Should Linden Lab Have Saved the Ozimals from Extinction?

The Ozimals outrage in Second Life went fairly viral last weekend, earning mass media coverage on the BBC (at right) along with top online outlets like Boing Boing and this Vice post by NWN alum Janine Hawkins; not exactly great PR for SL, since the implication is that user-created virtual content is frequently in danger of real world legal disputes. And like I wrote last week, it's likely that the death of Ozimals will also be damaging to Second Life both as a virtual world and a thriving revenue stream for Linden Lab:

[The company] now faces the danger of thousands of customers with much less reason to keep paying monthly virtual land tier. SL landowners are already giving up their plots at a rapid rate, and can't afford to lose any more of its core revenue source. But we'll sadly soon see how much Linden Lab suffers from the silence of the bunnies.

The company is in a paradoxical position where because all users control the IP rights to own their SL content, Second Life developed a powerful virtual economy, while at the same time, allowing users to maintain those rights leaves the overall economy at the mercy of highly successful content creators.

It's not just about bunnies: consider the recent popularity of Bento-based avatar heads. Were some of the top brands for that content to get hit with an Ozimals-like legal dispute, the impact on the SL economy could be disastrous.

Is there a solution? I'm not sure, but Linden Lab itself once had a marketing partnership with Ozimals, which suggests a general practice:

Anytime any user-made SL content brand becomes massively successful, Linden Lab should purchase the IP rights from the creators, and make that content an official part of Second Life, acqui-hiring the creators to continue supporting it. 

This wouldn't necessarily stop lawsuits from happening -- Linden Lab has had to deal with those, though not specifically for in-world content -- but it would mean this content would be protected by a major company able to weather lawsuits. In this case, giving the bunnies some powerful lawyers.

I know this isn't a perfect solution which is why I'm ending this post on a question: Is there a better way to protect a user-created virtual world from the impact of user-to-user lawsuits?

Comments

[Someone in SL]

I really do not see how it is LL'S business to save Ozimals. They did not leave due to high tier payments, they left due to a rl legal matter. It was up to Ozimals to continue fighting the case in rl court and they chose not to, as they said they did not have the money to continue fighting it. LL has nothing to do with Ozimals and this case. Dwarfins left too and who was to blame for that? LL cant save everyone it isnt their job to.

[Clara Seller]

Why not Lindimals? I'd think that LL would have the resources to develop some really great breedables that could auto-feed directly off of your credit card. I'm actually not being sarcastic. It seems like "pets" would be a good product for LL to be offering in SL.

[Someone in SL]

If LL developed breedables, then the entire breedable market and community would be crying that LL is stepping on their turf and taking money from them.

[sirhc deSantis]

I didn't know Dwarfins had given up - even though I have some somewhere... anyway, not the Labs 'job' to protect against lawsuits especially in this case (not like there haven't been rumblings before as Ser Hawkins points out) even though the 'get bigger lawyers' approach is oh so popular.
Besides, from an economy point of view - now theres a hole which I bet a few are going 'hey I have something'.

Hell, even some OS basic kits out there, some of which regularly get raised in group chat - and again yep got copies somewhere :) Time to dust off some of those half brained projects mayhaps. Although cute is not my strong point.

[Carlos Loff]

I agree it brings a bad image and people will be more nervous when buying goids that neef maintenance but I seriously doubt that there ate many folks to whom the sole single unique reason to be on SL are their bunnies and that dont socialuze and dont buy clothes and dont attend parties and having no bunnies will crumble their world apoart and make them give up all about SL besides bunnies - A Person that brakes all ties with SL and abandons his/her land because if this either is a compulsive-obssessive breeder or someone with some weird mentsl issues

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Why would anyone want to create in a world where their content was going to be acquired, or have their efforts duplicated by the company? This would have an even larger impact than loss of a single brand of breedables.

And the elephant in the room is that breedables just aren't as popular as they used to be.

And if you're going to bring up LL partnering with Ozimals (they didn't, Rosedale did) ... then maybe question where that particular partner was in all this too, eh? Was Rosedale out of the partnership, out to lunch, or behind these actions?

[Summer Haas]

"Anytime any user-made SL content brand becomes massively successful, Linden Lab should purchase the IP rights from the creators, and make that content an official part of Second Life, acqui-hiring the creators to continue supporting it." - That might be the dumbest thing I've read in awhile. I guess if you want to turn SL into a virtual communist simulator that would work.

