Monday, April 7, 2008

Trademark enforcement by Linden Lab®

The issue is not yet cleared. Many bloggers are still looking how to comply to the new rules.
Confusing all around.
New suggestions are being made to react to their, having us signed, or agreed the TOS, and therefore simply can ban any user that Linden considers to be in violation of their trademark claims. By virtue of the same principle, Linden can simply ban any user that exerts his or her rights to free speech, nominative use of trademarked terms as laid down by US law, or equivalent rights under local legislation.
Gwyneth Llewelyn wrote a new petition on her blog. to ask Linden to adjust and rewrite their trademark policy. It is certainly not a statement from residents to claim their rights, but a constructive way to ask Linden to reconsider what they have announced previously.
"
It is our belief that the extreme switch to the complete opposite of what has been actively promoted in the past four years is not a good marketing strategy — effectively, fighting off, one by one, all the most energetic promoters of Linden and their products, shutting down their right to talk and co-promote Linden’s technology and environment, ban their accounts, and remove their content. A four-year policy grants (at least under estoppel) the large community of enthusiastic supporters the moral right to request from Linden a better model of co-promotion, one that is fair and balanced, protective of Linden’s legal rights as valid owners of their registered trademarks, but also that allows “fansites” to continue to spread and promote Linden’s products without fear of litigation."

What is frightened, is that the virtual world is being used by the whole world, with its different nationalities and languages. So first of all, who does understand all the words in the Tos?
I know a lot of compatriots who do speak some words English, but do not understand the whole vocabulary that is used in such a lawyers text. And to believe that they would ban a resident, without being notifying, would be not fair, and against their original idea of "your imagination, your world". Of course, they will say that you should not take the text so literally, but when it comes to the point, we will always stay empty handed, not possible to react.

Please read the petition on Gwyn's blog, it is made with a lot of consideration.

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