amazing

[Rose Springvale]

I am amazed that this is still going on, but as the primary scrivener of the proposed license agreement, i'm going to respons with simple facts.

1. I was asked months ago to try to help resole the issue of IP rights and the CDS. Many people, i was told, and reading these forums, believed, had hard feelings about the way that property was or was not transferred to the CDS. Furthermore, everyone wanted to avoid another Earthquake.

2. I talked with several people, guild members particularly, to try to ascertain what the issue was. Eventually, i pounded out a draft agreement and sent it to the person who was named to the committee with me. She had comments and suggestions, I incorporated those. I forwarded drafts of the agreement to all guild members.

3. The guild members individually commented, and more changes were made. I have each draft of the agreement if anyone wants to review the history, along with all the notes from participants. That's just good drafting.

4. A draft was brought to the regular board meeting for discussion. More comments ensued, all of which were incorporated into the agreement.

5. A second draft was brought to a guild meeting. Again, more comments, as it should be, because this is an agreement that I personally had no experience with. The historical setting was something particular to the members of the group, not to me. I felt that my reputation among the community was positive enough that if we ...the guild... could come up with an agreement we felt was fair, that i could go to the individuals who were upset and offer myself as an unbiased listener. The point was never to undermine anything, but to heal a would that seemed to be festering with some regularity.

6. A third draft was prepared after the comments and that was presented to the Guild at last sunday's meeting. The only changes made to the document were changes made at the request of the guild members. The document was still in discussion stage...though please note that at this point i had nearly 20 hours in the preparations, discussions and redrafts. I didn't mind, because i felt i was helping. Everyone at the meetings reviewed languages and raised concerns, including other lawyers. All the guild meetings were public, and announced with reasonable notice.

7. Despite the parties to the agreement having NOT CHANGED from the initial draft, the issue of CDS as opposed to the New Guild as owner was raised for the first time on Sunday. I don't know why it was raised then and only then, and i don't know why the issue became one of such violent objection on these forums, when certainly there was no such objection made by our then secretary in the meeting. I have no objection whatsoever to the posting of those minutes, provided they are not altered, and provided that minutes of the prior three meetigns including the drafts under discussion be posted as well. The implication that there is some conspiracy to undermine the CDS is insulting an ludicrous.

8. The proposal to vest IP rights in the guild instead of the CDS is a practical one only. The reality in SL is that the only effective way to "own" anything is to have an avatar physically take possession... "buy" the property. Jon created an alt whose password was shared with two people he trusted, as approved by the guild. We all felt very comfortable with the situation. The fluctuations of the membership of the RA, the failure to make quorum, the innuendo and the mudslinging does not make it a place I would choose to vest the property of the sims personally, but if that is what the guild wants to do, i don't care. It doesn't matter to me personally... it is simply a matter of bad blood in this community continuing.

9. There was a vote held regarding using the agreement moving forward. Another member of the group who knew more about what had transpired in the past than i did, raised the hard question of whether we were willing to work with builders in the new sim if they couldnt' resolve their differences in the old sims. This is just business. We offer good things in these communities, and there just is no reason for us to be held hostage by people with the ability to delete major portions of the builds. The designers and builders have wonderful talents, but they are not unique. If someone decides to delete a bridge, wouldnt' we rather know that and deal with it than wait for the earthquake? Wouldn't it be more prudent to be pro active than just continue on as though everything is okay? That was my point. I said, i'd rather ask forgiveness than permission particularly in these volatile times, because i'm sick and tired of hearing people bitch. This is supposed to be fun, educational and build bridges among us.

10. The Guild, before Sunday, seemed to be a stable, sensible group who had nothing but the best interest of the sim in mind. I was naive. I had no clue that members of the guild, particularly the secretary, had a conflict of interest where this agreement was concerned.

I assure you all, i have no desire to undermine the CDS nor its policies. I have no ulterior motive, and as my friends in CARE will tell you, no affiliation that anyone can count on for my vote with any of the factions. My intent was to not vote at all, because I cannot stand the behavior you all have exhibited in this election. What i see worth celebrating about it all is that it will be over.

Jon accuses me of violently insulting him in my response to his misrepresentation of the meeting last night. I will have to review that post, which was taken down moments after it was posted, maybe five minutes later, because i was having trouble with my cable connection... (comcast bought time warner you know). I was amazed to see his repsonse to my deleted post an hour later and asked him to remove it. A wise person said that a cooling off period is appropriate for such writings, and i heeded that advice.

