Linden Lab Gets Legal With Helpful Resource On Using Second Life For Education

from the trademark-abuse dept

Chalk up another victory for trademark bullying. Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life, apparently just got around to registering certain Second Life trademarks, but wasted no time using them to shove around at least one site that was only helping to get more people to use Second Life. Game Politics points us to the news that the operator of the Second Life in Education Wiki was on the receiving end of a legal nastygram. This is, frankly, dumb.

The site has been around for over two years without an issue, and helps educators better understand ways to use Second Life as a tool for education. It's clearly put together outside of the auspices of Linden Lab, but is a useful tool for educators who want to use the virtual world. It's the sort of thing Linden Lab should be encouraging. No "moron in a hurry" would go to the wiki and think that it was run by Linden Lab. Linden Lab's lawyers will, of course, claim that they have to monitor uses of their marks to avoid it going generic, but that's a cop out. They do not need to go after anyone who uses the mark in any way. In a case like this, where it's clearly an educational tool, not being used to describe a different or competing platform, there's no issue. Still, the operator of the site has decided it's not worth fighting, and will be changing the name of the site and moving it to a different domain. Too bad. Another win for needless trademark bullying.

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Taser Drops Misguided Lawsuit Against Second Life

from the focus-on-your-first-life,-please dept

Back in April, we had a story about how Taser was suing Second Life's parent company Linden Lab because some users in the game had created fake Taser-like virtual stun guns. Yes, seriously. It was hard to see how Linden Lab would be responsible for the actions of its users, but Taser has a long history of being ridiculously overaggressive in trying to protect its brand. However, perhaps someone explained how unlikely its chances were in court, because the company has dropped the lawsuit. Anyone know if Taser-like devices are still around in Second Life?

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People Will Pay For VoIP Because It's In A Game?

from the something-for-nothing dept

There are plenty of places for people to make free VoIP calls through their PCs these days, while the cost of phone-based VoIP service keeps falling towards zero. Given this, it's a little surprising to see the companies behind some online video games and virtual worlds planning to start charging users to make in-game or in-world calls to other players and users. Apparently Second Life, Everquest and Star Wars Galaxies will soon feature paid calling plans, with the last two even letting "users talk with friends, no matter what Sony game they're playing." Wow, that's a great feature -- and one all those existing VoIP services already have, with the added benefit that they work when their friends aren't playing Sony games, too. So it's hard to imagine the benefits of integrated VoIP calls will justify their use over any of the free solutions for very many users. This sounds somewhat similar to the sort of thinking that was being tossed out by eBay when it bought Skype, talking about all the "synergies" between voice calls and eBay sales, and how the calls would be a huge boon to the company's bottom line. Those synergies, of course, never materialized for eBay. It seems likely they won't materialize for game and virtual world companies, either.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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EFF Agrees That Copyright In Second Life Is A Mess

from the exactly dept

Way back in 2003, when Second Life first announced that its users owned the copyright on anything they produced in the world, we pointed out what a bad idea it was. In the early days it was cheered on, because people thought it was better than what they considered the alternative to be (i.e., Second Life creators Linden Lab owns the copyright on everything). But as I noted at the time, the problem was that putting real world copyright into a virtual world, where the fundamentals of physics are entirely different, is bound to cause problems. You have property rights in the real world to deal with the efficient allocation of scarce goods. Putting them into a world where there is no scarcity at all on those goods is backwards, and only leads to massive problems.

It's nice to find out that some folks at the EFF have come around to this viewpoint also. Michael Scott points out that Fred von Lohman recently noted at a conference that copyright in Second Life was "in some ways worse" than in the real world, noting that just posting a screenshot from within Second Life may violate many different copyrights -- unlike taking a photo on the street. And, by setting up virtual world issues to be governed by external world laws, problems are going to follow. This was a situation that from the beginning should have been dealt with in Second Life, rather than trying to apply real world laws to a world with a fundamentally different makeup.

