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Linden Lab(tm) drops trademark bombshell

On Easter Monday the Lindens announced radical new policies regarding the use of their trademarks, including the Second Life(tm) logo, company name, and product name. According to the official Second Life(tm) blog, any website that mentions or uses their trademarks (or even acronyms that refer to their trademarks) are subject to their new license agreement:

Read these guidelines if you’d like to use any of our trademarks on your website, in a URL, in advertising, in an article or book, in a film or television show, in a software product, or anywhere else. You likely need our permission. (link)

Those affected most by the revised rules are owners of websites that begin with the product’s acronym, “SL”(tm) or “Second Life”(tm), like SL Universe, SL Exchange, and Second Life Herald. The new rules also affect the press, who are required to comply with the license guidelines in order to show the Second Life(tm) logo in an article:

We’ve given journalists and media outlets special permission to use the Second Life Eye-in-Hand Logo in published articles, blog entries, and news programs specifically about the Second Life virtual world, subject to our Guidelines and Terms and Conditions. (link)

These guidelines include a requirement to have a business presence in-world or an “association” with the product — a requirement that would prevent the logo from appearing in casual gaming reviews or news reports about Second Life(tm) or Linden Lab(tm). From a marketing perspective, it’s strange to me that the company would seek to limit references to their product in the media, or try to enforce seemingly arbitrary rules, especially at a time where the popularity of Second Life(tm) appears to be waning.

Since 2003, the company had a relaxed attitude towards use of the SL(tm) logo (see the old guidelines), in which many third-party websites established themselves using the product name or an abbreviation thereof. One such example is the low-brow rumour-mill, Second Life Herald, which not only includes the product name in their domain name and site name, but also features the Second Life(tm) eye-in-hand logo in the banner. One can only wonder: after the 90-day amnesty, will the company take retroactive legal action against these well-established websites?

Cristiano Midnight, owner of the popular user forum, “SL Universe”, points out, “it seems completely arbitrary, and impacts sites that have been in existence for years and fully in compliance of naming rules, which have now suddenly changed.” (link)

In the case of cavers.ca, I can’t afford to tackle the Linden Lab(tm) legal department, so I’ll do my best to comply with the new rules.

DISCLAIMER: Second Life, SL, and inSL are trademarks of Linden Research, Inc. Cubeyterra.com is not affiliated with or sponsored by Linden Research. Further, cavers.ca hopes that Linden Research will not hurt cavers.ca legally, physically, or emotionally, using any means including but not limited to rabid lawyers, hit men, vicious attack penguins, or ninja assassins for any inadvertent infringement either real or perceived. Please don’t hurt me, I beg you, I didn’t mean to damage your trademark by mentioning you in my blog.

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Build your own race track

Starting today, I’m giving away the Terra Race Track Kit — a box with everything you need to build your own vehicle race track. This kit helps you get more out of your vehicle purchase, and helps island owners create a new attraction. Hold air, land, or sea races, using any vehicle at all.

The kit includes:

  • A multi-lap start/finish line
  • Race gates
  • A race clock
  • Unscripted race course markers

Pick up the Terra Race Track Kit free at Abbotts Aerodrome. You can try out the track at 450 meters above Abbotts Aerodrome (free planes available at the start line).

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Freebies for newbies: The GNUbie Store relaunches

This week, Ingrid Ingersoll completed the move of the popular freebie shop, The GNUbie Store, to it’s stylish new digs in Powder Mill.

Previously located in Indigo, The GNUbie store has been a repository of free items from Second Life’s leading designers, including Juro Kothari, Fallingwater Cellardoor, Forseti Svarog, Jai Nomad, Barnesworth Anubis, Ingrid Ingersoll, among many others. Oh, and me too.

The concept is to provide new Second Lifers with quality free items from hand-picked designers that they can both use and even learn from should they try their hand at content creation. The walls are covered with great free examples of homes, vehicles, clothing, and gadgets. It’s a popular approach, because even after relocating, the shop is already buzzing with activity.

(Link to The GNUbie Store)

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Take this script and shove it (into your own submarine)

You know what we don’t see enough of in Second Life? Submarines. With all the water available across the grid, I’m surprised that there are so many boats, and so few subs. In a world where there are deep oceans and hidden grottos, underwater travel is an amazing way to explore.

To boost production of submarines and to promote the submarine as a pleasure craft, I’m re-releasing my Herring mini-sub with a new open-source script licensed under the Creative Commons. What this means is that you can get a Herring 2.0 free, rip out it’s script, and use it in your own creation.

There are terms of use, of course, outlined by the non-legalese version of the license:

You are free:

* to Share — to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work
* to Remix — to make derivative works

Under the following conditions:

* Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
* Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same, similar or a compatible license.
* For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link to this web page.
* Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.
* Apart from the remix rights granted under this license, nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author’s moral rights. (link)

It’s my hope that vehicle builders will use the Herring as a starting point for new submarines, either collaboratively or competitively. It’s not a perfect script by far — I know there are flaws in it — so it’s up to you to innovate and improve on it.

You can pick up a Herring 2 at The GNUbie Store, at Stillman Bazaar, and in the underground submarine dock at Abbotts Aerodrome.

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Flying with a keyboard

Each day, hundreds of visitors teleport to Abbotts Aerodrome to experience the thrill of being a virtual pilot. And while Second Life is not a proper flight simulator, like Microsoft FSX, Linden Lab has given us the tools to create aircraft that are both entertaining and capable of reasonably realistic flight. Part of the appeal of Second Life over FSX is that SL is a social environment: unlike FSX, you can sit your friend in the passenger seat and take them on a tour.

Flight in Second Life also has serious shortcomings — in particular, there’s the annoying absence of joystick support. This single failing has frustrated and confused many novice pilots who aren’t familiar with standard keyboard controls. I hear the question, “I’m pressing ‘up’… why isn’t the plane going up?” surprisingly often. It might seem counter-intuitive, but there is a good reason why the keyboard controls work the way they do. Even as long ago as the early ’80s, with subLOGIC’s popular flight simulator for the Apple II and TRS-80 , the basic controls for keyboard flight were clearly established. These controls are still the standard a quarter century later, in FSX.

Flight control systems (Wikipedia.org)Imagine your numeric keypad as an airplane’s control stick, with the stick planted in the centre on the “5” key. Left and right arrows control the aircraft’s ailerons, which make the plane roll left and right. Up and down keys control the elevators, and making the plane pitch down and up. This is actually the part that many people find confusing: You push the stick forward (up arrow) to make the elevators go down, which makes the plane’s nose go down; you pull the stick back (down arrow) to make the elevators go up, which makes the plane’s nose go up.

So that’s why pressing “up” definitely won’t make your plane go up, and hence your passenger’s screams of “PULL UP! PULL UP!” as you hurtle towards the end of the runway at take-off speed.

Part of the fun of flight in SL challenge of becoming a virtual pilot. Sure, it takes a little while to get used to the controls, but once you do, you’ll be surprised at the precision of control achievable, even without a joystick.