Rant: About respect of other people's effort and people that can't mind own business.

When people say bad things about content creators, they're talking about this.

So are we beginning to see now where the lines are really drawn?

There are at least 100 lawyers at Toyota and 100 more each at Ford, Exxon, IBM, Coca-Cola, Xerox, etc. who would disagree with this statement.

And they'd be right.

I'd draw a line to a new PR agent. "All the rest of you" statements aren't good for your image.

Yeah... didn't someone already post a link to the US Trademark laws?

...

I wonder if some auto makers might give permission to use the name.

In the case of the M4, the development and manufacture was not paid for by taxpayers, or at least not exclusively (ambiguously, the story first says it was developed with Colt's own funds, later it says it was developed partially at Colt's expense):

http://www.ffhsj.com/govtcon/ffgalert/gcarch/nb981206.htm

I've not been able to find a result to Colt's 2004 lawsuit for trademark infringement against two companies selling "M4-Like" rifles:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/maine/articles/2004/04/22/colt_sues_bushmaster_for_trademark_infringement_on_m4_rifle/

Reporting the same story, this link begins with brief mention of another suit about a replica of an 1873 model...

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BTT/is_171_28/ai_n6123185

...which I think refers to the Colt Peacemaker, described in this request and counter-request for summary judgements between Colt and a Florida company for, among other things, Trade Dress infringement of reproductions of the 1873 Colt Model-P bearing a similar but different trademark:

http://www.ctd.uscourts.gov/Opinions/032904.PCD.NewColt.pdf

I have no precise understanding of trade dress as a subset of trademark law, but from the above pdf, I gather it's a "total look and feel" issue. How that might affect potential issues with virtual reproductions is beyond my understanding -- but the Colt website lists the appearance of the "Colt .45" as trade dress of Colt.

http://www.coltsmfg.com/cmci/legal.asp

great research...

it seems these are all Colt stopping direct competitors. I've yet to see "Colt sues Valve for Counterstrike using the Colt m4" or the sort.

Funny enough, a quote form the website:
http://www.coltsmfg.com/cmci/MTM4.asp
"While the Colt name is virtually synonymous with handguns, Sam Colt’s initial revolvers off the assembly line were longarms. That’s right. "

But "Toyota sues SL player for Supra reproduction" is different?

Yes, and I've already explained why.

Why Toyota would care about a crappy sportscar, well, that's a whole nother debate

EDIT: To clarify, I'm poking fun at Toyota, not Shiryu, whose cars are cool.

Are you mixing Real life and second Life? Freedom?! Well as everything in the world we view as they like. What can I say. Trade marks owned But this case why in the world are people bitching about him with there are people making alot more money then him and doing a lot worse. Unless the compnay steps in a claims a copy right or trade more problem then there is not problem. If they don`t fee a threat then what is a problem

Why are people making such a big deal out of this issue? If that compnay steps forward and says its wrong why bother. Like someone said there cars are not the best design so why would they even bother with such penny or yen issues like this.

Because it doesn't matter if they feel there is a threat or not; more than likely the issue is they simply do not know. Either way, it's poor practice to blatently violate trademark law and then have the gall to complain when you get called on it.

Please stop refering to copyright law; this is not an issue of copyright law, never has been. Copyright law is completely unreleated to what we are discussing. This is trademark law, a completely different issue.

Second Life, I hate to tell you, exists, within real life. It's not immune from the laws of real life.

First of all, your opinion of the quality of the design of a company products doesn't have any bearing on if the company cares to protect it's name. I think McDonald's is terrible, but they would still be very right to sue my ass off if I violated their trademarks.

Second of all, they *have* to care (provided they learn of it). As we have tried to explain several times to you and others that don't seem to get it, trademark law is not forgiving in this regard: You must defend your trademark, or you do loose your trademark.

That's fantastic that those companies retain so many lawyers. Allow me to bring up another relevant statistic. I've seen approximately zero lawyers posting in this thread.



I love that. Someone has a problem with me; therefore I need a PR agent. Is that what people do? Is that the custom here? I should "hire" someone looking for a "job", pay them a couple L$ a week so they can then "improve my image", inbetween shifts of setting off C4 in Cordova of course. Time permitting.

