Virtual Kiddie Porn in Second Life

[CmdrSlack]

Arguably the first trademark lawsuit in SL and it involves a brand of sex toys.

Rad.

[cmlancas]

Woo, tbo.com! And I thought it was only a POS site that told me of movie times and things that were going on in the Tampa Bay area.


Anyway, I think that unless this guy registered a copyright, he is straight out of luck. On the surface he looks like he is trying to cry monopoly and the courts won't give a rat's ass. However, if the other guy is simply jacking his idea and slapping a new label on it, he might have a case.

[Strazos]

I'll never understand some of the VW stuff that occurs in something like SL. I'm not talking about the perv shit. I mean, why would you pay Rea, Actual money, for a shirt that doesn't even exist? It's bit of data sitting on a server somewhere.

[Hellinar]

I mean, why would you pay Rea, Actual money, for a shirt that doesn't even exist? It's bit of data sitting on a server somewhere.

Heh. You're actual money is usually just bits sitting on a server somewhere these days. Things have value because people believe they do. Everybody believes the bits on their bank computer are valuable. A few people  believe the bits on the Linden computers are valuable. Its the same principle though.

[CmdrSlack]

Woo, tbo.com! And I thought it was only a POS site that told me of movie times and things that were going on in the Tampa Bay area.


Anyway, I think that unless this guy registered a copyright, he is straight out of luck. On the surface he looks like he is trying to cry monopoly and the courts won't give a rat's ass. However, if the other guy is simply jacking his idea and slapping a new label on it, he might have a case.

He may actually have a valid trademark claim. The thing here, if I read the article correctly, is that someone else is selling stuff with the "SexGen" name. It's not a matter of re-selling (which may not be possible depending on how the guy sets the object permissions), it's a matter of using the trade name/mark to sell a competing product. Just because it's in SL and not in the real world doesn't really change that.

It'll be interesting to follow if the press keeps up with it enough.

[Numtini]

It looks like the person has used some kind of exploit to copy the bed. You can set things for no-transfer and no-copy, but there have been exploits to get through that. If that's the case, he has a perfect case because the scripting code and textures will be copyrightable. Probably also the animations inside.

[CmdrSlack]

It looks like the person has used some kind of exploit to copy the bed. You can set things for no-transfer and no-copy, but there have been exploits to get through that. If that's the case, he has a perfect case because the scripting code and textures will be copyrightable. Probably also the animations inside.

Ah yep.  Looks like technically it could be a trademark and copyright case...or perhaps the article is wrong is saying "trademark." Now I'm curious as to whether the guy has a registered trademark or not. Time to hit up the USPTO website, I guess.

[cmlancas]

Ah yep.  Looks like technically it could be a trademark and copyright case...or perhaps the article is wrong is saying "trademark." Now I'm curious as to whether the guy has a registered trademark or not. Time to hit up the USPTO website, I guess.

Sigh. I wish I had time to do crap like this in my free time or at work. Retail sucks. Why can't I be doing something more fulfilling?

Imagine if the courts decided to not to uphold the copyright, stating that the items are really in possession of LL. o.O

[Furiously]

Ah yep.  Looks like technically it could be a trademark and copyright case...or perhaps the article is wrong is saying "trademark." Now I'm curious as to whether the guy has a registered trademark or not. Time to hit up the USPTO website, I guess.

Sigh. I wish I had time to do crap like this in my free time or at work. Retail sucks. Why can't I be doing something more fulfilling?

Imagine if the courts decided to not to uphold the copyright, stating that the items are really in possession of LL. o.O

Then he turns around and files a civil suit against LL's.  My guess is he didn't patent or copyright it and the courts will decide due to that rather then have to set some sort of precedent.

[CmdrSlack]

Ah yep.  Looks like technically it could be a trademark and copyright case...or perhaps the article is wrong is saying "trademark." Now I'm curious as to whether the guy has a registered trademark or not. Time to hit up the USPTO website, I guess.

Sigh. I wish I had time to do crap like this in my free time or at work. Retail sucks. Why can't I be doing something more fulfilling?

Imagine if the courts decided to not to uphold the copyright, stating that the items are really in possession of LL. o.O

Then he turns around and files a civil suit against LL's.  My guess is he didn't patent or copyright it and the courts will decide due to that rather then have to set some sort of precedent.

