Ten

Isn't that the point of class actions - to split the costs? Ner?

Am I misunderstanding?

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ZATZAi

The next step for you Stoker, if you're willing to take it, is to have your attorney write a letter to Linden Lab or perhaps more appropriately call them up on the phone, about their enforcement or lack-there-of of the DMCA.

Class actions are extremely expensive and usually backed by only a handful of clients, you need one primary client to represent. All other potentially affected people are represented as well if they opt in but they do not pay any of the costs. Often the lawyers will assume some of the costs as the potential payoff is huge and the lawyer can stand to take a double digit percentage of the settlement and the clients get a smaller portion and the settlement and the public at large just a micron of that. Class action lawsuits tend to be punitive or pirate, either their out to make a buck or their trying to punish the company for their actions (Or both). It seldom ever helps the clientelle other than getting the company to change it's policy, but it does help the attorneys (On both sides) and it hurts the company and often the primary clientes as well as they assume the burded if the class action fails (Though again attorneys often take on part of the financial risk).

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- ZATZAi

Macphisto Angelus

Well, it is certain that the content creators at this fine establishment know that LL is impotent.

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FlipperPA Peregrine

I'll take a stab at that one, in addition to what ZATZAi said. I don't think this is realistic at this point because:

(1) No current content creator has the horses, and someone has to lead a class action lawsuit.

(2) We all agreed to the ToS, which is very one-sided.

(3) Many content creators rely on SL for a good percentage of how their feed their families. For the same reason content thieves piss me off so much for this reason, the most affected content creators won't want to bite the hand that feeds them.

(4) There's precedent to be set in other realms first. Let's see what happens when a big media giant leads a class action against something like Google/Youtube first.

Regards,

-Flip

__________________
Peregrine Salon: Flip & Jenn's thang.

Gigs

Happy now?

Wildefire Walcott

Oh I totally understand that. I still think Loni's a cock.

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Stroker Serpentine

A lawsuit of this magnitude would certainly eclipse $100,000 in INITIAL attornies fee's. Preparation of the case alone would take months. At $350-500 an hour. That adds up fast.

Lawyers love asymmetrical warfare, thats why they have "firms".

The first thing LL will do once you initiate litigation is freeze your account. There are no labor laws protecting your right to work.

Although there have been lawsuits for damages. I am not aware of any that specifically address "failure" to remove content or respond to DMCA.

Our saving grace here imho is OpenSim and the BILLIONS (*edit) that are being spent on alternative VW's.
Virtual Worlds Management

I have come to the painful conclusion that there is no possibility of LL amending their policies concerning content and governance. The system was broken from day one. OpenSim will offer grid owners/developers the opportunity to not make the same mistakes as LL. (they will make NEW, BIGGER ones) Griefers and thieves will be dealt with swiftly and decisively on the most popular new grids.

In many other worlds agregious behavior does not cater to public opinion or three day vacations. You're IP/MAC banned and thats the end of it. Otherwise, you become acquainted with the FBI or Interpol. There is no law that will protect thieves and griefers if they are bounced onto their asses by a TOS weilding owner. LL refuses to enforce it's own TOS, primarily because they do not agree with it. It is forced upon them by societal mandate.

Competition is the key. Residents will vote with their feet, just as residents of There.com and Sims Online have in the past. The good news is..no matter where we end up, we will all be there together

BEARintheMorning

This one statement is the End Game to sooooooooo many of the problems we face in SL.

That said, I've decided to sell my land (no more tier to LL even via an estate owner, thank you very much) and I'm just going to hang around and bide my time hippie style (not SL hippie style, but the old meaning of the word) and "take advantage" of a friend's generosity and plop my show and studio on his sim rent free (he wants my traffic the bugger! ).

I am SO over giving money to this company that I'm willing to abandon my land if it's not sold by the next tier date. I just don't care anymore.

I will no longer be purchasing Lindens from anybody for anything and will spend whatever meagre amount I make in tips, product sales, or whatever with trusted and reputable vendors and creators from here on out.

I know I'll still be supporting Linden Lab financially in this manner but you can believe that it will be a damn sight less than I have in the past year +.

I've removed all reference to Second Life from my website other than a link pointing to the brand centre and a link to the thread discussing LL's trademark enforcement and it's effects on the community posted here at SLU.

On my show I no longer refer to Second Life. I've changed my language to "virtual metaverse" or whatever pops into my head that doesn't include "Second".

It's truly time for us to step up and get behind the "other projects" and help ensure this is not only done, but done properly.

