Coup d'Etat in Neualtenburg

That's a very easy matter to attend to. In fact I've already begun the process.

For more details please keep your eyes peeled on the official Neualtenburg Forum.

The Neualtenburg Projekt.

Peace? Yes, we are going to have peace soon, as she will understand her rights are limited to what they are.

Grace? Absolutely, the grace to explain it to her in a calm, rational manner, even after how she treated me. I believe we should treat others as we would want to be treated.

Justice? You bet'cha. She has been offered a huge amount of money for work she volunteered, just to be extra fair. When she backed out of the agreement she lost the rights under that agreement. She has been treated better that I think was required to be fair. They bent over backwards for her in my opinion.

Might have wanted to extend all that goodwill MY way. Ah well. live and learn.

You know I love you, Kendra

not you specifically, and I like you fine when inworld. Your forum persona creeps me out sometimes though

Actually, it was your group that terminated the negotiations. I had simply rejected several terms of their offer, the most offensive one being the requirement that I execute the shutdown and removal of the Neualtenburg Projekt forum. For obvious reasons I refused.

What initiated the coup was, when I told the city liaison that I was going public with my discovery that the negotiating group was acting outside of N'burg law. I had come to the realization that there were elected officials who were excluded from the process completely. I assume it is this same cabal that initiated the coup without the consent of all the elected officials.

I will provide official transcripts of all the negotiations on the official Neualtenburg Projekt website later today so you can see for yourself.

~Ulrika~

This all reminds me of a story in a picture book from my childhood. I don't recall the name of the story, but the illustrations are vivid in my mind. It was about a group of monkeys, who got all dressed up to attend a ball. They put on powdered wigs, velvet suits, satin gowns -- looked oh, so, dignified and elegant. Over the course of the evening, however, a bit of pooh was thrown, so to speak, and the monkeys began to tear at each other, shredding the fancy clothes, stomping on the wigs, overturning the dinner tables. In the end, all that existed were tatters and remnants of a dream gone bad. The fight was amusing, the aftermath somewhat sad and pitiful.

Kendra, your idea of an artists guild and collective sounds promising and exciting. Good luck with it.

My daddy once told me (or maybe it was the Preacher... but they might have been one and same) that the less value a thing has, the more folks will argue about who owns it. He also told me that the poorer folks are, the more they will argue about worthless things. And he told me that valuable things almost always have their value destroyed by so much argument over ownership.

So -

Neualtenburg is worthless.
&
The people who are fighting about it are very poor.
&
The value is in the entertainment.

City layouts are not necessarily the same as the "visual elements" to which you refer. It's a mixed bag because while the layout ostensibly has artistic elements, there's also a valid argument that they cannot be separated from their function. The ability to copyright functional items is not exactly well-settled law. The whole issue seems to hinge on how you define the rights being claimed. I honestly think there's valid arguments for both sides.

Is the city layout as a whole a massive 3D model? Or is it simply a collection of other 3D models? Are those models solely artistic or are they functional?

I also doubt whether the name deserves copyright protection given this same analysis. Using it with a wholly different layout could be non-infringing or perhaps de minimis infringement (another not-so-settled area of copyright law). When combined with the physical layout, maybe.

As far as the trademark is concerned, simply filing doesn't exactly guarantee that the mark will be approved. I also believe that the mark could be challenged. Moreover, how has it been used in commerce? It's certainly arguable that the sim's value as virtual real estate is a use in commerce, but also not a slam-dunk. Is the name a strong word mark? I don't know. It may not necessarily be fanciful (which is very strong), and I don't think it's absolutely generic. It could have attributed value, but without substantial research, I don't know how one would claim that the mark has enough attributed value to justify protecting some of the weaker categorizations of trademarks. Once again, not a slam-dunk either way.

I don't think it's a "famous" mark, but that's because "fame" is a moving-target standard anyway, IMO.

On the whole, it's fun to watch people bloviate on teh intarweb.

So, you know, have at it.


EDIT -- Also, since some of the documents associated with N'berg are re-treaded public domain materials, the copyright issue gets cloudier.