Is that what Shiryu needed? A PR agent? Would that have prevented some shmuck from trying to mess with him, enlisting the aid of the Linden Lab abuse department?

Oh, if only we all had better "images!"

Aside from the "respect" excuse which I would personally take to task, the core issue afaic (and which is why I suspect LL separates other IP issues from Trademark violations) is that it is unfair competition. Plain and simple.

I've seen Cereal's vehicles, one was stuck on a piece of land near some of mine for weeks or month's (btw, I'd venture it was never AR'd; I won't bother AR'ing because I don't believe LL will do anything as evidenced by this thread). What I saw was almost certainly scanned or copied images mapped onto prims. Those images included the Toyota name and logo, effectively leveraging that name and identity - it's RW reputation and all that goes with it - to sell his SL product. Why not give them away if it's not about making Lindens? Better yet, why associate with Toyota at all?



I've seen a replica of a new VW Beetle. It's sufficiently inaccurate in shape that I suspect it may not violate the trademark VW undoubtedly has on shape of the car. But it also consisted of textures most likely lifted from either catalogues or online photos - complete with VW logos. I'm sure people have seen them; the hood texture looks a bit odd because the photo source is a straight-on shot, while the prim surface is curved. I guess the creator couldn't be bothered with correcting that (there's respect for you). But I wonder how many RL owners of this vehicle would still prefer it to anything else being sold in SL.



I've seen Shiryu's Nissans (I'd never seen one so I had to actually go find out what had been AR'd... and of course went to the location in his sig). Not only does he rip off the Nissan brand, he also makes use of the Bridgestone logo on the side of the tires (I guess he respects Bridgestone too). And the vehicles also include SL brands, effectively mixing Real and Second Life brands. Now how's that for leveraging someone else's reputation? How many owners of Nissan vehicles would purchase one of these simply because it uses the trade dress of their RL vehicle? And if it's about respect for the RL company, then give them away which is what a real fan would do imo.



(btw, Shiryu, if this is all just a "game", why are you going on about this - abusive comments? I like what Mae Best said: "Truth is, being a greeter, means meeting all kinds of people. I believe your making a big deal out of nothing? So some guy hits on you in an artificial environment?" Does this sound familiar? And your reply? "ok whatever". Please at least be consistent in how you view SL. It can't be a game when your getting away with something and become serious when someone is gaming you. To paraphrase you: Having fun is our goal NOT having to endure disrespect for our RL profession by those violating both the ToS and the RW laws. It's all in the eye of the beholder.)

Also, because apparently this went past some of those using the "if we don't make real product and real money it doesn't matter", I'd suggest you ask around the game modding community whether or not any mods have received C&D letters over their free mods using the IP of a RL company. You might also want to read a very recent answer to a Hotline query: /invalid_link.html . It seems to put a unique spin on the "Lindens have no value" argument. And as for the confusion over "Copyright" and "Trademark", I'll let those who even disagree with my position defend my comments... as they're doing.

ps - and thank you Vestalia for the research. I'd not done any background on the M4 so I'll be reading those with interest.

I've not seen everyone identify their real life occupation either.



For all we know, you're the one who AR'd Shiryu. After all, don't you have something to gain if he's forced to take his vehicles off the market?

Cereal -- there is law involved here, and you don't need to be a lawyer to understand it. The fact is, any designer or creator should understand what their rights are on their own creations. Designers should take the time to learn what "work for hire" is and the difference between copyright and trademark.

This thread may have started about shiryu and someone deciding to file a report, but it evolved into a discussion about trademark use and whether or not that is important within second life.

I find certain analogies between this topic and stealing MP3s... "it's not a big deal, everyone's doing it, it's free exposure for the artist, the music distribution system sucks..." ... sounds kinda familiar


...
panda, thanks for the response. I'll need to think on this... it's true that I don't believe you should have to file taxes on L$ received in-game, but never cashed out into real US$ ... but then again, the IRS may eventually disagree with that, just like they force you to pay taxes on certain stock options that you receive but haven't sold and earned any cash on yet. Should this be considered like earning foreign currency? I will ponder until my little brain gets confused.

As SL's visibility increases, so does the probability that a trademark holder will take exception. If Linden Labs doesn't take a vigorous and visible enforcement position, those trademark holders can go after the relatively deep pockets of LL rather than the paltry purses of the people actually violating those trademarks.

