Lindens might like to discuss the following issue; other people might like to take note, especially if they're customers of the National Bank of Scotland (which owns National Westminster Bank)-- the United Kingdom's second-largest bank.
Natwest offer a credit card personalisation service, using which one can upload an image and have it printed on the front of one's credit card. They reject images on various worthy grounds, one of which is if the image contains logos, commercial information and so forth.
I thought it would be nice to have a picture of my avatar, taken on my own island, as the image in question. This was rejected on the above grounds, even though it does not contain any logo etc. I spoke to Natwest and they informed me that they accept that this is so, but that their lawyers had advised them to reject the image and (here's the reason I'm drawing this to your attention)-
they have already rejected a request from another person for the same service, even though that person had supplied evidence from yourselves that Linden were perfectly happy and indeed pleased to have in-world images used in this way.
When I suggested that your provision of such evidence is solid proof that there is no infringement of your rights by definition, they agreed and sympathised with me, but said that their lawyers wished to err on the safe side. Natwest then hid behind a catch-all clause which states that they can in fact arbitrarily refuse any image.
I realise that you can't do anything about other people's stupidity. But you might want to decline any future requests for support from other Natwest customers, advising them of my own and the other applicant's experience; and consider more general ways of publicising what Second Life is and isn't.
Natwest and Bank of Scotland customers take note!
Christi Maeterlinck