Linden Lab Attempting to Amend Terms of Service to Appease Anxious Content Creators, Company Confirms

Linden Lab is attempting to revise its contentious Terms of Service to satisfy the concerns of SL content creators, spokesperson Peter Gray confirmed to me last Friday. "It would be premature to offer any sort of timetable" as to when those revisions will go into the ToS, Gray added, "because as the message notes, 'we are currently reviewing what changes could be made.'" Gray is referring to an e-mail he sent last week to Kylie Sabra, head of the United Content Creators of Second Life, which has since been made public. Whoever uploaded it to Google Docs accidentally dated the message 2003, as opposed to this year, but Gray confirmed that the body of e-mail is indeed from him. (I've included a copy below.)

Also notable in his e-mail: As some have suggested, the reason the new Terms of Service claimed "all or any portion of your User Content (and derivative works thereof), for any purpose whatsoever in all formats" is not to deviously steal users' content. Instead (according to Gray, at least) it's to give them more markets to make more money from their own content:

"[T]he revision to our Terms of Service was made in order to further extend the ability for content creators to commercially exploit their intellectual property through user-to-user transactions across Linden Lab’s other products and services (including our distribution platform, Desura), not just within Second Life." (Emphasis mine.)

Let the irony sink in. If Linden Lab had publicly said something like that when making the changes to the ToS, it's likely little or none of this controversy would have kicked in. And as SL Bar Association member Agenda Faromet suggested to me, an additional 10 words to the ToS would have probably prevented a lot of agita too.

Anyway, full text after the break:

Dear Kylie, et al,

Thank you for your email. We appreciate your group’s concerns and have seen others express similar concerns as well.

We greatly value Second Life’s content creators, whose collective contributions help make the virtual world the vibrant experience that it is today. We remain committed to providing Second Life as a platform on which residents can create and profit from their creations. This philosophy is central to Linden Lab, and is something that we are ultimately seeking to extend to all of our products and platforms. Accordingly, the revision to our Terms of Service was made in order to further extend the ability for content creators to commercially exploit their intellectual property through user-to-user transactions across Linden Lab’s other products and services (including our distribution platform, Desura), not just within Second Life.

We believe that it would be more fruitful to avoid further debate of the assertions made to date regarding the intent and effect of our updated Terms of Service, and instead focus on whether there may be an approach to address the concerns that have arisen in the community, while also ensuring that our policy remains applicable to our other products and services, and without reverting to the prior wording.

To that end, we are currently reviewing what changes could be made that would resolve the concerns of Second Life content creators, specifically protecting content creators’ intellectual property ownership while permitting Linden Lab to, among other things, act as an agent of content creators (such as yourselves), licensed to sell and re-sell such content.

We are optimistic that we will be able to arrive at a mutually agreeable and beneficial way forward, and ask for your group’s continued patience as we work to do so.

Best

Peter

Hat tip: Dartagan Shepherd. 

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Comments

[Darien Caldwell]

Good to see a real confirmation of intent, and hopefully new verbiage can be found to allay any fears.

[Jim Tarber]

Re the LL ToS game: I think it's a lot like sending recon teams across a border to probe defenses of the enemy; the military knows it's mostly a futile effort, but they want to check how far they can get, and just exactly where they are stopped.

Coincidentally (or not), this is also the approach of male teens with girls. ;)

[Kim Anubis]

Thank you, Hamlet, for your ongoing coverage of this story, and to Peter for the confirmation that the Lab is working on this.

[Ciaran Laval]

The problem remains the one size fits all TOS change. Most of the problematic areas (not all) are from the old Desura TOS. Which probably explains why there hasn't been much noise from their community, it's pretty much same as it ever was for them.

Trying to incorporate those terms into terms applicable for other LL properties is the root cause of the issue.

[Shava Nerad]

So, my thought is, the operative term here is "appease." The furor hasn't died down. The SL Bar Association has said, "Well, basically you're toast under these terms." And the brain drain continues.

So Gray and Humble have now said, "So, sit on your thumbs and lose momentum, you guys, and we'll throw you a bone when we're good and ready."

And when Kylie said, "Please speak to us directly?" Gray said, "Please sit and spin on your thumbs, and we'll throw you a bone when we're good and ready. No exceptions."

They don't want to give anyone the option to ask them specific hard questions. Smart man.

And if they give it time, the groups -- including Kylie's -- are likely to lose membership and momentum. Historically, the wise heads will leave the high risk environment (in this case for the non-SL metaverse) and the sheeple will stay and decide that nothing can go wrong...go wrong...go wrong...