Jon intimated that i was ashamed of what i wrote. Absolutely not. I'm only ashamed that i believed anyone could help in this community without being accused of malfeasance, corruption or greed.

I am ashamed of so many intelligent, wonderful people saying such ugly things to one another in the name of democracy.

For the record. I am not running for office, nor will i ever run for office. So please keep that in mind when you decide who has a conflict of interest here.

[Jon Seattle]

Rose, there is no question that you did an excellent job drafting the IP agreement, except for the idea that the Guild would own all IP rights in the CDS.

I, Sudane, Moon, and others brought up the fact that the Guild did not have a clear mandate at more than one meeting and in spite of this it never resulted in any change in your draft agreement. Its an idea that would make the Guild unworkable, effectively destroying it, because, as Pat points out, the CDS would be crazy to contract with the Guild if the CDS gained no rights to use the content that Guild produced.

You and your co-sponsors continued to argue for this proposal be applied to all existing builds and retroactively to all builders who have ever contributed even after I, acting as secretary, had tabled the debate until next week. Not only did you really want us to do this, you wanted us to do it last Sunday. It was very very pressing right now during the election.

[quote="Rose Springvale":3luhkidl]
4. A draft was brought to the regular board meeting for discussion. More comments ensued, all of which were incorporated into the agreement.[/quote:3luhkidl]Nonsense, none of the drafts reflected several people's concerns about the propriety of the Guild asserting that it has the right to all CDS IP property.

[quote="Rose Springvale":3luhkidl]The point was never to undermine anything, but to heal a would that seemed to be festering with some regularity.[/quote:3luhkidl]Would you give us specifics? I have never heard any of the members of the Colonia Nova team complain, and with one exception that I know of all the original NFS builders are either CN builders or are long gone. Samantha's situation is a bit different since she pitched in on her own. Nevertheless I never every opposed the idea of an IP agreement, to the contrary I always said it was a good idea.

[quote="Rose Springvale":3luhkidl]All the guild meetings were public, and announced with reasonable notice.[/quote:3luhkidl]Nevertheless the transcript shows that you pushed hard to have us go along with this idea of the guild owning all the CDS's license property without announcing it to the rest of our community. You asked me not to bring this issue to the public forum and the community at all -- something that is contrary to both the charter and spirit of the Guild.

Rose, the Guild is a [u:3luhkidl]never[/u:3luhkidl] place to work out back room deals. That is a profoundly anti-democratic approach, especially to a decision that really has to do with the ownership of all of the capital and contributed labor in our community. If effects everyone, and every citizen has a right to know and express their opinion on the issue.

[quote="Rose Springvale":3luhkidl]7. Despite the parties to the agreement having NOT CHANGED from the initial draft, the issue of CDS as opposed to the New Guild as owner was raised for the first time on Sunday. [/quote:3luhkidl]No, there is a problem there as well. There issue of the Guild's mandate was brought up at least three meetings. Because of the wording, it was not apparent to several of us that the license transferred all property to the guild. Moon thought it gave all the transferred rights to the CDS until I pointed out that it did not.

As a lawyer you have a responsibility to explain this to non-lawyers before they sign an agreement. I should not have had to explain to two of our group how this worked. You should have made it clear.

[quote="Rose Springvale":3luhkidl] I have no objection whatsoever to the posting of those minutes, provided they are not altered, and provided that minutes of the prior three meetigns including the drafts under discussion be posted as well. The implication that there is some conspiracy to undermine the CDS is insulting an ludicrous.[/quote:3luhkidl]I did not say (except in my deleted post) that you altered the drafts -- I was under that impression because Moon raised the problem to me after she had reviewed the final draft. I was mistaken, you always intended to transfer all of the CDS property to the Guild without making that fact public. Its still a really bad idea.

[quote="Rose Springvale":3luhkidl] The fluctuations of the membership of the RA, the failure to make quorum, the innuendo and the mudslinging does not make it a place I would choose to vest the property of the sims personally, but if that is what the guild wants to do, i don't care. It doesn't matter to me personally... it is simply a matter of bad blood in this community continuing. [/quote:3luhkidl]This is profoundly anti-democratic and undermines our whole system of government. There were no people in the room except for the proposers who were comfortable with transferring all property rights to the Guild. It means taking the ultimate power over our capital (which is not the empty sims, but the buildings that are here) and transferring it to a group that is not elected by the citizens.

