Cloud Party's Cyn Skyberg Contrasts Its Terms of Service with Second Life's ToS: "Cloud Party Does Not Claim Any Ownership Right in Any Member Content”

A new blog post by Cyn Skyberg of Cloud Party, the web-based virtual world, explicitly contrasts Cloud Party's Terms of Service with that of Second Life, which now claims rights over "all or any portion of your User Content (and derivative works thereof), for any purpose whatsoever in all formats". Unlike Second Life, notes Skyberg, here's Cloud Party's policy:

In short, our TOS states “Cloud Party does not claim any ownership right in any Member content”.

Her post is rich in Metaversal irony. For one thing, Cloud Party counts Cory Ondrejka as an investor and adviser, a co-founder of Second Life, and during Ondrejka time as Linden Lab's CTO, the company asserted no ownership rights over its users' content. Even more keenly, Skyberg is formerly Linden Lab's VP of Community. And Cyn tells me she is now emphasizing this part of Cloud Partly's Terms of Service to assure its own user community:

"We want to encourage people to create," as Cyn explains to me,"and be comfortable that we're here for them to be able to share what they are capable of, and are not interested in owning their content."

Read her full Cloud Party post here, and thoughts on the company's strategy to me, below. In a final irony, reader Toady Nakamura just sent me an archived Internet page, back from 2003, when Second Life not only had a similar policy to Cloud Party's now, but made user ownership SL's key distinguisher: Read it here.

More from Cyn on this aspect of Cloud Party's ToS: "We have always taken the approach that we are far more interested in enabling our users to create, really create -- in fact, our tools are sometimes a bit too deep, and that is something we are currently addressing, to make Cloud Party more usable for everyone -- rather than have any share in their content's ownership. We are far more the palette and brushes, not the artistic broker, and we don't have any interest in being that.

"When we took a good look at what we were creating and decided to make our interface more closely reflect the web, that was a deliberate and intentional desire to enable 3D content creation, sharing, and experience as more universal and accepted experience that anyone could do, and our work since then has reflected that. We're open, easy to get to, are working on exposing more social tools and refining the ones we have."

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Comments

[Medhue]

Fricken hilarious! Hey Rod, what do you think of that?

[Pussycat Catnap]

PWN'd...

/sigh

I just wish I could enjoy the look and layout of Cloud Party.

But a shot across the bow at SL is needed.

[Bear Silvershade]

Umm, no. While they have nicely inserted a line saying they don’t claim ownership, but, though they don’t state it, neither does LL/SL.
LL is claiming exclusive rights to use content how they see fit. As a matter of fact, the Cloud Party member rights section has very similar language to the SL TOS, granting rights in perpetuity to do what they want with with your content.
The important part is that they have modified those exclusive rights with “for the purpose of providing, promoting, and advertising the services,” an important limiter that LL needs to put back in.
They don’t give themselves the right to sell or resell your content, though they do give themselves the rights to use your content for advertising and promoting Cloud Party.

[Ciaran Laval]

Agree with Bear Silvershade, ownership of the content is not an issue with either TOS, it's the limiting part, which is where LL are overstepping the mark in my view.

This spam filter here drives me nuts!

[Ezra]

@Bear "While they have nicely inserted a line saying they don’t claim ownership"

The line wasn't added, it's been in the TOS predating Linden Lab's TOS change. I think they should've made that clear 'lest anyone believes this was a ploy to grab some attention from this fiasco.

"As a matter of fact, the Cloud Party member rights section has very similar language to the SL TOS"

Depends on your definition of similar. Cloud Party clearly only takes enough rights to operate, advertise and promote the service. Linden Lab takes every meaningful right to do everything for every reason. I'd say that's very different.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

@Bear: I think ownership in this sense to them means ownership style rights. Linden Lab does pretty much claim work as close to work for hire rights as you can get without the exclusivity ... these can be said to be ownership style rights.

It is interesting that CP "does" have rights that are just as rigid as LL, but only as applies to feedback, not content. Feedback I can understand ... if someone suggests a feature it may be implemented, sub licensed, sold, etc.

They're still on the side of right though, claiming that their rights are only needed for the purpose of making the content available on their service and promoting the service. Therein lies the major difference.

[Ezra]

@Ciaran "Agree with Bear Silvershade, ownership of the content is not an issue with either TOS, it's the limiting part, which is where LL are overstepping the mark in my view."

There's the legal definition of the word "ownership" then there's what matters to most people, which is what we're allowed to do with our content vs. what a company like Linden Lab is able to do. You and Bear are right and I agree, but its a semantic dispute, we aren't talking about more limitations vs. less limitations, we're talking about limitations vs. the absence of limitations that've rendered pointless words like owner, licensor and licensee.

[Cube Republic]

They need cash out so that people can actually trade content.

[Masami]

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, I'm a content creator. Will you guys ever learn the difference between a contract and a PR statement?

The only thing you need to know about Cloud Party's TOS is that Cloud Party claims the right to change their TOS at any time.

[zzpearlbottom]

Right on the spot Masami!
any commercial grid, when do see fit they'll do what Ll did, change the Tos!

[A.J.]

I've read, from a distance, about the drama surrounding the TOS. Frankly, I'm kind of "blah" about it.

Maybe because I spend every day of my RL constructing unique, custom 3D objects made out of "matter". Sometimes it's mindless and sometimes I have to put my heart and soul into finding solutions to get the desired result. I'm educated in fine arts and trained for years on the job. I charge a lot of money for my services and I pay a lot of money for materials and $70,000 dollars a year to rent the location for my business. I make things, sell them, and let them go. I walk around in my daily life feeling pretty "ordinary" because I am. I get up the next day and start all over knowing I have more creative ability left in me to sell and I will sell it.

