The Intellectual Property (Terms of Service amendment) Bill

Ashcroft Burnham · Post by **Ashcroft Burnham** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 2:17 pm

It has come to my attention in [url=http://forums.neufreistadt.info/viewtop ... 1:5cv5x5em]this[/url:5cv5x5em] thread that our current CDS Terms of Service states,

[quote:5cv5x5em]12. COPYRIGHT INFORMATION.

Our policy is to not respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement. Questions concerning copyright should be addressed to Linden Labs the company which provides our supporting infrastructure. Neualtenburg is not affiliated with Linden in any way. Please see Section 12 of Linden Labs corporate Terms of Service for further instructions. The information can be found at: http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php.[/quote:5cv5x5em]

Now that we are about to have a functioning judiciary, this stated policy no longer reflects the true position, which is that the Courts of Common Jurisdiction will have the power to deal with intellectual property violations. Indeed, that section would conflict with the section to be inserted into the Terms of Service by the Judiciary Act, stating:

[quote:5cv5x5em]The Confederation of Democratic Simulators operates its own, comprehensive, in-world judicial system. Any disputes arising out of the subject-matter of this agreement, or anything related thereto, shall be resolved exclusively by that judicial system, in accordance with the in-world laws of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators.[/quote:5cv5x5em]

It is therefore necessary to repeal S. 12 of the CDS Terms of Service to remove what is now a potentially misleading statement. I therefore propose the following legislation (which I shall also submit in notecard form):

******

[b:5cv5x5em]The Intellectual Property (Terms of Service amendment) Bill[/b:5cv5x5em]

1. Section 12 of the Terms of Service of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators shall be deleted.

2. Section 13 of the Terms of Service of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators shall hereafter be known as Section 12 thereof.

Claude Desmoulins · Post by **Claude Desmoulins** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 2:42 pm

I respectfully submit that this is very bad idea. Passing all of this off to LL, as we do now, means that any RL legal liability for not complying correctly with a takedown notice is theirs not ours. As soon as we enforce a takedown notice or , heaven forbid, resolve an IP dispute in our courts, we open ourselves up to RL legal claims from the "losing" party. Just because we have a legal system in place and [i:3acd2vxl]can [/i:3acd2vxl]do it doesn't mean that we [i:3acd2vxl]should [/i:3acd2vxl]do it and expose ourself to the substantial risk this entails.

Ashcroft Burnham · Post by **Ashcroft Burnham** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 2:55 pm

[quote="Claude Desmoulins":2goujmka]I respectfully submit that this is very bad idea. Passing all of this off to LL, as we do now, means that any RL legal liability for not complying correctly with a takedown notice is theirs not ours. As soon as we enforce a takedown notice or , heaven forbid, resolve an IP dispute in our courts, we open ourselves up to RL legal claims from the "losing" party. Just because we have a legal system in place and [i:2goujmka]can [/i:2goujmka]do it doesn't mean that we [i:2goujmka]should [/i:2goujmka]do it and expose ourself to the substantial risk this entails.[/quote:2goujmka]

I do not see why us having [i:2goujmka]our own[/i:2goujmka] law of intellectual property (rather than trying to enforce the real-world law of intellectual property) should cause us to be liable to anybody in real-world courts. We would not be intereacting with "takedown notices", because those are incidents of US copyright law, not our own intellectual property law. Our law on intellectual property would run alongside the laws of first-life jurisdictions such as the US, and not seek to interfere with them at all. A person who has a right in our IP law may not have that same right in the IP law of any given real-world country. They are, as with all elements of our law, wholly distinct.

The point is, as already stated, that the Courts of Common Jurisdiction [i:2goujmka]do[/i:2goujmka] have the power to carve out, through the common law system, our own IP law. Our own IP law may develop in a very different way to the way in which real-world IP law has developed, but the ultimate functions would be largely the same.

Because the Courts of Common Jurisdiction already have this power, what I was proposing above is merely removing what might be a misleading statement in the Terms of Service. Of course, there is no reason why the name "copyright" should be used in any of our own rules of intellectual property law.

Claude Desmoulins · Post by **Claude Desmoulins** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 3:17 pm

This makes more sense. Perhaps rather than removing the section, we should amend it to:

[quote:1id7p3wt]Any person or entity wishing to make a claim related to intellectual property found in the CDS in a real world jurisdiction should contact Linden Labs, the company which provides our supporting infrastructure. The CDS is not affiliated with Linden in any way. Please see Section 12 of Linden Labs corporate Terms of Service for further instructions. The information can be found at: http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php.[/quote:1id7p3wt]

Ashcroft Burnham · Post by **Ashcroft Burnham** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 3:22 pm

[quote="Claude Desmoulins":3cc9sg7n]This makes more sense. Perhaps rather than removing the section, we should amend it to:

