What would Bono say?

Ive met U2 in SL, and have found even in a quiet environment, they are very much for pushing one.com, and the other causes supported by U2
these guys are all about awareness.

You seem to be trying to inflame the masses. I personally think your time could be better spent offering support to the ONE campaign yourself.

I'd use the term "abuse" to mean sufficient confusion. iirc, there was sufficient confusion early on when people thought this group was associated with the real band. I suspect some people are still confused. As evidence:


I see there are some interesting comments on that blog entry as well.

Cool, that's great. Electric Sheep's image, logo and implicit approval will soon be coming to a range of highly visible, very personal products in SL. And the Electric Sheep avatar personas will also be seen at the launch events! Oh and it will all be done in the name of charity and we'll make sure that we get lots of PR on the net, so everybody knows that Electric Sheep implicity endorse the product and/or service. Thanks for giving the go-ahead without actually agreeing. I'm sure that will really help to push Electric Sheep forward as a serious development company.

See a difference? Nope, nor me. Should be fun though, eh!

So, Lucifer, how can they convince skeptics? If they're not going to use metrics (most charities use some form whether it be money, signatures, or whatever), how do they - and others - avoid being accused of a lack of transparency and, as a result, serving their own selfish ends? This is bigger than this one group.

What makes you think I don't support it?

I don't think he's agreeing with what's happening, Moopf. I'm very much against people hijacking trademarks and the like, but I'm also a pragmatist. I think he is as well.

To be honest, I don't think you're right. He said:



So, that looks to me like he doesn't feel that anybody should be possesive over their brand. Fine, let wabbit huntin' season open.

I can understand where youre coming from, but its a shame that a group who arent exploiting a real world group or organisations name for their own ends happen to be the one that you picked to highlight this issue Csven.
Yes you are right, there is a potential for abuse and exploitation, but thankfully not in this particular case.

Hello Csven and everyone!

I am one of the founding members of U2 in SL. By the way, I am also the avatar creator and consider the U2 avatars to be my artistic caricatures. Please excuse my delay in posting, but I have been at work all day and unable to read the forums or post until now.

I would like to respond to Csven who has asked:

<<So... how can they convince skeptics? If they're not going to use metrics (most charities use some form whether it be money, signatures, or whatever), how do they - and others - avoid being accused of a lack of transparency and, as a result, serving their own selfish ends? This is bigger than this one group.>>

My answer to that would be, U2 in SL is not a charity. We merely promote the causes of the One Campaign, Make Poverty History, the African Well Fund, and Music Rising, just as any group or individual is also welcome to do. Neither U2 in SL, nor the real world band offer any accountability by issuing reports on money, signatures, whatever, for these charities. All we and they do is encourage people to visit the various websites and offer support. Again, that is how it's done by the real band, and that's how it's being done by U2 in SL.

Do we do this for personal gain? What do we get from this? If you consider personal gain to be the satisfaction of knowing that we have raised awareness while at the same time producing some fabulous and fun quality events, thereby raising the calibre of what is possible to be done in SL, then I guess that would be what our group *gets* from it. We hope everyone loved the two concerts over the weekend. Thank you one and all for your interest in U2 in SL and for aiding in supporting the causes EVEN MORE by all the forum and blogging activity!! We urge one and all to come see our next event and to go visit the web sites (links above and below) and offer your support!

U2ingly yours, DarkDharma Daguerre

Please visit and support:
The One Campaign
Make Poverty History
African Well Fund
Music Rising

I don't feel like discussing any of this any further. The reason? I don't like you and your mental orgasm!

How's that?

No sir... I am not endorsing such things. I am endorsing working with brands to let them understand the benefits of the remix strategy. It's worked wonders for things like Lego mindstorms and we'll only see more good uses of it in the future.

I disagree with using brands, logos, trademarks etc without the explicit permission of the company. But that doesn't mean they aren't coming to me asking my opinion. There are multiple strategies to bring your brand into Virtual Worlds and giving permission for people in the world to remix your stuff is likely the easiest way to gain wide acceptence.

With that said, I can't wait to catch the U2 in SL concert. I hear it's a blast and last I heard it wasn't illegal to be a cover band.

*EDIT* Cristiano makes a good point below. I love the intentions but there are definately issues.

I would have preferred this conversation occur under other circumstances, but when prodded...



I stand corrected.



But there is a difference. You're not U2. And the danger imo is that an important cause, and a band's popularity, can become subserviant to something else. That something else may only be "role play". But the idea that something as important as this could possibly be turned into an element of role play is also bothersome to me tbh.

Further, by not setting some goal - even if it's only getting signatures - I would personally fear that the event's emphasis could too easily become about something other than the causes it's intended to promote (besides being useful in other ways). At what point does or will or could the event become about something other than the cause it is promoting if there is no mechanism to ensure that focus? What happens if/when someone becomes lost in the play and forgets the reason for having it? At what point is "self-serving" in the name of promoting fun events in SL detrimental to the spirit of the cause? How can that point be determined? and who determines it?

I'm asking these questions not to attack, but because these are RW issues which, as I'm sure you'll agree, should not be trivialized or used in any way.

Your answers to these issues and questions are much appreciated.

The vitriol being spat out by those claiming to support these worthy causes is... puzzling.

A cover band plays their own version of the band's music, they don't get up on stage and lip sync to a recording.

So what do I call my cover band of Milli Vanilli, where we lip-sync to Milli Vanilli....lip syncing...

I believe that is called a drag show

Point well taken. Although I've seen stuff like that in vegas

This thread, on top of a coincidental visit to an avatar shop the other day, got me thinking. I recognized a lot of the avatars from movies, and their names, and when I tried searching, I turned up a lot of registered word marks. But those are in categories like men's clothing and various sorts of toys and even food. What category would be appropriate for word marks applied to virtual objects, especially avatars?

OHH please if you are so concerned about this then why don't you get in touch with the real u2 and shut up.

the u2 in sl group has tried them selves as stated in the link you provided



what this group is doing is is a great thing they are bring awareness to people who may not of know before hand.
they are getting nothing from this in fact i know the owner of the sim that hosts the u2 in sl concerts and she spends more out of pocket to help promote "the one " and other causes then she could ever make even if they tried to make money with these concerts.

oh and no im not a civil spoken person I'm from NEW YAWK baby and we all fucking talwk like dis.

edit lol the more i read your post and the more i think of how bono talks he would IMO tell you to go fawlk your self .
what does civil talk have to do with being charitable.
i have heard bono utter the word fuck lol many many times
and even bill gates with all his billions and billions has embraced Bono and his cause to fight hunger AND donated a huge amount of money if i remember corectly from the article i read to Bonos foundation

Is it just me, or are most of the people attempting to speak on behalf of the group unable to articulate without appearing to be exactly the kind of people who I'd expect to forget what the whole reason for this is.

Thank you for editing your post. But I wouldn't have bothered to AR this. I rather prefer that people reveal their real character... however unpleasant.

Those are simply your opinions, I see no abuse.
and as far as blogs go I dont read them, they are just opinions also.

ahhh....the reporters scoop.....

You know all I could think of when reading this thread is how far a so called journalist will go for a by-line......prolly best for this reporter to stay where they can get away with making shit up as they go....wouldnt wash with any respected real world post.

Actually, Tony was scooped by a grad student and Brands In Games is documentation for his degree program; which isn't journalism. To be honest, I'm surprised Clickable Culture posted on this since this isn't news.