[quote="Rose Springvale":3luhkidl]That was my point. I said, i'd rather ask forgiveness than permission particularly in these volatile times, because i'm sick and tired of hearing people bitch. This is supposed to be fun, educational and build bridges among us. [/quote:3luhkidl]This is not a game, either to me or to many other people who see SL as a canvas for their work. Lets remove the democratic control over our sims, and then ask for forgiveness later? How can you possibly think that is acceptable.

[quote="Rose Springvale":3luhkidl]10. The Guild, before Sunday, seemed to be a stable, sensible group who had nothing but the best interest of the sim in mind. I was naive. I had no clue that members of the guild, particularly the secretary, had a conflict of interest where this agreement was concerned. [/quote:3luhkidl]You knew well that four active guild members, including myself, were builders of Colonia Nova, that any rule that forbade us to work on guild projects without signing away our work to a non-CDS organization would cause a conflict. Perhaps it did not occur to you that the people in the room were the actual builders?

[quote="Rose Springvale":3luhkidl]Jon accuses me of violently insulting him in my response to his misrepresentation of the meeting last night. I will have to review that post, which was taken down moments after it was posted, maybe five minutes later, because i was having trouble with my cable connection... (comcast bought time warner you know). [/quote:3luhkidl]First of all Rose, I have been careful not to mention anyone, even the author of that post by name. Below is the text of the entire post you objected to: (it was the only one up on this subject at the time.

[quote:3luhkidl]Yes, and especially someone who will resist being manipulated by outside interests with a particular agenda.

The fact is that the guild is and must remain open and highly democratic organization. That means it is vulnerable to take-over. I am not saying that it happened in this case, but all an interest group need do is send people over with a set of talking points the guild is in their hands.

This means that the Guild needs to be very careful. If, for example, the guild holds on to all intellectual property (as has been forcefully proposed recently) and does not hand it over to CDS, then someone can take over the guild policy and hold the CDS for ransom. Some future guild can say, do what we say or your public builds are gone.

I will do as much as I can to make sure we do not have this situation.[/quote:3luhkidl]
1. It is not a report of what happened at a meeting.
2. It does not mention anyone by name
3. It raises the problem with the policy
4. You responded to this by posting a personal attack on me, I think just for making this issue public.

And you, as every member of a party is, is running for office in the CDS. In my case I am just hoping I won't actually get a seat so I can contribute to the CDS in other ways. What I do not want to see is our community's representative democracy destroyed because, well it would be "more stable" to transfer power to a non-elected group.

[Rose Springvale]

Until you post the scripture and verse, you are merely trying to attribute to me things that are simply not true. If you had issues with the agreement that didn't make it into the draft, it was YOUR responsibility to bring them up, not call it to a vote. Not say STOP mid discussion when all that was happening was discussion of legal issues between people who understand them. My responsibility of as a lawyer to explain ends the moment you rudely interrupt a conversation where i'm trying to do exactly that. Your transcript will show that i said WOW...when you adjourned mid sentences.. you might want to consider that we were meeting in Second Life, in NFS, home of lag. I honestly did not see any call for adjournment and you honestly did type STOP when we were discussing this issue. Are you afraid to post it?

As for "pushing" ... I told you weeks ago that i would be out of town for the the following weeks. I was supposed to be out of town on Sunday as well. You didn't read the draft you had in your hands until the Sunday meeting, despite my having delivered it a week earlier. I have NO notes from you regarding the ownership issue, and in fact YOU PERSONALLY CREATED THE ALT. If you didn't agree with the structure as proposed, if you in fact raised such issues, what were you thinking?? Did you go to the RA as chair of the committee and discuss that? Isn't that YOUR job? Did you come back to me and say...wait, the RA should make the ALT? No. But you accepted the money we raised didn't you? Did you even make a report of that to the RA? I'm just a committee member doing a job assigned to me by the Secretary. YOUR JOB was to keep the RA informed. I asked you several times to whom the drafts should be sent. YOU gave me the list. NEVER did you include members of the RA, in fact you joked about keeping them out of it. I have been in the CDS 7 months. YOU are the expert here. Why didn't you do your job?

I am not a member of a faction Jon. So your accusation there is incorrect as well.

They are not buildings. They are bits of computer data. You want to get personal, lets go for it.

