But what it is, right now, is the only collaborative virtual world with user-generated content.

The discussion about the trademark policy in interesting enough in its own right. But what’s MORE interesting is your insight into the reasons why LL has chosen this moment to fight this particular battle. And I think you’ve hit the nail on the head regarding the future of the Second Life environment (did I do that right?) and, in particular, regarding where we can expect LL to focus their competitive efforts.

“Dear Linden, Dear Linden,
I just don’t understand
The new terms of service
About using your brand.
Registered trademarks
And copyright signs,
Must I use them all of the time?
Signed, a blogger

Blogger,Dear blogger
We hear what you say
And at Linden Lab (R)
We don’t like things this way
But our lawyers insist
That it must be done
We sincerely hope it won’t ruin your fun
Signed, a Linden (TM)”

–Niko Donburi (aka The “Weird Al” of the virtual world formally known as Second Life)

now it came as you asked, boys and girls, and there is no foreseeable end to this – welcome to S-crappy-L end-of-Eden-on-living-platform. You were asking to substitute immersion with law-augmented-virtual-reality, same time blaming augmentalists as if there is no tomorrow… Law comes only ones and for very long – welcome to metaverse working on real/meat world rules. You’ve got what you deserve.

LL made their move with that. Yes, they provided clarification. No, they’re not willing to concede in any point, except the one of “banning without fair warning” — that was the only thing that was really clarified.

They made their position more clear. Instead of “legalese”, they answered our questions — and questions that so many asked — in plain English. For me, their answers were quite clear:

1. Section 4.4 was not removed, not changed, and LL reinforced that they would use it — within reasonable limits, but definitely use it — to refuse service to avatars whose owners don’t comply with their trademark policy.

2. There is not going to be any grandfathering of domain names.

3. Old content written in the past 4 years will not be subject to LL’s analysis, but new one certainly will.

4. Dubious and doubtful cases will be settled with LL individually, one by one, at their will.

So, the protest was to get clarification, and clarification we got.

Now the issue is — the clarification didn’t make things better. Quoting myself again: no, all is not well. There is a compromise by LL to restate more clearly what they intend — and I think it’s reasonable to assume that they made an effort to be clear — but the compromise doesn’t go as far as compromising on the issues (except for, well, minor issues).

So it’s clear to me that LL is not going to change their position (like they didn’t change so many other things), and they’re pretty stubborn at that.

So what should the next step be? I’m repeating myself, I know. Protesting for protest’s sake will not make LL change — we know that now. There are no “openings” in their argumentation where we might breach their wall. In my mind, this means that the fight now has to be targeted directly to fight against their trademark claims. As said, that’s a nasty business, and it means that people have to be aware of what it means: suing LL in court.

Now, many, including Cat Magellan, have asked for legal advice by Californian lawyers. There is a pretty good chance of fighting LL in court and winning the issue. It will, of course, be a nasty battle — one where all parts involved will invariably lose something (namely, reputation) — but there are reasonably strong arguments for winning.

So again I ask you: between the three choices — protest louder, suing LL in court, or accepting compromise — what do you wish to do?

Personally I’m against “protesting for protest’s sake”. We can’t say that LL didn’t “address our concerns” — they did exactly what was asked, making their position clearer, and refusing to go beyond that. So to continue to insist, it needs to be a different protest.

The only suggestion I can make is to meet again in-world and throw some suggestions around, write a new document, get a few friendly IP lawyer to assist in the discussion, and see what we can come up with as a next step on the protest. Very likely it will have to involve a “threat of a lawsuit” to catch LL’s attention.

I actually like Vint Falken’s Trademark Parody Contest as a way of protest. Parody is very well established as a legitimate way to both use trademarks and make fun of them as a means to criticize a company’s position. It might be an idea…

They just think in their things and all the residents for them are just a couple of NOOBs who doesn’t deserve nothing or almost.

When I’ve created Myspace profile I really took care of posting the words “Copyright: “Second Life® and Linden Lab® are trademarks or registered trademarks of Linden Research, Inc. All rights reserved. No infringement is intended.””. Why?

Simple. Because I don’t work for them, I really don’t want to promote them ansd their weird work. Just to promote my Avatar and other Identify where am I. Nothing more to say about It. But nice they make the things clear to other Avatars.

Cy

The grandfathering of domains that abided by the previous policy guidelines is an important one and one that should be respected. Those who were in breach of previous guidelines I feel for them, but they were in breach and have little room for complaint but SLUniverse (for example) was not breaching previous guidelines and to move the goalposts on that issue is not a good move and is one that should be debated.

We should have been having this debate before the policy was announced, whereas it’s too late for that now it’s a point that we should be hammering home to Linden Lab, communicate with us, not at us.

had you outlined these three options, be it on your blog, be it privately among those who helped you make the protest what it has been until now, and concluded after discussion that for you, option 3) is the only valid one, as you personal choice, no conclusion intended for the issue at large, nobody would criticise what you did. Retreat can be the better part of valour. I’d be sad, but it will always be your own choice, as it is mine to go through with 1) first, 2) second, because I can’t see where 3) would be an option. But that is not what you did.

What you did was decide, alone, that your own choice would dictate what to do with the whole protest movement, and carried over that choice from the personal realm to that governed by your standing as the spokesperson of the protest. Without consulting anybody, you cancelled the rally on the Governor Mansion. Without consulting anybody, you told the press the protest was off. And you stated, here and on Twitter, that keeping the protest alive would be splitting hairs, suddenly calling things non-issues you fought vehemently against a few days back.

Dear Gwyn, unlike mine, your business is Second Life. I can understand how that makes you wary of risking further protest now the Lindens have donned war garb, and I respect that conclusion. It would be unfair and preposterous to do otherwise. Was I in your position, I might do the same.

But doing so is your personal decision. Which means that once you’ve taken it, you have lost all right to speak of « we », and to present yourself as part of the protest against Linden Lab’s policy.

You’re not part of that any more Gwyn. If you won’t fight, please stand by gracefully.

The other thing is — what did we “win”? Well, awareness was raised. A new procedure — also unique — was established where residents are allowed to reply to bans due to trademark infringements, and even a form of appeal. Of course, ultimately, LL might ignore that all — but if they did, they would be really going over the top by publicly claiming something and behaving otherwise.

The two other issues were much more trickier to “win”. What LL basically did was simple: say “no” to the rest of our requests.

Where do we stand now?

We have three choices:

1) Continue the protest, but making it louder (or make it more creative).
2) Fight in court.
3) Accept a compromise.