copyright questions

I'd vote fot the made-up brands but note that you can always offer the RL companies permission to place their products in your builds

Honestly, if i wanted that much realism, i would stay in RL. I come into SL to get away from all the KFC/McDonalds/etc...that litter just about every street in the world, but what i really come to SL for is the sheer creativism of the place. I want to look around and see stuff ive never seen before, not stuff i can look out my front window and see any day of the week.

True, though not exclusively. For one thing, trademark laws are based on a question of reasonable assumption. The idea is you can't use a trademarked name in such a way that a consumer can make a reasonable assumption that the object is from the same maker.

For example, you could trademark "WhiteHot" for use in candy, and someone else could use it for a line of furnaces.

For SL, there's a huge gray line problem.

If I make a duplicate of my Lambourgini Espada in SL, nobody's going to confuse it with an actual motocar manufactured by Lambourgini.

Unfortunately, that doesn't quite let me off the hook, because Lambourgini might make things for promotional purposes, and if so, there would be reasonable confusion: is this copy an official copy by Lambourgini, or not?

I think the best correlate in RL would be toy comanies. Are Corgi and Matchbox allowed to make a copy of the Espada, and put the Lambourgini logo on it?

Well, they used to, but I don't think they do these days, at least not without permission.

I confess I duplicated my Martin HD-28 ingame, complete with headstock logo. If I ever get a letter from them asking me to desist, I will be happy to comply. But seriously, it's just a picture of my guitar.

Concerning sports logos, those are assiduously protected, since they're the source of big bucks. No hope there.

BTW, is this thread in response to a new policy decision or blog entry I missed? (Thanks)

I hope you're correct here; this would be a sensible policy.

That's the most well-known aspect of trademark law, and the easiest to understand. However, there's also the issue of trademark dilution.

an short interesting article regarding 'generic' trademarks

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3006486.stm

I believe this is in response to the new Xstreet rules.

You could make something that didn't look like an Espada and call it one, maybe, or you could make something really similar to the Espada and call it the "Learoccini Sparta". But using the name and appearance of a product is a trademark violation. You couldn't use the Potomac Electric Power Company's logo for a brand of antacid called "PEPCO" even if you managed to avoid problems with Proctor and Gamble.

Sure, they pay Volkswagen for the rights.

Proctor and Gamble would be the least of your problems if you tried doing that.

I'd have more sympathy for Google if they hadn't chosen a homonym of an existing word.

You did ask for opinions on how to do it and my opinion is do it with as little realism as possible.

And it is just my opinion, definitely not the opinion of all and not to be taken as any sort of dictate.

Those rules seem to be spawning a variety of inworld changes, though I am not sure all of them are really necessary.

One of the pose stores that I frequent sent out a notice that all of her poses named after RL people were being renamed. Whether or not that was the intent of the new rules or not, but those sorts of changes are happening.