UPDATE: This has been resolved, thank you Linden Lab: An Apology to Strawberry Singh & A Call to YouTubers: “Un-Cease & Desist”

Hello everyone,

I decided to write this blog post for a couple of reasons:

To explain why I am removing one of my most popular tutorials on my YouTube channel. To warn any other Second Life bloggers or vloggers so they do not experience the same thing that I’m going through right now.

Last year I did a tutorial called “Introduction to Second Life” in which I shared two new video tutorials. The first video was called “Intro to Second Life – Creating an Account & Moving Around” and in this video I showed how to join Second Life by creating an account on their website, then downloading the main SL viewer, and finally moving around the welcome area and showing some of the preferences. Since I used the Second Life website and was in the welcome area, Linden Lab’s eye-in-hand logo is displayed prominently throughout the video. I didn’t think that would be an issue as it says on their Trademark Guidelines page that journalists and media outlets have special permission to use it in blog entries etc… I guess I misunderstood and assumed that it would be okay for me to use in a tutorial on my blog, especially since I was linking to their website and everything.

I’ve been informed by Tia Linden through YouTube that I do not have permission to use the logo and she filed an official complaint with YouTube about it. YouTube has given me 48 hours to resolve this issue directly with Tia before they hit my YouTube account with this complaint. I emailed Tia right away and asked for clarification, what exactly I did wrong and how I can fix it as I didn’t understand the complaint at first. Tia responded after a few hours and these were her exact words:

Thank you for your continued support of Linden Lab’s Second Life virtual world. However, we have not given you permission to use Linden Lab’s intellectual property in the manner of which you have done. More specifically, we do not allow images of our avatar building page, home pages or Second Life Eye In Hand Logo to be used in any capacity. Please do not use images of any Second Life web pages or logos ( with the exception of our inSL logo noted at http://secondlife.com/corporate/brand/insl/#) in your video or any other work. You may provide a link to our website or registration page in your video if you wish. In any case, please conform to the guidelines for usage of Linden Lab’s trademarks at http://secondlife.com/corporate/brand/trademark/ when making the requested revisions.

After reading that, I got the impression that I needed to delete that video right away. However, I did email her and asked for further clarification and confirmation about the necessity to delete the video. I also asked her if I needed to take my whole blog post down as well since it also had the eye-in-hand logo on it. It’s been 24 hours since this last email to her and I’ve had no response. If I don’t do something about it now, it will affect the status on my YouTube account so I have deleted that video.

I wanted to update you guys on why that video has disappeared and also warn others that this is happening. I know of two other Second Life YouTubers that received a complaint similar to this yesterday on one of their videos as well. Also, in the future, I probably won’t be doing any other tutorials like this where I show how to use Second Life because their logos might pop up in the videos. I’ll stick to just promoting the content creators in SL.

Thank you.

1st UPDATE: I just wanted to add since so many have asked in the comments and on different social networks, I was also given Tia Linden’s real name from YouTube since she filed the complaint using her real name and I have confirmed that she does work for Linden Lab. She is their IP Specialist. I had also contacted another Linden about this issue before deleting the video and they had also not responded, for over 24 hours.

2nd UPDATE: The other Linden that I had emailed replied to me about 15 minutes ago and basically said the same thing Tia did, so I guess it was a good thing I deleted my video before my account was hit.

3rd UPDATE: I’m going to share what the other Linden emailed me. She said she reached out to the IP team and they sent her this information:

Our only request is that the images of our registration, avatar building and home pages be removed. This is prohibited and we never give permission. The video can be edited to not include the content in question and they are welcome to insert a hyperlink to our home page for users to play. While we appreciate the promotion of Second Life, we simply ask that the user follow the guidelines set forth here: http://secondlife.com/corporate/brand/insl/ when using Linden Lab’s trademarks.

A lot of people on different social networks suggested I re-upload the video and blur the logo, but if you read this above comment, you can see it’s not just the logo that they don’t want in the video. It’s also the registration page and the avatar building page, etc… which were an integral part of that video. It showed how you register, signup, make an avatar, download, login, etc…. Blurring won’t help as the video won’t make sense then. It’s best if I just avoid doing that kind of video in the future.

4th UPDATE: So I have some good news. I received an email from the other Linden that I was speaking with and it came with an apology, some very kind words for me and I’ve been told that the YouTube take-down request has been reversed. I was also encouraged to re-upload the video, so I have. I’ve also been told that more information will be provided soon as to why this happened and how we can hopefully prevent this from happening in the future. Once I receive that information, I will do another update here and share it with you guys. For now I have re-uploaded the video and I’ll admit, I almost didn’t want to lol. I feel like it’s over a year old, a bit dated and my video and sound production quality has vastly improved since then so I cringe while watching it now but I figured others may still find it informative so I have re-uploaded it as a new video at this link (will also embed it below). Thank you again for all the support everyone! <3



5th and final UPDATE: Linden Lab has responded with their own blog post about this and a lot of encouraging words. I have to admit, I am speechless! Thank you so much Linden Lab. Read their post here: An Apology to Strawberry Singh & A Call to YouTubers: “Un-Cease & Desist”

SORRY ONE MORE UPDATE: I wanted to say thank you to all of you for the amazing support you gave me yesterday, so here’s my thank you post: Thank you and Happy Holidays!

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