Even as it faces a long list of other problems, LindenLabs announced today that it will begin enforcing its copyright against unauthorized use in 90 days. An official post on the SecondLife blog introduced a new website called the SecondLife Brand Center.
"The Brand Center," Catherine Linden writes for the company, "explains how Residents can promote their own brands, products and activities in the Second Life world and use appropriate logos to enhance their message." That's a remarkably positive way to describe what's mostly a list of thou-shalt-nots, combined with an ugly new logo that users are allowed to put on their stuff.
A copyright campaign by the company is probably connected to, and may be the only thing crazier than, rumors of a forthcoming IPO. A look at the context for this announcement shows that threatening its users is the last thing this company ought to be doing right now.
You can see the whole list of things you can't say, with generic alternatives, here. The list includes the name of the inworld currency, the Linden, for which users are instructed to substitute the word "dollar."
It sure would be great if Linden focused on improving the SecondLife experience instead of focusing on their copyright.
Second Life's user numbers are stagnating. SL expert Wagner James Au writes at Gigaom that the population in-world has plateaued at just over a half million active users and new user retention is stuck at 10%.
The company's founding CEO is stepping into a new role, making room for someone not yet selected, with more managerial experience.
Service interruptions are rampant, reading the company blog is disheartening and reader comments on the BrandCenter post return again and again to the basic problems that even dedicated residents have to deal with.
In December, the leader of its vaunted platform for outside commercial designer/developers, the Electric Sheep Company, laid-off one third of its workforce and announced that it will move into other Virtual World platforms.
Scores of users complain that their own copyrights are going unprotected in SecondLife. These complaints make LindenLabs' move today all the more an indignity.
So who's ready to start buying stock?
Virtual worlds undoubtedly hold a whole lot of potential, but SecondLife may have already proven itself too inhospitable to scale.
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It is unfortunate as I think Virtual Worlds are a big part of the future of eCommerce.
http://www.fabianschonholz.com/2007/09/23/virtual-worlds-as-an-commerce-platform/
Posted by: Fabian Schonholz | March 24, 2008 3:49 PMActually, watch it there, buddy, it's "Linden Lab" singular. Actually "Linden Lab" is only a nickname for "Linden Research, Inc."
At one level, yes, this move to secure the trademark has a kind of virtual immersion buzzkill feel to it, especially if you had a thriving business using the name "SL or "Second Life" in your domain name or inworld company. A particular nasty feature of this new development is that while you can go on using the letters "SL" in your group, business, website inworld, you have to sign an agreement not to register any real-world company with these letters, and also not use it your SL name in other virtual world platforms (meh, some Metaverse!). Oh well, there goes my plan for SL Virtual Tours, Inc. in The Sims Online...
But, on the other hand, it's dead-easy to register your business or group (I did in 30 seconds) on the website, and I imagine with thousands and thousands of these groups and businesses in this micropayment world, that some percentage of them will register, some will never hear about it or ignore it, and Linden Lab will go after a few of the bigger ones it finds competitive for some reason.
These SL businesses will then either knuckle, or fight an interesting court battle to prove that LL lost control of its putative trademark space long ago when it let thousands of start-ups emerge on their platform using the names and even the logos with hardly a comment for four years. It will be interesting to watch especially what will happen with slexchange.com, the largest shopping site that is very popular with people in SL because it enables them to shop for their avatar and homes while at work and not logged into SL itself.
The move is definitely rankling the population right at a time when copyright theft is rampant and there doesn't seem to be a streamlined way to deal with it.
These issues are very real for any user-generated world or service, however, and won't change for somebody else trying to start something in the Metaverse. If you want a free economy, how can you constantly interfere in transactions between users, and start spending customer service time and money adjudicating personal disputes ("hey, she copied my dress, waaah"). I don't think LL can fairly be expected to take on this burden, I think they can only streamline their information and DMCA takedown services and point people back to real-world lawyers where some wealthier businesses at least have been able to defend their virtual copyright and obtain at least settlements out of court from copyright thieves.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | March 25, 2008 8:47 AMLinden Lab isn't really focusing all the time on copyright. Actually, they have 'been surprisingly lax in protecting their trademark'
http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2008/03/25/linden-tightens-the-reins-on-its-brand
I'm not sure Marshall Kirkpatrick has a good point here.
I'm in Second Life since 18 months and my experience is getting better every day. There are many technical issues, for sure, but Linden Lab often releases updates to client and server software, improving old features and giving residents new ones.
The 'bad news' mixup I see here isn't really justified, in my opinion.
About buying stocks, I suggest reading this insightful article:
Posted by: Opensource Obscure | March 26, 2008 3:15 AMPeering Inside: Linden Lab IPO = Epic Fail
http://www.massively.com/2008/03/24/peering-inside-linden-lab-ipo-epic-fail/
OpenSource Obscure is right (and first thing I thought upon reading your opening paragraphs). Copyright and Trademark are completely different parts of Law - don't confuse them.
Posted by: Taran Rampersad (Nobody Fugazi) | March 26, 2008 1:31 PMI think they are not saying use the word "dollar" instead of "Linden", but use them in conjunction: "Linden dollar" rather than just "Linden". If you look at the guidelines, you will see where they say "Always follow a Linden Lab brand name with an appropriate generic noun for at least your first reference to the brand name."
Posted by: Poinky Malaprop | March 26, 2008 5:06 PM