YOU never ONCE mentioned that there were things YOU hadn't transferred. YOU appointed me to the IP committee without saying oh by the way, I'm one of the people who would need to sign off on this. I learned only Sunday that Moon was as well. So in effect, i wasn't doing pro bono work for the CDS, as i assumed, but trying to make an agreement that was satisfactory to the people signing it. I thought i was trying to put together something for Dianne and Samantha and the rest,(read your own forums) not YOU! And frankly, AS an attorney, there is no way i'd have taken on that assignment under those circumstances. It's a classic conflict of interest illustrated best by this very situation. If you weren't affected by it, wouldn't we actually have an agreement we could work with now?

You wanted me to post my response Sunday not because of anything i said, but because you wanted to post your reply where you claim to be a democrat to the core... nice buzz for yourself. Would be even nicer if anyone else had said it. but as it stands, it political puffing. Your statement that you never mentioned any names is meaningless...every one here knows who you are talking about. I dont' have any Co sponsors of any document whatsoever. There were people that worked on the draft with particular expertise in the subject matter, but to assume i represented anyone other than the Guild is absolutely incorrect. Name names, prove your allegation. Take it off this public forum where you continue to campaign on a soapbox of rhetoric that has no reality. Again, if you cannot post the actual transcript of the meeting, and i doubt seriously that you can, being the effective leader you've proven yourself to be, then don't assume everyone will accept your interpretation of the facts.

Facts to back up that representation? oh, and why i pushed? You never start a meeting on time. you always let them run on and on.I told you when we began that i had one hour...but YOU pushed the issue into the two hour zone, and then when you weren't gettting your opinion supported, you pushed for adjournment. And that happened after Michel came into the room, at nearly an hour and a half into the meeting. Back room agreements? what century are you living in? No one but YOUR COMMITTEE even saw that agreement. If you are referring to Michel, he didn't even get a copy of the draft!

Again, you want to accuse me of something that is so agaisnt my nature that i'm posting on this forum again. POST THE TRANSCRIPT. THAT's the backroom meeting. YOUR meeting.

Why didn't i notice that you'd called for adjournment? because the lawyers YOU ASKED FOR OPINIONS FROM were still discussing the issue you now attribute to me.

You all set September 1 as the date to bring the new sim on line. If i was going to be gone until Mid August, tabling the issue for another meeting was irresponsible on my part. When legitimate concerns were raised, NOT BY ME, to the issue of using the contract going forward but not resolving the past issues, YOU GOT SCARED. You clearly want to hold the CDS hostage with your old work, is the message i get. Otherwise, why all the fuss?

here is the solution... change the language to read CDS every place the New Guid appears. I DON"T CARE! It makes NO legal difference. And I don't have anything to transfer to CDS. I have NO INTEREST HERE.
But then you have to go through all the steps you already went through at the CDS level. Here is my question to you as a mere citizen. As Chair of this group, why didn't you get that authority in the first place. Why didn't you ever bring it up? The only comment on that segment of the contract was "i'm glad you set it out so clearly here"... If in fact you and several others voiced concerns, why didn't you make an issue of it when i sent you the next draft? or was that in a back room meeting between you and your cohorts intent on creating yet another non existent crisis and embarrass me and "my friends."

There is absolutely NO reason fro me to want the property to vest in the guild as opposed to the CDS. It was never going to me or any of my
"co sponsors." It was going instead to YOU. So why why why are YOU now trying to ruin MY reputation?

I wash my hands of it all.

But sorry Jon, I'm NOT leaving CDS. You owe me and every person on that committe an apology. No wonder you are paranoid. You can't even tell who your friends are.

I'm leaving the typos here, because i've wasted enough time on this. Hire someone next time to do your dirty work. My rate is out of your reach.

[Jon Seattle]

[quote="Rose Springvale":2p5rufe5]Until you post the scripture and verse, you are merely trying to attribute to me things that are simply not true... [/quote:2p5rufe5]
You know damn well that I cannot do this according to the TOS unless I have permission from everyone present. I have sent IMs to each person and I would be very very glad to post it as soon as the permissions are complete.

[quote="Rose Springvale":2p5rufe5]I honestly did not see any call for adjournment and you honestly did type STOP when we were discussing this issue. Are you afraid to post it?[/quote:2p5rufe5]
We had already gone on in the agenda to discuss a building project.

[quote="Rose Springvale":2p5rufe5]I have NO notes from you regarding the ownership issue, and in fact YOU PERSONALLY CREATED THE ALT. [/quote:2p5rufe5]This is a red herring. As you know perfectly well, IP rights ownership and DMCA issues have nothing at all to do with where objects are stored. It is quite possible to "own" (in the SL sense) some design that you have no right to reproduce of distribute.

