First of all, I’d like to say hello to Catherine and the team, and say thank you for the work you do, and make it clear that I'm not complaining or attacking you in any way. It’s hard to tell sometimes over the Internet, due to the fact that there are no vocal tones or changes in facial expression, all you have to go on is what you feel the implied emotion of the sentence is. I’m talking mostly to Catherine in this, and would be very happy if she were the one to answer it, she seems to be fielding a lot of the PR anyway, and is a very nice lady and hopefully will understand.
I came to your company as an escape from Amaretto, who stole a lot of product from me and did me a lot of monetary damage. I really enjoyed the horses, and when they first came out, i was overjoyed, it was a squeal worthy moment, and then we were introduced to their staff :P A group of "friendly" ladies and gentlemen who are all relatives either through birth, or marriage. I invite you to join their group as an alt sometime and make a mild complaint about their product, mind you not an outlandish complaint, something mild, such as "my horse turned green for no reason!" After doing that, count the seconds before someone in the group calls you mentally retarded, and one of the staff members, usually Ritchie the head manager, rewards them for the behavior and makes a game out of muting you every other word while getting the rest of the group members to IM you with threats if you complain about the product again. I invested probably a little over a thousand US dollars in their product, made some good money on it too, and invested again, at which point they banned me from receiving any support for their products, deleted all of my horses from the grid, leaving my Sim sitting empty, and on top of it they deleted all my food so i couldn't even try to make some bucks back by renting the spot out to people. That was about 500 dollars down the pot due to a disagreement with Ritchie, because his wife called me a retard at which point I asked her for an apology, she told me to stuff it, I told her I'd be happy to abuse report her, and he banned me. Now, there is a point to this, and I apologise for the story, but it serves a relevance. Amaretto hides behind an EULA they feel is watertight and gives them the right to do anything they wish, I’m not even exaggerating by much when I say it grants them the right to ascend to the heavens and judge you based on your sins and cast you into the bowels of hell basically. I wasn't even given a chance to defend myself against them. Now please don't take my next comment as an attack, and I'll try to use humor to offset it, because I'm just kind of talking with Catherine right now, like you would over a cup of tea while we discuss which boy in the magazine is the most handsome. I don't agree with the auto-petter situation all the way, mind you I support you on your DMCA and all of that, you had every right. Where things get a bit hairy for me, is when a company takes a stance of "Come hell or high water, you will not do this, because I say you won't, and our EULA means it!" Then, you say you’re going to release your own that costs us 100 linden per charge pack, more for the bigger charge packs, to do something that we were at one point able to do for a one time cost, then for free after we paid.Not that i am comparing your company to Amaretto mind you, that is the worst case scenario, but we took a small step towards that. We're refining the EULA, people will be forced into a position where they must agree to it or be unable to continue with the next part of the game, and so on. Amaretto's EULA states that by even opening their box, you are agreeing to their EULA and are bound by it, which is laughable to me when the EULA is inside the box, and you don't get to read it or even hit "I Accept" on anything before it all comes flying out of the box in a giant wad that most people close without batting an eyelash at, but I'm not kidding when it basically gives them the right to take everything you have ever bought from them away, plus punch you in the face for the trouble. EULA agreements in a digital domain are an interesting topic, and as per the lawsuits against Sony Entertainment, Steam, and our parents Linden Labs themselves, an EULA doesn't amount to much in court, and is really difficult to defend. Maybe the person has dyslexia and cant even read it but know enough to find the "I agree" button, or maybe the person playing is a minor, as we know in America, minors are not applicable to be bound by contract unless their guardian is present and signs with them, or maybe the person is mentally handicapped and doesn't fully understand an EULA, or maybe the person just didn't read it at all and rushed through to the "I Accept" button, as in the Sony Entertainment case, this invalidates the EULA almost immediately, because the person doesn't know what they are signing. The reason I bring this up is because I cringe when this starts happening, because i like you guys. You guys are awesome, your staff members are so professional and sweet, and you personally Catherine, are a wonderful woman and are handling the things that are happening like a champ. My over-all issue is that we as customers do pay you guys a type of rent for your project. I personally probably shell out over a hundred dollars directly to meeroos for food and upkeep every month and a half or so, this is for food, new stumps, or helping one of my friends get in on your beautiful product because they're a few thousand short on their Linden, I do it happily because I love supporting something I love. However, when a company says, "When people vote with their wallet and leave, that's OK, they can do that because we don't care" that isn't nice, because voting with our wallet is the only way we as customers feel like we can have a say in something, or put a stop to something we don't agree with. So when a company starts calling people who honestly really only just opened up a HUD that they themselves made so it could be opened, criminals, thieves, and starts threatening legal actions and the possibility of having to sue over intellectual rights, I cringe and want to pull back, because look where it got Amaretto and Ozimals. They are both basically wearing their briefcases like helmets and stuffing money in their lawyer's hand to see who hired the best actor. What breedable companies have to realise, is that none of you are the first. Albeit your art, and your creations are a first and unique, the idea and the technology has been done before. The first breedable pet if memory serves, was the Psion chicken. It was the first digital pet that needed food and care and bred with genetic diversions that cropped up. Your company isn't even the first HUD based breedable pet, Clamables beat you to that one. Now, when you stand up and start screaming about your rights and people who are violating you, OK, I stand beside you. But remember, you along this path at some point, have violated someone else's intellectual property. If we set your script down beside Psion's, or Clamables hud based scripts, somewhere in there will be more than one, and probably less than 100 lines of code that are identical to one of theirs and thus breaching on their intellectual creation and unique use of the scripting language to give artificial life and intelligence to digital creations. Thankfully, Psion's owner is a very kind person, and sadly is currently very ill, but feels so happy that they were able to pave the way for breedable pets that they'd never in a million years consider stepping up and doing something like that, and filing DMCA claims and making you all show your work and have your companies and scripts picked apart by Linden Labs employees. So I guess my over-all point is maybe you should get some PR staff, because when you start treating people like they are abominations created in satan's bathtub out of acid and single malt orphan tears, and you say that it doesn't matter when we vote with our wallets and pull support for your product because we disagree with something, that upsets me, as it does others. PR staff are soulless abominations that live on the fears and malefactions of others, but they're very helpful so that a company can step back from hot issues. When people do or say things about a product you had a hand in creating, it feels like you're being personally attacked, and sometimes it pays to have someone stand in the middle so you can focus on development and making the product even better, instead of having to battle every addle-brained idiot that griefs you with ancient griefing tactics. If you need PR staff, I'll happily raise my hand for it and you can count this as my official application to your company, if you need someone to help you get a patent on your script, i'll raise my hand for it too. If you need 150 bucks because your meeroos suddenly get a bug where they burst into flames and burn people's houses down, I'll loan it to your company, you have my support, but please don't be like the rest and loose it, there's so few out there that made me and the other people that ran away from the rest of them feel safe and like we meant something. I like you Catherine and I’d love to meet you and go shopping someday, every girl needs a gay best friend. I also think Tiger is a handsome man too who is very talented at what he does, and I like all your CSR staff, and I'd really love to meet the sculpty and texture artist someday and pick their brain, because they know things I could never ever hope to unravel on my own. So with that I'll end my long letter, and hopefully see a response, but if not, at least I got to sit down and have this chat with you Catherine :D it's been a pleasure.