They could prove me wrong by being community minded -- but they won't.

You're being played.

[Iggy]

Could this be a step toward a personal wish? For a few years I have said, and the educators I know agree, that SL content and Linden dollar could become gold-standards across OpenSim grids.

Content creators might opt out of a LL-run Intergrid market, but the potential for education, at least, would be enormous. This would particularly be so for the closed and privately hosted university grids that never appear on Maria Korolov's stats.

[Galatea]

They sure took long enough. LL moves at an annoyingly glacial pace, but their heart is in the right place. Unfortunately their foot is located in their mouth and we're currently attempting to locate where their head's at...

[Metacam Oh]

How many man hours are they going to dedicate 'thinking' about this. You know that's why their company is falling into a pile of shit, no one can make a decision there without having to sit and stew on it for 4 years. Remember Mesh deformer, yeah that's coming soon too right. This company is so full of crap it's unbelievable.

[Darien Caldwell]

and these kind of stupid insults is why LL won't engage with the community directly. Don't blame them, blame yourselves.

[Metacam Oh]

How many Linden Lab employees does it take to change a light bulb? They'll review it and get back to you.

[Toysoldier Thor]

I agree with a statement that LL's handling of this TOS release & their management of the ensuing creator revolt & damage to LL's public reputation has been atrocious.

They could have developed TOS changes that were far more politically aware and creator-sensitive (like NOT REMOVING THE LIMITED INTENT from the TOS)

They could have properly socialize the TOS wording immediately upon release that they should have predicted could potentially be perceived wrong (if it really was perceived wrong - jury still out on that).

And Rodvik could have come out of his shell during the early days when the revolt was starting to smoulder. How? A formal blog from Rodvik on the SL Forum Blogs explaining the TOS and LL's intent - which they ended up being strong-armed to reveal anyway - 2 MONTHS LATER!

If they tackle even two of the three, they would likely have taken a lot of heat from the current creator fury they now have.

As for Peter's letter to UCCSL and that the UCCSL is bring played. I doubt that. Peter, Rodvik, and LL are only fooling themselves if they think this letter quelled suspicion & anger they created. Many of us are still suspicious of LL's intent and want to see CLEAR CORRECTIONS in the TOS before we consider returning to uploading new content to SL and bury our hatchets.

Creators want to see REAL TOS changes and if LL waits months they just further the damage LL has done to their creator community.

[Shockwave yareach]

We used to be LLs cheerleaders. But you cannot urinate on our shoes and call it rain for too long before we tell you to quit it. And the more ll dampens our interests (and shoes) the madder we get. While I can understand their avoidance of the community, you cannot run any sort of business by ignoring your customers -- let alone ignore them for five years.

People are voting with their feet and their wallets. And like it or not, that's mainly LLs fault.

[Metacam Oh]

"and these kind of stupid insults is why LL won't engage with the community directly. Don't blame them, blame yourselves."

You mean customer service, or internet criticism? I could care less if LL doesn't engage with me directly, they're the morons that lose by not communicating with people. I don't believe I represent the entire community either so if they are not engaging with the community because I ostracize them in the comments of one blog, then that's pretty absurd.

[Motoko Henusaki]

People assume the worst. It is an exceedingly common character flaw, sadly. Kudos to LL for picking the issue up at last.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

You know, something merchants at least have been trying to say for some time is that all we really want is to be treated as partners.

Not as in stakeholders, but recognition of the fact that we've provided $3.2 billion (Rod's figure) worth of virtual goods sales. You would think that we'd be in the loop at least.

Their model has been land and currency, sinks and various services. LL is showing that they're more interested in taking a piece of the virtual goods as well, as land sales decline. $3.2 billion in goods is a hard number to ignore forever. This is fine too, so long as it's not too greedy (although LL tends to devalue goods far below other content sales sites).

They may try to pass off that they need these rights for us to sell to Desura developers, who will have to download our models, textures, audio, etc., to their hard drives and share it with their game dev teams. To be optimistic perhaps that's why they want to act as our agent and attorney.

We can't be sure what we're agreeing to without crystal clear reasons why we're agreeing to them and knowing what the plan is. To do that LL needs to communicate what this is "really" all about.

No product of LL's requires these full rights to operate. Agree that this didn't have to happen if they communicated clearly and were willing to be more sparing with the ToS.

