If one of these people applied for a job with your company, would you hire them? Would you enter into any kind of business relationship with them? Would you even want to risk selling something to them? Filing a frivolous lawsuit is an excellent way to make yourself into a pariah.
You would think that this was self-evident, but it appears that there are several companies and organizations out there who feel that acting like blithering idiots is the way forward. Here are three cases of legal threats and actions. Ask yourself: are you encouraged, or discouraged, from ever doing business with these people or those they represent?
RIAA
RIAA Took My House Away
Out of dozens of anti-RIAA videos I chose this one … and now watching it again I’m wondering why. Ah well.
Most people had no idea who the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) was until they started suing kids and dead grandmothers around 2003 for illegally downloading music. Of course, it wasn’t illegal until they lobbied to make it illegal – but hey, let’s not split hairs. At least, not until we’re in court.
The war against children encouraged the development of new kinds of digital rights management (DRM) which infected hard drives with spyware, crippled a number of devices, restricted the number of times you could play a file, and occupied a legal gray area nobody had the time or money to challenge. They eventually dropped this not because of the bad press, but because it cost a lot to produce and wasn’t getting results.
They also targeted internet radio stations, suing for 125% of revenue. I’m not completely sure why or what harm they were perceiving, but here’s hoping nobody tells them about “regular” radio.
In the aftermath, more and more bands started to realize that they didn’t need record labels this badly and started self-producing music or going with smaller labels that weren’t affiliated with RIAA. Independent music exploded and is continuing to develop in a viral fashion. RIAA itself has very recently dropped DRM and stopped suing people (although it is still pursuing pending lawsuits), and is trying to figure out just what the hell it’s supposed to do with itself.
For the record: artists never saw a dime of the money from the lawsuits. RIAA represents record labels only. One more postscript: Weird Al Yankovic’s “Don’t Download This Song” is viewable on YouTube, but oddly not embeddable, and has a “Download This Song” link to iTunes directly underneath.
Worlds.com
Worlds.com sues NCsoft
Worst. Report. Ever. Moving on…
The Worlds.com story has been breaking over the past few months. In December of 2008 the first news of any kind in years about Worlds.com was that they were hiring an IP firm over the ownership of the very concept of virtual worlds. That anyone could own such a thing is clearly ridiculous – it’s like saying you’re the only one allowed to make a blender or a car. We thought maybe this was a joke, especially considering the only thing anybody had heard out of Worlds.com in ages was some very amateur video.
Imagine our surprise when they actually filed lawsuit against NCsoft, creators of some fantastic MMORPGs. Why NCsoft, as opposed to anyone else? Well, the thought is that they’re big enough to serve as a good precedent for future lawsuits but small enough to perhaps not have the money to defend itself.
For the record, they did make a world for Aerosmith. I had heard about it back in 2006, but the website sucked and I couldn’t figure out how to get in. As far as I can tell this is the only video of it out there.
No matter what the results of the lawsuits, I cannot imagine what would drive someone to do business with Worlds.com at this stage.
Associated Press
AP threatens station for posting AP’s YouTube videos
LOVE his look of shock!
I heard about this today from the TechCruch article which actually sparked the blog post. The Associated Press (AP) is a news clearinghouse, where reporters the world over send stories that then get picked up by other news affiliates for re-publication. They have a YouTube channel, but apparently have no idea how YouTube works.
It’s enough that we don’t really understand what the difference is between a reporter and a blogger. Now we have AP proudly ignorant of the way new media works, issuing a cease & desist against its own affiliate (ie: customer). It’s no wonder organizations like IndyMedia are thriving in the digital age.
Now, I’d like to toss an olive branch in AP’s direction here and say that no, it isn’t a lawsuit and yes, it’s awesome they even have a YouTube channel in the first place. It’s most likely just one guy working at the AP that’s acting up. The AP haven’t gone off the deep end yet!
Still, this truly underlines the importance of creating a new media policy, and bringing everyone in your organization up to speed on it. Lawsuits deny the reality of the Internet and try to make it all go away. If that’s your goal, good luck with that. The safer bet, though, is to accept the way things are and move accordingly.
Is it even possible to justify a meetings budget this year that’s the same size as one from three years ago?
(Answer in the comments!)
Running light and flexible this week, holding off on the graphics and videos so that you can just scan through the list and see what sticks. There are actually four articles from the health care industry this week!
Important links:
Archive page of past weeks of Business in Virtual Worlds News
Disclaimer: As with everything on my blog, the opinions expressed here are mine and do not reflect on Clever Zebra, the vBusiness Expo, my friends, my family, my blip channel, any of the other “Jack of All Strange” stuff that I do, etc etc etc… k here we go:
Want to Hold a Virtual Event of Your Own?
Clever Zebra offers event support and white-label services for anyone interested in a branded gathering in a virtual space. Everything from venue setup and hosting to VIP orientation to speaker coordination.
Nintendo Refuses To Support Microtransactions
It’s an interesting decision, considering how much money the microtransaction model typically makes. Still, Nintendo has always had a narrow and specific scope for everything, and it has served them well when others failed.
The suits come to Second Life. Now it’s dying
Ignoring pretty much every statistic on the planet about what’s happening in virtual spaces, The Times Online UK digs up a few people who are “too cool” for Second Life and decides that they are the world. This is what happens when one reads too many blogs and mistakes them for news. There’s a lot of this lately… so many would-be tech-savvy reporters coming to the party a little late, trying and failing to catch up…
The other day I was asked for best practices in corporate sims in Second Life. Here’s what I came up with:
Build fresh, don’t refurbish. Many will offer you general purpose areas, but if productivity is important there’s no substitution for creating a space specifically for your needs.
Buy, don’t rent. For reasons both of security and technical performance, there is really no substitute for owning your own space rather than renting someone else’s.
Get help, especially if you do rent. Many companies spend a year or two getting their feet wet and hoping staff work things out for themselves. Save yourself massive amounts of time and money by getting experienced outsiders to handle the details for you and advise on best practices.
Make as complete a list of what you want to be able to do in this space as possible before planning the layout.
Function before form. All design work has to begin with laying out what needs to be done and how we’ll do it. This absolutely has to be your first concern.
Form is still critical! Once functional design is established, plan out ways to enhance the area’s look and feel. Virtual spaces are practical because of the way people naturally think about how they’re relating to others, so as long as we’re considering the human element we should acknowledge that everything should respect two basic design aesthetics: comfort and simplicity.
Signs: Text is the enemy. Graphics are your friend.
Don’t hand out text files (Notecards) expecting people will be grateful. Use video (machinima) or basic simplified signs to instruct.
Test your space! Get someone who has no idea how to use Second Life to use the arrow keys and walk around your space. If they can’t get around, you need to redesign.
More on signs – use legible fonts, few words – similar guidelines as PPT slides
There are many technical hurdles (an over-abundance of scripts, prim count limits, etc…) that only experienced users will know about, so do get the help of an expert
Of course, later on I found out they were actually asking for a list of corporate sims that demonstrated best practices… ah well.