WE CANT MAKE REAL WORLD CLOTHING IN SL??? NIKE PHAT FARM etc

Characters within a computer simulated environment are pretending to sell each other items which are actually only computer images of items. You speak as if these were just like real items except that they exist in this other world. They aren't. Legally speaking, secondlife is a video-game, not a place. They aren't going to extradite Zomg Hax if they take action, they're going to subpoena the name of the player who pretends to be Zomg Hax in a fictitious world. (My apologies if there's really a Zomg Hax and he doesn't sell Nikes... )

Like I said, I wouldn't want to stand in front of a judge and argue it, but there is ambiguity there. Enough ambiguity, that I think the real question would be 'who can pay the lawyers the longest'. (Hint: Multinational corporations and individual persons... only one of these is likely to have incomes into 9 figures.) Corporations have many times ruined lives with devastating lawsuits that had far less merit than this simply because there wasn't a precedent.

I guess that LL disagrees. Here is an excerpt of the LL policies:

"You should not use copyrighted or trademarked material in Second Life, unless of course you have a right to use the intellectual property… use of designer logos and brand names without permission, such as Gucci, Nike, Louis Vuiton, etc., are usually not acceptable. Any resident may file an abuse report if they see any other resident making unauthorized use of trademarked material in SL."

Full text here:
/327/1f/186075/1.html

Nowhere in there does it say 'LL advises you that this is illegal', it says 'this is against our rules'. But it's a good reason not to do it.

LL doesn't know if it's illegal, they only know that their lawyers told them there would be sufficient grounds to bring it to trial. That's enough to put dire warnings in their rules. Nobody will know if it's 'really' illegal until there are precedents on a MMORPG character being sued for wearing and for selling trademarks. We may never know, because who wants to be the test case? Most likely, everyone will settle, and the question will be moot.

ya know what?

a lot of people have very hard heads so if you feel you know better go ahead and sell trademarked items rip people off and just generaly have no conscience or scruples. All the rationalizing I read all the time it makes me kinda nauseated. Do whatever you want and if you get in trouble so be it and if you dont hey good for you for making money using sleezy tactics. Its about where this argument or debate stands.

If you have no moral compass then feel free to be amoral if you do have a moral compass well those who do have said dont sell trademarked items and given valid reasons why know who they are.

With accounts being banned for buying lindens on ebay because they are stolen and Linden labs focusing more and more on trademark issues (yes they have been closing down places with trademarks problem is that as fast as they close one down some other guy opens one up because its gone unchecked) its your risk to take. Even if your moral compass is non existant what i just said above should be enough to convince the average user who just doesn't want to get banned but doesn't care about violating any laws, tos or whatever should do it. If what is said doesn't do it for ya go ahead and knock yourself out no need to rationalize it any further all these rationalizations have been put forward before and then some guy pops up on a third party forum cause he was banned and is actualy surprised about it..

So knock yourself out sell nike's rebooks levis whatever have fun with it while you can meanwhile I will be here next year wondering where the last hoard of nike sellers went to and when I look them up in search they willl not be there = banned

have a nice life in your career at selling stuff which already exists and 6878687 people are selling the point is moot anyhow as your gonna do whatcha want anyhow even though the question has been possed and answered appropriately


question "can i sell trademarked items ingame"
answer NO

if this is not good enough then dont listen and no need to rationalize heard it before just try not to confuse the guy who is trying to the right thing with this rationalization okay?

That kind of personal attack is utterly and completely uncalled for. I am not defending the sellers of ripped products as ethical, I am not selling products myself. "Legal" has nothing to do with morals or ethics, nothing whatsoever. Legal is a technicality, one which can only be created by the legislature and can only be ruled on by the courts. When you say I'm defending the vendors as ethical, you're putting words in my mouth, and when you accuse me of being one you're spewing unfounded and uninformed accusations.

