Stagecoach Island defects to ActiveWorlds

I think someone earlier quoted this, but it bears repeating:



http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ9.html

Please note, I'm not a lawyer, I just like to cut and paste. In otherwords, this is all worth pretty much what I charged.

Turbine puts out good stuff. I played AC2 from beta onwards and DDO is living up to their rep for quality. On a side note, rumor has it that DDO is the game Turbine actually wanted to do when they did AC1. Anyway, I'm very pleased...especially since MXO sucked SO VERY BAD.

But it is all your fault

Very true, but I think there is something to be said for timing.

Sometimes a feature is a good idea, and only becomes a great idea when its time has come.

Thank you.

In this case, the work done by the vendors was obviously not contracted Work for Hire and it is not a "portion" of work whose rights can be assigned by someone who has no claim to them (as mentioned). I believe the clarification made by Foxy is one that I already deduced based on Cubey's comments; hence the disconnect between some of us discussing this.

However, the point raised re: Lindens allowing use of content by WF/SM is something that occurred to me initially when the whole issue of screenshot textures came up. I'd be curious to know exactly what LL's position is on this - whether or not they exercised any possible claims they might have from the ToS.

Before leaving work to have my children, I worked in industrial journalism. It seems to me that the Bedazzle/Wells Farrrago/Linden situation is very like one which comes up often in magazines which use photographic illustrations.

There are three main arrangements with pictures...you use a library shot and pay the copyright fee, you use a shot provided by a commissioned photographer, who retains the copyright but allows you to use the shot for the one instance, or you commission the photography under the agreement that you own the copyright in the pictures forever and for all uses.

The agreement has to be explicit to all involved, to allow the photographer to accept or reject the commission and payment, with everyone understanding who owns copyright in the image.

I disagree that there is no difference in copyright between items commissioned specifically for a job, and those which pre-exist it, but in either case, a creator should be clear about what rights in their work they are assigning to people who are using it, and should be given the chance to withdraw if the work is going to be used for another purpose entirely.

In all probability this is a misunderstanding that has arisen between the agency employed by Wells Fargo and Linden Labs. They may have genuinely believed that all the content of SCI was fair game for them and that they owned the rights to it. I think it would have been good business practice to have informed the people who contracted to build the island in SL that the project was being moved.

I disagree that it is impossible to have copyright in items made in SL, although it may never be financially sensible to pursue those rights in law if a quiet word in the ear doesn't work. Obviously Cubey cannot copyright the idea of a parachute, but the design is so similar that it is an obvious steal, and if he didn't give up his rights in his creation, he ought to be paid or the items should be removed, even if they have been recreated by someone else.
Bws
Cali

Cubey,

Was your work in the SL Stagecoach Island? Or is it something that was lifted from Sl in general?

Did you provide it to bedazzle or any one else for use in stage coach island in exchange for money, or the promise of getting money?

I ask these questions not to prod at you but to further the analysis. We obviously have gaps here, because we don't have the agreement between WF and Swivel. Or anything between the other players.

If your created content is in AW, you can fire off a take down notice. I cannot give direct legal advice on this point, especially considering I don't have acces to all the details. But sometimes shooting first forces everyone to ask questions later.

It sounds like this is a mess, because somewhere, someone dropped the ball on understanding what was given. Wells Fargo my we beleive they have the rights to your work, even if they don't. The offending party may be someone else.

Of course, it may well be that WF legal depart figures it will const more than 17k to sort this mess out, and they figure noone is willing to invest that money in this fight. I dunno.

This sort of situation is why things get put in writing. Not because an oral contract is less valid, but because who owes what to who is an expensive thing to sort out.

One more question that raises its ugly head is that if LL negotiaed this deal, they might be able to claim they provided user created content under the clause in the tos relating to LL can use content for whatever purpose it sees fit. (no I don't have the TOS open in front of me , but its something to look at.

