AGPL on Skins added to a HUD needs to be clarified.

[Outworldz]

The AGPL license is strong copyleft license, designed so that anything copyrightable, and in particular an item used on a network such as Ruth, will always be available for free. For example, Ruth's body can be sold along with accessories, but the seller always has to include a link to where Ruth, or any modifications to Ruth or the HUD are also free. This does not apply to accessories that are not a part of Ruth.

However, there is a possible conflict with items such as the HUD. A designer of proprietary for-sale or restricted transfer skins could theoretically be blocked by AGPL from adding them to Ruths HUD, which does not help us spread the goodness of Ruth. I think we want designers to support Ruth accessories, including skins.

AGPL has no ability to be modified except for a few special purposes, and excluding skins is not one of them. But there is an out: for textures added to the HUD, we just declare skins to be part of the "System Libraries". System libraries are NOT covered by the AGPL. Skins can then be added to the HUD's "library" without violating the aGPL.

From the AGPL:

"The "System Libraries" of an executable work include anything, other than the work as a whole, that (a) is included in the normal form of packaging a Major Component, but which is not part of that Major Component, and (b) serves only to enable use of the work with that Major Component...."

The copyright is a collective ownership on Ruth, so I think we need a majority of the 5 core devs to vote on this.

What do you folks think? For or Against?

[ilantochner]

Hi Fred,

That wouldn't suffice to enable a grid owner to use AGPL content without complying with its licensing requirements. Even with that clause in the TOS a grid owner would still need to either (a) comply with the aforementioned copyleft provisions of the AGPL, or (b) remove the AGPL content from the grid upon becoming aware of its existence, or (c) lose both the right to use/convey that content and lose the DMCA safe harbor provisions that protected the grid until it decided to knowingly ignore the licensing requirements of the content it continues to host.

In other words, whether you explicitly state so in your TOS or not, upon being made aware of AGPL content in your system you would still need to either comply with the AGPL requirements (as explained above), remove the AGPL licensed content from your system, or open yourself to being sued by the copyright holder for copyright infringement. The TOS provisions relating to this are mainly there to inform the user how such content will be handled, they can't protect you from needing to comply with a third-party license if you wish to continue using the content that license covers.

[ilantochner]

Thank you Emperor Starfinder,

Please make sure that your lawyers fully understand the technical details of how various code/content are handled by OpenSim. Those details matter in making an informed evaluation and they aren't necessarily clear to people who are not familiar with the inner workings of OpenSim and the SL derived viewers. If this ever got to court then system architecture, data structures, and data flow would be scrutinized by the parties and the license will be interpreted in ways that may depend on the most nuanced syntactic and semantic elements (such as the location of a comma or where the line should be drawn between Major Components and ones that aren't).

[emperorstarfinder]

IIan

Again this is why our attorneys write the legal language. We do not write the legal language. We may choose to make amendments to what they propose for the language but they provide us with the final policy language we use. So by the time we even tap the gavel on the final vote that scrutiny has happened. We provide them the goals we want to accomplish in our policies and they use that to write the legal language of the policy. This whole debate on the Second Galaxy Development Team actually started over concerns over LGPL (oddly enough) which was why I chose to even comment on this matter.

I do not need to make sure they understand the technical stuff as that is done when we hire them.

So if you want a copy of the final policy you can rest assured its gone through all that good vetting. We won't ever adopt a policy that hasn't gone through a very thorough vetting process.

Each of our core developers also has a specific area of oversight they are assigned to. In this case, one core dev has oversight of data and security matters which includes licensing and DMCA compliance.

COMPANY, and all the Content (other than the User Generated Content mentioned above), including without limitation, the graphics, photos, texts, data, personal data and information, business and technical data and information, guides, manuals, specifications, any proprietary resources, presentations, sounds, music, videos, interactive features, software (whether in source code or object code), scripts, designs, interface functionality trademarks, service marks, and logos (collectively, "Intellectual Property"), whether or not registered and/or protected by copyrights, trademarks, service marks, patents or other proprietary rights and laws, are solely owned by or licensed to COMPANY and subject to copyright and other applicable intellectual property rights under Israeli laws, foreign laws and international conventions. Except as permitted by applicable laws, you are not granted, expressly or by implication, estoppels or otherwise, any license or right to use any of the Intellectual Property without the prior written permission of the Company.

IIan is right about this possibly not working. After looking at Kitely's TOS he does have this to some extent there but for some various licenses, this might not do the trick.

