TOS and the LCO Drama

I guess I went over to the that double Aquarian anarchist place tonight. I read on the Lindenland fashion feed about Legend City Online stealing a bunch of content and that didn't sit well for me. So I posted the question about Openlife Terms of Service (which seemed lacking and which people had asked about before on different posts and blogs) on the official forum. Luckily, Sakai answered right away and of course I replied to his answer. Here is the reply.

If nothing else, I learned a lot including that no one that was complaining about LL losing ALL OUR STUFF in the inventory had any right to complain as we had somewhere along the line click through on a new TOS (oh my I am guilty too) LOL. So THAT was good to know and I'll pass that along.

*****************************************************

Sakai Openlife wrote: Actually Terms for the use of the Openlifegrid.com WebSite & Virtual World have been available since conception and can be found at the footer of every page of this site. (see down the bottom click terms.) or if you feel like being scrolless ->http://openlifegrid.com/Main/tabid/36/ctl/Terms/Default.aspx

Thanks oh great leader but aren't those mostly the terms of USE for the webpage? I did find those as mentioned above. That looks very much like the "standard" webpage terms of use and it doesn't say anything about Terms of Service which is confusing to a lot of folks and was not where I was sent a month or so ago :D (That could have been in error of course). There is one section that seems to relate to what people are asking about.

Here is the part that seems to relate to the grid and content creator rights if I am correct: (my bold)

MATERIALS PROVIDED TO Openlife Grid OR POSTED AT ANY Openlife Grid WEB SITE & VIRTUAL WORLD

Openlife Grid does not claim ownership of the materials you provide to Openlife Grid (including feedback and suggestions) or post, upload, input or submit to any Openlife Grid Web Site & Virtual World or its associated services (collectively "Submissions"). However, by posting, uploading, inputting, providing or submitting your Submission you are granting Openlife Grid, its affiliated companies and necessary sublicensees permission to use your Submission in connection with the operation of their Internet businesses including, without limitation, the rights to: copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, translate and reformat your Submission; and to publish your name in connection with your Submission.

No compensation will be paid with respect to the use of your Submission, as provided herein. Openlife Grid is under no obligation to post or use any Submission you may provide and may remove any Submission at any time in Openlife Grid's sole discretion.

By posting, uploading, inputting, providing or submitting your Submission you warrant and represent that you own or otherwise control all of the rights to your Submission as described in this section including, without limitation, all the rights necessary for you to provide, post, upload, input or submit the Submissions

If in fact those are the Terms of Services, doesn't it say that you (company) can "take our stuff" which is pretty much what people are worried about ? :D

However, by posting, uploading, inputting, providing or submitting your Submission you are granting Openlife Grid, its affiliated companies and necessary sublicensees permission to use your Submission in connection with the operation of their Internet businesses including, without limitation, the rights to:

copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce ...

I am just the designated messenger. People are asking these questions.

*************************************************************

This is the VERY disturbing text from LCO:

b ) You agree that any content downloaded into or created items in world give Legend City Online automatic rights to use, produce, and or distribute within our services and this content is royalty free, worldwide and carries no balance for fee. Furthermore, you agree that you have the right and are authorized to grant us such content under these conditions).

I think it would be a good idea (IMHO) to have a Terms of SERVICE page separately and, if it still isn't working, to get the link you click on when signing up to go to the appropriate page and not a 404.

I'm not sure that I personally feel a whole lot better after reading that statement. No reflection on you, personally, of course.

Thanks for the superquick reply :D

****************************************************************

OK. In the interest of really doing my homework (which I try to do), I went back over to Phil's and looked through there PAGES of TOS. Along with a very disturbing paragraph that says, "we can delete you stuff and any time -- HOHO with no recourse by you" (paraphrased), I found THIS:

3.2 You retain copyright and other intellectual property rights with respect to Content you create in Second Life, to the extent that you have such rights under applicable law. However, you must make certain representations and warranties, and provide certain license rights, forbearances and indemnification, to Linden Lab and to other users of Second Life.

