Linden Lab, the creators of Second Life, has one of the most controversial takedown regimes I know of. Not only has the content theft issues on Second Life been receiving a lot of in-world attention, thus putting the company’s DMCA policy under close scrutiny, but the company also seems to follow Google’s footsteps, requiring either a faxed or an email DMCA notice (though Google changed that policy for Blogger)

Indeed, Linden’s site makes it very clear that they do not want you to send a notice via email. The third question in the FAQ on their DMCA page reads as follows:

Can I submit my notices over email?
Unfortunately, email addresses posted on public website pages quickly become the target of spam, making it difficult to review legitimate communications. Please submit information as requested above; if digital files are necessary to identify materials in question, we can make arrangements for digital delivery.

They in turn do not provide the email address on their site and, instead, provide only info to send DMCA notices via either Fax or postal mail.

However, that does not mean the email address does not exist and can’t work. They actually do have an email address listed with their filing with the U.S. Copyright Office, (PDF). The filing, which is one of the requirements for DMCA safe harbor protection, plainly lists an address that can be be used to send in DMCA notices to the company.

What this means is that you can file a DMCA notice with Linden Lab via email if needed. However, given the requirements they lay down, you may want to take the steps that I listed in emailing a DMCA notice to Google, which has a similar process.

Since I do not use Second Life, I can not attest if this actually works. However, there is no reason that it should not. They have registered the address as a means to send a notification and, if they ignored proper notices sent to that address, they would likely be opening themselves up to liability.

Still, if you have had your works infringed upon in-world, whether you participate in Second Life or not, you may want to look at this as a quicker means of filing the notice. It should help both you send the notice more quickly and Linden respond faster.

On that note, I’ll return to this topic tomorrow with a longer post my observations on Second Life, the company behind it, the artists that operate within it and what can be done to fix the problem.

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