[ilantochner]

Emperor Starfinder,

Just to make it clear our TOS make no claims to people's copyrights over what they upload into Kitely.

Our current TOS (as of March 16, 2018) includes among other clauses:

We claim no ownership or control over any Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Kitely Services ("User Generated Content" or "Items"). You or a third party licensor, as appropriate, retain all patent, trademark and copyright to any User Generated Content you submit, post, display, or sell on or through Kitely Services and you are responsible for protecting those rights, as appropriate. By submitting, posting, displaying or selling Content on or through Kitely Services you agree to allow Kitely to handle your User Generated Content in all the ways required to provide the Kitely Services you elected to use. Kitely reserves the right to refuse to accept, post, display, transmit, or sell any User Generated Content in its sole discretion.

You represent and warrant that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the rights granted herein to any User Generated Content submitted.

Kitely Services, and all the Content (other than the User Generated Content mentioned above), including without limitation, the graphics, photos, texts, data, personal data and information, business and technical data and information, guides, manuals, specifications, any proprietary resources, presentations, sounds, music, videos, interactive features, software (whether in source code or object code), scripts, designs, interface functionality trademarks, service marks, and logos (collectively, "Intellectual Property"), whether or not registered and/or protected by copyrights, trademarks, service marks, patents or other proprietary rights and laws, are solely owned by or licensed to Kitely and subject to copyright and other applicable intellectual property rights under Israeli laws, foreign laws and international conventions. Except as permitted by applicable laws, you are not granted, expressly or by implication, estoppels or otherwise, any license or right to use any of the Intellectual Property without the prior written permission of the Company.

We may need to add additional provisions to our TOS to address the issues discussed in this thread (that depends on input from our legal counsel). In any case, our handling of AGPL content once we become aware of it in our system will need to be as specified above.

[mdickson]

Sighs and goes back to testing appliers... I really applaud Shin's good intentions. And the projects. But if I try and keep up with all this I'll never get my worn work done. As much as I do agree using the AGPL for data when it's primarily for Code creates the kind of ambiguity we're seeing here, I think its equally silly to imply that hosting data licensed under the AGPL somehow taints the platform. Thats like saying Any OS level filesystem is tainted because I put a copy of a file thats AGPL in it. I felt a bit like I was being over-wordy before with my comments but I'll cede that to others and go back to getting Ruth 2.0 available in InWorldz in a way that works well for residents there. It's a cool project and should get some use.

[ilantochner]

Hi Mike Dickson,

OS level filesystems are explicitly exempted from needing to comply with the AGPL copyleft terms because they are System Libraries as defined in the AGPL license.

[mdickson]

So Assets stored in an asset server don't get classified in the same way?

[ilantochner]

As discussed at length in the thread above, a propriatery asset server is not a Major Component as defined by the AGPL license and thus not classified as an exempted System Libraries.

[Outworldz]

The AGPL does not even talk about your software, Ilan. The AGPL only talks about "the program", "the work", or "the modified work". It does not talk about your software that is merely using the work.

They do not require you to make available anything else, such as the source code of any software in which you hold the copyright.

Really??? Yes.

The rules become critical only if you copy any source code from library X into your own software in such a way that the distinction of the two will blur. This is the only case when your software may be "infected" by the GPL/AGPL code. Running it on your network, running it on your server and such do not trigger it because you have not merged our source code in with yours in an inseparable manner.

One FAQ you have mentioned says that linking your software with a GPLed library (even linking it dynamically) will create a "combined work". But the GPL does not talk about "combined works", it only talks about "modified works", so this statement has no legal consequence.

Here is a relevant link to this discussion: https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/why-viral-licensing-ghost

And here is a interesting take on why you are not affected, with an answer from the FSF legal team.

[...] Does this [section 13] mean that if I run a completely unmodified AGPL-licensed program as a network service, I am not required to offer the source code to network users?

And I received this response (bracketed phrase added by me) [author] [...] If you haven't modified the software then you are not required to add that functionality [i.e., to download the source]. Of course, if the functionality to download the source is already in the unmodified software, it will already be there for everyone to enjoy.