Users of the Service can create Content on Linden Lab's servers in various forms. Linden Lab acknowledges and agrees that, subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, you will retain any and all applicable copyright and other intellectual property rights with respect to any Content you create using the Service, to the extent you have such rights under applicable law.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, you understand and agree that by submitting your Content to any area of the service, you automatically grant (and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant) to Linden Lab: (a) a royalty-free, worldwide, fully paid-up, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to (i) use, reproduce and distribute your Content within the Service as permitted by you through your interactions on the Service, and (ii) use and reproduce (and to authorize third parties to use and reproduce) any of your Content in any or all media for marketing and/or promotional purposes in connection with the Service, provided that in the event that your Content appears publicly in material under the control of Linden Lab, and you provide written notice to Linden Lab of your desire to discontinue the distribution of such Content in such material (with sufficient specificity to allow Linden Lab, in its sole discretion, to identify the relevant Content and materials), Linden Lab will make commercially reasonable efforts to cease its distribution of such Content following the receipt of such notice, although Linden Lab cannot provide any assurances regarding materials produced or distributed prior to the receipt of such notice; (b) the perpetual and irrevocable right to delete any or all of your Content from Linden Lab's servers and from the Service, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and for any reason or no reason, without any liability of any kind to you or any other party; and (c) a royalty- free, fully paid-up, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to copy, analyze and use any of your Content as Linden Lab may deem necessary or desirable for purposes of debugging, testing and/or providing support services in connection with the Service. Further, you agree to grant to Linden Lab a royalty-free, worldwide, fully paid-up, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, sublicensable right and license to exercise the copyright, publicity, and database rights you have in your account information, including any data or other information generated by your account activity, in any media now known or not currently known, in accordance with our privacy policy as set forth below, including the incorporation by reference of terms posted at http://secondlife.com/corporate/privacy.php.

You also understand and agree that by submitting your Content to any area of the Service, you automatically grant (or you warrant that the owner of such Content has expressly granted) to Linden Lab and to all other users of the Service a non-exclusive, worldwide, fully paid-up, transferable, irrevocable, royalty-free and perpetual License, under any and all patent rights you may have or obtain with respect to your Content, to use your Content for all purposes within the Service. You further agree that you will not make any claims against Linden Lab or against other users of the Service based on any allegations that any activities by either of the foregoing within the Service infringe your (or anyone else's) patent rights.

You further understand and agree that: (i) you are solely responsible for understanding all copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret and other intellectual property or other laws that may apply to your Content hereunder; (ii) you are solely responsible for, and Linden Lab will have no liability in connection with, the legal consequences of any actions or failures to act on your part while using the Service, including without limitation any legal consequences relating to your intellectual property rights; and (iii) Linden Lab's acknowledgement hereunder of your intellectual property rights in your Content does not constitute a legal opinion or legal advice, but is intended solely as an expression of Linden Lab's intention not to require users of the Service to forego certain intellectual property rights with respect to Content they create using the Service, subject to the terms of this Agreement.

We all know I'm not in the Phil camp. I closed my half sim main store and sattelites there last week. Their text does seem to be a bit -- clearer?. It is very interesting to note that is says in here too, that if they loose things, too bad. So the people complaining can't really complain as loudly I guess. :D I simply left! LOL

Smiles.

EDIT: Here is the reply to my reply which happened while I was posting this:

i perhaps a little plain english can help here.

Obviously even more than the just the text above the example will be how the provider uses such a disclaimer and that's most likely the real proof in the pudding so to speak.

Openlife Grid does not claim ownership of the materials you provide to Openlife Grid (including feedback and suggestions) or post, upload, input or submit to any Openlife Grid Web Site & Virtual World or its associated services (collectively "Submissions"). However, by posting, uploading, inputting, providing or submitting your Submission you are granting Openlife Grid, its affiliated companies and necessary sublicensees permission to use your Submission in connection with the operation of their Internet businesses including, without limitation, the rights to: copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, translate and reformat your Submission; and to publish your name in connection with your Submission.

I think from the above statement it's important to note the first opener 'we do not claim ownership of the materials you provide'... This is important it's user generated content and needs to be received in that context, including to a non creator.

The second half about things you input or submit let's take the example of a texture is also important... 'copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, translate and reformat your Submission'...

Because we need to retransmit this data to other users, ie someone comes into your region and views a texture. First you uploaded it, at that point we did the 'reformat' part of the statement, and stored it in our database, without the other mentions just listed we wouldn't be able to provide it to other users.

I hope that information helps, basically our Terms of Use are pretty vanilla and nothing out of the ordinary, including when compared to almost every website you visit on the web today. We haven't asked for a 3rd mortgage or your 2nd child, just to be able to conduct the world in safe & legal manner.

*****************************************************

I did get a laugh out of that which was good. Do I feel "safe and secure"? Not so much. This isn't a safe a secure world after all, but it was good to bring it all up and see where things landed. We have it for posterity now. Let's hope it holds.