Selling the Nike sneaker objects is distasteful on many levels, is against the game rules, and quite likely is sufficient grounds to at least bring to trial. That's plenty of reasons not to do it. Whether or not it actually could lead to a successful judgment against the seller if it were to be tried is the thing I'm questioning. And yeah, I'm being kind of pedantic about it, but more than once it's happened that something a lot of layman thought was illegal turned out not to be once it hit a jury. Trademark law is very complex, and protects only very specific types of use of a mark. If you aren't a trademark law attorney, you have no basis for saying whether or not it's illegal, and if you were a trademark law attorney, you'd never make a flat yes or no answer for something that has no precedent.

I do think that there are perfectly ethical reasons to use trademarked goods within Second Life, for machinima or other fine art, but this is far and away different from hawking a virtual product. In any case, it's also against the game rules, so people will just have to use the time-honored tradition of throwing 'very similar' labels with illegible brand names on their sets, or if it's going to be an item really in the foreground, then get the written permissions for those important elements. I don't think you should have to do so; and certainly, if you make a bit of cinema that has a strong message against, say, alcoholism, you're unlike to get a company like Jack Daniel's to say yes to being the centerpiece, which pretty well makes the requirement a form of censorship. You will notice that this is a) not something I'm doing, and b) very different from selling sneakers.

again a guy asked a simple question

the answer is given this particular forum is not a forum to debate the finer details and any personal rational for doing something against TOS

the questions was

"am I allowed to sell trademarked items in Second life"

The answer is NO

there really is no room for debate in it

I'm not sure when this became personal but if you say so?

If you want to argue about legalities etc go elsewhere this is not the place for it some guy asked a simpled question and is being confused by what essentially boil down to personal opinions and points of view over a very simple issue

LINDEN LABS DOES NOT ALLOW PEOPLE TO SELL TRADEMARKED ITEMS IN THE GAME

this is the only thing that needs to be known the debate belongs elsewhere and I honestly DO get tired of seeing it because its semantics and honestly people try very very hard to twist and bend something so that they can justify doing it. PLEASE dont do that here its not the place the guy asked a question dont confuse him

As for the debate itself I'm actually not interested and when i see it being put forth on a thread from a guy asking a question its quite upsetting because he has to wade through all kinds of things to figure out what to do. Its not helpful and quite harmful and these opinions and rationalizations CAN get him banned so please I ask for the sake of new players dont do it

that would be great
thanks

p.s. i stopped reading the body of the post after the dont personally do something sentance because I'm not interested in a bunch of if ands or buts. Guy wants to sell nike sneakers he can't that's the end of it really not much else to it debates confuse people and dont belong here in a simple thread about what one can and cant sell in regard to trade goods

Is that not a personal attack? If not on me -- and it immediately followed my post -- then on someone. Utterly inappropriate vitriol.

And it is not your place to tell anyone else what they can or can't talk about, so, shove it.

On this topic (but steering it to one side)

What about textures that contain an image of a commercial product?

Not sure about the USA, but in the UK you are free to take a photograph of something and that photograph is then YOUR work. (not sure how relevant that is to what I'm going to ask next but hey !!)

Say you have a bag of sugar at home. You take a photograph of that bag of sugar (save the image as a texture) then make a Prim "in World" and apply your photograph (which is your property) onto the prim so that it looks like a (very square) bag of sugar

Then sell that in-game for say $L5 for people to put in the kitchen cuboards to give their home a (slightly) realistic touch.

Wrong?

You can patent an object and copyright a logo, logotype or even a photo, digital raster, whatever. So in fact if you reproduce a photographic copy of a logo, that is in fact theft. With that said it depends on the why and the what, hugely so. Because yes, I am many things, including a photographer myself. But largely I have a background in graphic arts and advertising.

So yes, you can reproduce a logo, or a patented object, withouth the intent to profit or slander, and that would be covered legally. Also students and non-profits have special exception as well. Where say I can incorporate copyrighted film clips, into a short film, under the unbrella of my university. And that is legally solid too. As long as it is a student work, is never sold, and the author never makes a penny on it.

So yes, if you use copyrighted images in your own builds in SL, really that is fine. (* I should specify 'fine' here, basically you will fly under the radar and large companies really won't care, well maybe Disney will, but for the most part they don't.) If you sell this item, as a representation of that product, then you are in trouble. There are also loopholes to what percentage is considered theft as well. You can legally as an artist use 'found media' as well. That is legally solid. So in the case of this sugar bag, as an example, if you pasted it up onto a board and painted on it, or used it as 'found media art' that is ok as well.

