Second Life Lawsuit Heads to Federal Court 201
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."
Remember when games were just for fun? (Score:3, Interesting)
What happened?
Virtual IP, Real Money (Score:5, Interesting)
One would have to assume from TFA that the plaintif has copyright and trademarks that he feels are being infringed on. He certainly has been making real income from a real business, and feels that someone is unfairly making money off of his ideas and stealing his customers. He feels he has a right to the protection of his intellectual property, whether sold through a virtual world or not.
This might be the best case I've seen for drawing firmer lines around what is reasonably protected IP.
Can this case be extended to software patents? Certainly there are some parallels, but is there any chance that a courts ruling in this can be applied to the other issues that the industry faces?
Its also in the TOS (Score:2, Interesting)
They do not, however, serve as judge and jury. IP is a legal issue, and so if you have an IP dispute you need to resolve it in court.
I read the article (weird, eh?) and I am not sure if the accused is:
1) Selling byte-for-byte duplicates with the same object name and brand name,
2) Selling byte-for-byte duplicates under a different object or brand name,
3) Selling similar but created-from-the-ground-up products under the same object name or brand name,
4) Selling similar but created-from-the-ground-up products under a different object or brand name.
I think these distinctions are pretty important, especially when making an IP claim. If selling the object under the same object or brand name, he could be accused of violating a trademark (which isn't exactly the same thing). If he is selling byte-for-byte duplicates of the products, then current IP laws (as bad as they are) would logically apply.
However, if he simply created a similar product, and is selling it under a different name, then this is just another case of someone believing that having made an intellectual product entitles them to ownership of anything and everything similar. This is, IMO, the most harmful abuse of the concept of IP....the ownership of a class of ideas over a particular instance of an idea. The maker of a sex-toy is not within his rights to expect that no one else can make similar sex toys, IMO, and IP laws should make that clear.
Re:Virtual (Score:3, Interesting)
That's the kind of greedy stupidity that has tax men worldwide trying to work out how to get money out of the other multiplayer online games as well. Creating a new currency and money moving where they cannot tax it is the sort of thing governments take seriously.
Convertibility of Linden Dollars (Score:3, Interesting)
On the one hand, Linden Dollars are game tokens. They have absolutely no intrinsic worth in real life, nor does Second Life "property". This means that LL have no obligations to make their systems to "trading standards", and spurious losses are not uncommon.
On the other hand, alongside third parties, LL operate and profit from a currency exchange between US and Linden dollars. They manage the market to try to maintain a stable exchange rate, meaning there is a de facto value for Linden Dollars in real life, even though it is not a currency.
IMHO, the first carries more weight, and it means that the "financial loss" premise for this action is invalid. Whatever the actions taken by the defendant, the plaintiff cannot have suffered financial loss because the "currency" in which this loss has arisen has no statutory value.
Re:Virtual (Score:2, Interesting)