I get bothered when people excerpt small pieces of info without reading/contemplating the whole work.. so what am I going to do but follow this up with some more pasted info... ... from the US Patent Trademark office's website, The Office of the Library of Congress website, some DMCA wiki info and a bit of me...those who care, read on.

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What Is a Patent?A patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the Patent and Trademark Office. The term of a new patent is 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States or, in special cases, from the date an earlier related application was filed, subject to the payment of maintenance fees. US patent grants are effective only within the US, US territories, and US possessions.

The right conferred by the patent grant is, in the language of the statute and of the grant itself, “the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” the invention in the United States or “importing” the invention into the United States. What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import, but the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention.

What Is a Trademark or Servicemark?A trademark is a word, name, symbol or device which is used in trade with goods to indicate the source of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of others. A servicemark is the same as a trademark except that it identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than a product. The terms "trademark" and "mark" are commonly used to refer to both trademarks and servicemarks.

Trademark rights may be used to prevent others from using a confusingly similar mark, but not to prevent others from making the same goods or from selling the same goods or services under a clearly different mark. Trademarks which are used in interstate or foreign commerce may be registered with the Patent and Trademark Office. The registration procedure for trademarks and general information concerning trademarks is described in a separate pamphlet entitled "Basic Facts about Trademarks".

What Is a Copyright?

Copyright is a form of protection provided to the authors of “original works of authorship” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished. The 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work, to prepare derivative works, to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work, to perform the copyrighted work publicly, or to display the copyrighted work publicly.

The copyright protects the form of expression rather than the subject matter of the writing. For example, a description of a machine could be copyrighted, but this would only prevent others from copying the description; it would not prevent others from writing a description of their own or from making and using the machine. Copyrights are registered by the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress.

Section 106 of the 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to do the following:


It is illegal for anyone to violate any of the rights provided by the copyright law to the owner of copyright. These rights, however, are not unlimited in scope. Sections 107 through 121 of the 1976 Copyright Act establish limitations on these rights. In some cases, these limitations are specified exemptions from copyright liability. One major limitation is the doctrine of "fair use," which is given a statutory basis in section 107 of the 1976 Copyright Act. In other instances, the limitation takes the form of a "compulsory license" under which certain limited uses of copyrighted works are permitted upon payment of specified royalties and compliance with statutory conditions. For further information about the limitations of any of these rights, consult the copyright law or write to the Copyright Office.

WHAT WORKS ARE PROTECTED?

Copyright protects "original works of authorship" that are fixed in a tangible form of expression. The fixation need not be directly perceptible so long as it may be communicated with the aid of a machine or device. Copyrightable works include the following categories:



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and... throw in the DMCA and you are now talking about content created by an author digitally (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCA#DMCA_information).

In the case of Neualtenburg, certainly could be seen as DMCA... copyright infringement of anything from the website content, original proposals/articles/write ups about it, her art-graphics, the city layout and any renderings/building architecture plans. Trademark wise, Neualtenburg as a wordmark was used to 'brand' a sim that indeed did offer services for sale.. if only the virtual land to co-owners. Even non-profits are eligible for Trademark of their marks/branding/logo/identity.. whatever you care to call it. Don't believe me.. look up the American Red Cross on the trademark database or the United Nations Organization...you get the idea.

Read more than a paragraph before you think you understand a process. And before you ask, YES.. I have personally filed things like US Trademarks/Copyrights before.

... ok.. back to my regularly schedule peaceful elfiness..

Wow. Excellent post! Thank you for taking the time.

~Ulrika~

Like a theoretical kid story:

20 kids get together, form a group... They have an idea, to build a tree house... Actually, SOMEONE comes up with the name 'Ye Tree House', some plans for the tree house. So they start building the tree house together. All of them contribute, some bring nails, some wood, some work less, some more. They even paint the name 'Ye Tree House' on the house.

Then in the end, the SOMEONE gets mad and leaves the group. What's more, she starts to insist that the painted title from the house be removed... and that her nails and wood planks she contributed be returned... Nevermind that the treehouse would crumble, because some of those nails are in critical points, they're 'infrastructure'. She just rambles about how this all has been HER idea, HER plans, HER name for the house, HER nails. She pretends the other 19 kids are insignificant and that their contributions can be called null, just because they weren't 'THE' inventor.

