Copyrights, Wrongs, and the Provenance of Freebies

Yeppers! It's my own edit of the "Re" skin. One for my main kid shape and one for my biggie. (^_^)

The only thing that bugs me about it is that PSP doens't work with the features in the head PSD so it flattens all the layers on load. (>_< But those skins, together with Chip's templates have been fun to work with in making my own little look. (^_^)y

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use

Nominative use
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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See also Fair use (US trademark law).
Nominative use, also "nominative fair use", is a legal doctrine that provides an affirmative defense to trademark infringement as enunciated by the United States Ninth Circuit,[1] by which a person may use the trademark of another as a reference to describe the other product, or to compare it to their own. Nominative use may be considered to be either related to, or a type of "trademark fair use" (sometimes called "classic fair use" or "statutory fair use". All "trademark fair use" doctrines, however classified, are distinct from the fair use doctrine in copyright law.
The nominative use test essentially states that one party may use or refer to the trademark of another if:
The product or service cannot be readily identified without using the trademark (e.g. trademark is descriptive of a person, place, or product attribute)
The user only uses so much of the mark as is necessary for the identification (e.g. the words but not the font or symbol)
The user does nothing to suggest sponsorship or endorsement by the trademark holder. This applies even if the nominative use is commercial, and the same test applies for metatags.
Furthermore, if a use is found to be nominative, then by the definition of non-trademark uses, it can not dilute the trademark.[2]

In New Kids and in Playboy v. Welles, the courts examined older cases, identifying a unifying principle that they then named "nominative use". Among the older cases cited by the Court in Playboy v. Welles was Volkswagenwerk Aktiengesellschaft v. Church,[5] in which the Ninth Circuit had ruled that an independent auto repair shop that specialized in repairing Volkswagen cars and mentioned that fact in their advertising was not liable for trademark infringement so long as they did not claim or imply that they had any business relationship with the Volkswagen company.

There were always scammers (Ginko started back in 2004, for example), but it as gotten worse as SL grew. NCI now teaches a "SL Consumer Skills" class with thirty minutes just on scams to watch out for! It's pretty much what you would expect from moving from a small town of 20,000 to a city of 640,000.



I can see your point here, but NCI's mission is to help new residents, so we are going to do our best to ethically offer the best freebies we can. I'm actually intending on asking our freebie director (Hi Nardok!) to see if she can weed out some of the older, less quality items from our collection in the next several months.



I'm not sure the artisan economy was sustainable as SL grew. On average the interests and talents of early adopters are not going to be the same as the broader consumer market. SL does need a way for people to make a small amount of money in game without camping or using their credit cards. If accounts to IP addresses to prevent abuse, I'd suggest bringing back the 50L$/week Basic stipend.



You have free shirts? Can we put them out at NCI?

Seriously--that is sad. Someone is clearly not getting the concept. I've found the best way to get through to people like that is to explain to them why there is NO MONEY in what they are talking about doing.



It is a mess. And the "Business-in-a-Box" fad has only made things worse. I went through a lot of BIABs looking for freebies for NCI late last year. About 1/3 of the stuff was stolen (usually via fraud), about 1/3 were freebies being resold, and about 1/3 of the stuff was genuinely made for full-perms resale. But knowing what is what is a huge task.



Thank you very much, Xaria.

I love the Eloh Eliot skin textures too, and making them public was a great contribution--I've learned a lot from playing around with them. FWIW, the Gimp handles the layers in the PSD file just fine--but I don't know enough about PSP to know if Gimp could export it in some format more friendly to that program than is PSD.

On the topic: I too think that NCI is taking the extreme moral high ground here. I've taken a rather less noble path, I guess, in just dumping for anyone's use the contents of a BIAB I bought out for the land it was sitting on. Now, I suppose there could be content in there that was ripped-off from legitimate creators, although it's such crap that it's hard to imagine a creator actually claiming rights to the stuff--and frankly I'm kinda tired of seeing it clutter up a corner of the store basement. It came full perm with no sign or agreement specifying that it had to be resold at any particular price. So, my theory is, if it drives one BIAB out of business, or discourages one newbie from a Second Life of BIAB desperation, it's served its purpose.

My sentiments exactly. I am tired of this sort of crap. If you list it as transfer, I assume that is a benifit I am paying for, including the right to name the object in an ad to resell. Could you imagine the local newspapers classifieds if this no name logic was to prevail.

For Sale: 2003 black car. Low miles, fully loaded. $42,500

Indeed, I no longer do any business with SLX or Sexgen (and the affiliates... and I really liked some of the furnishings from one of them)

Exact wording on my listing being pulled:

Dear Merchant,

You are receiving this e-mail because one or more of your products is
in violation of the SexGen trademark.

In order to use the SexGen Trademark, you will need to contact Stroker
Serpentine and ask him to contact SL Exchange with written permission
for you and your product(s). Without this consent from Stroker
Serpentine we cannot assist you. Please do not relist any items we
have removed for this violation. Once we have obtained the written
permission from Stroker Serpentine, we will restore your listing(s).


Thank you,
-- SL Exchange Review Team www.slexchange.com

OMG, they need a clue! However, did you try replying and saying that the item was a legitimate SexGen bed, and not in violation? It's not unreasonable for them to have misunderstood your listing and acted in error and contrary to their actual policy. These things happen.

Only option available was a DCMA counter claim, which would require me to provide far more personal information than I'm willing to share with either group. (not to mention the various costs involved in the paperwork)

No copyright infringement committed. If it were RL it would be laughed out of court. You were selling a used *genuine* article, not a counterfiet. You had limited numbers (however many you bought legitimately my guess is 1) and you were advertising it as used. Tell the vendor this politely and that if they still believe there is copyright infringement, you will see them in court.

You are not the only one they have done this to. It seems Stroker has SLEX in his back pocket now, they pull anyone and everyone who tries to sell a secondhand bed now. Even going so far as to remove accounts in one case I read. It's truly sad, when they allow blatant copied content on their site, and say they need a DCMA to pull that. Why doesn't Stroker have to file a DCMA then? Seems a double standard.

DMCA is irrelevant to trademark issues. It might be the vehicle SL and SLX use for the purpose, but it's totally besides the point.

My apologies to the OP, since this is completely beside the original point of the thread.

Hmm, class action lawsuit!

It's sad to root for a guy from the sidelines on his trademark issue and then turn around to seem him play "litigious bastard" afterward. Bad law, bad conduct; ick.

Yes, more lawsuits!

It's perfectly fine to use a trademark when the item is in fact the genuine article. If you couldn't nobody could put up a classified for selling their FORD truck, or to sell that copy of HALO 3 they got bored of. I know why they are doing this, I just don't agree they have the right to, sets a bad precedent.

nope, most are not going to waste the money for the lawsuit (or the time)

I just share and let others decide if they want to do business with them

I take my business to others now. Which is a shame, since I do like some of the things at one of the affiliates.

But there are other systems out there i can get (and have used)