Linden Lab has an updated Terms of Service, which you probably noticed if you logged into Second Life lately, and there's a good long conversation on SL Universe about what the updated version changes. I've contacted Linden Lab to find out what the most important changes users should know about are, and will update this post when/if I get word back. Meantime, here's some interesting points noted by SLU readers:
- Section 9.5 tells users "You are not our employee", which causes Darien Caldwell to cheekily ask, "Does that mean if a Linden agrees to the TOS, they are summarily fired?" (Or to put it more seriously, does that put a Linden Lab employee who also uses Linden Lab products as a "civilian" in an ambiguous state legally?) Desmond Shang argues this clause is meant to protect Linden Lab's assets: "If the IRS decides that employment was going on, and that wage taxes are due, that's the end of it... What such a clause may do, however, is scare off a few frivolous or uninformed 'imagined employees' who may try the 'I'm an employee' tactic just as a nuisance ploy."
- Section 2.6 stipulates, "You may delete copies of your Content from the Service, and the licenses you have granted for the deleted copies will terminate with certain limitations." Ayesha Lytton interprets that change this way: "[A] new change that will provide users with more protection from losing content they purchased/licensed from other users."
Most notable to me is that the TOS seems to apply to all Linden Lab products, not just Second Life -- i.e., Creatorverse, dio, Patterns, Versu, Blocksworld, and Desura (mentioned in section 2.7). A universal TOS for multiple platforms for user-generated content that are extremely varied strikes me as pretty interesting from a legal point of view. Then again, I'm not a lawyer, nor does my avatar play one in machinima TV, so let's let legal minds weigh in.
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Has any other service ever had to state in its terms that the users are not employees? Seems absurd to have to add that in.
Posted by: Metacam Oh | Friday, August 16, 2013 at 01:26 PM
Some LL lawyer must have been pointing out the obvious about the Land Barons
Posted by: Emperor Norton | Friday, August 16, 2013 at 06:02 PM
Does that mean cross-platform vendor lock-in?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in
Posted by: Eurominuteman | Saturday, August 17, 2013 at 07:26 AM
In 2010, Second Life was de-listed by the Immersive Education Initiative for the following reasons http://immersiveeducation.org/go/iED_Article_Taking_The_Initiative_CGW.html
Vendor lock-in was one of the main reasons...
Posted by: Eurominuteman | Saturday, August 17, 2013 at 07:31 AM
The ToS change makes me wonder why The Lab has an official blog. Rather than have people such as yourself and Daniel Voyager (and others) scramble to figure out the changes and explain them, Linden Lab could have published something on the blog at the same time. Total communications FAIL, but that's not new.
Posted by: Uccello Poultry | Saturday, August 17, 2013 at 10:28 AM
A blog post from Second Life would risk getting into Spanish Inquisition mode, but I am sure they could get pretty quickly to Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms - Oh damn!
Well, "ruthless efficiency" would be stretching things a bit.
Posted by: Wolf Baginski | Sunday, August 18, 2013 at 01:52 AM
Odd. I posted a comment a couple of days ago, and it seems to have vanished.
Points of note:
Section 2.6 (formerly section 7.5) actually contains no material changes vis the deletion of content. There is minor re-wording to allow for the fact this is now an "LL ToS" rather than an "SL ToS", but as far as SL is concerned, the section gives the same provisos as it has ever since May 2010.
Similarly, Section 9.5 isn't new or changed (other than the addition of a single "or" to help the last sentence read correctly). Again, it's been around since May 2010.
If you're looking to point people to substantive changes, you might try mentioning that:
There is a new Section 7, which provides a much expanded piece on Infringement Notifications and which spells-out the DMCA process.
There is a much-updated Section 10 (section 12 of the old SL ToS) dealing with user / LL Dispute Resolution and Arbitration process.
The timing of this is perhaps also interesting, given the recent settlement in Evans et al vs. Linden Lab, which although hardly a "win" for the plaintiffs given each actually only received L$754 (yes, that IS Linden Dollars and "754"), may have prompted a tightening-up of the section by the Lab's attorneys.
Also, the 30-day "grace" period for material changes to the ToS has been removed. All changes now come into force with immediate effect, and the Lab do not have to provide any other notification of changes, other than presenting the ToS through the products and services to which it applies.
In the case of SL, this most likely means no more LL blog posts on material changes to the ToS (as was the case with this one), and users must scan through the updated ToS when it appears on their viewer if they want to know what has changed.
How users of other LL services (like dio) find out about changes to the ToS is anyone's guess.
Posted by: Inara Pey | Sunday, August 18, 2013 at 07:12 AM
Captain Obvious says: "decipher what you want, try to understand lawyer mumbo jumbo, you want to play their game, check agree and save the time of trying to understand the rules"
Posted by: 2013 | Sunday, August 18, 2013 at 07:28 PM
I cannot understand lawyers, and I just had a nice payout on an accident, after over four years of lawyerly argument.
The new TOS can only take effect when I accept it. Until then, they have to give 30 days notice. It cannot take retrospective effect.
It's the sort of apparently careless action which only makes sense as an excuse for lawyers to charge fees when some customer calls them on it.
Posted by: Wolf Baginski | Monday, August 19, 2013 at 01:04 AM
"Has any other service ever had to state in its terms that the users are not employees? Seems absurd to have to add that in."
Read some user blogs and hang out in the right places in SL and it seems less crazy than it looks that they need to say this...
SL is full of people who think LLs owes them, personally, above and beyond the rest of us. And also full of people who think LLs owes us in a collective sense. Even worse, its full of people that hold both these views in a sort of competing internal debate with either one popping out in any given discussion.
And as soon as they rightly pay me for telling you that, and do what I've told them to do on my blog to fix things for all of us, everything will be as it should. :P
Posted by: Pussycat Catnap | Monday, August 19, 2013 at 09:14 AM