[quote="Rose Springvale":2p5rufe5]If you didn't agree with the structure as proposed, if you in fact raised such issues, what were you thinking?? Did you go to the RA as chair of the committee and discuss that? Isn't that YOUR job? [/quote:2p5rufe5]It was until I resigned. The issue here is that I did not feel it has been sufficiently discussed among non-present members of the Guild nor, among the general public, so I brought the conversation to the forum. You were very welcome at that time to join in the discussion. So was everyone else.

You are welcome to criticize how I do my former job and say I was unsuited and resigned for incompetence. I won't bother arguing the conclusion. If you want someone else to run, or want to run yourself, you should feel welcome to do so. I do what I can, and often I feel it is not nearly enough.

[quote="Rose Springvale":2p5rufe5]I am not a member of a faction Jon. So your accusation there is incorrect as well.[/quote:2p5rufe5]In the past you have identified yourself as closely associated with CARE.

[quote="Rose Springvale":2p5rufe5]They are not buildings. They are bits of computer data. [/quote:2p5rufe5]Amazing. Buildings are so much more valuable than someone's creative work? Creative work is just bits of computer data? All of this artwork is just fake in your view?

[quote="Rose Springvale":2p5rufe5]You wanted me to post my response Sunday not because of anything i said, but because you wanted to post your reply where you claim to be a democrat to the core... nice buzz for yourself. Would be even nicer if anyone else had said it. but as it stands, it political puffing. Your statement that you never mentioned any names is meaningless...every one here knows who you are talking about. [/quote:2p5rufe5]No, I am pretty sure that the only people who had any idea were the people at the meeting. How would people possibly know?

Its not political puffing. Those who know me even a little bit know that I am someone who has no political ambitions, that I would much rather be building stuff than sitting at meetings. I would give my life to preserve democracy in the real world, and I sure do not want to see the Guild, intended to be a place for designers and software developers to gather, to be used to subvert our democracy here. The Guild was planned as a voluntary organization with no governmental power exactly because I wanted it to be an effective place for designers and developers, not a platform from which to attack representative government.

[quote="Rose Springvale":2p5rufe5]I dont' have any Co sponsors of any document whatsoever. [/quote:2p5rufe5]You are trying to mislead us. The document is not at issue, it needs either a small amendment assigning all rights to the CDS or there needs to be an addition saying all rights are held in trust for the CDS. The proposal, with several people backing it, was that the Guild hold on to all these rights, not transfer them to the CDS, and that we impose this agreement on designers who have built the existing CDS sims.

[quote="Rose Springvale":2p5rufe5]I wash my hands of it all. [/quote:2p5rufe5]Please do.

[quote="Rose Springvale":2p5rufe5]You owe me and every person on that committe an apology. No wonder you are paranoid. You can't even tell who your friends are.[/quote:2p5rufe5]Sometimes you find out who your friends. Your claim to be a friend of mine, at any time in the past, is pretty dubious.

Oh, I appoligise all the time. I certainly did not run the Guild perfectly, far from it. People who actually read the transcript when I get it will see that I went around the room and asked everyone for their opinion. I did feel I had to do that to make sure everyone had a say. The trains did not always run on time because I wanted to make sure everyone arrived before we started the meeting, so I always started a quarter past. My own software for the sim voting process took much more time than I had anticipated, in part because I had a deeply serious diagnosis from my doctor at about the same time.

So I appologise for all of that. I sure hope you can do better Rose. But there is one thing I will never ever apoligise for, and that is working to preserve democracy. I think you just did not understand what you were doing, but there are at least two other people who have come out for this proposal and I hope all three of you will present your case at the next meeting, with DNate (probubly more competent) chairing.

[Rose Springvale]

Oh Jon, you got your grandstanding in anyway!
Good job!

I have no party affiliation. Everyone knows that, including CARE. If you are my friend, or ever were, why don't you know that?

I am really embarrassed to have let you goad me into this exchange. You screwed up. I didn't. I was a committee member with no reason or motivation to promote one side of the other. I came to the guild to learn skills. I am an outsider, and i was under the impression that the Guild had some meaning. I see not that the meaning is to create as much strife as possible.

I told a friend after the sunday meeting that at least now i understand why people deleted their content. I would too.

I apologize to the community for being part of this nonsense. As i've told you for weeks and weeks, i will not be here for the next three weekends. I won't hold your insanity against the other people of the community though.