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Taser Sues Second Life For Having Virtual Tasers

from the no,-seriously dept

Stun gun maker Taser is notoriously overprotective of its brand, even pushing judges and medical examiners never to list a Taser as a cause of death. However, this latest, as pointed out by Dave Title has the company going "virtual." Taser is suing Second Life because of virtual Tasers found in the game. Specifically, Taser seems upset that these virtual stun guns are being sold next to pornographic material, which (the company claims) will harm its brand. I'd argue that going around suing everyone probably does a lot more harm.

Of course, Second Life parent corp. Linden Lab doesn't actually make or sell these things, but just provides the platform -- so you might think that the company is protected by safe harbors. Except... one of the little loopholes in safe harbor rules is on trademark claims, which mostly aren't covered by either the DMCA's safe harbors or the CDA's. However, it should be covered by common sense (which is not so common, unfortunately).

If the virtual Tasers actually do infringe on Taser's trademark, then it seems that the liable party should be the user who made/sold them in the first place -- not Linden Lab, the platform creator. On top of that, there's the big question of whether or not this is actually trademark infringement at all. You could make an argument that users might believe that virtual Tasers were somehow endorsed by the company itself, but do such products really "harm" the Taser brand? Again, it seems a lot more harm is being done to the brand by silly lawsuits. And, yes, people will point out (they always do!), that the company has an obligation to protect its marks, but there are better ways to do so than suing.

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Linden Labs Thinks It's The Sex That's Keeping Businesses Out Of Second Life

from the window-dressing dept

The trend of company after company announcing they were setting up shop in Second Life proved to be little more than a fad. Perhaps it was good for an initial publicity stunt, but many of the companies that entered the virtual world found it to be fairly worthless, from a marketing standpoint. The company behind Second Life, Linden Labs, doesn't seem to think this is why companies are staying away, rather it's because of all the sex-related activity that goes on there. So it's planning to move all of that to an "Adult Continent", so companies and brands will feel more comfortable stepping in to Second Life. While perhaps you have to admire their optimism, it doesn't seem likely that restricting sex-related activities to a virtual red-light district will suddenly make Second Life worthwhile for businesses. Furthermore, with the sex stuff believed to make up the vast majority of the Second Life economy, moving to restrict it in hopes of chasing companies' marketing dollars may not be a great strategy.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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IRS May Be Gearing Up To Send Tax Collectors Into Second Life

from the how-much-is-the-tax-on-a-magic-sword? dept

It wasn't difficult to predict that this day was coming -- especially with both China and Australia already experimenting with charging taxes on virtual goods and transactions in virtual worlds. However, Game Politics points us to the news that the US's "taxpayer advocate" (we have such a thing?) is now suggesting the IRS start taxing transactions in virtual worlds as well. While the initial suggestion is for the IRS to just issue "guidelines" for taxpayers, that's the start down the path to active taxation in those worlds. This could get troublesome fast -- as you could easily see scenarios where kids who thought they were just playing a game suddenly owe significant real world taxes, just because they've been successful in the game and accumulated "valuable" assets. It seems fairly pointless, and potentially troublesome, to do any kind of taxation on virtual transaction until such time as real dollars exchange hands.

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No, Second Life's Bank Crash Did Not Predict Real World Bank Crash

from the get-real,-people dept

MSNBC is running an article claiming that last year's virtual bank collapse in Second Life somehow foretold the current financial crisis. It makes for a good headline, but it's simply not true. The factors that resulted in the real world financial crash, as compared to the one in Second Life were entirely different. While there may have been some similarities (people not taking the time to understand the risk of certain investments) to compare the two is a pretty big stretch. From there, the article gets even worse, pretending that both financial crashes show that free markets don't work.

That's simply not true.

The eventual crash actually does show that free markets can work properly, punishing those who took risks without fully understanding the risks. The response in Second Life, to ban banks like the one that crashed, seems like the wrong way to go about things as well. Yes, many people were fooled, and ended up losing money, but that should help educate people not to blindly rush into putting money in a totally unregulated "bank" that made promises that were clearly beyond reasonable (40% interest?). Having regulations that prevent outright fraud (lying) seem reasonable, but banning all banks in response to such a poorly run one seems like going to far. The problem isn't just with the fact that it was an "unregulated free market." It was with the fact that people blindly believed that something too good to be true was legit.