Just the give and take and mutual respect on the content, that our time creating is as valuable as their own time monetizing it and not to take advantage of us in the process.

Obviously respect should extend beyond business and merchants, although this specifically targets creators IP on goods that are being monetized by LL.

LL needs to wake up and realize that our goods are worth as much or more in revenue as land and services and that we're equals in some respects, not merely users and residents.

Don't take advantage of us or condescend to us, I suppose is what we're saying.

[olehio]

good news, finally

[2013]

@ Metacam, you're like the kid who didn't get his way and said, "I'm leaving and taking my ball with me"

[Metacam Oh]

@2013 Really, what ball am I taking with me?

[2013]

it's a metaphor for your child like (I drank the LL koolaid and never recovered) attitude

[Metacam Oh]

Drinking LL Koolaid? LOL look in the mirror. I'm not the guy who takes it personal when someone makes a statement about my favorite game I don't like. Hilarious. Keep posting anonymous attacks on people who express a negative opinion about your fav game, while pointing the finger at everyone else. Who's the child again?

[Arcadia Codesmith]

I know I'm not the poster child for civility, but maybe we can refrain from attacking one another for having differing viewpoints?

My views towards the Lab are often cynical, but I'll reserve final judgement until I see the fix.

[zzpearlbottom]

I'm with Arcadia on this!
But i can not let pass the fact that if one only reads blogs about Sl the idea any gets is that is some where people are to make money, period!
And that is far from the truth!

[zzpearlbottom]

http://metaversesailing.net/2013/10/29/memorial-service-for-fanci-beebe/

SL is so much more and Linden Lab needs to keep that in mind above all!

[Iggy]

LL owns Metacam's ball now. But maybe they'll clarify his rights to play with it somewhere else.

[Pussycat Catnap]

"and these kind of stupid insults is why LL won't engage with the community directly. Don't blame them, blame yourselves."

I don't know... flamebaiters and ranting will be what they will be...

For us users yes: when some random person sinks into flames, trolling, and ranting... you ignore them.

But when you're a company in the business of owning and managing an online community, you have a duty to remain engaged no matter how illogical and ranting some of your customers get.

Other MMOs, when faced with comments like:
"This company is so full of crap it's unbelievable."
Just ignore that one user, ban them, or if more specific call them on it (a few MMOs when hit with these kinds of things in the nature of more direct accusations, have posted logs from that specific user to show truth).

Though in the specific here, you just have somebody who's broken past rational engagement, but doesn't have what would or should rise to bannable conduct.

MMO and Community running company's hold the power here - they need to be the 'adults in the room' and engage, even when some of the kids are having temper tantrums.

[Ciaran Laval]

@Dartagan "No product of LL's requires these full rights to operate. Agree that this didn't have to happen if they communicated clearly and were willing to be more sparing with the ToS."

Desura was operating, presumably before LL bought it too, under a lot of these rights. Now that SL and Desura have the same TOS (with the exception to the sections marked as being specific to each platform) LL have taken a lot of the rights from Desura as the default rights.

Now I don't know if Desura needed those rights to operate, or they were boilerplate and hadn't been changed. However Desura users were operating under them.

This doesn't make it ok, but it does explain why the wording has appeared.

On a side note @Hamlet do you know why Versu hasn't been assimilated under the new LL TOS? All the other products appear have the LL TOS.

[zzpearlbottom]

Between Linden lab lack of communications skills and the rush to move to another closed grid some good will become of all this, Sl will be more about enjoying then profiting!

[Dartagan Shepherd]

@Ciaran: True, although the agreement was Desura in Australia. Not sure how that plays out there.

It's still overbearing and not completely necessary even for Desura in California and the U.S.

That they're saying somehow that it is, and that "we" need to give up most of our rights to sell for Desura or for them to sell our goods on another LL product on our behalf is a stretch.

Desura needs aren't really much different than SL's needs contractually speaking.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

@zzpearlbottom: It's not just about profit or merchants, although I think I can safely say that this is all about profit for LL.

Mentioned elsewhere that it affects any creator, whether hobby or free, who cares about their rights. Also the ToS affects open source.

Gave this example before: If you take an open source GPL script out to an external editor and re-upload it, you would be violating the ToS.

Does LL give you the right to bypass someones open source license? Probably not under this ToS. And if it did, since the ToS covers past content, then LL is violating the GPL.

If you perform original music and record it, LL could technically turn around and commercialize your song.

And on it goes.

It affects us all. If some don't care, that's fine. Others do.