So, if you use an unmodified AGPL application that doesn't have download-source functionality, you are not required to add one or otherwise offer the source to users. If you do modify the software, of course, you are required to add a mechanism to allow users to download your modified source.

https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/650/do-i-have-to-offer-the-source-of-an-agpl-v3-0-licensed-web-app-even-if-i-didn/663#663

[SundanceHaiku]

emperorstarfinder said:

Ideally, the users (i.e. normal user, content creator) should not be selling content they get from an open source project as a standalone product. This is what we are specifically targeting. If the user sells their product they have created but that content in itself has open source components it would need to have the permissions from the original creator.

Are you saying you are making the permission requirement of the content creator? From the AGPL license standpoint, NO permission is required. The person "conveying" or selling the open source work needs to fulfill the AGPL attribution requirements, but seeking permission is not required. This is another area that could be problematic. The content creator can say "But my license doesn't require me to seek permission."

[emperorstarfinder]

Hi Sundance,

If the license does not require permission be granted then we would assume they have permission so long as they provide a copy of that license as described. The permission primarily comes into play when they are trying to upload content they didn't create that was directly created by another content creator (Other than them on another grid), We include the permission requirement for both open source and non open source content because we have banned people in the past for uploading content from other grids only to find out the content creator who made that content on other grids was providing it for a price. The intent is to make sure all components of their content they are bringing onto our grid has proper permission for them to bring it onto Second Galaxy.

The end game for the permissions requirement is to encourage users and content creators to adhere to the licenses whether its an open source license or if they are using proprietary content from a kit provided by another content creator. It also will help us be sure we aren't getting hit with lawsuits over the proper permission not being given for content to be used on our grid.

[ilantochner]

Hi Fred,

Section 13 of the AGPL talks about modified Programs and Programs are defined is section 0 to mean "any copyrightable work licensed under this License.". Sections 4 to 6 of the AGPL talk about conveying covered work regardless of whether it was modified.

The mesh that you wish to AGPL is the Program and the covered work in this case. When you upload a COLLADA file into OpenSim it is automatically converted to another file format (LL mesh format) thus modifying the Program/covered work. You would therefore need to convey the source to that mesh (I'm not even talking about anything else for the time being) in order to comply with the AGPL. OpenSim doesn't store that COLLADA file so in order to even just provide that source you'd force the grid to start collecting that file in another fashion or ensure that they provide whomever they give access to that mesh another option from which to get the COLLADA file. As grids don't moderate what meshes are uploaded into them and don't know how these meshes are licensed, this would mean you'd need to start collecting the COLLADA files of all uploaded meshes or risk being unable to comply with the license of any AGPL licensed mesh that is uploaded into your grid.

Now, because of the language used in the AGPL license the skin used to texture a mesh can be deemed a modification of that covered work (it would be considered creating a combined work as explained previously) and thus that skin would need to be AGPL licensed as well or you would lose the license to convey the mesh to the user. As explained in my first comment, this copyleft viral affect also extends to other parts of the system that connect to modified covered work. You would have a hard time, for example, explaining how a HUD allowing you to change parts of the mesh by adjusting its bones isn't tightly connected to the covered work and thus requires sharing as per the aforementioned sections.

This entire problem arises because using a license that was designed for code creates ambiguities when applied to content. If you want to quote sources then find sources that talk about what happens when what you are trying to AGPL is content and not code.

[ingen-lab]

Thanks for all of your input and I appreciate all of your effort in making R&R what it is now. Without your contribution, direct or indirect, the project would probably still be in its early stage of development.

I believe we were very clear about R&R license from the start. The choice to participate was yours.

My intention is to keep R&R a "FREE SOFTWARE" for all therefore, R&R will remain AGPL and the source available for those who want it.

I don't see any further need to discuss this issue and honestly, I do not intend to waste any of my time.

Kitely had made a choice for their customer not to participate and so be it. It is really that simple.

I wish you all the best.

[aiaustin]

Thanks Shin.. I believe we are all clear on the Ruth licence. So you can avert your eyes :-) But the discussion of not allowing code with licences that insist on giving modifications back to community is helpful even if quite technical as it may arise with other platforms unless challenged.

I do appreciate Ilan is taking great care and wants to protect creators and also not lay his platform open to criticism of inappropriate use. That’s good. But I think Ilan is unfortunately over worrying about USER created content uploaded to his servers or brought onto his platform that is or uses such licences. His comments imply he interprets this as meaning his storage of it or his platform’s handling of it to serve it to users may need to be backed up by the PLATFORM providing the source of such content. I just don’t get that. If its the original the source is already available (in Ruth’s case via Github) and if a user included Ruth as an essential part of their uploaded content such as a modified scripted HUD then its up to the user to describe where the modified source is available... usually done via a notecard.