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Reuters Bails On Second Life After Figuring Out It's Really Not That Interesting

from the if-a-tree-falls-in-a-forest... dept

One of the sillier attempts by businesses to look cool by setting up shop in Second Life was that of Reuters, which assigned a reporter to hang out in the virtual world full-time and report on it as if it were any other economy. While we noted at the time there might be some interesting stories in Second Life, that seemed to be taking a back seat to the publicity value of the stunt. It was surprising to learn that the Reuters reporter was still there until recently, when he finally gave up the beat, calling it "about as fun as watching paint dry." With 9 out of 10 efforts by businesses going into Second Life ending in failure, perhaps there wasn't much for a business reporter to cover any longer. For what it's worth, the reporter says Linden Labs should give up on the idea that Second Life is a business application -- not because of its shaky in-game economics, or because there's no value for there for most businesses, but because of technical problems. While those may be easier to solve for the company, they pale in comparison to the sheer pointlessness of real-world businesses establishing themselves in Second Life.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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On Second Thought, Maybe Second Life Does Need A Bailout

from the will-some-VC-play-its-Ben-Bernanke dept

Just a week ago, we were laughing at Second Life's attempt to position its economy as being safe compared to the real economy. That seemed difficult to believe, as a variety of things have been conspiring against Second Life for quite some time, and much of its own economy was based on its own inflated hype-bubble that overstated how many users there were and misled companies concerning what people actually did in Second Life (hint: it wasn't visit virtual clothing stores). With that bubble rapidly deflating, it really was only a matter of time until the wider Second Life economy faced its own crisis, and apparently (despite claims to the contrary) that's manifesting itself in a real estate crash within Second Life. At least in the real world, the property is a physical thing that has some intrinsic value. We've pointed out in the past that betting your business model on an economy made up of virtual goods is quite dangerous, and it appears Second Life is discovering that fact pretty quickly.

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Well, At Least Second Life Won't Need A Gov't Bailout

from the too-small-to-care dept

Remember a couple years ago, when you could hardly go a day without hearing some press story hyping up how the virtual world Second Life was the biggest thing since the internet itself? Those days went away pretty quickly once people noticed that the numbers Second Life was claiming weren't really representative of how many people were there, and all the brands that bought into the hype and jumped on the Second Life bandwagon started realizing that it didn't do much for them, as most of the folks in Second Life were there for the virtual sex and gambling, which the company has cracked down on.

However, apparently, there are still some folks using Second Life, and the company wants to let you know that as the financial crisis spreads around the world, the fundamentals of the economy in Second Life remain strong. Over the past few weeks, I've seen press announcements from plenty of tech companies trying to spin the financial crisis as a reason to write about their company, but this one might be the most ridiculous. It's not as if people are going to start moving money into Lindens any time soon as an investment vehicle.

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Getting A Record Deal Through Second Life?

from the connecting-with-fans dept

Ben writes in to point out an article from Wired News about a blues musician, Von Johin, who performs concerts in Second Life each week, which just helped him get a record deal. It's an interesting story -- and I have to admit that the gimmickyness of the story makes me wonder if the record label is being totally upfront about how they found and signed Johin. It's almost too good a story, especially given how many news stories we've seen over the years that simply played off Second Life as a hook. However, even if the story itself is a bit contrived, it does point to yet another way that musicians can better connect with true fans. These days, any way to better connect with fans is an important part of a business model, and while it's certainly not for everyone, holding concerts in Second Life is certainly one way to attract an audience.

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Shockingly, Businesses Who Set Up Shop In Second Life Because It's 'Cool' Don't Fare So Well

from the who-woulda-thunk-it? dept

Over the last year or so, it seems like the halo around Second Life has worn off, especially for all the big companies who rushed in, believing it was the next big thing. A new report now notes that approximately 90% of companies who rushed into virtual worlds saw their projects fail. Not surprisingly, most of the failed projects involved companies who got involved because they thought it was "cool" or because a competitor was there. Apparently, not having a real business purpose or strategy pretty much guarantees that you're not going to achieve very much of either.