Now I am not sure if that clause gives them thr right to give content to a third party to use outside of SL. From a legal stand-point its an interesting question. LL may have a vested interest in the IP too.

Can LL claim that "users own their intellectual property" and yet enforce a TOS that claims the opposite?

Perhaps the "impeach Bush" signs should be changed to "LL screws content creators!"

Question to Bedazzled and vendors involved: Has this incident soured you on contributing content to LL projects or would you do it again?

In the TOS, "the Service" refers collectively to the SL.com, and LL.com websites, and "the Linden software". Although a move to ActiveWorlds isn't necessarily the best promotion for The Service, LL could easily argue that being able to state "Wells Fargo's `Stagecoach Island' and all its contents were prototyped in SL" is a valid promotional purpose.

Hmm it does add a dimension to consider here. They might also agrue they got fucked out of thier interest in the IP of thier users and sue WF themselves. Of coursr that might depend exactly on where the confusion about this originated.

They could, but I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that is what you can probably call "the nuclear option"

Cristiano, the corsets in that shop are not mine. I do see they used my little strings of lights lol (not that strings of lights were invented by me ). It looks like the only vendor to have their work copied was Cubey, though I haven't been in to see. It wouldn't have been possible for them to use our exact designs because they didn't have access to any textures. The worst they could do would be to try and make similar designs but looking at the corsets I don't think they wanted to bother.

I am more disturbed that none of us (the vendors) have been "officially" informed about the ending of the SI beta or anything about the money we are owed. If there were no sales made that whole time they could at least tell us that. The amount I was paid is around the amount I make in one day and a half in SL. Considering all the items I handed over to LL, the amount of time they were supposed to be for sale, and the extreme cut in prices, this was more like a charity project.

Another question I have is if LL acknowledges that creators retain all copyrights in Intellectual properrty, but reserves the right to use that property for any purpose beneficial to the service, do they then assume a fiduciary responsibility to protect the intellectual proery so used from abuse?

Can we create protest signs in AW and stage a march on SI there to raise awareness of how SL developers are being exploited?

I mean, 1 of 2 cases seems to exist:

1. Bedazzle signed a really crappy contract that wrote over all their IP and allows derivative products with no authorization. (And probably got paid far less than contractor rates for it.)
2. Active Worlds simply snubbed their noses at SL developers and decided that "development should be left to the 'pros' ", hence SL developers deserve no rights.

I'm really shocked to hear that LL caught wind of this in November and didn't contact people. I'd be really, really pissed if it were my stuff that got copied over.

Can we create protest signs in AW and stage a march on SI there to raise awareness of how SL developers are being exploited?

I mean, 1 of 2 cases seems to exist:

1. Bedazzle signed a really crappy contract that wrote over all their IP and allows derivative products with no authorization. (And probably got paid far less than contractor rates for it.)
2. Active Worlds simply snubbed their noses at SL developers and decided that "development should be left to the 'pros' ", hence SL developers deserve no rights.

I'm really shocked to hear that LL caught wind of this in November and didn't contact people. I'd be really, really pissed if it were my stuff that got copied over.

For the sake of discussion, I'll try to clarify my role in this situation.

LL asked me (and I assume others) to contribute content to a new project. In exchange for setting up skydiving pods and equipment on Stagecoach Island (SL), I would be able to sell equipment at the same spot, but at about a tenth of the normal L$ price on the mainland. I would retain ownership of the objects. It would be like setting up one of my skydiving pods anywhere in SL, as I've done many times before.

Later, they ran into a problem, and asked to change the arrangment. The new arrangement would be a USD amount (small) in advance from LL. LL would take copies of the gear (much the same way as regular users buy copies from me in Abbotts), and the normal SL permissions would apply. At the end of Stagecoach beta, they'd send the L$ proceeds from sales.

My only communication with Bedazzled was when they showed me where to set up the gear. I don't know who Swivel Media is, and never spoke to any WF reps.

