This great series by Kirby Ferguson is an exploration of the remix techniques involved in producing films (and music). The name says it all. Story structure, as is understood in the West goes back to Aristotle, but today more than ever, the industry, and in particular certain directors take the formulaic road to an extreme by simply copying recent predecessors. Not that there is anything wrong with copying, after all that is how you learn. One just hopes some people take the training wheels after a while. And, oh, a node to the master being copied would also be great. (Disney, are you listening?)
Showing posts with label copyright law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label copyright law. Show all posts
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Monday, November 23, 2009
EFF Lawyer Says Second Life Copyright Issues "In Some Ways Worse" Than Real Life
Over the past few weeks, I've been experimenting with how the content of Second Life can be used to create Machinima videos and also brought into Isadora to create content for projections. As I played around with the possibilities, I began to become very interested in zooming in on objects to create abstract images of flowing color. I realized a swaying bush could become beautiful abstract swirling greens and have no resemblance to a bush at all. I thought to myself, "Wow, what a great way to collect abstract footage to mix with real world footage". I was reminded of the abstract film pieces of Stan Brackage. So, Second Life, more than presenting opportunities for filming virtual spaces that represent real life, has unlimited abstract potential, if areas are filmed from an angle of distortion. Or, for example, if a moving character is brought into Isadora and connected to a time-blur and color filter, then the content can change tremendously!
I got really excited about all of this and even about the possibilities of making straight on Machinima videos with little abstraction. But, then I started to wonder about copyright. Did individuals who created the trees have a copyright on their trees? Would Linden Labs have some rights to everything I would make within their virtual landscape? What if I abstracted the content to such a potential that it could not be recognized? Could I be sued for filming an avatar without his/hers/its consent if its name appears above its head and the shot is included on a short machinima film that is uploaded to YouTube, receives 200 million hits and shoots me to superstardom? Ok, just kidding! But, you know what I mean.
I did a quick google search and came across this article: EFF Lawyer Says Second Life Copyright Issues "In Some Ways Worse" Than Real Life
Here's the meat of the article:
"Second Life in some ways is worse than real life. That's because users retain the underlying intellectual property rights to their SL creations. And after all, as Fred pointed out, you can walk down the street in real life without worrying that the textures in the sidewalk are copyrighted. "In Second Life these are gray interesting mysteries" around the law, he added. Something worth considering for people who publish screenshots or machinima extracted from SL. It's been argued that if you run a photo of a Second Life street, you don't really need to get the permission from the creator of every single item in the frame, just as you don't need to do so when you take a photo of a New York City street. However, that assumption has not yet been tested in court. As Von Lohmann added, most of the Second Life community is unlikely to be aggressively litigious. But if Second Life continues growing, I believe that sense of good faith won't always hold."
So, after reading this, I began to have second thoughts about using Second Life for content creation. Why would I want to put all of that time an energy into learning how to use it, or film scenes and edit them, etc., if ,down the road someone could tell me that it is not really my content at all, but belongs to ten other individuals, one of whom would like to sue me?
The article did state that "the Second Life community is unlikely to be aggressively litigious. But if Second Life continues growing, I believe that sense of good faith won't always hold". And, that's what I'm worried about. Any thoughts?
I got really excited about all of this and even about the possibilities of making straight on Machinima videos with little abstraction. But, then I started to wonder about copyright. Did individuals who created the trees have a copyright on their trees? Would Linden Labs have some rights to everything I would make within their virtual landscape? What if I abstracted the content to such a potential that it could not be recognized? Could I be sued for filming an avatar without his/hers/its consent if its name appears above its head and the shot is included on a short machinima film that is uploaded to YouTube, receives 200 million hits and shoots me to superstardom? Ok, just kidding! But, you know what I mean.
I did a quick google search and came across this article: EFF Lawyer Says Second Life Copyright Issues "In Some Ways Worse" Than Real Life
Here's the meat of the article:
"Second Life in some ways is worse than real life. That's because users retain the underlying intellectual property rights to their SL creations. And after all, as Fred pointed out, you can walk down the street in real life without worrying that the textures in the sidewalk are copyrighted. "In Second Life these are gray interesting mysteries" around the law, he added. Something worth considering for people who publish screenshots or machinima extracted from SL. It's been argued that if you run a photo of a Second Life street, you don't really need to get the permission from the creator of every single item in the frame, just as you don't need to do so when you take a photo of a New York City street. However, that assumption has not yet been tested in court. As Von Lohmann added, most of the Second Life community is unlikely to be aggressively litigious. But if Second Life continues growing, I believe that sense of good faith won't always hold."
So, after reading this, I began to have second thoughts about using Second Life for content creation. Why would I want to put all of that time an energy into learning how to use it, or film scenes and edit them, etc., if ,down the road someone could tell me that it is not really my content at all, but belongs to ten other individuals, one of whom would like to sue me?
The article did state that "the Second Life community is unlikely to be aggressively litigious. But if Second Life continues growing, I believe that sense of good faith won't always hold". And, that's what I'm worried about. Any thoughts?
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Is Second Life worth saving?
Evidently, while we in Digital Worlds have been busy with our final projects, trouble has been brewing in Second Life.
