Second Life, Linden Lab Trademarks, Yes It Hurts, But Why Fuss Now?
So many blogs, like Tateru’s, buzzing about this trademark cease and desist letter sent to Jokaydia, some 18 months since Linden Labs made the policy as New World Notes succinctly describes. Some tell me hundreds of educators make extensive use of ‘SL’ and other trademarks in their materials, names and URLs. It is no surprise they are worried. They don’t have the time and resources to defend themselves and so will simply drop it or look elsewhere.
Yet I am also very ‘perplexed’ (like NWN) about “Why the fuss now?”
Here’s a personal observation:
Educators seem to be on a different path and wavelength in their adoption, usage, and views toward Second Life and virtual worlds in general. They largely are still learning things others haven’t. In fact, their very hype cycle seems to be on something of a time delay behind the well pronounced corporate hype cycle, with different drivers and results.
Having become more involved with educators (my preferred future career path) after so many years just focused on corporate and entertainment, the education community has a distinctly different network of participants, information sources, and perspectives. I’d go so far to say that there is something of a gap, even wall between the educational community and corporate community (which incidentally is the topic of a proposed ISTE 2010 panel presentation I just submitted with Julie Sugarplum and others).
This gap could explain why educators sometimes don’t understand what is happening and vice versa. Both communities have tremendous amounts to learn from each other–especially in the wake of large-scale corporate failures in SL while educational institutions flourish for reasons discussed elsewhere.
Personally I find bridging this gap in communication and understanding between the two macro communities critical to the 21st century workforce, and if you’d like to hear mine and others’ perspectives look for our panel presentation at ISTE 2010.
October 1, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Yeah, it’s a bad move at a bad time.
Sad really.
October 1, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Why fuss? Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words ; )
Check out this screen shot from the Second Life in Education email list site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kerryank/3973520736/
October 1, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Yep, not disagreeing Kerry. It seems more of an internal policy issue at Linden Labs than anything else, with unfortunate consequences for the few who are subjected to it while others are not.
October 7, 2009 at 4:30 pm
I think there is a good reason for the fuss. It indicates that there is still a severe disconnect between policies as perceived by Second Life users versus actual policies as perceived by Linden Lab. Linden Lab is doing the community a disservice by inconsistent policy enforcement. I think the problem, as illustrated by the most recent conflict, is that many, many people are still investing time and energy building properties and services which they believe are legitimate, yet in Linden Lab’s opinion (and likely the opinion of the legal system) they are trademark infringers. Linden Lab is doing a poor, poor job of gently, but firmly and pro-actively making it clear to everybody that this is not allowed.
And, I’m not talking about obvious scammers like “second-life.com”. They get what they deserve.
I’m talking about thriving communities like SLUniverse.com as well as myriads of sites continually being enhanced, revised, and launched like sl-newspaper.com, sl-messenger.com, slshakespeare.com, slentre.com, sloodle.org, slusage.com, sltweets.com, slbrowser.com, second-man.com, secondinventory.com, secondplaces.net, etc.
Unless these people have special licenses from Linden Lab (and none have published such indications), they are sitting on a legal time bomb.
But, the worst thing is, they don’t know it. Why? Because, Linden Lab’s branding guidelines are not easy to interpret. They are full of subtlety that is neither understood by the user community nor part of a continuing service of brand education and assistance from the lab. Many of these people would claim that they are using these names legitimately. They think that putting inSL logos on their site is all they need to do. They aren’t aware that the word “second” is trademarked by the lab. They haven’t checked the trademark databases lately and haven’t spoken to their IP lawyers. But, the moment their efforts get into the spot light, they are doomed to legal drama and expenses that often eliminate all the value and goodwill they have built up in their investment in time, energy, and often significant financial investments.
The important issue of the SLEducation wiki situation isn’t about educators (though it is nice for the lab to have that distraction occur)… it is about Linden Lab taking advantage of the user communities naivete to knowingly allow tens of thousands of people to abuse their brand, then making draconian decisions in randomly selected cases for the purpose of maintaining the right to say to the courts “we enforce our trademark rights”.
The lab has the right to their brand, no question. But, they need to be consistent about enforcing it and do everything possible to completely eliminate any idea in the minds of fans and user site owners that their infringing brands are, in some way, OK to use.
This inconsistent enforcement sends the wrong message and just exacerbates the problem. For example (and this is just one of many examples)… SLUniverse is the leading second life community site, raves about their membership, has loyal appreciative users, and makes money off advertising. It’s a business that relies upon their brand and many of us rely upon them. There is no mention of a special license from Linden Lab on their site, no mention by Linden Lab that such sites are OK or not OK, no blog posts, nothing. Not from them, not from the Lab.
So, it stands to reason that ANY visitor to SLUniverse will conclude that such names are OK. If Linden Lab is endorsing this site (as they do with SLCC and SLConvention.org for example), it needs to be clear and explicit. That way, anybody else knows that in order to do the same thing, they need permission. Otherwise, such examples of successful businesses, unfettered and popular, just lead thousands of well-meaning people to continue using such names until some bombshell is dropped on them and their community.
October 7, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Very well said, Wiz and company. Thank you.
October 12, 2009 at 12:10 am
[...] Second Life, Linden Lab Trademarks, Yes It Hurts, But Why Fuss Now? http://imohax.com/2009/10/01/whysltmfuss/ [...]