It's a lot of grey, and it changes almost daily, and from country to country. I am speaking as a Canadian here, well a Canadian working in the advertising world anyway.

Pigge, didn't you ask this same question back in October and start a long thread in this forum on the subject >>> /109/15/287343/1.html?

If you can't tell the difference between a clause being unenforceable and the TOS being unenforceable, or between the TOS and the DMCA, and if you can't spell "Lanham", you probably shouldn't try and give legal advice.

@ Argent --- This is a necropost. Let's let it stay dead.

No, that was about the rights to use textures, even ones you bought "in world" and it got silly.

To the point that (in effect) people were saying that unless you can track down the creator of every single texture and ask their express permission then you should not use it.

I'm talking about re-creating (very roughly / appxiximatly) a real world item using a texture which is a photo/scan of your own from the real world.

A Sony Laptop, a Toshiba TV, a Dyson Vacume cleaner, a Playstation 3, a Bag of suger, box of breakfast cereal, Bag of potatoe chips......

But using a prim (or a few) with textures applied to the prim from your photo's of the item itself that you own.

Now, using "common sense for just 1 minute"

Unless you make something derogatary (sp) about a product, you would think that a company would be pleased (free advertising and market awareness) to have a prim in SL of their product (keeping their brand in the mind of the consumer)

This does all seem a bit silly, I've seen loads of items in SL that are RL items, not just cloths brands but all sorts of things.

Does anyone actually care, unless as you say you went MAJOR out of your way to rubbish BIG TIME a RL product or company.

Or would Hershy actually take you to court when if finds out you made $5 US from selling 1 prim textured to look like a box of chocolates to some SL residents?

If you sold cardboard dummy candy bars for use by furniture stores to put out in their kitchen areas, and you used photos of a Hershey bar to print the cardboard, Hershey would have to sue you for trademark violation or risk losing their trademark. Why would SL be any different?

If you were making a movie and an actor walked past a display with Hershey bars in it, that would be fine, but that's a completely different situation.

Oh, and if the actor walked past a TV that was showing an *advertisement* for Hershey bars, you'd probably need to get permission to use that.

See Lawrence Lessig's book "Free Culture" (available for free online) to get an idea of just how insane the whole situation is.

Strange old world isn't it.

Companies spend millions advertising, market awareness etc you'd think they would be pleased.
But I guess it's cos they think you might made a few bucks from THEIR brand which is the bit they don't like.

Must admit, I'm puzzled as to why the BIG brands don't actually (on the quiet) make their own products in SL to sell in shops.

Just employ 1 or two people to make some of their RL items for sale in SL shops.

More often, the fear is that they will lose control of their own trademark by letting it become generic. Think of Kleenex, Xerox, ........ If a company doesn't defend its exclusive right to use a trademark, it risks losing exclusive name recognition. It might sound flattering, but I doubt that Hershey would be pleased to have people say, "I'd love to eat a Hershey!" and then go buy chocolate made by Cadbury.

It's because under the law they can LOSE THEIR BRAND if they don't enforce its use. The law FORCES them to act like they do. Read Lessig's book.

Well thanks for the replys.

I guess at the end of the day it depends WHICH brand someone decided to make something in SL to look like and how over the top you went.

Meaning a few photo's of Mickey Mouse won't even be noticed, but a whole Disney Store would stand out a mile.

I'm sure we've all seem loads of Radio's and Hi-Hi units in-world which are scan of real products. But I suppose the odd bits don't get taken any notice of, unless you (as I say) go over the top on it.

Does common sense ever win thru

I used to go to the Reebok and adidas sims a lot. I don't know if they are still kicking about. I assumed they were genuine.

This is an incredible opportunity to create your own, original brand - and you just want to copy someone else's? Why would you want to do that?

no, to do so would violate trademark, and copyright laws.

However, if you were to make a satirical brand called Bleengbok etc, that could qualify as fair use.