[quote:3cc9sg7n]Any person or entity wishing to make a claim related to intellectual property found in the CDS in a real world jurisdiction should contact Linden Labs, the company which provides our supporting infrastructure. The CDS is not affiliated with Linden in any way. Please see Section 12 of Linden Labs corporate Terms of Service for further instructions. The information can be found at: http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php.[/quote:3cc9sg7n][/quote:3cc9sg7n]

That is not a bad idea, although "real world jurisdiction" might be confusing: perhaps "Any person or entity wishing to make a claim related to intellectual property found in the territory of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators other than by means of the judicial system of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators..." might be clearer? Altough, there is still the potential conflict with this:

[quote:3cc9sg7n]The Confederation of Democratic Simulators operates its own, comprehensive, in-world judicial system. Any disputes arising out of the subject-matter of this agreement, or anything related thereto, [b:3cc9sg7n]shall be resolved exclusively by that judicial system, in accordance with the in-world laws of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators[/b:3cc9sg7n],[/quote:3cc9sg7n]

(emphasis added), although, I suppose, one could question what exactly constitutes a "dispute arising out of the subject-matter of this agreement, or anything related thereto".

Chicago Kipling · Post by **Chicago Kipling** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 4:23 pm

I am quite poor in regards to my understanding of our present legal system so take this as a naive suggestion (without proper punctuation even.)

Could we recognize in both documents that citizens, for matters of x lindens or less, agree to give their matters over to the confederation courts? For matters above that limit, we would defer to Linden Labs, which would likely reduce the matters that a typical FL court would even bother with.

For cases in which one party is a non-citizens would this need to be all voluntary or just fully given over to LL? That's a part of the law I'm especially unclear on.

Aliasi Stonebender · Post by **Aliasi Stonebender** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 9:10 pm

Although the existence of that addendum makes me wonder exactly how valid [i:1s96xkos]it[/i:1s96xkos] is.

Chicago Kipling · Post by **Chicago Kipling** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 9:43 pm

I think we've always had a realistic perspective on this, haven't we? It will be some time till the US Supreme Court or other courts view our court as anything more binding than arbitration.

That said, it will be some time (never) till they rule on matters worth only thousands of Lindens either no matter what emotional value we place on those denominations.

We are the small claims court of the virtual wild west. Perhaps not so romantic a choice of words, but still a valuable role, eh?

Ashcroft Burnham · Post by **Ashcroft Burnham** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 11:48 am

[quote="Chicago Kipling":1eyj73q2]I am quite poor in regards to my understanding of our present legal system so take this as a naive suggestion (without proper punctuation even.)

Could we recognize in both documents that citizens, for matters of x lindens or less, agree to give their matters over to the confederation courts? For matters above that limit, we would defer to Linden Labs, which would likely reduce the matters that a typical FL court would even bother with.

For cases in which one party is a non-citizens would this need to be all voluntary or just fully given over to LL? That's a part of the law I'm especially unclear on.[/quote:1eyj73q2]

It is not clear what the reason is that you are suggesting this. One of the principal motivations behind introducing a clause into the terms of service that all matters relating to the agreement shall be decided by our in-world judiciary is to prevent the sort of problem that arose when Ulrika tried to claim that the old name of what is now Neufreistadt, "Neualtenburg", was copyrighted (she misunderstood the law in that respect - if it was protected by any intellectual property rights at all, it would be as a trademark, but that is beside the point), and threatened to bring an action in a real-world court if we did not change the name. That clause would be a potentially effective means of preventing that sort of thing from occurring, or at least making it less likely, and that aim would be undermined if higher value claims, i.e., those which, as far as we are concerned, are most in need of that protection, are excluded.

Furthermore, there is no reason to place an arbitrary limit on our judiciary's capacity to deal with claims, since there is no functioning judiciary capable of dealing in-world with such claims at any higher level, and, in any case, what possible good could come of the limit that you suggest?

Ashcroft Burnham · Post by **Ashcroft Burnham** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 11:49 am

[quote="Aliasi Stonebender":3mw6kz93]Although the existence of that addendum makes me wonder exactly how valid [i:3mw6kz93]it[/i:3mw6kz93] is.[/quote:3mw6kz93]

Which addendum makes you wonder how valid which bit is?

Chicago Kipling · Post by **Chicago Kipling** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 1:18 pm

Easy now. I was just tossing out an idea. It seemed that there was some desire to avoid conflict between LL claims and to avoid ruling on issues that might land us in legal hot water in FL. If that's not the case, no worries.

Ashcroft Burnham · Post by **Ashcroft Burnham** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 1:42 pm

[quote="Chicago Kipling":1bjtlkz9]Easy now. I was just tossing out an idea. It seemed that there was some desire to avoid conflict between LL claims and to avoid ruling on issues that might land us in legal hot water in FL. If that's not the case, no worries.[/quote:1bjtlkz9]

Ahh, the point was that, because our courts will be enforcing [i:1bjtlkz9]our own[/i:1bjtlkz9] law of intellectual property (or whatever we will call the equivalent thereof), and not trying to enforce real-world law, there will be no conflict