Saban Entertainment’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
In a sobering development for fan creators, Linden Lab has removed Power Rangers merchandise from the Angel Grove Mall in Second Life and from the Marketplace Second Life website.
Acting in response to an August 13 notice of copyright infringement from Saban Entertainment, owners of the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers trademark, Linden Lab disabled merchandise bearing the Power Rangers name from Marketplace Second Life. Removals Linden, an avatar from Linden Lab’s legal department, inspected the Angel Grove sim, a popular Power Rangers roleplay site, and deleted vendors and signage bearing the Power Rangers trademarks from the Angel Grove shopping mall. Linden Lab’s terms of Usage for Marketplace Second Life forbid the selling of trademarked material.
In addition to the removal of vendors from the Angel Grove in-world mall during Removals Linden’s inspection, Second Life resident Hakkersszz Trenchcoat had all material bearing the Power Rangers and related names removed both from his inventory and delisted from Marketplace Second Life. Another Angel Grove resident’s account was briefly inspected by Linden Lab.
The news, coming after Linden Lab’s closures of the Battlestar Galactica sim and delisting merchandise and the removal of Star Trek vendors on the basis of intellectual property claims by Universal and Paramount , shocks fans who have sold media inspired wares in Second Life for years. However, the only material removed from Marketplace Second Life and in-world account inventory had the distinction of openly bearing the Power Rangers names, which were readily identified by Saban. Linden Lab, under national and international copyright and intellectual property laws, is legally obligated to respect the claims of intellectual property owners and acted immediately. No other sanctions were initiated by Saban or Linden Lab after the removal, and all affected resident accounts remain open and in good standing with Linden Lab.
Angel Grove sim remains open and continues to draw role players. Linden Lab is in something of a no-win position, being obliged to respect the legal rights of intellectual property owners and yet also acknowledging the large role media-inspired sales play in the virtual economy. Savvy media creators often avoid scrutiny-and Linden Lab’s restrictions-by rebranding their wares so as to avoid overt use of copyrighted names or sales images. Second Life residents familiar with media politics have speculated on the timing of these removals, which coincided with Universal’s heavy promotion and merchandising of Galactica’s TV revival, Paramount’s creation of Star Trek Online and Saban’s recent reaquisition and revitalization of the Power Rangers franchise. Whatever the motives for the sudden onset of media scrutiny, content creators in world and on internet marketplaces remain watchful for future such developments, hoping to remain overlooked in what they view as purely a labor of love by fandom.
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[su_note note_color=”#cae5f9″ radius=”17″]A Correction: Saban Entertainment does not own the intellectual property rights to My Little Ponies – this statement was made in error, and the Bronies are not at risk from Saban Entertainment.[/su_note]
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I wonder if DC comics and Warner Bros. have heard about this.
I can add a little more information on this one.
They probably aren’t following what Saban Entertainment does all that closely. DC Comics is owned by Time Warner now, so it’s the same company.
In 2007, a group called the Green Lantern Core (note the intentional misspelling) were concerned about their use of copyrighted and trademarked characters by their group, which at the time was a peacekeeper group in SL (they have since become more of an RP group and have stopped patrolling, but do fabulously well with the Relay for Life charity through the donations that come from their sims). They wrote a letter – not an email, mind you, but an honest to gosh, hard to ignore letter on paper – to DC Comics and told them what they were doing and asked them if they had any concerns whatsoever about it. They never heard back from DC, not even to receive an acknowledgment that they’d even gotten the letter.
In 2009, there were a system of sims that Warner Brothers had bought in Second Life as a promotional gimmick for their popular TV show at the time, “Gossip Girl”. We thought it would be a good chance to introduce ourselves, hopefully to get exactly the same kind of feedback from them that the Green Lanterns had sought.
Officially, all they would say is that they had no comment one way or the other.
Unofficially, they said that it would take an individual making tens of thousands of dollars a year selling branded items through Second Life before it would be worth their attention – but then backtracked and said that they really couldn’t stand by any sort of statement to that effect.
They knew all about the various Green Lantern groups and the superhero community in SL, and the League, and the League in particular were welcomed guests on their sims. I think we boosted their brand recognition or something, and it was a perk they didn’t have to pay for. They didn’t seem to show any interest at all in the in-world economy based on comic book characters, and they didn’t give the League even a sideways glance with respect to that.
So to answer your question generally, yes, they know we’re in Second Life, or have seen us, because we walked right up to them and told them all about ourselves, and the only real reaction we got back was “wow, COOL.”
A caveat to anyone else reading this, prior history is no guarantee of consistent behavior from them, and what you’re reading here should not be construed as constructive advice about intellectual property – just a recounting of what my personal experience with Warner Brothers and DC comics has been.
I have no idea what Marvel Comics or Marvel Studios would say, though various people have tried to contact them in the past as well, with no results. However, in 1994 Marvel tried to sue NCSoft, the makers of City of Heroes, over copyright violations involving their game which could allow players to recreate copyright heroes. That didn’t end well. The court discovered that they couldn’t find any actual examples of people making their own replicas of trademarked characters, so they did it themselves and presented that as evidence. Based on that, the court threw out the case.
I don’t know if Marvel has the stomach for another expensive law suit based on so similar a premise as the 1994 case or not, but they took quite a beating, and it was very expensive and embarrassing for them. We’ve never been able to get a response when we tried to communicate with them about Second Life, so we’re not really too concerned.
The bigger problem Linden Lab faces is as in Samantha’s article, which is that if every owner of intellectual property actually requested complete takedowns of material in Second Life that infringed on their intellectual property, a large swath of content in SL would disappear along with a percentage of its economy – possibly enough of a chunk to really terminally hurt Second Life and Linden Lab, but that’s really hard to guess at. I do know that Linden Lab is being very proactive about making sure its mesh services won’t be used to violate intellectual property rights, but less so about other construction methods that could produce similar results. So it’s a little bit of a patchwork approach, and there’s a potential for some serious damage to the SL economy if things got out of hand.
Mainly what comic book companies would be looking at is people trying to create products which compete directly with theirs, while using their branding or trademark. For comics, the test is whether the trademark appears on the cover, and it’s obvious that you’re claiming that you’re selling a trademarked item. This is why things are sometimes removed from the Second Life Marketplace, but they continue to be sold in-world. If in-world, there is no ready visibility of the item being sold, and it’s so arduous to search Second Life trying to find copyright or trademark violations that it rapidly exceeds the cost / benefit ratio of doing so. Whenever a major intellectual property holder tries to do business in Second Life that hurdle is overcome, and the virtual society on the grid sometimes see repercussions as a result of this.