Second Life Lawsuit Heads to Federal Court

Conlaw writes "A former plumbing contractor who has made a new career selling virtual cyber sex toys in the virtual world of Second Life, has now brought suit against another player who is allegedly copying and selling a device called the Sex Gen. The plaintiff, whose avatar is known as 'Stroker Serpentine,' is seeking the real name of the copycat entrepreneur. The reporter describing the lawsuit included commentary from a cyber law professor whose university maintains a virtual Supreme Court in the Second Life world."

They need a virtual court

[Zarhan]

Someone better start operating one...Then virtual cops can come and enforce the decision and virtual collectors agencies can come and take your virtual goods to pay any restitutions and then your virtual character can be locked up in virtual jail where you can escape with the virtual file to saw off the virtual bars. Then they can have a virtual chase of the prison escapee..

Re:Virtual

[Provocateur]

Naaa, he should just go on Cyber Jerry Springer or Cyber Maury and present his case to the people.

Re:lolz

[Amouth]

could someone make a living selling sex toys to imaginary people

Pinocchio

[Joebert]

"I'm a toy maker," Alderman explained. "I'm an erotic Geppetto."

I bet anyone who read that will never look at Pinocchio the same.

Re:copyright gone awry

[syntaxglitch]

Sounds like he is complaining about that people create animations that are "like" his, not merely his. But that basically means that he claims a copyright on the missionary position and that's not right. Copyright doesn't protect ideas, it only protects specific expressions of those ideas. And generic, common expressions aren't copyrightable either, and it seems like the missionary position is pretty generic and common.

Yes, but this is sex... on the INTERNET. That makes it novel and original, right? I bet he could get a patent on the idea. I'm sure some people would make noises about "prior art", and say it's "obvious" but let's be reasonable, if "sex on the internet" was that obvious why isn't everyone else doing it?

Re:Virtual

[MightyMartian]

Wouldn't it be nice if all virtual Second Lifers would take a virtual flying leap off a virtual cliff and land on top of a virtual field full of virtual knives and were chopped into virtual pieces which were then virtually eaten by virtual aliens from the virtual planet X-Omicron-Y who had virtually arrived after being invited by a virtual President Bush who had just been virtually turned into a virtual reality clone of himself?

I don't know what scares me worse....

[pionzypher]

The fact that this is happening in the first place, or that I actually knew Stroker from a few years back, or that he's a former plumber trying to make a living selling digimawhatsits to stuff in your digimalwhoosals.

Either way, I'm going to go cry myself to sleep now.g

All your sex toys are belong to us

[syousef]

Somebody set us up the dildo!

Plumbing

[coren2000]

I guess he is selling plumbing services of another sort.

Re:USA laws don't apply there

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

Well, *shit*.

I was playing Half-Life 2 last night, so that's gonna be trouble. I could plead self-defense on all the dead Combine, and since they're not *really* people then I could probably dodge a manslaughter charge, but I shot a medic right in the head when he wouldn't get out of my way in the hall and like ten people saw it. Better get Robert Blake's lawyer on speed dial...

Re:The important thing here...

[Anonymous Coward]

not everyone can be a plumber. also, second life goods can be made and sold with no formal training, no certifying, no memorization of local, state and federal building code. Plus you don't have anything to back up. once the item is sold it's gone. with plumbing you can be held liable for a shoddy job. and what's best? no longer having to deal with other people's shit.

Re:Daaamn...

[suv4x4]

"having a (first) life should be made mandatory."

But then what would become of Slashdot?

A dating site.

Re:HELP! I'm clueless

[Tony Hoyle]

It's when you pretend you have a girlfriend.

Most slashdotters should be familiar with the concept...

Re:Just What We Need More Of.....

[tygt]

You missed one, or maybe two:

The Old World had:
4. Death
5. ???

New (note, I only know WOW):
4. Temporary death
5. Ressurection

Re:USA laws don't apply there

[Heembo]

My girlfriend continues to rail against "all of the killing and murder going on in her house" every night as I game. I try to tell her than I am I am trying to save the world.

I used to moonlight

[myth_of_sisyphus]

working with a licensed plumber. When people asked if I was a full time plumber they would be dismayed and sometimes concerned when I told them I worked with computers mostly during the day. People generally want their plumbers to be plumbers.

Just imagine his client's faces when he said he creates sex toys in a virtual world on the side. (I imagine he probably didn't tell them that or left plumbing before this but still, it would be funny to see.)

(BTW, Plumbing is fun. Except when it involves feces.)

Re:Pinocchio

[Tracy Reed]

Tell a lie! Tell a lie! Yes! Yes!

Re:Secondlife Copyright Lawsuit

[Rob T Firefly]

The articles that were being sold were digital duplicates.

"Digital duplicates" indeed... what, you were expecting analog duplicates in a digital environment? This quote alone is enough to lose you a ton of sincerity points, and brings your entire understainding of the world in which you're doing business into question.. but it's just the sort of meaningless phrase you can wave around in front of an average technophobic judge to influence the verdict.

However this comes out, though, you win several billion Silly Points for the inevitable demonstrations of stilted, awkward 3D puppet-sex to a federal judge.