[Or how a writing project gets derailed before I even type the first character.]
I’m a bit late posting about this, mostly because 1) I don’t spend my time on this site talking much about SL since there are better places to do that, and 2) I contribute to those sites via commenting instead.
Anyway, Linden Research (owner of SL) effectively declared this week that they are aggressively pursuing infringement of their trademarks, and two days later changed the SL TOS to reflect that. I would normally be OK with that, except that its a near-reversal of their old policy, and appears to be preparing to take down external websites that include those marks (which were created in accordance with their OLD rules!).
Rather than get into my own tedious posting, I’m just going to drop the links of other sites which are covering this much better (some of which I’ve commented on):
-> Though not the original opening salvo from the community, Gwyneth’s explanation appears the clearest and includes an ultimatum that several other prominent sites are considering joining. I tried to post comments there, but her site will not allow access to comments from my home IP.
-> Reporter James ‘Hamlet’ Au has had multiple posts here, here, and here as the debate developed. I’ve participated in the first two, as they include discussions from people who I’ve come to know in RL or in extended discussion with SL and consider friends. The latest (comments disabled) actually summarizes from comments on the second, where two RL lawyers discuss the issue in detail; One of them has a full-time discussion of virtual law on his site, and will probably end up on my links list under the SL section.
-> For the terminally curious, I’ve added a link to the one lawyer’s site here, as his explanation and discussion helps greatly.
-> Linden Research’s PR is probably going to have a followup response on Monday, thanks to Hamlet’s badgering them (and rightly so, since he’s affected).
Anyway, the last link, above, has enough info that it does not totally derail the writing project, but while this calms down I’m taking notes on There.com instead. *shrug* It’s safer right now.
/salute
–TSK