SILENCE = DEATH

[sophrosyne_sl]

Many dear friends have chosen not to blog this week, striking in protest against Linden Lab's foolish and overreaching brand-protection policies. I've given quite a bit of thought to the issue over the past few days: it would be easy enough to join them by default: I don't have the time to blog this week anyway. Friendship and laziness could

Comments

[sophrosyne_sl]

Thank you!

Please feel free to copy it to SL Bloggers, and I welcome the comments and reactions of everyone there.

I'm thinking of a sidebar that says something like "this blog refuses to comply with any Second Life Terms of Service which purport to curtail the author's rights outside of Second Life."

I'm really not very good at *complying*.... :)

[alesiamarkstein]

Sorry I deleted my original comment, Soph - but I remembered I'm trying to keep my inworld identity separate from the rest.

And I just directed 200-odd SL Bloggers over here. 8-)

Strike != Silence

[anonymous]

Thing is, Soph, we never talked more about the matter! Us bloggers refusing to post for 3 days was to raise awareness, and make people talk about the issue. And we never talked more about it. Point made. =)

Codie

[kitmeredith]

Hi, Soph. Thanks for finally chiming in on this issue. We've missed your voice

ty

[iyanwriter]

Saved me some typing :)

What kit said.

Re: ty

[sophrosyne_sl]

Whew!

You *know,* the day you and I agree, the world ends, right? We've *got* to keep this going! :)

[sophrosyne_sl]

You raise good points, Kit, of course, and I'm continuing to ponder them

I'm glad I'm not the only one advocating against the strike

[tiessa]

I'm glad you are saying the same thing I am about this, although, with considerably more eloquence and thought behind it than mine :)

http://tiessam.blogspot.com/2008/04/i-will-not-have-my-voice-stilled.html

Re: I'm glad I'm not the only one advocating against the strike

[sophrosyne_sl]

*Thank you* for introducing yourself, Tiessa!

Re: I'm glad I'm not the only one advocating against the strike

[tiessa]

I'm glad I found your blog today too - now, do you have an RSS feed I can watch for updates? I can't seem to find it...

[circuit_four]

So, first step in activism... You have a sympathetic audience here. Could you sum up the current issue for a friendly outsider in 250 words or less?

[sophrosyne_sl]

Terrific challenge - thank you!

*takes a deep breath* OK.

SL Residents have a growing list of grievances, some petty, some fairly financially significant, all of which add up to a pattern of the company, LL, being either deaf or hostile to its user base.

The specific issue comes from a new Terms of Service clickthrough agreement that changed the policies for bloggers and fansites that had been in place for years, that allowed broad use of the LL trademarks.

The new TOS not only revokes most of those uses (making existing domain names, company names and so on a violation), but (so say the lawyers) tries to limit the fair use rights of people who have SL accounts, saying that if they don't adhere to *tighter* (and astonishingly silly) limits than the law allows, they can terminate our accounts.

For sheer corporate hilarity, the guidelines are worth a read - you'll appreciate the humor

[circuit_four]

Thank you! I wish I found the Terms of Service funny, but... well, I guess you probably expected they'd be black comedy, and they were. :) But you clear that up real nice, and I wish you the best of luck trying to preserve the better civic spirit of your community. I know what it's like to be one of the displaced cyber-indigenes... *hug*

Speaking of which, I just started DLing the client. ^_^

[sophrosyne_sl]

XD !!

I'm running an event from 1-3pm Pacific today, but otherwise, if you make it in, let me know!