How do i copyright a prim creation?

I have no idea how to begin copyright protecting my in-world SL prim creations. Wit hall the hoo ha flyin around i wan't to make sure my work is secure from theift. Can someone show me how? I've google searched copyright, filled out some forms partly but couldnt continue since it doesn't seam to cover them from what i see.

If I understand the copyright process correctly, you would have to provide blueprints or schematics of the object in question, and a photograph of it to register the copyright.

Oh.. Well i don't think most people even do that for prims. We sorta just put it together as we go along. :/ Blueprints of a 3D object will be tough. Eh i guess building is about to become a lot more work. Then you gota fill out forms for each thing you build. The $45 for registration on copyright.gov, seams like a waste to me. So many other thing's id rather use that cash for.

If you made them after 1989 in the USA then they are copyrighted as soon as they're made, basically. You don't have to do anything.

It's a good idea to add a "c in a circle" copyright symbol and a date to establish that you intend to protect your copyright.

If you want to collect damages from people violating copyright you need to register it, but that costs a lot more than it's worth, even if you get your lawyers for free.

3.3 Linden Lab retains ownership of the account and related data, regardless of intellectual property rights you may have in content you create or otherwise own.

You agree that even though you may retain certain copyright or other intellectual property rights with respect to Content you create while using the Service, you do not own the account you use to access the Service, nor do you own any data Linden Lab stores on Linden Lab servers (including without limitation any data representing or embodying any or all of your Content). Your intellectual property rights do not confer any rights of access to the Service or any rights to data stored by or on behalf of Linden Lab.



Sounds to me like you'd have to find some way to export the definition of your prims into a body of work, visual or text, that you would then copyright.

You don't copyrigt a prim creation. LL now owns everything on its servers, as per the new change in tos.

No, that's for patents. Many people get patents and copyrights confused, they aren't the same.

All the help you need is at: http://www.copyright.gov/

and for good measure, the patent office: http://www.uspto.gov/

LOL that boggles. LL owns the rights to the prims i use to make my creations. Then why can't they take action against me for selling them? Or against someone copying and selling what i created using them? Their TOS defies Logic. They should be more then liable to protect copyright against their own tools and materials if being used wrongly.

You mean, like with Copybot?

Ok here is my understanding of the TOS. I'm not a lawyer so don't take my word on this, but I am a programmer so legal code makes sense to me at a certain level.

You don't own the data you upload much like you don't own the photograph you sold to your neighbor, even if you took the picture. You may own the copyright on the photograph, but not the photograph itself anymore. This is all that LL is saying in the highlighted text.

You have no guarantied right to access your account or the data associated to it. They can delete anything and not suffer legal reprisals. This also means they aren't legally responsible for ensuring data is accessible.

I don't think this section is applicable to CopyBot.

To answer the thread title, Everything created (in the US) is automaticly copyrighted upon creation unless otherwise stated by the author. The author must agree to release it into public domain. This is a modern idea (20th century) and was created to address the issue of industrial espionage.

Why would they? They profit from your (or the copier's) ability to sell in-game content.

People are surprised that a Lab decision doesn't make sense?

Lewis

I'm not sure why there's any confusion over this...

LL created the prims in SL. What point in copyrighting them or trying to enforce a copyright... they don't exist OUTSIDE of SecondLife.

We're licensed to arrange and torture them as we like. We can slap our textures on them, script stuff up and add funtionality to prims and then distribute them, more or less as we see fit, again, WITHIN SecondLife.

How you go about setting up a beautiful bouquet of prims is your own business. You can't copyright LL's material... but you can copyright your own work. Therefore... it makes sense to me that YOU need to document the part of the work that is YOURS, the stuff that's above and beyond what LL gave you license to use.



Argent- (re: a job for copybot?) I was going to say that... but figured that might actually be mistaken for trolling.

Lewis- ... No .. I'd better not say anything to you just now.

I understand that part. Anything i do to a cube needs to be documented.

What I would do, Yiffy, is take several snapshots of your Prim creation from all angles (as well as a few with wireframe turned on. If you do that, get up nice and high first). Since snapshots have a creation date stored with them, you have a way to establish the creation date of your object. If you later need to prove that you created the object first, you can pull out the snapshots and use them as evidence.

If you really want to register it with the US Copyright office, I'd use the same general process that's used for sculpture.

Also, learn the difference between a copyright, "poor man's registered copyright", and a copyright registered at the copyright offices in DC. The registered version will hold up in court much better, but is more expensive to register.

You can do what is called "poor man's registered copyright"; for $1.37, take some screenshots of your creation, and write up a description of your creation. Put a 37 cent stamp on it, and pay the $1 for "certified" mail. Then mail it to yourself and leave it sealed. There will be a row in the database of the post office with the same number on the certification sticker, so if you need it in a case in the future, you have proof of the date of creation. This is what we did in college with our demo tapes for local bands.

Regards,

-Flip

It would be nice if someone at LL would clarify this.

True, you could use a modified version of Jeremy Gomez' "prim mirror" instead.

As someone already mentioned, this happened in the US in 1989. It was actually the US joining what's called the "Berne Convention" that made it happen. The Berne Convention was an attempt to bring the various world copyright laws into line, and this was the biggest difference between the "rights-based" European copyright laws, and the "progressive" US copyright laws.

It's worth noting that copyright law in the US is still progressive (based on promoting progress in the arts and sciences) rather than rights-based (based on an inherent right to ones work). The Berne convention doesn't change that.

It would be nice if someone at LL would clarify this.

True, you could use a modified version of Jeremy Gomez' "prim mirror" instead.

As someone already mentioned, this happened in the US in 1989. It was actually the US joining what's called the "Berne Convention" that made it happen. The Berne Convention was an attempt to bring the various world copyright laws into line, and this was the biggest difference between the "rights-based" European copyright laws, and the "progressive" US copyright laws.

It's worth noting that copyright law in the US is still progressive (based on the advancement of progress in the arts and sciences) rather than rights-based (based on an enherent right to ones work). The Berne convention doesn't change that.

So if I create something in SL from home here in the UK, would that item be deemed to have been created in the US or in the UK? I mean it's made in the UK (on the client on my PC), but stored in the US (on the server).

I've been told by a professional that this is NOT binding, and that it won't hold up in court. There are too many ways to fake it. I can think of 3 right off the top of my head.

From what I've been told by professionals in the publishing and the music industry, there is no legal substitute for copyright registration. You could use other methods to timestamp your work, but it's important to understand that none of them are legally binding.

isn't that more for getting a patent?

Not sure if this would be a viable option but have you checked out Creative Commons? They have a spot in world where you can register object. Do a search or check them out at http://creativecommons.org/

It may be a sufficient alternative for you to getting a copyright.

**
realizing i only having vague idea of what a copyright was after i originally posted here i went to http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html and below is some of what i found there. Seems if you make it it is auto copyrighted. And, i think, Creative Commons would be a way to document your ownership.


Who Can Claim Copyright?

Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work. Only the author or those deriving their rights through the author can rightfully claim copyright.