Nu Vibez and Roleplay Guide Magazine - August 2014 | Page 70

HOW TO DISSECT ANY TERMS OF SERVICE AGREEMENT AS A NEW MEDIA AUTHOR - p3

work uploaded to servers. That taking³
may or may not extend to original works
completed and stored on service servers.
In the latest version⁴, buried under
Infringement No fica on sec on 7,
paragraph 7.4. It says that any material
sent to Linden, including improvements,
and unsolicited ideas for products and
services will be also considered User
Content. This means that materials and
content made at their request that may
embody original works are also being
'donated' as well from the perspec ve of
the service⁵.
In the non exclusive⁶ SL license, the
author users or content creators, are
giving Linden the following rights to
uploaded works and completed works
on the servers
When you click you are actually saying:
Yes, Linden Research may do this stuff to
my work or their copy of my work:
1) it may be changed (modified)
2) my name (a ribu on) may be
removed as creator
3) my work copied (as many as they
want)
4) my work sold (transferred, sold,
licensed) and I give them that right
forever⁷
Under certain case law such a new
provision may be considered a breach of
70 - Nu Vibez Magazine - August, 2014

the prior version of the Terms of Service
Agreement. That is my point about rights
granted to creators under the different
versions of these agreements.
Depending on the author and the works,
it is my belief that many of these
provisions would not be enforceable
against users, par cularly user authors.
For example what if an original work was
created in world (using service tools and
uploaded textures) but simply held in
inventory or maybe it was displayed in
world (say at an art exhibit on a private
sim) but it was never 'submi ed to any
publicly accessible area of the service',
then certain rights in that virtual
intellectual property exist. Arguably the
user content license does not apply to
that work. If not, there is no license to
that work and it may not be used by the
service⁸.
If your completed work was uploaded to
the service perhaps you have a right to
call breach by the service of your upload
relevant TOS, because you uploaded
certain content under earlier versions
that did not contain the types of takings
we discussed earlier.
A big plus for folks who have uploaded
even since the new terms, there is
something everyone can do to protect
their rights, you now have a right to