Press Release: Grid-Wide Corporate Logo Hunt

Preface

Since Linden Research, Inc. decided in November, 2013, that it holds License to anything created in SecondLife; this Contest will be held to find examples of Real Life Copyrighted and Trademarked material used illegally in SecondLife.    Since we as users cannot bring an action against Linden Research, Inc. for any matter at all (according to the Terms of Service), it is our intention to let the Corporations that hold the rights to license their Intellectual Property, bring Action against Linden Research, Inc.   It is our contention that since Linden Research, Inc. changed the Terms of Service to:

" Except as otherwise described in any Additional Terms (such as a contest’s official rules) which will govern the submission of your User Content, you hereby grant to Linden Lab, and you agree to grant to Linden Lab, the non-exclusive, unrestricted, unconditional, unlimited, worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, and cost-free right and license to use, copy, record, distribute, reproduce, disclose, sell, re-sell, sublicense (through multiple levels), modify, display, publicly perform, transmit, publish, broadcast, translate, make derivative works of, and otherwise exploit in any manner whatsoever, all or any portion of your User Content (and derivative works thereof), for any purpose whatsoever in all formats, on or through any media, software, formula, or medium now known or hereafter developed, and with any technology or devices now known or hereafter developed, and to advertise, market, and promote the same. You agree that the license includes the right to copy, analyze and use any of your Content as Linden Lab may deem necessary or desirable for purposes of debugging, testing, or providing support or development services in connection with the Service and future improvements to the Service. The license granted in this Section 2.3 is referred to as the "Service Content License." "

That Linden Research, Inc. made itself a party to any Intellectual Property infringement instead of simply a "Service Provider", and therefore liable under the DMCA and Copyright and Trademark Law, for the abuse of protected Intellectual Property.

This contest provides YOU the user with a voice.   Regardless of how you see yourself, if you wish to make trouble; then you could become the Ultimate Griefer, with the potential to bring the Lab to its knees with the right picture.  If you wish to help the Lab and the Grid in general; you could be the Ultimate Benefactor, if you take the picture that causes the Lab to change the Terms of Service back to requiring permission to take license to anyone's creations.

Contest

Entries open March 1, 2014 at 00:01 SL time, and will be closed on April 5, 2014 at Midnight SL Time.

This contest will be based on in world pictures made by users and placed on a Notecard.

That Notecard must be sent to IPJudge1 Resident prior to the close of the contest.

Each picture on the Notecard will be considered one Entry, any Resident may submit as many Entries as they wish.

All pictures shall be of examples of the use of Real Life Copywritten or Trademarked Intellectual Property used on items that are FOR SALE inside web properties owned by Linden Research, Inc.  

All Entries must be standard pictures with the User's name and the Location taken.   Any alteration of the default data on a picture will disqualify it.  The Picture Description must contain a clear location for the subject of the picture Any Photoshop editing will disqualify the picture.  

All Entries will be verified by the contest judges, so they must exist at the time of judging and be easily found from the data on the picture alone.    Any Entries that cannot be verified will be disqualified.

There will be 2 catagories of entry:

Catagory 1:  Pictures taken inside Secondlife of infringed Real Life Intellectual Property covered by Real Life Copyrights or Trademarks.

Category 2:  Pictures of infringed Real Life Intellectual Property taken inside SecondLife and inside any other Linden Research Web Property of THE SAME ITEM covered by Real Life Copyrights or Trademarks.

Judging

A panel of Judges has been selected, each has been tasked with putting digits on a notecard that are normally included in a UUID.  Those Judges are assigned a number, and are not told who the other numbers belong to.   An additional Judge will be tasked with determining the order of those notecards, that Judge will not know who the numbered judges are.   IPJudge Resident will then verify the entries closest to the UUID numbers selected, and announce the winners.

Prizes

Category 1: 50% of the prize pool will be awarded as follows:
Grand Prize: 30% of the total prize pool
First Runner Up: 10% of the total prize pool
Second Runner Up 10% of the total prize pool

Category 2: 50% of the prize pool will be awarded as follows:
Grand Prize: 40% of the total prize pool
Runner Up: 10% of the total prize pool

All Entries will become the property of the Contest Sponsors.

The Contest Sponsors reserve the right to remove these pictures from SecondLife to make them available to any interested parties at the Sponsor's sole descretion.

Should Linden Research, Inc., or any third party tamper with the contest, tamper with the Judges, or tamper with the entries, the contest will be restarted and the event will be announced through the same channels that carry this announcement.

The following example pictures are ineligible for this contest, they have been altered so they may only serve as content hints.

Knight Macalroy
Knight and Knight Investigators