All seemed to have gone well until yesterday, when I found this forum thread. I logged into the ActiveWorlds StageCoach island and took screenshots. It looks to me like they duplicated the designs of my pods, the launch pads, the parachutes, and even the shelves and signage. Textures that I created myself in Paint Shop Pro now appear in ActiveWorlds somehow.

At no point did I make any agreement to give away the rights to my designs and textures to anyone. If Bedazzled has a contract that surrenders all rights to all SL Stagecoach Island to Swivel Media, this is the first I've heard of it, and I don't see how I could be bound by it, any more than I can sell you the Brooklyn bridge.

Is the use of my content in ActiveWorlds covered under the SL ToS? Not bloody likely, as ActiveWorlds couldn't be considered a promotion for Second Life.

To close, here are the screenshots again...
/108/11/81617/2.html#post838524

It's pretty clear that these are my designs and textures, to which I alone hold the copyright.

It's possible that there was simply some confusion between Bedazzled and whoever they contracted with over what rights were being handed over. Hopefully, all of this will have a happy resolution, and we'll get back to our regular forum drama.

I agree with Torrid on this. I did make some sales, but at the prices I was charging (L$2-3 per item, as suggested by Reuben), I'd put my total profits from Stagecoach Island sales at somewhere around L$50-75. I'd like to know why the content providers weren't told of the outcome of this business deal and informed as to the status of the original agreements we each made (through Reuben Linden, in my case) for payment for use of our content.

What I find utterly ironic is that the one clothing item for sale that seems to be prominently featured on the AW Stagecoach Island is corsets. During the set-up of the SL Stagecoach Island, all the content creators got numerous emails informing us of any items for sale that Wells Fargo considered to be too risque or not in line with their corporate image. A number of creators were asked to take down or modify images or clothing items because of this, and it really slowed things down. Now, to see these corsets in their final AW version of Stagecoach Island leads me to believe that the WF people had no frickin' clue as to what exactly they wanted from this project, and the SL version was a big ol' test run for them. How courteous (not).

This has been a valuable lesson for me to always get in writing an agreement (like the one I entered into by email with Reuben in this case) for contract work. Thankfully, any monetary loss I suffered was relatively small, assuming my items I was asked to contribute for sale in the SL Stagecoach Island won't be reproduced in AW or some other venue, as would seem to be the case.

Cubey:

Thank you for the clarification.

I was wondering about that myself and I tend to agree with you that this is beyond the scope of what's covered in the TOS. It would be nice to get an official LL position on this so that people can make intelligent choices when these kinds of offers come up in the future.

What happen to "I want to take some time to consider since LL's role is..."

Unless the contract contained specific language that limited the use of the stuff Wells Fargo paid for and required them to renegotiate for use outside of SL then it was a standard contract and WF is within their rights. Cubey's stuff is another story.

Thanks, Cubey. I was waiting to hear a definitive statement on that matter.

It looks like Wells Fargo haven't considered this aspect - maybe they were under the impression that it was all part of a package, maybe they just didn't care. Certainly if they try to launch this ActiveWorlds thing containing your content, word can be spread around the blogosphere at the least.

While they may or may not want to, LL could claim that showcasing Stagecoach Island as an example of the use of Linden Research Inc.'s tools for the rapid and cost-effective prototyping of a branded virtual world is indeed a valid promotional use.

Like I said, they may not want to do that. However, if it does turn out that their contract with Wells Fargo specified that WF retains ownership of the island and all its contents, you can bet dollars-to-donuts that's the argument they'll use to head off potential litigation from any content creators whose work has been taken into the new Stagecoach Island and feel they have grounds for action.

DDO will allow building and other content creation like SL? Like, you can go in and take on the role of the Dungeon Master and set up your own hack-n-slash?

If so, that's pretty interesting. If not, I'm not sure what the point is... it's a different market.