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Second Life witnesses first case of copyright action for virtual property

Posted Jul 4, 2007 at 1:44PM EST by QJ Staff

Listed in: MMORPG Tags: Amsterdam, eBay, Kevin Alderman, Linden Lab, YouTube

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Napster, Torrent sites, and YouTube were all mired down in legal suits for copyright real-life property being freely shared through their P2P services. Now here's something new: Kevin Alderman, infamous internet Adult Entertainment businessman, is suing for copyright infringement on his virtual property.

Alderman owns the internet company Eros LLC, which specializes in Adult products, 90% of which are for the online virtual world, Second Life, where Alderman has his own avatar, Stroker Serpentine. He recently made news by selling the virtual property Amsterdam for US$ 50,000 on eBay.

Alderman was the virtual author of a bed (for Adults only, let's leave it at that,) that sold for US$ 45 in Second Life. For those who aren't familiar with Second Life, you should know that the virtual money they use in-game (called Linden Dollars) has a corresponding value in real life. This bed has already sold an estimated 100,000 copies. That's a lot of cash for a non-existant piece of furniture.

Now another guy in Second Life, named Volkov Catteneo, made a copy of the bed, or at least a near copy, and sold his version for US$ 15. You can imagine how Alderman would feel with this guy cutting into his profits with his own design.

The problem now is that no one knows the real identity of Catteneo. Alderman wants to file a subpoena to acquire the information on Catteneo's real identity but the developers behind Second Life, Linden Lab, has yet to give a solid reply to this legal action and are unavailable for comment. Catteneo, on the other hand, has this to say about the subpeona: Â“IÂ’m not some kind of noob. My name isnÂ’t on file.Â” Not knowing the real identity of Catteneo, the lawsuit refers to him as John Doe.

Another thing about the case is the actual nuances of copyright on virtual property. Anything virtual is in essence only lines of code, so even though the bed may look the same when seen in the virtual world, the code isn't necessarily the same. Therefore, pinpointing where the actual infringement was made may be a problem.

Alderman feels that his company, Eros LLC, "has been damaged, and continues to be irreparably damaged by diversion of sales." He is suing Catteneo for three times the profits he has made with the copy of the bed.

Via Times Online

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Okay then, ridiculous it may seem, BUT (and this is a big one) let's say you write a story. Words, yes, simple strings of letters, spaces, and, perhaps, numbers - nothing more. One could argue that they are very much akin to "virtual property".

Let's say in this story you have a detective named Jack M Detective who solves crimes using a psychic sock.

I would be hard-pressed to legally also make a story about a detective who uses a psychic sock to solve mysteries and moreover to make one named Jack M Detective.

# Umm. Wait a sec. — Guest 2007-07-04 19:12

Nowhere in the filing does it really demonstrate that the alleged copy is a copy. There are plenty of beds in SecondLife; in the filing it is stated that the defendant (John Doe) used the trademark AND used the copy - but the trademark registration happened AFTER the alleged infringement began (sex gen(tm pending) ) ... and still there is no demonstration other than a picture that this bed is an actual copy...

And making a copy of something like a bed requires scripts, which are not so easily copied. If the bed was in fact copied, in entirety, it is through an exploit. Seriously. Read this, it references the filing itself:

http://www.knowprose.com/node/17697

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Second Life witnesses first case of copyright action for virtual property

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