with intellectual property law today. There's a fine line between making something similar, and "stealing someone's idea" - the guy who ripped off Stroker was clearly in the wrong...and Stroker was, indeed, a victim.

But the outcome of this case...and others which may very likely follow it...stand a very real chance of putting an even bigger chill on SL than you're feeling today.

You like the law here, do you? The VAT furor, the gambling ban, the furor over pedophilia and smut in the press? The fact that they're still trying to figure out whose laws apply to what, and where and how?

This case poses a danger - not necessarily directly related to intellectual property, per se. But ever stop to think for one single second about the legal, RL ramifications of the courts recognizing the Lindenbuk as a real standard of currency? We may have another four years of a tax free internet...but you can bet your bottom dollar that sooner or later someone's going to be paying VERY close attention to the numbers of RL dollars changing hands in SL...and they're gonna want a piece of it. As big a piece as they can grab.

And as far as what I make? I build. I design spaceships, create scripted furniture (modding the MLP, thankyouverymuch), make machinima, create photobooks, and am building a library of prim books reaped from Project Gutenberg. I just don't SELL anything. I learned that it's more of a pain in the ass to maintain a business - and the goodwill and friends that I've made from simply giving my things away has been payment enough for my effort. I'm sure it's all worthless junk, anyway.

I'm not in SL to make a living...or even a few bucks. But other people are, and they're welcome to it. But when my own creativity, when my own curiosity and my own drive to expore start evaporating out of the fear I might run afoul of some draconian copyright/trademark lawsuit - then I get a little pissed.

I've seen First Land cancelled because of greed. I've seen asshat land-flippers harrass residents into selling parcels through object-encroachment violations and spinning ad-farms. I've wandered through camping-zombie infested sims whose owners are only trying to game their traffic numbers as high as possible...all for the sake of attracting business.

Someone else posted a farewell on these forums, and I think part of his message is what set me off on this thread. He said somewhere along the line, SL had changed...and that the great place he remembered just wasn't there anymore. When the OP asked their question...after being served a cease and desist...not from Stroker - but from one of his legal lackeys, I just snapped. Here they were...working to make a go at something, designing and selling their own product, and unaware that the "SexGen" brand had been trademarked...and they're getting a legal warning...in SL.

And when someone can post a friendly warning to me...to stay out of the way of someone with his eye set on a multi-million dollar market...then, yeah...it's time for me to take a long, hard look at what this digital Jerry Springer show has become.

End of my manifesto. I've learned my lesson well. Don't get in the way of business, it'll bury you every time.

Which is detestable in its own right.

Which is LESS detestable than outright theft and unfair competition.

That would be true, but people do business here at their own risk. Competition and resources are natural risks, and genuine fair competition is here aplenty. I don't mind reverse engineering, if it is used to develop a better product. Here there isn't much better to develop other than brand new animations that are superior to the ones inside Stroker's bed. The rest of the stuff is easy to code, and is publicly available in one form or the other. The real theft here is of the animations, and then doing business using Stroker's name.

At least you got that right.

The likely outcome is designed to deter outright theft and unfair competition through improper use of the trademarked name. There is plenty of fair competition as is, it's not necessary to steal Stroker's stuff.

Now you're spinning off on tangents that are not relevant to the situation at hand. So? People who are smart already know that their income is taxable and are going to talk to an accountant. Oh yeah, can't account for common sense in here... regardless, the government will be looking carefully at the 5% of people who make a living wage, to see if they are doing the right thing and declaring the income. If it were purely monopoly money, it would not be this way. I do see where you are coming from, that RL laws and artifices are starting to impinge on SL, but it is because it is not merely a game. Cannot have the cake and eat it too, here.

If you are operating off your own original ideas or inspiration, you have nothing to worry about. Don't let others bully you. But the people who put countless hours into making nice things for sale should have some protection for their work.

the line between SL and RL disappears when you are talking about using another person's name/brand, or their designs. You don't get a free pass here. Sometimes it is bullying, sometimes it is absolutely correct that they should get a cease and desist.