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Congressman Freaks Out About Second Life; Demands Ban In Schools

from the fear!-save-the-children!-be-afraid! dept

Just a few months after worrying about terrorists hiding in Second Life, now at least one Congressional representative is worried about how Second Life is corrupting your children. He's trying to drum up support to ban Second Life from schools and libraries, hyping up the fact that "bad stuff" happens in Second Life and, gosh, we wouldn't want kids to learn how to deal with bad stuff in an environment where they're protected from any physical harm. It'll be much better when they learn to deal with it out on the streets.

This is actually an attempt by Rep. Mark Kirk to reintroduce DOPA, the Deleting Online Predators Act. It was last introduced almost exactly two years ago (note the timing: right before Congressional election season...). Because very few politicians want to give an opening to challengers to their seats to put out an ad saying they voted against "protecting the children" last time around the law was quickly approved by the House by a massive 410 to 15 vote, at which point it moved on to the Senate to die (not having all Senators up for re-election at the same time has its benefits). Of the 15 dissenters to the original bill, Rep. John Dingell was the one who said what needed to be said (and which so few other Reps were willing to say):

"So now we are on the floor with a piece of legislation poorly thought out, with an abundance of surprises, which carries with it that curious smell of partisanship and panic, but which is not going to address the problems. This is a piece of legislation which is going to be notorious for its ineffectiveness and, of course, for its political benefits to some of the members hereabout."

Yes, the law would effectively ban a ton of internet sites from schools and libraries, including ones like LinkedIn, Slashdot and Amazon.com, based on its overly broad language. On top of all that, study after study after study has shown that social networks and virtual worlds (despite the FUD) are not "breeding grounds" for predators. And, of course, parents are finally coming to terms with this and are no longer freaking out about kids using these sites. So, explain why we need such unnecessary and overly broad legislation again? Oh right, it's election season...

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Your Second Life Avatar May Impact How You Act In Real Life

from the you-mean-second-life-may-have-a-purpose? dept

Slashdot points us to a clip from NPR's All Things Considered discussing some research out of Stanford about how the appearance of your virtual avatar may impact your actions in real life. In the story, two examples are given. The first is showing a thinner version of you, and letting you see the avatar exercising and getting thinner. Apparently, being able to see that (very fast) "cause-and-effect" really does drive people to exercise more. The second is that if someone has a "more attractive" avatar within a virtual world, once they leave that virtual world, they're more likely to have higher self-esteem and believe that they're better looking in real life as well. In the study given, right after leaving the virtual world, the subjects are told to create online dating profiles and pick people that they thought were their equals. Those who had more attractive avatars picked more attractive real life people as "attainable." The researchers (of course) have their own website with more info.

While this sounds like interesting research, it seems rather early to draw many conclusions from it. In fact, I'm a little surprised that the Slashdot post about it didn't mention the obvious parallels to questions about research on how people act after playing violent video games. That research has generally shown that it makes kids emotional, but just for a short period of time -- which would make me wonder how long-term the impacts of seeing these avatars is as well. However, if the goal is to just give you a little burst of motivation to get over some self-doubt or inertia (say, to exercise), then that might not be a bad thing. Either way, the research itself is interesting -- but it's still early. It'll be worth watching what comes out of the research down the road.

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Second Life Lawsuit Over Copied Goods Settled

from the just-like-that dept

Just after we discussed yet another bad situation involving bringing real world laws into virtual worlds involving World of Warcraft, it looks like there's an update on another such case we discussed last year. In this case, it was a dispute between two members of Second Life, one of whom had "copied" items made by another and started selling them. This seemed perfectly ridiculous, since being a virtual world where there is no scarcity, nothing was being stolen. Indeed, it looks like the participants in the lawsuit more or less came to the same conclusion. They've "settled" the case, but by settling, it sounds like they really meant giving up the case. No money is exchanging hands and no one is admitting to any guilt. That sounds a lot more like they're just dropping the case.

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Government Continues To Search Virtual Worlds For Terrorists

from the anyone-look-on-America's-Army? dept

A few weeks back, we pointed to a ridiculous report from the federal government's Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, claiming that places like Second Life could be breeding grounds for terrorists. Why Second Life as opposed to any standard web chat room? That's not at all clear. Salon has gone through and thoroughly debunked the notion that terrorists are likely to use Second Life, noting that the so-called "experts" who made the claims clearly had never used Second Life. Yet, don't think that means the government won't keep up its fear-mongering over the issue. Wired is reporting that the U.S. intelligence community is working on software to detect terrorists infiltrating World of Warcraft. Initially, the program will focus on just profiling the behavior of people in such virtual worlds, but down the road they hope that it will automatically identify those likely to be terrorists. I wonder if they'll use similar programs in the Army's own America's Army online video game?