The main issue that could arise is if someone placed something on the marketplace and charged for such content where the licence prohibited that.... as Sundance intends with the licence he is designing for his nail HUDs. A standard take down peocess would surely handle such misuse of material by a user/marketplace seller. Ruth AGPL elements and modifications are open to commercial use anyway so that is not an issue for those elements. So the worst that could happen is that a user has to be asked to add a notecard to some item to detail where modifications they make are available if they forgot to do that.

[ilantochner]

Hi Ai Austin,

As described above, skins, cloths and some other types of attachments which are designed to work with the AGPL licensed mesh may need to be AGPL licensed as well for us to be able to legally convey them to users. As we don't have the right to just relicense user uploaded content, grid owners won't be able to comply with the mesh's AGPL license terms for content which is tightly connected to that content as to arguably make a combined work. In addition, the choice of AGPL license also severely limits the ability of content creators to license their own creations that are designed for the mesh but not derived from it using the license of their choice.

See, for example: https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/licensing-considerations/compatible-licenses/ : Only version 4 of CC BY-SA is compatible with GPL and only if it is resilienced as GPL 3.0. While no version of CC BY-NC-SA is compatible with GPL. The non ShareAlike Creative Commons licenses are only compatible with GPL if they too are relicensed as GPL. That is also the case for many other open source license types, they are either incompatible with the GPL or require relicensing as GPL to be used with your AGPL licensed mesh. This goes against what you have been promising the content creators in this thread. They may be able to license their creations as they see fit but no grid following the license of your mesh will be able to legally convey their content in combination with the AGPL licensed mesh unless those content creators license their own creations as AGPL as well.

Even, if someone here cares nothing about the licensing concerns that arise from the project's choice of AGPL for the mesh, this should give your target content creators pause.

You may say that my analysis of how the AGPL works for content is off base, but it is not an unreasonable reading of the terms as specified by the license itself. The exact wording matters, especially in the court and this should raise a red flag to any platform's legal department if it reads my analysis. A judge may eventually rule that my interpretation is wrong, but the risk that I'm right is too big a liability to accept for any company that becomes aware of this issue (at least for ones that have good legal counsel).

[SundanceHaiku]

IIan, Emperorstarfinder, and Fred,

From this discussion (and it has been fascinating discussion from my standpoint), I think it is obvious that current Open Source licenses have problems when it comes to applying them to the Virtual World. One problem is that they are either for creative work such as those covered by CC licenses. Or they are for software such as AGPL. In the Virtual World, however, more often than not, it is a combination of the two. That's just one problem with current licenses, and there are others, of course, as this discussion has highlighted.

I think you would do the Virtual World community and Open Source creators a great service by collectively coming up with one or more licenses which work in a Virtual Work situation. There can be variations of the following, but largely I believe that those of us in Open Source World want our work to remain free (of cost), open (available to others), and modifications also free (of cost) and available to others. We want our work to remain free once in the Virtual World, but at the same time, we want content creators to be able to make skins and clothing for it and be able to sell those items. And you, of course, have needs that Open Source licenses do not cause problems with your operations.

What I describe above is a different than what current CC licenses and Open Source software licenses are designed for. Virtual World Open Source license(s) could solve that problem.

My suggestion is to move to a different forum - GitHub or Google Groups - or whatever is most appropriate, and collectively come up with something that you are comfortable with in the Virtual World environment and yet maintain the desires of the Open Source World.

I have a couple of early drafts of a possible license that you are welcome to use as a starting point - or you may decide to completely start over, that's no problem. You'll be a far better judge than I of what works best for you. I have the license posted here on the Ruth Github site (and the license is all Open Source!), but any further work on this license or other licenses is best done in a different forum.

I hope you rise to challenge. It would have lasting value and truly would be a great service to the Open Source and Virtual Worlds.

[ilantochner]

Hi Sundance Haiku,

The problem with creating licenses is that even slight wording changes (and sometimes even the placement of a comma) can result in drastic changes to meaning and/or incompatibility with various local laws. Just look at the amount of revisions done to Creative Commons licenses over the years to enable them to actually do what they were designed to do (and do so in as many jurisdictions as possible).