__________________
You know you're addicted to drag racing when:

During the winter, you roll the windows down just to smell the tire smoke from skidding tires.

Bimbo Princess

Stroker
As I have said for too long now...
WE Have NO Rights in SL
Never have and never will.
The second you log in and create or upload something you have grated LL full rights.

LL's problem is they have allowed stolen content to remain in its data base for all to long, (maybe their too dumb to know how to do an SQL search).
They have even made money and still do on people paying teir on shops selling stolen goods and classified ads run by these people.
By allowing these places to continue to operate it leads the common SL user to believe these people are okay and the items/products they are selling comply and they have rights to sell them.
Other creators then may buy them and use them in their creations. And the longer LL allows all this to keep happening the more New creations this all affects.
Keep in mind tho this whole time LL has been making money off this illegal content in god only knows how many ways.
(here I stop and I think of all the fake malls that are fully rented with vendors that haven't logged on in a year)

If LL would remove the illegal items quickly and delete ban and burn the person that started selling them, (as LL is suppose to do BY Law), then this chain reaction would not be so wide spread.
Another problem is if you or I go around trying to warn people about these low life stealing bottom feeders we are quickly condemned by others. I have been threated and banned from groups and places for simply trying to warn others not to do business with some people.
And I'm sorry but if I see a name pop up and know that person is a rip off I will surly speak my mind.

I believe LL has a right to use the AV's name and remove illegal items and should give a weeks notice that they will be doing it.
But to just poof stuff without a warning is just plan stupid. Even more so when its stuff that They have allowed to be the market for so long.

Too delete items without warning and then to Try and reinstate the items as broken wothless junk and say all is good and it was a big mistake is the work of MORONs.


We have no rights, we Own nothing.
LL can poof SL at any minute.

Let me ask you this:
If you were to leave SL today, not log in, not pay fees.
But leave all your shops and items just as they were,
What do you think would happen to them ???

BTW, its good to see so many people PO'd and seeing some of the truth about SL.
Its all Smoke and Mirrors.

Cocoanut Koala

They do that on purpose.

An illustration:

In the Communication Linden's introductory blog entry (I THINK it was) after she first got the job, someone (maybe Universal Infinity? not sure) took it upon himself to post this little list of how all posters can be categorized into types.

And then he went on to categorize various people, after they posted!

By the time I posted something - a thought that had nothing to do with him or what he was up to - he had racked up some 12 posts (I forget exactly) out of the 150 allowed.

But he took up ANOTHER, just to tell me that my post was a waste of blog space!!!

So I took up another slot, saying that I was taking the unprecedented step of taking up another slot to say that the person wasting space was HIM, who at last count, had 12 (or however many) slots just to categorize other posters.

Whereupon he posted AGAIN, to say, "Make that 13!"

Well, eventually the Communications Linden posted, and one would have thought she might have said something about people hogging blog posts (particularly to categorize other posters in personal terms).

Instead, she thanked several posters for their comments, including . . . HIM.

SHE ACTUALLY THANKED HIM.

Made it pretty clear where I stood, alright, along with all the anyone else who didn't like what he was doing.

She probably told him privately to stop doing that, as he hasn't done it since. He might have been her friend in the first place, who knows.

cocostillpissed

Cocoanut Koala

Oh really?

Well, see, some Lindens (if not most) are heavily into behavior modification. (Which is sort of social engineering on an individual scale.)

And some Lindens use their position to reward who they want (regardless of behavior), and put down others (regardless of behavior), and consider that not only their right, but the right thing to do, as part of "managing" people.

Well, that kind of "managing" tends to infuriate most adults, as does talking to them like they are in Romper Room, and telling them even how they should THINK - what THOUGHTS they should have! - in order to be good little Do-Bees. As another Linden does.

But oh well, I should just shut up. I DO know my place, lol. Never had much of a problem with that.

Plus I'm just pissing myself off.

coco

Cocoanut Koala

Why?

coco

P.S. That blog entry regarding this content takedown seems to be closed to comments at comment #125.

Solomon Devoix

There were more, but they deleted 25 total comments. I archived it at various points; I just don't have the energy right now to go back through and find out what the deleted posts were.

__________________
I'm feeling fairly chipper despite some of the things going wrong in my life. It must be my meds.

Cocoanut Koala

Oh. Probably the ones they thought were the same person.

coco

FlipperPA Peregrine

Coco, if they added a "Last Modified", you could tell if someone (using me as an example):

(1) Took one of my scripts.
(2) Modified it completely and totally to make it do something evil (or illegally copy and paste someone else's script)
(3) Save it.