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Lawsuit Over 'Theft' Of Digital Items In Second Life Shows Up In First Life Court

from the what-happens-in-second-life,-doesn't-stay-in-second-life dept

It's been almost exactly four years since Linden Lab announced that the digital goods anyone created within Second Life were owned by whoever created them -- effectively bringing the outside world's laws into the virtual world. While this move received cheers from those who thought it was better than the company that ran the game owning everything, we felt that it was only going to lead to some serious problems. Specifically, our concern was that this was effectively bringing existing problematic laws, such as copyright, into this new world -- or, rather, pulling those issues out of this world and throwing them onto the US justice system. It appears that's coming true.

A new lawsuit has been filed by a woman who uses Second Life, claiming that another member of Second Life was "stealing" the computer code used to build products that she sold in the virtual world. Of course, that's not all that surprising, as digital goods are easily copied -- and in the past we've even pointed out systems like copybot that made that process quite easy. In the end, it does come back to the same basic economics that we discuss around here all the time. If you're betting your livelihood on selling digital goods that are easily copied with zero marginal cost, you're going to have to deal with people copying your products sooner or later no matter what. It's just not a very good business to be in. While it may feel like "theft" to some, it's hard to justify that as being theft since no one is missing anything. In other words, the economics at play in the virtual world are entirely different than those in the real world -- and yet, we're now going to expect the real world laws to handle a lawsuit involving digital world economics. It doesn't make for a good combination.

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Do Virtual Aeron Chairs Violate The Rights Of Herman Miller?

from the getting-ridiculous dept

Apparently the maker of the famed Aeron chair, Herman Miller, has joined Second Life... and discovered that there were virtual Aeron chairs created by others. To its credit, the company didn't go sue crazy... yet. Instead, it offered those who had a "fake" a free trade-in program to get official virtual Aeron chairs (yes, official virtual chairs... what is this world coming to?). However, it has started sending cease-and-desist notes to the makers of the unofficial virtual Aeron chairs, which they note are "firm, but polite." The company claims that these virtual Aeron chairs violate both copyrights and trademarks, but it's an open question whether or not that's necessarily true. The trademark claims may be somewhat stronger, but there's a point at which you need to take a step back and simply ask what's the harm being done here? It's a virtual world. The fact that people are making fake Aeron chairs should simply be seen as flattery and a sign of just how iconic the chairs have become.

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You Mean Second Life Marketing's Not All It's Cracked Up To Be?

from the hype-hype-and-more-hype dept

It seemed pretty obvious from the outset that all the corporate interest in Second Life was driven more by hype than clear thinking. Company after company set up shop in the virtual world, either coming up with some pointless way to try and do business there, or more frequently, for marketing purposes. The only problem for marketers? Second Life is a pretty worthless place to try and sell people on your company's brand and products. Wired gives a laundry list of drawbacks, but the biggest is that very few people actually use Second Life. As has been pointed out before, the number of active SL users is nowhere near the number of "residents" it's supposed to have. SL claims more than 7 million residents, but that's just the number of how many avatars have been created. Linden Labs, the company that runs Second Life, says that 4 million people have created avatars, but just 1 million have accessed the world in the past month, and less than a third of that had visited in the past week. And within the world, people seem interested in little more than gambling and sex, Wired says. Still, companies that build in-game properties for big corporations say they're doing booming business, thanks to many marketers' lemming-like attraction to fads. A quote from Coke's director of interactive marketing sort of sums things up: "This is not about reach anymore. This is about connecting. It's about establishing meaningful, impactful conversations. So when people ask, 'Why Second Life?' I ask 'Why not?'" It's lovely that he wants to have these "meaningful conversations" with people about Coke. It's too bad that the lack of real interest in Second Life and the marketing efforts within it show people aren't interested in having those conversations with him.

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