IMO the CC BY-SA 4.0 license achieves the goals that this project is trying to achieve for the mesh/skin components. Attribution must be given and if someone changes the meshes/skins and tries to sell them (even inside a closed grid) then they are forced to release those changes under CC BY-SA 4.0 as well. But, unlike the AGPL, this license for the mesh won't prevent skins, cloths, etc. that are designed for the mesh from using a different license (unless they are derived from the project's CC BY-SA 4.0 licensed content).

A lot of content, including mesh content, uses Creative Commons licenses. They have been vetted by many lawyers and were specifically designed for content. There really is little sense in trying to shoehorn content into an AGPL license when there is a very popular open source license that was designed specifically for distributing it. There are a great deal of millions of digital assets licensed using CC licenses. Compare that to the few thousand AGPL licensed projects and the unknown number of AGPL licensed digital assets (I've yet to encounter any).

As I see it, people here are acting against their project's best interests by unreasonably limiting its value to the metaverse by choosing an inappropriate license for distributing their content. But when it comes down to it, I'm not a contributor to this project so I can't do much more than try to help people see how a different license will serve their stated goals better. So far it seams like I'm wasting my time.

[emperorstarfinder]

Afternoon,

Sundance - I personally support the idea of having a license that is uniform for content on virtual worlds. This is because most (if not all licenses) do not necessarily take into account nor contemplate how that content might be used on a virtual world grid. The Second Galaxy Development Team likewise will always support open source efforts where possible and just as we do with our users and content creators who choose to bring content to Second Galaxy, we will always go out of our way to work with and help creators of open source projects on our grid. This is because we recognize that most content creators do use open source components in their products they provide on our grid whether it be free of cost or for a price. Additionally, we are more than happy to host a forum (or venue) to have that discussion which hopefully will include the owners of all virtual world grids, content creators, and users. It is always easier to say something is difficult to do especially when you do not want to do it yourself. If you have concerns as to how your content might be used on Second Galaxy you can always contact me directly either by email, in the #galaxyfutures channel on Freenode IRC, or via Second Galaxy's Google+ community and I will be happy to address any concerns you might have.

I have also pulled a copy of your draft license (it seems very good so far). I will pass it to the in-house and outside counsel on my team and see what they have to say about it.

General - I am inclined to agree with aiaustin's observation about Ilan's concerns relating to "user created content". While the concerns Ilan has are legitimate concerns, I do think he should consult with his legal counsel on how this would impact his grid before he proceeds any further with trying to limit content created and used on his grid under this particular license. It is always possible Isreal's laws regarding enforcing contracts and licenses are different than how the laws in the US or EU work in this regard. However, after reading the AGPL license, I am inclined to agree that there is possibly some overreaction to a specific incident on his grid. I would also caution that while being proactive is a very good thing, a grid owner does need to be careful that they are not so proactive that it hinders the success and growth of their grid and the content which is on their grid. That being said, I have also personally looked for any case law relating to open source licenses on virtual world grids and have not found any (this includes using Westlaw's service). In fact, the only cases involving virtual worlds that I have found so far involve tier fees and virtual land. In this case, Linden Labs was a party with the case originating in the federal court in Pennslyvania. Unfortunately, at the moment, I cannot remember the case name citation (I just am on my first cup of coffee, I so love the weekends).

It is possible however because this is an open source project, you could ask the folks at the Software Freedom Law Center (http://www.softwarefredom.org), how the AGPL license would affect the use of your content and other content on a virtual world grid. They might be able to provide the open source project some good advice on this.

That being said, my team is in support of this project's continuing on as the developers wish under the license they have the right to choose. While there is not any content derived from this project yet on Second Galaxy, we will allow such content on our grid until such point we are advised by our legal counsel that we can not allow such content because there are concerns of licensing conflicts.

All this being said, I have used scripts from Fred's website both in Secondlife and on my grid. I am aware of his reputation and I do not believe he would be in support of a project if he had concerns about its compatibility and use with other content on any of the virtual worlds. Also Fred, I do have a question for you but I will send that to you in a direct email so it does not get riddled with this issue itself.

[Outworldz]

We will not be bullied by for-profit enterprises that want to twist the words of, eliminate, or try to bypass the rules of Free and Open software. Ilan's suggestions such as CC licenses and others such as LGPL all allow him to use Ruth for his purposes, such as starter avatars on his network, and never release his changes, despite his claims to the contrary. The difference between GPL and AGPL is clause 13 which stops this closed-source behavior unless he releases changes to her source. That is all it asks and all we have ever asked. The AGPL does not allow this one loophole. The rest is just GPL, which he already uses on his networks, everywhere, without any of his feared consequences.

