Clarity there is… movement there is not.
A day late, but wahey! We have a reply - a further clarification of the stated position, and not an inch of movement on the issue. So we are going to have to talk about the Second Life® world. I guess I can live with the ®, although I still don’t know where on my keyboard it hides. But to urge us not to talk about Second Life proper is insane. I quote:
Always follow a Linden Lab[®] brand name with an appropriate generic noun for at least your first reference to the brand name. A “generic noun” is a common noun and not a proper noun, trademark, or brand name.
Okay… common noun, proper noun, what is this? I quote again - from Wikipedia this time:
Proper nouns (also called proper names) are nouns representing unique entities (such as London, Universe or John), as distinguished from common nouns which describe a class of entities (such as city, well or person).
I don’t see the point in this and I don’t see any other company at all doing this. I don’t drink a Coca-Cola softdrink, I drink Coca-Cola. I don’t go to the supermarkt in a Fiat car, I go in my Fiat. And see how I used it in a possessive form - that’s another no-no. [N]ever use it in the plural or possessive form (source). So it’s not my Second Life but my life in the Second Life world. As a linguist I’d say they are trying to change common everyday speech, and that won’t work at all. The only good news is that they allow you to talk like a normal human being, as long as you first go through the prescribed motions. [A]t least your first reference… after that you’re home free.
Of course, people who do not speak English on an advanced level are not going to be able to make any of this at all. Translating from English is my RL job, yet I had to look up proper noun in Wikipedia. But then, people who do not speak English on an advanced level are usually left in the dark about lots of things - last year an angry group of Italians demonstrated at the Main Landing Point in Kirkby about inventory loss, totally unaware of the blog post adressing the issue that same day.
I guess the main focus of the good people who run this virtual world will not be on blogs like this, but on the websites of commercial enterprises and of social communities. But I do think it is a mistake to try to regulate all that free publicity that hundreds of bloggers are generating.
Disclaimers
Fiat is a registered trademark of Fiat S.p.A., Turin (TO), Italy.
Coca-Cola is a registered trademark of The Coca-Cola Company, Atlanta (GA), USA
Second Life and Linden Lab are trademarks of Linden Research, Inc., San Francisco (CA), USA.
However, SL is a trademark of Sherrill-Lubinski Corporation, Corte Madera (CA), USA. Visit sl.com!
April 2, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Topic digest: http://yolto.com/FeedTopic.aspx?Id=652#87020
April 5, 2008 at 3:22 am
[...] I would like to thank the following residents, who helped fleshing out the above document, provided insight, comments, and rewriting of several sections, as well as some minor legal advice.Cat Magellan and Ana Lutetia, for their encouragement in writing the petitionRheta Shan, for the extensive revision and adding several sections and changesSignpostMarv Martin for comments and more external linksJamie Palisades, for comments on estoppel and genericideiAlja Writer, Tateru Nino, and several others for taking a look at the document and making some private commentsPalUP Ling, for the T-shirt (and his promotion)The unofficial community of Second Life® residents on Twitter, for a lot of comments, input, and ideasAn even larger group of bloggers that wrote about the issue, providing lots to think about, and including, but definitely not limited, to the following articles:http://www.vintfalken.com/insl-your-world-your-imagination-our-trademark/http://sl.governormarley.com/slpress/?p=27http://codebastardredgrave.com/2008/03/26/so-they-owe-us-a-sl/http://dedricmauriac.wordpress.com/2008/03/25/a-generic-post-to-avoid-copyright-infringement/http://www.technovia.co.uk/2008/03/the-huge-kerfuffle-over-second-life-trademarks.htmlhttp://harperganesvoort.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/sl-brand-center-followup/http://laetizia.wordpress.com/2008/04/02/clarity-there-is-movement-there-is-not/ http://www.massively.com/2008/04/02/making-your-mark/ http://getasecondlife.net/2008/03/second-life-geral/a-comunidade-portuguesa/ (even more links here)Robin Linden, for some early clarifications before Catherine Linden posted her article on Linden’s Official Blogand Everett Linden for reading this document before it was publicly posted.Permission to copy the above text, modify it, or translate it into other languages, is granted by the author. [...]
April 5, 2008 at 4:50 pm
[...] http://harperganesvoort.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/sl-brand-center-followup/ http://laetizia.wordpress.com/2008/04/02/clarity-there-is-movement-there-is-not/ http://www.massively.com/2008/04/02/making-your-mark/ [...]