That Supposed Day Off Thing
Well part of a day anyway.
This is an alert for content creators; many I know read this blog.
If you missed all the hubbub last month, Linden Lab changed the Terms of Service mid August (which most of you I bet didn't read and put a check in the box and clicked through) to include the provision that The Labs have all rights (except your copyright) to work uploaded to Second Life. Now, they pretty much had that from the beginning -- or at least when I faithfully read the Terms of Service when joining. But before the wording included "for the distribution of resources" or something like that meaning so that they could run SL as it was designed. Now the rights are much much broader and very inclusive. Your first born child is still safe unless born after August 15th but your content may not be.
There was a lot of conversation on the boards about this, some folks quit SL etc.
Today there was a post on the Building and Texturing Forums that CG Textures, a well-known and well used stock texture site announced that it would no longer be legal to upload any of their textures or derivatives (no matter that they are vastly changed or even uploaded within the 3D modeling process making them pretty much useless for anything but the one model they go with). Here is a link to their post.
This puts a big dent in the textures to start from library.We can still use creative commons (attrib only) textures and indeed I spent about an hour downloading "replacement" stock to work from. Items using CG Textures stock as a starting point uploaded before September 6 are still legal -- and of course it is up to you if want to BE legal or simply ignore.
I do a lot of things in Second Life. If I couldn't build any longer, I still have plenty to do. But what if 30 percent of the content creators decide that they don't like Linden Labs ability to use their work in any and every way that they might want to? (I am not copying any TOS text in here as I am guessing there is a "you may only link to this page" statement somewhere on it) so please feel free to peruse the forum posts and read the TOS areas that were changed. Specifically section 2.3 but there are some others that have changed greatly and have impact. Here is a Google doc with a comparison (hopefully correct).
So if all this passed you by, it might be time to do a bit of research and see where your comfort level lies. If some of my best builds ended up at a third party site for sale with no credit or money going to me, I would not be happy about it. Presumably only items uploaded AFTER we agreed to the terms of service would be available in that all inclusive rights category. And honestly MY stuff is most likely not going to be their first choice :D, but YOURS might.
Going off to think. Like to have faith in people. Find that often I shouldn't have *wink*.
This is an alert for content creators; many I know read this blog.
If you missed all the hubbub last month, Linden Lab changed the Terms of Service mid August (which most of you I bet didn't read and put a check in the box and clicked through) to include the provision that The Labs have all rights (except your copyright) to work uploaded to Second Life. Now, they pretty much had that from the beginning -- or at least when I faithfully read the Terms of Service when joining. But before the wording included "for the distribution of resources" or something like that meaning so that they could run SL as it was designed. Now the rights are much much broader and very inclusive. Your first born child is still safe unless born after August 15th but your content may not be.
There was a lot of conversation on the boards about this, some folks quit SL etc.
Today there was a post on the Building and Texturing Forums that CG Textures, a well-known and well used stock texture site announced that it would no longer be legal to upload any of their textures or derivatives (no matter that they are vastly changed or even uploaded within the 3D modeling process making them pretty much useless for anything but the one model they go with). Here is a link to their post.
This puts a big dent in the textures to start from library.
I do a lot of things in Second Life. If I couldn't build any longer, I still have plenty to do. But what if 30 percent of the content creators decide that they don't like Linden Labs ability to use their work in any and every way that they might want to? (I am not copying any TOS text in here as I am guessing there is a "you may only link to this page" statement somewhere on it) so please feel free to peruse the forum posts and read the TOS areas that were changed. Specifically section 2.3 but there are some others that have changed greatly and have impact. Here is a Google doc with a comparison (hopefully correct).
So if all this passed you by, it might be time to do a bit of research and see where your comfort level lies. If some of my best builds ended up at a third party site for sale with no credit or money going to me, I would not be happy about it. Presumably only items uploaded AFTER we agreed to the terms of service would be available in that all inclusive rights category. And honestly MY stuff is most likely not going to be their first choice :D, but YOURS might.
Going off to think. Like to have faith in people. Find that often I shouldn't have *wink*.
Comments
That is akin to an artists' studio accepting artwork only if the artist gives up all rights to his work, forever. In this scenario the studio can reproduce and sell the artwork with no remuneration or credit to the artist.
How long do you think the studio will stay in business? How long do you anticipate LL and SL will stay in business if they actually enforce these outrageously intimidating Terms of Service?
EE
You still have all your rights to the item, but so does LL.
Nalates Urriah
Could you please add the first and original post in the SL forums.
http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Building-and-Texturing-Forum/CG-Textures-Announcement-FYI/td-p/2187679
I know because I did a search before creating that thread :P
Rya Nitely