Does anyone remember a few weeks ago when we logged in to Second Life and were greeted with a new Terms of Service (ToS) to agree to? Turns out that Linden Lab had altered their ToS to become more restrictive as to how others use their copyrighted material (their logo, icons, etc.). You can read what were some of the changes here, as well what are some of their legal ramifications.
To make a long story short, Linden Lab has decided to restrict any kind of usage of their copyrighted material to only that usage which they find VERY favorable. Since it's not possible to enforce this kind of preferential usage of copyrighted material through trademark and copyright law, Linden has taken the audacious step of circumventing copyright law by making these restrictions on their copyright as part of their contract with the user (the ToS).
Now, most of the users out there in Second Life (myself included) are not really affected by this. However, there are some who are irate as to the situation and have gone to strike the use of Second Life (don't worry, the strike's over by now).
In light of all of the other problems that have been plaguing Second Life, from banks running away with people's money to companies leaving Second Life for greener pastures, pissing off your core audience is not something that Linden Lab wants to do. After all, these people give you, in essence, free publicity by blogging about their second lives. The last thing Linden Lab needs is more bad publicity.
As such, a question needs to be asked that I think we all should answer: Is Second Life worth saving?
Now, don't get me wrong. I believe there is a bright future in virtual environments and I think that they will become more interconnected with our lives. But, will it be in the form of Second Life? Why should it be?
Second Life is limited environment for programmers to work with. For example, from my experience in this course, programming in Linden Script has been a challenge, to say the least. Not because Linden Script is hard to understand. But rather, it is very limited in what one can "officially" achieve in Linden Script. And unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to expand on the language, as it is still closed-source. Add to this Linden's willingness to take advantage of the open-source community, at the cost of providing almost no feedback this community politely asks for it, as well as their other recent problems and I start thinking that something's rotten in the state of Linden. Maybe those companies are seeing the beginning of the end and have decided to abandon ship.
Or maybe not. Maybe the recent change in the ToS was really necessary due to the amount of increased competition Second Life's been getting from other open-source virtual environments. And maybe they'll finally finish their Mono upgrade of Linden Script and then become fully open-source. And maybe Linden Lab will create new ways to appear lucrative and companies will flock once more to Second Life where they'll live happily ever after.
It seems the time is coming when Linden Lab, and us as users of Second Life, must decide whether we want Second Life to grow and expand, or not. Regardless of the outcome, I think Second Life has shown how Linden Lab has been a pioneer in brining virtual environment to the masses, and that there is a future in virtual environments. Let's just hope that they're not another Netscape.
Does anyone remember a few weeks ago when we logged in to Second Life and were greeted with a new Terms of Service (ToS) to agree to? Turns out that Linden Lab had altered their ToS to become more restrictive as to how others use their copyrighted material (their logo, icons, etc.). You can read what were some of the changes here, as well what are some of their legal ramifications.
To make a long story short, Linden Lab has decided to restrict any kind of usage of their copyrighted material to only that usage which they find VERY favorable. Since it's not possible to enforce this kind of preferential usage of copyrighted material through trademark and copyright law, Linden has taken the audacious step of circumventing copyright law by making these restrictions on their copyright as part of their contract with the user (the ToS).
Now, most of the users out there in Second Life (myself included) are not really affected by this. However, there are some who are irate as to the situation and have gone to strike the use of Second Life (don't worry, the strike's over by now).
In light of all of the other problems that have been plaguing Second Life, from banks running away with people's money to companies leaving Second Life for greener pastures, pissing off your core audience is not something that Linden Lab wants to do. After all, these people give you, in essence, free publicity by blogging about their second lives. The last thing Linden Lab needs is more bad publicity.
As such, a question needs to be asked that I think we all should answer: Is Second Life worth saving?
Now, don't get me wrong. I believe there is a bright future in virtual environments and I think that they will become more interconnected with our lives. But, will it be in the form of Second Life? Why should it be?
Second Life is limited environment for programmers to work with. For example, from my experience in this course, programming in Linden Script has been a challenge, to say the least. Not because Linden Script is hard to understand. But rather, it is very limited in what one can "officially" achieve in Linden Script. And unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to expand on the language, as it is still closed-source. Add to this Linden's willingness to take advantage of the open-source community, at the cost of providing almost no feedback this community politely asks for it, as well as their other recent problems and I start thinking that something's rotten in the state of Linden. Maybe those companies are seeing the beginning of the end and have decided to abandon ship.
Or maybe not. Maybe the recent change in the ToS was really necessary due to the amount of increased competition Second Life's been getting from other open-source virtual environments. And maybe they'll finally finish their Mono upgrade of Linden Script and then become fully open-source. And maybe Linden Lab will create new ways to appear lucrative and companies will flock once more to Second Life where they'll live happily ever after.
It seems the time is coming when Linden Lab, and us as users of Second Life, must decide whether we want Second Life to grow and expand, or not. Regardless of the outcome, I think Second Life has shown how Linden Lab has been a pioneer in brining virtual environment to the masses, and that there is a future in virtual environments. Let's just hope that they're not another Netscape.
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