Friday, 17 October 2008

-I (Desislava) have started a research on Second Life concerning the use of brands in virtual worlds, trademark violation and intellectual property infringements. Furthermore, I am investigating the reasons and motives of companies like BMW, Mercedes, Coca-Cola and Adidas to join the virtual world of Second Life.

-Miriam has sent the following e-mail to Joseph:

Dear Mr. Savirimuthu,

Thank you for your reply. It has been very useful for giving us a clearer overview of the project.

I will give you an update on our progress concerning the research thus far.
We have decided to, first of all, investigate the main objectives of the project individually.
That means each group member will work on these assignments:
a. Identify and discuss the relationship between brands and business models in generating value. In particular, explain both the business and legal conception of brand identity.

b. Explain the challenges posed by virtual worlds for the traditional business model.

c. Examine the role of Trade Mark Law and End of User Policies, as they are described on sites like Second Life.

d. Describe the types of unauthorised use of well-known marks and analyse their significance for the way brand identity is evolving.
Furthermore, we defined a 5th sub assignment as:
e. Do case studies on at least 3 virtual world sites where issues of brand identity are relevant.
The virtual world sites in which we think issues of brand identity are relevant are:
-Second Life (www.secondlife.com, USA)
-Entropia Universe (www.entropiauniverse.com, Sweden)
-There (www.there.com, USA)
Later on we will present our findings on each of these assignments to each other and share knowledge and insights. Then, with help of the obtained knowledge, we will try and formulate solutions to the main research question all together.
Do you think this will be a good way to work on the project?
And, concerning the virtual worlds, do you think we have listed relevant ones?
What we find a bit hard though, is to determine the scope of the research.
We are not very familiar with law (yet), and what laws apply to what worlds/brands/companies?
Are only American laws concerning brand identity relevant to the American games, or does it work differently when brands are global/transnational/national? And for the Swedish game, do only Swedish/Europan laws apply, or do we have to look at the scope of the brands present? Or, are these questions irrelevant and does each virtual world has its own legal framework concerning brands?
We would like to ask you whether you could give your view on this.
So far our progress.

We will start our individual researches coming week, and finish it by 9 november, so as to continue on the main research question from then.
However, coming week is the fall holidays and some are going on vacation, so most of us will start after that.

We would like to use Instant Messaging through Skype with you, the time difference between the UK and the Netherlands is 1 hour.

Thank you very much for your time and attention.


Yours sincerely,

Miriam van der Starre,

Representing group EC 32.13:

Marta Andrzejewska
Desislava Davidkova
Marloes Koijen
Liga Kurpa

-Marta has edited the concept of the Plan of Action and sent it back to the group.
This week we will add aspects which we might come up with to it and try to provide all activities of an estimate of time needed.

-Desislava-