Simply creating it generates copyright. All the "file it with the Library of Congress" stuff isn't really necessary unless you want to get all particular about specific aspects of the copyright act. For the purposes of anyone using SL, simply creating is enough. Also, since the LL TOS allows the user to retain rights, there's not much room for an argument that the items belong to LL. Unless you mean, "neither party really has claim to the stuff, so there's no true copying."

Given past precedents about copyright (stuff like "Loading an OS creates a copy sufficient to infringe copyright...when it loads into RAM), I'm willing to guess that there's enough copying to do something.

Oh yeah, so I checked with TESS (the USPTO database) and found this. So, basically, the guy DID register a trademark....back in June, likely in preparation for this lawsuit.  Woot.

ETA -- Also, this ain't a patent case since there's really nothing to patent here....unless he somehow came up with a software invention...and I doubt that. Fuck, I think software patents are weak sauce anyway.

[HaemishM]

And so it begins. Strange that what will probably be the landmark virtual property rights case is in Second Life, and could have been completely avoided had Linden Labs set up some kind of SL Court to handle disputes of this type.

[CmdrSlack]

And so it begins. Strange that what will probably be the landmark virtual property rights case is in Second Life, and could have been completely avoided had Linden Labs set up some kind of SL Court to handle disputes of this type.

Doing that further jeopardizes their service provider status. Not to mention that if I was their general counsel, I'd be really afraid of running afoul of all kinds of practice of law issues, not to mention impartiality issues -- it behooves LL to slob the collective knob of its best content creators. They *might* be able to set up an arbitration panel, but that would be similarly problematic from a fairness standpoint.

Personally, I love all of these lawsuits, because they justify a series of papers I wrote for various classes in my LL.M. program. At the time, it was just academic wankery for grades, but now I feel vaguely prescient. Or something.

[Numtini]

Actually there's nothing about virtual property or anything new here. The author can claim copyright on the programming code in the device and the textures. As well as the trademark. No need to go anywhere near virtual property.

[CmdrSlack]

Actually there's nothing about virtual property or anything new here. The author can claim copyright on the programming code in the device and the textures. As well as the trademark. No need to go anywhere near virtual property.

People will call it virtual property-related because it involves crap in a VW and, well, the media BJ that SL received a few months ago has to be worth SOMETHING.

[Numtini]

Well also the cheater cheer squad wants everything to be about virtual property as well. They've totally misrepresented SL's intellectual property rights in that respect to use it as an example of their "right" to cheat in other games.

[CmdrSlack]

Well also the cheater cheer squad wants everything to be about virtual property as well. They've totally misrepresented SL's intellectual property rights in that respect to use it as an example of their "right" to cheat in other games.

Are you talking about RMT here? I keep forgetting that there are still people who think it's cheating. I gave up on the idea of the magic circle years ago.

[Furiously]

Didn't the client also go open source a little while ago? (Not the sever source)

Yes. I understand the number of memory leaks is dropping very fast as people review the code.

I thought this was interesting:
 

2007 June                            2007 July - MTD Description              Sinks (L$)        Sources (L$)        Sinks (L$)        Sources ($L) Classified Charges    23,859,671    0                         4,959,979           0 Group Creation Fees  2,270,200         0                              467,400          0 Land                      1,322,901        10                            31                  0 Supply Linden Sales    0              161,836,659               0                     52,574,702 Parcel Directory Fees    3,417,030      0                        895,080           0 Referral Bonus                0                  2,356,000             0                 608,000 Stipends              6,750         135,688,850         2,000             34,676,800 Upload Charges          21,158,530    0                       4,543,050            0 Other                      65,920,454    9,115,214               9,667,071           1,427,505 TOTAL                    117,955,536   308,996,733          20,534,611     89,287,007

So - there are ~75,000 people who get a monthly supply of money ($9.95 per subscriber=~$750,000) and it looks like people bought $600,000 USD worth of currency. Maybe they are not looking to sell - maybe they are looking for bigger moneyhats and hotter hookers.... The only problem I see is the sink of $118K is grossly smaller then the faucet of $309K.

[Lantyssa]

Can you [ code ] that please?

[Furiously]

http://secondlife.com/whatis/economy_stats.php I'll just link to it as the formating is a pain.