Google Alerts alerted me to Linden Lab's new INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY INFRINGEMENT NOTIFICATION POLICY, scheduled to go into effect July 31, 2017. I asked the company what specifically is being changed from the current policy, and will quote them when/if I get a reply. It doesn't specifically refer to Second or Sansar or Blocksworld, but rather, is meant to apply to all of them and any other Linden Lab platform/service.
Comparing the policy with the one displayed here, some of the key changes are highlighted above -- people can no longer file a DMCA notice by e-mail, but must actually send a hardcopy by fax or snail mail. Which is sort of ironic, given that it's a DMCA in reference to virtual goods. However, requiring an angry SLer to actually go outside and drive to a printing shop is likely to curb a lot of gratuitous DMCAs from being filed.
The other change I noticed is this somewhat scary warning that's also seemingly meant to intimidate the unserious or uninformed:
If you are unsure whether you hold rights to a particular work, or whether the content you are reporting is infringing your legal rights, please consult an attorney before filing a DMCA Notice. Please be aware that under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f), you may be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys' fees incurred by us or our users, if you knowingly materially misrepresent that material or activity is infringing. [Emph. mine]
I.E., If you waste our time with frivolous claims, we may just sue your ass. Which I doubt Linden Lab would ever actually do except in extreme cases. Given the number of pretty silly or spurious IP infringement suits the company probably has to deal with, it was probably put there to keep the frivolity down to a dull roar.
That's my immediate read, but not having had to deal with the Linden Lab DMCA process personally, maybe I'm missing some other significant changes. How about you, readers?
They're just setting forth what the relevant law provides for as opposed to implementing a new. policy. They don't set DMCA policy, they follow Congress' statute like everyone else. Also, the real remedy in the statute isn't for LL to recover damages. It's for users who have wrongful DMCA's filed against them. If you fraudulently DMCA me and I incur damages, you're on the hook for those and my attorneys fees. This has been the law for at least the ten years I've been dealing with it.
Posted by: Robert Galland | Thursday, July 13, 2017 at 01:55 PM
That looks pretty much boilerplate, Twitter's help pages on copyright notifications includes similar wording.
Posted by: Ciaran Laval | Thursday, July 13, 2017 at 02:49 PM
It's only proper to make sure people know DMCA isn't an internal SL rule but actual legal proceedings.
Posted by: Amanda Dallin | Thursday, July 13, 2017 at 07:08 PM
Having met people who've gotten the wrong end of the DMCA unjustly based on frivolous filings, requiring physical documentation that puts a real-world identification to claims that have potentially adverse consequences on finances and reputations across multiple jusridictions in order to file this claim will reduce SL's workload on this matter to a quiet simmer made up a lot more of people with genuine grievances.
this change has been a long time in coming - many genuine SL merchants do NOT have the finances required to mount a defence on every claim no matter how frivolous, which has been one of the weaknesses of the DMCA with regards to SL. The threat of actual blowback in the event of malicious claims should also cut out some of the adventurism in this regard.
It's one thing to write a policy and another to enforce it, though. Let's see how it affects things when it finally goes into effect.
Posted by: Patchouli Woollahra | Friday, July 14, 2017 at 12:08 AM
this is a good thing. i know 2 recently who have had dcma fikes against them out of jealousy of better product.
Posted by: gw | Friday, July 14, 2017 at 06:04 AM
This is a good change. It's also a needed one. Filing a DMCA is invoking a federal law with some potentially serious consequences. LL wants a real paper trail when somebody does so. It still doesn't address the issue that the one filing doesn't have to divulge contact information while refuting one does require that but that's a fault in the law, not LL's handling of it. Hopefully this will stop at least some spurious claims being made since at least LL will have the information to contact the filer if they needed to provide that to a court.
Posted by: Crim_Mip | Wednesday, July 26, 2017 at 12:48 PM
I think that change is good. It will curb the fake DMCA cases. I'm a victim of a false claim on something I made. I 100% originally made not using anything found on the internet. I logged in to my marketplace and got a warning for IP and they delisted my item. The process to fight it and prove it was my work was more work that it was worth so I just deleted it. But I was pretty furious that 4 of my things got tagged by this. I highly doubt someone flagged my items but instead was a LL employee who took my items down. Since someone has to go through a process to prove something is theirs before filing a DMCA... there is no way they could have proved my items were theirs because... they weren't. So now I fear my account being lost because I have 4 false IP marks on my 8 year old account Ive invested so much time. So I'm HAPPY they are enforcing stricter guidelines to file a DMCA.
Posted by: CG | Monday, July 31, 2017 at 11:14 AM
If a fake DMCA notice is filed against you, then you need to file a DMCA counter notice. This is important to save your reputation, and it's easy. The claimant does not have to show proof of legal ownership when filing the DMCA notice, and neither does the counter claimant. The counter notice has to state that you believe the claim is false and you are prepared for legal action if it comes to that. Your counter claim, with your identification, will be sent to the claimant. Your items will be unlisted, and if the claimant does not supply proof of legal action within 10 days, then your items are restored.
Also, if a DMCA notice is filed against you then you will receive email notification and information on how to proceed. It won't be a warning via MP. That sounds more like LL took it down because they decided it was IP infringement (maybe after someone brought it to their attention through the flagging system).
Posted by: Reid Parkin | Tuesday, August 01, 2017 at 08:36 PM
I'm on board with the warning about being liable for frivolous claims, but not so happy about excluding email as a way to file a DMCA notice. They should be making sure that each claim that comes in is legit whether or not it's faxed or emailed, so I don't see how the method curbs predatory notices but it does make things more difficult for the person with a legitimate claim to report. Someone doing this for malicious reasons could just as well fax or snail mail it if they are that corrupt.
It already takes 2 days to process from the day they receive the claim, and meanwhile the infringing party, as well as LL, continues to profit off of the infringed content. Of course, a person could send it Express but that costs more money. Costs are incurred with faxing as well if you don't have a fax machine (small, but a time suck if you have to drive somewhere to do it), and most don't these days.
I find it kind of ridiculous that they actually refuse to accept email using Docusign too, since it seems to be pretty watertight legally.
If every DMCA that comes in results in the content being removed, the problem is with a lack of bothering to validate that the content is indeed stolen even on a superficial level like checking the dates of creation and/or upload.
I've had requests for additional info, so I assumed that they actually look at what is being reported, don't they?
Posted by: Violaine Villota | Wednesday, October 11, 2017 at 06:52 PM