This is so close to what actually happened in Neuatenburg it's scary.

Bravo

Huh? A young mother's versus anyone else's intellectual rights?

Actually, here's a more accurate rhetorical work that's actually reflected in the history contained in the N'burg forum. (Curse that source of accurate information.)

One kid has the idea to build a tree house. She names it, designs it, and builds it with a few friends. The first phase is successful. She then decides to move on to a second phase, where pieces of the tree house are sold. She spends even more time working alone for weeks to get it ready for sale. It sells well. After a few months a small group of bullies decide that they want to take the tree house from that kid. They ridicule and vilify her until she leaves crying. A few months later the kid finds the courage to confront her bullies and returns to take back what was hers.

In reality it's a little worse as they managed to run off a new mother who's wrestling with the changes that come with parenthood. For the life of me I can't figure out what makes people so damn evil.

~Ulrika~

a certain person think that the self-portrait of victim wears well on her after her history of vitriolic and histrionic mudslinging and shit stirring.

Of course, that certain person can't be named directly. That would be a violation of TOS - a public square Maypole that only she seems to be able to dance around nekkidly with impunity.

:laughing my ass off at the absurdity of a certain person's "victimhood".

I don't share your view. I was there. You were not.

That should be their mantra -- if the facts aren't on your side, attack the person.

~Ulrika~

Barrister kennedy is right, it is a grey area, but then I think N'berg could be itslef considered a service, and the design of the city a work of art and not a plan. A good lawyer with a bit of time could make strong arguments for both sides. I think in this case the equities might balance if favor of Ulrika, and if I were the remaining citizens, I would divest my self of everything she has.

What is important to me is that this area is a grey area, and that there are a number of possible interpretations. This is the sort of thing that courts are going to have to work out as virtual environments grow. It is dangerous to offer flat out legal conclusions, since no legal conclusion can ever be absolute, not when judges and juries and courts of appeals have yet to speak on the subject.

But flat out legal conclusions have more ZAZZ!

So speaketh the pot. Any more words of wisdom?

Great analysis, Jake, and an excellent recommendation above. Whether I try to or not, I always seem to find myself at the cutting edge of virtual-world developments.

Perhaps they should hold a contest to help them rename their sim. Ooh, sense a poll coming on...

~Ulrika~

I'll not get into a debate about the Ulrika as victim, bully or otherwise even though I'm not concerned about attacking a person for I tend to think (hope?) that Ulrika is a role played by a person I'd like to address at this point.


Take a breather from the keyboard and spend some time time pondering which baby is more deserving of your attention atm, the pixel one born of your efforts in SL or the RL babe not yet a year old. Weigh the value of Ulrika or Mathilde as the center of your focus and answer, not here, but in your own space, and to thy own self be truthful.

I could have posted the whole site (I posted the link), but the only thing that mattered is the trademark. Names can't be copyrighted, ever. No sense posting patent and copyright info.

Your opinion of the sale of land amounted to commerce might apply, if she was selling it, but she never sold any land. There is no business under the name, for profit or otherwise. It's not a company or brand, product or service. It's a coop of people who came together to buy a sim.

You can argue it all you wish, but it won't provide her rights she doesn't have.

If I were her I'd have taken the generous offer of $L260,000. But for some reason I think this drama is worth the loss of money.

I personally hope the city abandons the name and city design. Then when the city becomes popular finally, she won't have any bragging rights.

Everything she worked for, her legacy in N'burg, the historical docs and builds will all be forgotten. The new city will emerge much more pretty in my opinion. Maybe we can even lower the city out of the clouds.

Your premise is faulty in that you place motherhood and standing up for one's rights in conflict. In fact they are not in conflict, as a successful mother will teach their daughter by example to stand up for her rights.

This is precisely why I returned from my hiatus, to set right the injustices that have been done. When things are resolved, I will rest in peace.

~Ulrika~