Interestingly, CC is not suitable for software. They even say that CC licenses should not to be used for software. The Creative Commons organization recommends that software be licensed under the FSF (GPL) licenses, such as AGPL.

"We recommend against using Creative Commons licenses for software. Instead, we strongly encourage you to use one of the very good software licenses which are already available. We recommend considering licenses made available by the Free Software Foundation or listed as “open source” by the Open Source Initiative."

https://creativecommons.org/faq/#can-i-apply-a-creative-commons-license-to-software

AGPL is FSF software. AGPL is on the list of approved licenses by the Opensource Initiative.
https://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical

~ Fred

[HanHeld]

I think that the risks and complications that go along with designing a new license would probably outweigh any benefits -by a far stretch.

I think a project that tries to roll their own license would be more likely to shoot themselves in the foot in unforeseen ways.

Personally, I put a lot of faith in Fred's expertise on this matter, and if he believes that the AGPL can apply to this project, and believes that it's appropriate then I think it would be a lot better to simply go with that license instead of rolling your own or mangling an existing license (and potentially introducing unintended loopholes or consequences).

I'd consider writing your own license to be an option of absolute last resort unless you're able to tap the expertise of Eben Moglen or some other highly specialized lawyer.

[mdickson]

Ruth isn't software. It's data. And Ilan if I put my scripts or my textures on A Ruth body they're not tainted. I retain copyright and license to my work. Nothing about the AGPL implies I must adopt the AGPL license for a combined work. I do have to continue to respect the license in use for Ruth. Just because you;re choosing to interpret the AGPL in the strictest possible terms doesn't mean that interpretation is correct or the only one.

How precisely do you plan on policing content? I know for a fact I have a copy of Ruth in my inventory @Kitely.

[ingen-lab]

Would you all rather talk about this issue in a more appropriate forum? The issue here is not just with this project but with AGPL license itself. As far as this project is concern that is a dead issue. Why keep beating YOUR dead horse in someone else backyard? If you think that the entire metaverse will benefit from this discussion then why not post something in a public forum like Opensim Virtual and allow the stakeholders that you care so much about to cast their own opinion?

[ilantochner]

I think some here are being quite cavalier about the possible problems that arise from adopting a license that was designed to handle code and using it to license content. Some here are trying to have it both ways: both assume that the license would protect their content as it does code under certain user actions that work differently for content, and assume that the way that it behaves for code wouldn't also apply to content under certain user actions that work differently for content. The place where the line is drawn between aggregating code and combining it is different from where it can be drawn between aggregating content and combining it.

As for the Creative Commons ShareAlike license enabling anyone to create modifications of the content and distribute them using a different license: That is simply FUD. The ShareAlike license was designed exactly to prevent that from happening, but unlike the AGPL it was designed to do so for content and not for code. Releasing the meshes as CC BY-SA 4.0 does exactly what you all want to achieve. If you want to block people from selling anything based on those meshes then use CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 instead. If you think that these licenses act in some other way then you can easily ask the FSF about them. While you're at it, ask them what they think about the suitability of AGPL for releasing content, and would that or one of the aforementioned CC licenses be better suited for the job. <== PLEASE CONSULT WITH THEM ABOUT THIS

How you license the scripts is of secondary concern. If the ones you create are restrictively licensed then people who can't abide by their terms will simply create alternative ones that don't suffer from such usage limitations. The metaverse won't suffer from having multiple scripts to achieve the same avatar-related functions. It will suffer from not being able to unify around an open avatar standard.

As long as this content is released under a license that contains terms which we can't follow we'll be forced to treat it as any other unlicensed content in our grid and marketplace. That is, if we're made aware of a specific instance where it is actually present on our system we'll be forced to investigate and remove it or risk losing our DMCA safe harbor protection for hosting that unlicensed content. (As we received such a notice in the previous comment, I checked the Mike Dickson Kitely avatar's inventory to ensure that it doesn't contain any copy I could recognize as Ruth. If you wish to direct me to another Kitely account that does include it then I'd be forced to do the same to it as well).

[aiaustin]

Please folks lets keep it friendly. Its been a good exchange of views, arguments to seek to persuade others, and an explanation of the positions taken.

[ingen-lab]

I did ask nicely didn't I?

As far as this project is concern, it is not an issue and Kitely have every right to act on their opinion. If you need to discuss this issue further TAKE IT SOMEWHERE ELSE.