[Patchouli Woollahra]

Hamlet, do you still remember that bullroar with the "Fetid Inner Core" that used to dog Linden Lab and some of the world's earliest and greatest creatives? Even diminished now, there's still more at stake if that's repeated.

It's sad, but Ozimals has been on life support since the original company shut down. This was inevitably going to happen given the shoestring nature of the maintenance operation and the failure to communicate on how to help Ozimal owners going forward. It'll be a long time before some folks feel even okay about Akimeta now, even with the explanation that has been put forward as a defense by them though.

Having said that, there is precedent for LL 'nationalising' a highly successful (commercially or critically) product - see the SS Galaxy, Svarga, and the SL Exchange. The main problem with the first two, however, is that to avoid accusations of impropriety they had to remove all the shop stuff. In the case of Ozimals, this would theoretically mean having to provide the feed for free. It could also have been that Ozimals become a privilege of owning a premium subscription.

All this is conjecture. part of it is probably bullroar. Regardless, the damage is done, and it is now up to everyone to pick up the pieces whether it's investing in developing better breedables or killing time in a different way.

Just a bundle of thoughts.

[Amanda Dallin]

Are you suggesting a new slogan for SL. "If you're successful we'll take it away from you." LL has done that before but it's not good for a general declared policy.

[Bet]

If the creators had been paid as per contract and if the creators' contract rights had been honored the situation would not have ended up here, as I read it.

Read the court papers. Who was hit with Judge ordered sanctions over and over?

You, James, really SUPPORT that the Ozimal owners should have thrown "powerful" lawyers to get **out** of protecting creators' rights?

Who the heck would ever design for SL then?

Considering I am waiting for days for a premium support ticket I do not want LL handling the level of support pets require.

[Clara Seller]

I don't think that LL should take a business away from anyone. But if they can do a business better and help the entire community grow, it shouldn't be dismissed. There are several content creator monopoly communities that need a good dose of "greater good" injected into the mix. Things become stale and limiting when content creators go unchallenged to produce a better product because they need to keep a lock on their market. I highly doubt LL has the spirit to actually make a big move toward it's own growth in SL content, but the status quo of content creators aren't really helping grow much either. It's not in their interest to open up avenues to spur growth for anything other than their personal stash.

[HS]

Umm...let's see...the casinos, the banks, the grandfathering ups and downs. The economy has been through far worse than one of many breedable vendors going under. If suddenly all breedable we're outlawed, maybe that would hit a little hard. But this will be a minor hiccup. And having LL buy out any popular intellectual property is just weird. It wouldn't be SL anymore if they did that.

[Someone in SL]

Businesses open and close everyday in real life and the economy is still going. The fact that we are still talking about Second Life, means there is buzz. People will not leave Sl, because its is the only virtual world that has at least 40k to 50k people logged in. Not even the Open Sim based worlds are achieving this. SL will remain as long as LL keeps squeezing the profits out of it. I do worry about Sansar bombing and cannibalizing SL as LL has obviously spent alot of time and money on Sansar.

[Sirtoyoutoo]

SL is one big safe place and that has its drawbacks well people really don't need the truth but entertainment.stop talking about it and it will go away as SL has a short memory so just create a distracting topic while watching it get derailed.

Aki and Neo really do not deserve the lies and heat here.like you have been so brainwashed by Ozimals False Owner.

having known them going on ten years I know you people should be ashamed of yourselves there lies your problem its just mind numbing.

In a few weeks no one will remember any of this I guarantee it.

When you buy something, 'you' DO NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO IT, PERIOD!

[Patchouli Woollahra]

You're an attack dog, Sirto. There has been a significant amount of goodwill built up around Ozimals, both the original company and the guy who has been keeping the food server around to keep the animals alive. The abrupt circumstances in which the service ended were far from ideal, but you don't get to demonise either side without clear evidence as to what exactly transpired and what efforts were made to keep things sane.

And you underestimate the mental capabilities of Residents in general - there are people who have been in here over a decade and still remember how shitty Da Boom was back in the day. Institutional memory may be selective, but a surfeit of old blogs, photoalbums and the continued presence on the grid of sterile but immortal bunnies will ensure that forgetting the little guys will be an impossible trick.

As for the rights conferred by the purchase of an item? it varies wildly, and the only consistent trait is that the buyer agrees to the terms laid out, whatever they are, and however SL enforces them. SO CHILL.

[Cloud Racer]

Akimeta's lengthy and detailed press release is enlightening, to say the least. Candace and Cameron's SOP seems to be bad faith.