If someone does that right now, it will still show ME as the creator, rather than the person who last modified it, and make me look guilty rather than them. Make sense?

Regards,

-Flip

Cocoanut Koala

I meant, why did LL ask you to take it down?

coco

FlipperPA Peregrine

While it didn't violate their new trademark rules to the letter, it did violate the spirit (of course, I started it before the new policy). It succeeded in getting them a lot of inquiries asking if they were actually doing the site, instead of me. I did have this right on the front page of the site, however:

"What we are not: we are not any kind of legal authority. We can not file a lawsuit on your behalf, and can not make a virtual world remove items. We seek to assist you in protecting your intellectual property, but should not be viewed as a governmental legal authority of any kind."

While the site never took off, it did get Linden Lab's attention that there was a need for this kind of service - and more importantly, real protection for people creating honestly within the medium. I consider that a success, and hope that many lessons have been learned.

For more information on what has been accomplished, swing by Blue Linden's office hours tonight at 4pm SLT!

Regards,

-Flip

Ordinal Malaprop

Well. No, you haven't.

Brenda Archer

About this type of "managing" - I agree. It reminds me of dysfunctional families and controlling cults. It's the behavior of people who don't want to have to acknowledge others as persons.

If LL really doesn't want to be involved in community management they can find professionals who will do it for them. Bah, I know this has all been said before... for a long time now.

And I know this kind of controlling attitude is not rare in the corporate world, but the community of SL is not the corporate world, and as co-creators we're in a unique position to rebuild our experience elsewhere.

I detached from SL last fall and then for a while wondered if I was right. I can see I've got some studying to do, to get ready for the next level.

Psyke Phaeton

Are we expecting the other grids to micromanage all these issues also? How many staff will they have? And how many legal advisors?

I actually disagree that theft is LLs responsibility. Because SL is open like the web not closed like WoW.

EDIT: OK after some thought LL controls the database and so they have the responsibility because they do have the ability. But long term LL won't be the metaverse police. So I think we should get used to that now.

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Dnate Mars

They don't, that is the problem.

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I'm not dead yet....

Dnate Mars

But you file a DMCA takedown, the content must be removed. That is the problem, LL doesn't do this.

Brenda Archer

OK I've been playing with the idea of what a business model would look like on a totally opensource grid, if the proprietor was working at the hobbyist level. I am going to randomly spout some thoughts on this one and if anyone has interest we could start a thread.

OK, I'm Jane Average, so I don't host my own sim. I would have it hosted by someone else. That's doable.

Community theme: the community theme is the core of the idea and should be well described in advance, open to change as the community gathers more people.

Payment models. Micropayments are not enabled. If I set up a planned community, I would sell memberships for participation, perhaps on a monthly or weekly billed basis. All content would be provided by me including enough material to outfit a variety of avatars. Of course members who are builders themselves can add to that.

However, even the smallest proprietor can still receive payment from others via PayPal and a platform such as EBay or Yahoo! Small Business.

So this is a rental model, essentially.

Far fetched or reasonable gamble? I'm bouncing ideas off the wall here.

Psyke Phaeton

Seems normal. Don't some Estates accept payment by paypal rather than $L?

I recall OpenLifeGrid FAQ somewhere saying about an internal economy: "Not Yet" but all the others don't seem to mention it.

My guess is that long term either the $L will be the standard if LL can keep control of Virtual Worlds, and if not it will be the $US and then diversifying into multiple foreign currencies perhaps exchanged/traded by PayPal. People could pay a $US bill via PayPal in their own currency.

There is a small chance someone else will rise up and make a virtual currency but I think PayPal is too entrenched. Ebay sales would happen also but I don't see this as being very mainstream. However this makes me think of Ebay as being used to auction off virtual land or artificially scarce digital items.

Is the L$ going to die? I guess it depends on if the SL database can keep a hold on the popular virtual worlds item storage.

Going even further will you eventually be able to hook up your avatar directly to your bank account like you can with Ebay or PayPal?

It seems harder and harder to see SL as just play and just pretend.

Vermont OKs the Creation of Virtual Corporations - GigaOM

And if it is not pretend, how can WSE be pretend? Capital Gains from WSE??

But I digress...

jauani

if someone is making good money, they will keep making content.

people steal ideas in rl too. not that it's right, but the struggle with thieves is not isolated to sl. the world keeps turning.

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Ingrid Ingersoll: Maybe Jauani is right.
Cristiano Midnight: There is no maybe. Jauani is always right.