Nu Vibez and Roleplay Guide Magazine - February 2014 | Page 68

So.. What now UCCSL?
by Kylie Sabra,
Founder
I was cleaning out the
UCCSL file cabinets
t h i s w e e ke n d a n d
c a m e a c r o s s
communica ons
between Peter Gray of
Linden Lab and me. To
quickly recap, I wrote a
le er to Peter dated October 22, 2013—a simple,
straigh orward missive.
“The United Content Creators of Second Life is a
group of residents and content creators, in both
the commercial and ar s c communi es, who
share concerns regarding the August, 2013
Terms of Service, specifically Sec on 2.3. To
resolve these issues and concerns, we ask that
you sit down and meet with the UCCSL Council.”
Although I followed up this ini al email with a formal le er,
Peter actually responded to the email just two days later on
October 24th.
“Thank you for your email. We appreciate your
group's concerns and have seen others express
similar concerns as well.
We greatly value Second Life's content creators,
whose collec ve contribu ons help make the
virtual world the vibrant experience that it is
today. We remain commi ed to providing Second
Life as a pla orm on which residents can create
and profit from their crea ons. This philosophy is
central to Linden Lab, and is something that we
are ul mately seeking to extend to all of our
products and pla orms. Accordingly, the revision
to our Terms of Service was made in order to
further extend the ability for content creators to
commercially exploit their intellectual property
through user-to-user transac ons across Linden
Lab's other products and services (including our
distribu on pla orm, Desura), not just within
Second Life.

68 - Nu Vibez Magazine - February 2014

We believe that it would be more frui ul to avoid
further debate of the asser ons made to date
regarding the intent and effect of our updated
Terms of Service, and instead focus on whether
there may be an approach to address the concerns
that have arisen in the community, while also
ensuring that our policy remains applicable to our
other products and services, and without rever ng
to the prior wording.
To that end, we are currently reviewing what
changes could be made that would resolve the
concerns of Second Life content creators,
specifically protec ng content creators'
intellectual property ownership while permi ng
Linden Lab to, among other things, act as an agent
of content creators (such as yourselves), licensed
to sell and re-sell such content.
We are op mis c that we will be able to arrive at a
mutually agreeable and beneficial way forward,
and ask for your group's con nued pa ence as we
work to do so.” (Peter Gray)
It all sounds nice enough I suppose. Well. Maybe. Upon
looking at it some three months later, what seems apparent
is that there was no men on at all of coming to the table and
talking with Second Life's Crea ves. In fact, we were told,
politely, to be quiet and wait pa ently while they work on a
suitable revision. Three months we have waited.
A second le er was sent by the UCCSL Council, that laid out
our precise concerns—carefully detailing the areas of the
ToS that were untenable to Second Life Crea ves.
Yo u c a n r e a d t h a t l e
e r a t :
h ps:// drive.google.com/file/d/0B7l89N_zBRlZTaDkwUXM5Tlk/edit?usp=sharing .
Peter's response dated November 20th.
“Thank you for your group's letter. As
mentioned in my last note, we have been
reviewing what changes could be made in
light of the concerns expressed by some
Second Life content creators. The Terms of
Service impact all of our products and
services, and the careful process of
reviewing, evaluating, and making any
revisions does take some time; we greatly
appreciate the continued patience of
concerned Second Life content creators while
we do so as quickly as we can.”