Apart from the legal issues, if you want people to have respect for your work, you have to have respect for other people's work. That means not ripping off the hard work of industrial designers and graphic designers (screw the executives, these are real people) for your own purposes, unless you get permission beforehand.

That permission, by the way, might not be difficult to secure. Company marketing departments have been looking for ways to do product placement in video games. Drop a free, high-quality placement in their laps, and they may be overjoyed to sign off on it. BUT... you need that sign-off before you start distributing the product.

I've honestly not yet had any success in getting clients to sign off on using their brand in SL. They're extremely wary. That said, I'm sending an email now to an old friend who heads up the design group at a large appliance manufacturer. I'd done some CG imaging of CAD data (Mental Ray renders of Pro/E files) and in addition to asking if I can now show it - I am of course under a Confidentiality agreement - I'm going to ask if he'll approach the company about my using their brand in SL. We'll see.

Oh gawd, I understood that.

I need to go to the mall and buy some shoes or something, try to salvage the last vestiges of my non-geek existance.

Is that what you really believe? Everyone who isn't engaged in content creation here is some sort of inferior creature? If someone doesn't know how to build products, they're just sandbox griefers who aren't worth your time? Do you realize the sort of customer your remarks are alienating? I've never even spoken with you before, nor seen you post, so this first impression is less than favorable.

Unfair competition with whom? How? Is there something or someone stopping you from building your own Toyotas?

Anyone has the opportunity to compete fairly. It's just that some people choose not to. Some people choose instead to abuse the system, to try and subvert and undermine rather than compete. And how is that fair?


The prosecution makes its opening argument. You know, I've lost count of how many times I've been accused of "littering" a car somewhere, the indignant landowner not even bothering to check that the car is owned by someone else. Personally, I think it's a testament to how many people actually use and enjoy my cars. But I forgot, I have "image" problems. Never mind.


Right, I just downloaded the "Second Life Texture Set" from toyota.com and pasted it on there.

Do you have any clue how much Photoshop work it takes to create even a crappy-looking texture? (The Celica was one of my earlier models.) Let alone textures for a whole car, interior and exterior? Let alone the requisite texture skewing because of SL's lack of proper U/V control? Let alone alignment? Let alone texture combining? Let alone compositing with different body colors?

Unlike your money tree that works by just being there, we don't wave a magic wand, click on Toyota's site and instantly have a car to sell. We're not "leveraging" anything but our own time and effort.


And why not make Lindens? Are you saying I don't deserve them? Are you saying my Celica is not worth L$149? You're free to vote with your wallet. You're free not to buy it. You're free to start a boycott, even! Go ahead and start a smear campaign against me, leverage the power of your slander, delude yourself into thinking there's something you can start with me that someone else hasn't already tried.


Because it's what people want, and it's what I want. Do I need a reason other than that? Do I need an excuse? Do I need to justify my existence to you? Does Shiryu?

'cuz it's illegal, maybe? It's unfair to those who choose to obey the law.

If you choose to role-play "obedience" with a law that doesn't matter, that's not my fault nor Shiryu's.

Aside from my "cop-out", as Hiro so eloquently put it, I believe that the examination of these base assumptions about Linden dollar valuation is a good starting point for distinctions between copyright/trademark infringement and representational art.

As to your analogy concerning foreign currency and/or stocks... very interesting. Except that Ricky Zamboni doesn't own a country (yet) or stock market.

LL owns all of your Linden Dollars, and they tell us that the currency is no different than a digital version of monopoly money in the TOS.

Laws are subject to interpretation. RL law isn't "ZOMG IT SAYS RIGHT HERE YOU ARE WRONG GUILTY LOLL". That is how rules work (ie. LL's TOS).

So where is the line drawn?



I can't answer any of this. But I am sure a judge could. And it would be Toyota's responsiblity to get the issue in front of a judge.

I just don't think it should be up to a population of "hobby spies" running around with their AR kits.

Unfortunately this is the route LL wishes to take. At the end of the day, you do not own anything you build in SL. You are renting out server space. So, I do understand why LL would want to squash infringement. They own the digital content that is in question.

However, LL should handle content management and approval without the tattle-tale brigade. It just makes SL a kind of dorky mommy-mommy-pee-pee-pants world.