Change to LL policy on Copywright issues?

I'm curious if anyone else has experienced this. A friend of mine says their vendor was recently "vandalized" by a linden because some images contained copywriten names and images. I'm sure it can't really be all that bad or what, but to my understanding, LL only took action when a copyright holder filed a complaint.

Just having the word "Chevrolet" or whatever shouldn't be grounds for a Linden to come change your items in the world about for, right?

Where it copyrights or trademarks violations?
And there are big threads abouts lindens taking down car vendors who used trademarks of rl cars.

It can happen when anyone files a complaint. Not just a copyright holder. LL isn't napster, and sometimes they hunt down copyright violations to prove it.

Lessee... Of the items I recall hearing, were a Freebie Vintage Coke machine... a custom Dragster with firestone tires... and toolboxes with the word craftsman on them. Some other stuff, but from the communication I recieved there were a lot of items that just had the name somewhere.


This is really going to smack a lot of businesses in SL, as I've seen a nike and addidas clothing sellers.

A lot of illegitimate businesses. Shucks.

If you can't do the time - don't do the crime... really that simple.

It's been shown over and over and over and over that if they find or have reported a RL trademark infringment they will take it down - it's been that way for the 2 years I've played, and spawned more 'sour grapes' threads than I can even count.

The only thing that ever seems to change is the poster and the name of the object.

If someone is gonna base their biz on RL trademarks - then I'm not gonna shed a tear if all their stuff is taken down.


Siggy.

I don't have a lot of love for the Nike/Addidas cloners. Though theres a lot of fair use stuff and free advertising on people's original works that should be allowable I feel.

Making VR shoes with a swoosh on them and then selling them is not fair use. Showing a pair of VR Nike shoes as an example of future marketting during your powerpoint presentation at a University is...

You'll have a hard time proving fair use if your making any money of someone else's copyright.

LL is not Grokster. I think it's much more difficult for them to stop copyright infringement than it is for music file sharing, but they are certainly trying.

I try very hard not to buy products in SL that are illegitimately branded... I like buying original creations, and enjoy watching how people brand themselves.

This is true, but according to what you state after this:



This appears to be a Tradmark violation, not a copyright one. And anyone can report a Tradmark Violation and the Lindens will remove it.

Some Linden remarks about this issue:

I adore things that have only come about in SL—provisions for future growth taken into account. That unique combination, sort of like life appearing on other planets. Somehow, things just worked out right and you got a delectable stew instead of crummy dried mud. I like the unique brand names that are very much a part of our SL fabric, which may very well be inspired by offline things but have come unto their own. And use different names too.

Even being a foster parent of sorts means being a responsible guardian. SL has some big holes in terms of content right now, including originally-made sounds. I'll toast to those holes being filled. I do mean this in the best of ways.

Remind me to drop a free MODEHAUS T-shirt in your inventory

In very simplistic terms..

Patent refers to ideas.
Copyright refers to goods.
Trademark refers to individual traders.

In order to breach any of the above your "product" must be compatible with the orriginal protected "product". Further for copyright, it must be detrimental to the sales of the orriginal product (which allows for 'personal use', kids copying drawings of Disney characters, etc.)

How does this affect SecondLife?

Patent
It is possible in the real world to develope specific software algorythms and patent them. Cryptography and data compression are good examples. Writing your own version of those algorythms in LSL without a license from the patent holder would be a breach, unless you could show that your version was sufficiantly different in the areas outlined by the patent as the part that makes it unique, and thus patentable.

Copyright
For real world goods, ie. physical objects, I find it hard to see a way copyright can be breached. You're not making, copying, giving away or selling any real world physical items in SL. Just electronic data. So the copyright on a real world vintage coke machine would cover the real world vintage coke machine, and not any photographs, drawings, clay models or other representations you may make of one. If you were to reproduce the machine in your garage and then try to sell them you would be in breach. An electronic representation is just that, a representation, and could be argued to be 'art' and therefore your own work. This could also apply to cars, shoes and most of the other itmes that have been removed.
Items that exist in the real world as electronic information, such as music stored on a computer, are clearly reproducable in their orriginal form in SL, and thus are subject to copyright restrictions. This would also include anything that can be converted to electronic form, such as text, pictures, etc. So Disney characters hold copyright here as in RL.

Trademark
The part preventing sales of vintage coke machines, Nike shoes and Ford cars in SL is the trademark issue. Most of the graphic design on the orriginal machine including the "Coke" and "Coca-cola" logos will be trademarked. The company names such as Nike and Ford will be protected (including their logos) and individual product names are often protected, though many are too generic to qualify.

So if you make a car in SL that just happens to look like a Ferrari F-40, that's great. Just make sure that you DON'T put a Ferrari badge on it, DON'T use the exact shade of red that Ferrari use, and DON'T include any scripts that contain patented code...

.. and make sure the tyres read Brimstone and not Firestone.