Geez, I look at all of this digital whining coming from an almost delusional self-importance from people who make things like digital doll clothes and sell them in copies for very small amounts of money. Get a grip on your place and your contribution in this world of billions.

SL gives you a very low-cost platform to sell your work at a very high profit margin. Do good work and run a good business and maybe you will see the value of your efforts.

Life is all about making judgments and compromises. You either want the money or you don't.

[Pussycat Catnap]

"I think they should've made that clear 'lest anyone believes this was a ploy to grab some attention from this fiasco."

But it IS a ploy to grab attention from this fiasco!

And rightly so.

And, Kudos to them. They're even luckier in that they already had a good ToS. But good time to shine a light on it.

It made me go in and check to be sure my account in Cloud Party was valid... I fervently wish I could get emotionally into that platform... It has not sync'd with me. I suspect the first time I see a Cloud Party Neko it will at least get sticky with me.

Though last time I went I had to get a paid account just to be able to keep my name permanent - it seems to still remember my name now.

But yeah...

Well played on their part to use this current fiasco to their benefit.

ALL of SLs competitors right now should be doing that, and as loudly as they can...

This is a great opportunity to steal customers. Use it.

[Adeon Writer]

Sooo... Next LL will claim ownership of all Cloud Party content then? :)

[Kim Anubis]

Hey, AJ, imagine your business were, say, hit by a hurricane, and you posted about it. And then someone who has a VR content business posted to say that you're a whiner, and not special, and if you were smart at all you would build virtual content, which would have been safe from the hurricane and you wouldn't be dropping seventy grand a year on rent to sell bits of matter and bolster your own sense of self-importance. That would be about as helpful, ignorant, and rude as your post.

For most people, this is a situation about trust, not money. And as a craftsman yourself, you know there is more involved than getting paid, or you would have become a doctor or a lawyer instead of a fine artist. And for some, it is about money, and I guarantee some of the businesses and other organizations involved here -- universities, nonprofits, not many enterprises anymore, but there are land management, content development, and merchant companies -- that certainly have enough income or investment at risk that your mocking the situation in the way you have makes me feel embarassed for you.

[Kim Anubis]

Oops, left the government agencies off my list. But hey, organizations like NASA are puny compared to your shop, right, AJ?

[zzpearlbottom]

If trust is all about, then i do trust LL much more then any other else on virtual worlds, at least they are consistent in the way they show they don't care about what any thinks, even themselves!
But on a personal perspective, i got all i wanted from LL and can't have any reason to complain about!
And does any really trusts any that comes from Usa these days?

[Kim Anubis]

zzpearlbottom, I'm from the USA, but I will try not to take your question personally.

While I can review my past experiences with LL, and then decide personally as an individual content creator -- or even as the owner of a custom content creation company -- to take the word of LL's statement despite its conflict with the contractual agreement, my clients generally do not have the same freedom. They have legal departments that make these decisions formally. So, really, I am not the one who will make the decision as to whether my company continues to work in SL. All I can do is continue to expand my operations elsewhere, and see what happens.

[David Cartier]

Thank you, zzpearlbottom, for adding no value at
all to the conversation. If nothing else,Second Life
Is a fantastic way to meet people from all over
the planet, and discover they are pretty much all the
same. If you spend all your time in SL with other
Brasilians, or Moslems or gay liberal democrats from
Corte Madera you might as well not bother to log in.

[Ezra]

@Pussycat "But it IS a ploy to grab attention from this fiasco!"

I meant that they didn't actually add the line to the TOS recently as a ploy. CP's TOS has always been respectful of ownership rights.

The blogging about it and namedropping Linden Lab was an attention grab though, sure.

[Kim Anubis]

Back in the day (almost a decade ago), LL tried to attract There.com customers in a similar way, making a big announcement about how they were going to let their users keep their own rights, creating the last name "Thereian", and making a special offer to those who proved they had There.com accounts. It apparently worked very well for them, and it makes good sense (and amusing irony) for Cloud Party to try the same approach. It also illustrates a cycle I've observed in a number of online communities over the course of decades.

David does make a very good and important point. We wouldn't all be here having this discussion if not for SL bringing us together in the first place. And the opportunities and effects of getting to know people from all over the world in a one-on-one way in virtual space is an incredibly valuable thing. Aside from all of the other pros and cons of SL, this is probably its greatest strength and legacy.

[zzpearlbottom]

I should have changed the world to Nsa, but as i'm one that spend all my time in SL with other Brasilians, or Moslems or gay liberal democrats from Corte Madera, i did made the mistake of mixing a company with a fair background on keeping users anonymity a motto with a Country that relies on spying all their allies and even their own citizens just cause they can!
So unfair LL, excuse me please!

[Kim Anubis]

zzpearlbottom, many Americans -- a majority of us, according to surveys -- are also upset by the recently revealed illegal NSA activities. You might want to keep in mind, though, that it isn't just the NSA -- Snowden has accused other governments of being in on it, such as Germany and the UK. I think governments have the huge and likely potential to be corrupt regardless of what nations they're running. In view of all of my overseas communications related to SL and other work, I am sure the NSA has recorded and snooped through at least some of them, and it makes me feel sick to my stomach.

Like you said, though, privacy is one of the things Linden Lab gets right. It's all the things they got right that set us up for upset and possible ruin when they get something big wrong.

[bits]

If these companies want so many rights via their tos they are not going to attract the most talented creators. SL is a nitch market. Further restrictions just pushes experienced artists out the door. I never signed up to be apart of the LL/EA sweatshop that seems to be pushed on me at every turn threw their tos. If you think this is your chance to make content for indie games, then you in for a rude awakening. SL objects are no where near the same format. LL is blowing smoke again, don't be so lured in that you give away your rights in the process. The tos is so badly written I couldn't sign it even if I wanted to.