[Minty]

Peter and his confirmation are steps toward the good direction. But what the people concerned by the TOS are waiting to resume creating and uploading is a TOS change. On a legal point of view this is the TOS that is important not LL communications even it they show good will in them. I hope that this time LL will listen to us but I'm not stupid. The trust will really come back with a TOS change.

[Veleda Lorakeet]

Ultimately, the current TOS is a breach of trust. One that cannot so easily dismissed with an "Oh sorry, we really meant to be nice when we said we own your shit".

So... How hard can it be to refert back before they "think how to improve it"

So we be waving at SL from outside of SL for now.

[Anon]

"Linden Lab Attempting to Amend Terms of Service to Appease Anxious Content Creators, Company Confirms"

So let's see here. We ruined our company over our terms of service since 2003. We've allowed children into our adult world, we've banned all adult public information to the approval gestapo, and claim to own everyone's content.

We are so sorry that we continue to allow our true colors to be shown and ask that you accept our absolute acceptance to public opinion as we work to fix our now entering decade of arrogance and unremitting dependence on your continued fixation on our beloved product.

My Opinion has not changed... not at all once....

You are so lost to not tell Linden to go fly a kite. You will keep on believing until you are broke and living on the street.

Left years ago after I broke the bond, deleted all inventory and left. That is my recommendation. You cannot win with this company even when "they" themselves were on top of the world in 2003-2006. They messed it over then, they will continue until all available assets are obliterated. This is Linden Lab.

anon

[Darien Caldwell]

"Other MMOs, when faced with comments like:
"This company is so full of crap it's unbelievable."
Just ignore that one user, ban them, or if more specific call them on it"

Might work for MMOs, where the users are just that, users. But SL being a bit more than that, doing such things usually results in LL ending up in a lawsuit. Clearly it's just better all around to not engage directly rather than spend hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting off rabid Residents. And better than allowing said residents to use your good will to run over your reputation roughshod.

Probably one of the saddest examples was back in the day when LL allowed comments on it's blog and posted there regularly. It really devolved into a cesspool of negative depravity against the very people who's blog it was. Same for the JIRA, eventually. People seem unable to learn from the past.

[Oink]

It's a Buyer's market, not a Seller's market...

So keep up the Consumer Protection pressure.

[Pussycat Catnap]

I think the days of seeing SL as more than "just another small MMO" are over, as far as LLs is concerned. AND as far as many of the customers who shop and play in SL are concerned.

This is just a free MMO with a micro-transaction website for most people. Look to the popular blogs and points of communication: all about fashion, roleplay, and drama.

But LLs has also never understood community management. Thus your example of their blog devolving into such a cesspool. Good moderation could police that, and good engagement could head it off before most of it occurs.

You always get a few wingnuts no matter what you do... but you only get a whole host of them when you yourself really screw it up.

LLs is very good at turning its formerly reasonable customers into raving lunatics... better at it than almost any other "MMO" out there. Its the "talk radio" of online "gaming"...

[Johnny Ming]

It's been more than seven years since the Linden Lab ToS became a major point of contention with the community. It's amazing that they simply cannot put this issue to bed.

[insertnamehere]

Well said Dartagan Shepherd!

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

Well, I can only say that I'm glad that at least Linden Lab is 'looking into the issue', and explains their intent. I agree with you, Hamlet, ten extra words in the ToS would have gone a long, long way to mitigate the whole drama!

But if that letter means that all fears will be removed, I have no idea. After all, they can always and endlessly change the ToS, as often as they wish...

[Oink]

IF YOU ARE A CREATOR … Please go here –

https://docs.google.com/…/edit… –

to read up on the United Content Creator’s of SL proposed letter to Linden Labs and give them your vote for yes here –

https://docs.google.com/…/viewform

If you believe that LL should meet with the content creators about the new TOS changes that seem to threaten the possibility of making it legal to resell creator’s content without fair compensation.

[Oink]

Ooops

IF YOU ARE A CREATOR ... Please go here -

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-tt7l89N_zBQWZzSEF3Z3JvS0E/edit?usp=sharing -

to read up on the United Content Creator's of SL proposed letter to Linden Labs and give them your vote for yes here -

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1QxjYIR_3jXakeY-9TNjEnSs8gSJTCwpZVmxRsefApmM/viewform

If you believe that LL should meet with the content creators about the new TOS changes that seem to threaten the possibility of making it legal to resell creator's content without fair compensation.