Why do I think these are ideas whose time has really come? Yesterday I attended a discussion at Literature Alive! about Creative Commons Licenses, and breach of copyright which expanded to include citing and plagiarism in SL. When I got up today, I found an article about infringing trademarks over on Virtually Blind which says that "Nike" is the obvious trademark most infringed in SL, and estimates that 1-5% of the SL economy is working with goods that are infringing trademarks. If you add in items which break copyright, I suspect that number rises to over 50% of transactions are blurring, bending or breaking one or intellectual property rights law. That's over $¾million per DAY of illegal goods swapping hands.

These two things are similar in idea, although their application is rather different. They are both about respect for someone else's work and ideas and activities. The irony of being able to use the Nike+ logo to illustrate this is not lost on me. It's fair use, because:

• I'm showing it is their logo, not claiming it as mine
• it is relevant to this article since they are the most offended against
• It is not harming their trade - I'm not selling you sportswear, I'm "selling" you a story about infringing trademarks.

Continues...

Of course there have been voices crying in wilderness about this for a while on the fora and so on. Whilst I'll leave the lawyers to discuss all the ramifications of infringing trademarks, I will point out one bit that is relevant: If a company doesn't defend its trademark, it will lose it. If you're not a brit you probably vacuum the carpet. In the UK we (almost universally) hoover the carpet. Hoover can not trademark their name for their product because they didn't from the start and it is a word in common use now. I don't know how assertive Nike are about their trademark, but they will sit up and take notice soon.

Speaking as a teacher and academic, plagiarism is more worrying to me, personally. Academics make their living from their ideas, their research, as well as their teaching. Some of them with more of the former, some with more of the latter. At university level in the UK academics and departments are rewarded for their number of "quality papers" and citations. They share their knowledge more or less freely: unlike a biologist working for a drug company they're not directly paid for an idea, they release their brainchildren free (actually in some journals they pay for it to be printed still) and are rewarded by their institution separately. Citing, and respecting the CCL especially in new moves like open source science is probably the only way science, and all research, can continue. In fact, at every UK university I know of, plagiarism is the fastest way to get kicked out of your institution, be you a student or a (previously) highly respected professor. It really is that serious.

Whilst the lawyers and the companies will take care of the trademark infringements I'm sure, educators in Second Life need to make sure they're not breaking the rules and letting their students get away with plagiarism, and run the risk of getting them thrown off their courses. They might also need to talk to their various referencing authorities: I know how to cite a webpage, a book, a journal, and how to find out how to cite a TV show, a radio broadcast, a movie etc. But how do I cite a great build? A script? A notecard?