[Opensim-users] Announcement of inventory tool (MyInventory), mostly of interest to grid operators/grid nauts

[Snowcrash Short]

On Sun, Nov 18, 2012 at 3:27 PM, Marcus Llewellyn <
marcus.llewellyn at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 11/18/2012 3:31 AM, Snowcrash Short wrote:
>
>> I have given some thought about an "opt-in" policy and I am not really
>> convinced. It is my feeling that unless there exists a binding agreement
>> limiting the use rights of assets in the users inventory e.g. an accepted
>> TOS, then the user should be afforded the rights granted to him or her by
>> law.
>>
>
> This reasoning seems designed only to shift responsibility for respecting
> a creator's rights from yourself onto everyone

I hope you are not implying that I have at any time illegally copied
content. I have created a software tool, which I am about to release
shortly, and to my knowledge the tool does not have any features which
enables a user to perform unlawful acts, and even if it does in some
countries, there are very legitimate use-cases for MyInventory, so I'm not
really that concerned about lawsuits, otherwise the developers
of bit-torrent clients would have been tied down in litigation a long time
ago.

> else. And... see, this is one of the reasons you're seeing as much
> resistance as you are. It's a fine thing to stand up for and allow the
> exercise of user's rights. But these don't exist in a vacuum, and nor do
> you or your tool.
>
> The question here is, is it _reasonable_ to expect every grid and
> standalone (there's literally hundreds of grids out there in one form or
> another, even without standalones) out there to contact you and make their
> policies known to you? Is that even something you can reasonably promise to
> handle in a practical manner, before users begin using your tool on their
> grids?
>
There is probably no means of contacting every grid operator, but since my
tool doesn't violate any laws and give the user the ability to violate the
content creators IP rights, no real harm is done, unless there exists a
contract between a user and a grid operator, e.g. in the form of a TOS, the
obligations of the user, the grid operator and the content creator is
governed solely by law. If a contract exists MyInventory may, except for
the instances where I have been made aware of such a contract and
implemented code to prevent it, enable a user to violate said contract. In
the end such a violation will be a matter between the three legal entities
to resolve (User, Content Creator and Grid/Region operator), just as if the
user had violated the TOS in any other way. Note it is perfectly possible
to violate the LL TOS's using the

>
> Some of those publicly accessible little hobby grids out there don't have
> a TOS because they're, well, a hobby. These people don't tend to have a
> legal team on hand. They live in jurisdictions where, even with a TOS,
> they're open to the possibility of a lawsuit, even if they're completely
> innocent of any actual liability.

Everybody is open to the possibility of a lawsuit at any time.

> So when they hear about a tool like yours, that will default to letting
> users assume they can take copies of their inventories anywhere they
> please, I don't think it's any wonder that they respond to you more than a
> little fear and even vitriol. A hobby they love dearly, have invested
> probably a great deal of time and effort in, suddenly feels threatened.
>
I fail completely to see how this tool can be a threat, let alone to a
hobbyist running a small grid. If content creators labor under the wrong
impression that this tool is like copy-bot, then I could see why some
content creators might see this as a problem.

>

Is this your problem? Well, no. It isn't. Objectively, that's not your
> problem at all, and so long as you're 100% certain that you have the lack
> of legal liability you think you do[1], there's nothing stopping you from
> plowing ahead.  But don't be surprised when people react negatively to your
> decision not to let other people's problems matter.
>
> Marcus
>
> [1] It has been no rare thing to have seen someone in a position not at
> all dissimilar to yours say, "In my country, I can do this," only to find
> out later that the the rights and protections that they thought they had
> weren't as simple or unfettered as they thought they were. You're stepping
> out of the realm of exercising your personal rights into one that rams head
> on into the rights (both use rights and copyrights) of _other_ people on a
> large scale, a situation with a whole set of nuances and ramifications of
> its own. For laymen like you and I, this can get really complicated really
> quickly. You're probably sick of seeing it by now, so I won't say this
> again. In a spirit of amicability and true concern, I encourage you to, if
> you can, consult legal counsel about the rights you keep asserting and how
> they may or may not apply to your tool, for your own protection.
> Here is a link to a quite famous piece of Norwegian case law:
> http://merlin.obs.coe.int/iris/2004/3/article29.en.html. Norway is not a
> member of the EU, but due to the close association between Norway and the
> EU, Norwegian law to a large extent mimics EU regulations, including EU
> regulations on copyright and other IP rights. It is therefore reasonable to
> expect that any court within the EU would reach a similar conclusion.
> ______________________________**_________________
> Opensim-users mailing list
> Opensim-users at lists.berlios.de
> https://lists.berlios.de/**mailman/listinfo/opensim-users<https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-users>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://opensimulator.org/pipermail/opensim-users/attachments/20121118/65b57a14/attachment.html>