I am sorry, but it's not just a game, and you really should consider if this environment is one you can tolerate at all. There is room for different perspectives - you can be homeless, build in sandboxes and make wonderful things... spend your second life exploring.... or you can treat business like a sport, or like a business. Or whatever. I'm sorry you feel you are raging against the dying light. But the convergence of real world constraints is inevitable if certain values are to be protected. That is just being realistic.

Who's tin foil hat?

If content in SL falls under DMCA (which it does according to LL) they are legally obligated to enforce the DMCA takedowns. Unfortunatly either LL doesn't have the time, man power or whatever the excuse this week to actually do anything about it. With this case, if you'd read up on it, you'd know that it wasn't just "bring in the lawyers." It's was multiple DMCA takedown notifications (loads of paperwork) and the newest suit included multiple ARs, support tickets and letters to Robin and Philip. In return all was given from LL was silence.

I don't think anyone here actually wants the lawyers involved. We'd be happy just to file that DMCA takedown paperwork if anything was actually done about it. The fact of the matter is that there seems to be a lot of people who think taking someone else's hard work and making a profit off of it is ok. Would that still be the case if anyone who was caught was thus IP banned? I doubt it.

^ What Luth said.

People file DMCA`s as a first step, but LL has been turning their head to them. Are we, as content creators, supposed to just shrug our shoulders and walk away?

TBH, I think people need to file a class action lawsuit aganst linden lab (if this is possible? Afterall, LL is pretty much falsely advertising), not the theiving individual. LL are the ones who say we own IP right, and we do, and then they do not do anything to protect us. By law, isn`t LL is supposed to be looking into and honoring these DMCA take down notices, but they rarely do. They advertise all of this stuff, but don`t fulfill it. This is why people are turning to law enforcement agencies outside of Linden Lab. If LL is not going to enforce anything and punish the theives, then we need to look to someone else in power who can.

I believe that if LL even began banning people for their theivery and made it clear this was being done, we would see less and less of this, and less RL law having to be pulled into SL. Ive had things taken of mine and resold without my permission, and the attitude of most of these ppl are "hahaha you idiot!! im not going to get in trouble, its just a game!!!" and you know what? Theres some truth in that, and thats why it is so widespread now. These people -dont- get introuble because when the DMCA is filed, it`s ignored by the very people who are supposed to be honoring the request. I am GLAD and infact relieved, to see people begin to get the RL law involved.

I have been one of the "lucky" ones and as far as i`m aware, none of my items are on the grid being passed around as full perm, but the moment something like that happens to me, If LL does not lift a hand to help me, I will be ready to fight, via the "RL Law" if that`s what it takes. It`s sad it has come down to that. But I for one am not about to have someone profitting off of and/or freely redistrbuting something I spent hours, weeks, perhaps even months, working on outside of SL.

Hope of all you in the Adult themed content and service business make your money now because when age verfication happens a lot of people won't be able to use your services.
It won't matter how great your product is or anything about your ownership to product, very few will be using it if it requires to release more information then they already are now.

Oh wow, a fake avatar game person invented a fake product in a fake world for fake sex. Amazing how that can be trademarked and protected by a non fake agency.

Hi.. just saying hi to a fake person...

best regards, another fake person

imogen

So... when other people use the name and their product is busted or a rip-off, he should just carry on takin gone for the team, is that right? If a product is any good, people will buy it irrespective of the name, and conversely, only people peddling trash find it necessary to steal trademarks. Doesn't matter a damn what the trademarked item is - there's no "one law for worthy poses, another for smut". It's all the same law.

(I run the proxy filter in a firm of trademark lawyers. I could tell stories regarding trademark issues with a certain item of medical equipment that has a "recreational" use in some more bohemian circles. But then people's eyes would start watering, they'd go off eating bratwurst for 6 months, they wouldn't be able to pump up their car tires for fear of flashbacks...)

*Smacks you with his fake cock*


(-edit- Hey it`s "not real" so it doesn`t matter I say something so belittling, right?)