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eBay Virtual World Delisting Skips Second Life

Posted by Zonk on from the selective-process dept.

As a follow-up to last week's eBay delisting story, CNET has the word that Second Life content is exempt from this decision. Mr. Durzy, speaking with CNET, specifically cited Second Life content as exempt because of the uncertain role of the virtual world. As the company (and the rest of us) are uncertain whether to label Second Life as a game in the first place, player-created content is still sellable via eBay auction. A perfectly fine explanation, but GigaGamez takes things a step further, pointing out that eBay founder Pierre Omidyar became a major investor in Linden Labs in 2004. It's uncertain if this constitutes a conflict of interest, because confusion about what exactly Second Life is persists pretty much everywhere. Just the same, it's interesting to note. Their article on the subject also has a few words of commentary from Edward Castronova, the well-known commentator on all things RMT.

4 of 42 comments (clear)

  1. Pretty Simple by Bieeanda · · Score: 5, Informative

    Unlike the average MMO, where all assets virtual and physical belong to the company and not the end user, stuff that players create within Second Life is their own intellectual property. It's not a matter of SL being a game or not at all, but rather a function of licence agreements and design philosophy.

  2. Re:The Big Difference... by brunascle · · Score: 2, Informative

    Another thing to note is that Linden Labs (Second Life producers) explicitly stated the users own copyright of their own in-game creations.
    bingo. IIRC, eBay justified the delisting by pointing to the already-existing section in their terms of use that said something to the effect of "If it's not clear you own the copyright of the item you're selling, you cant sell it."
  3. Re:RMT?!?! by rrhal · · Score: 2, Informative

    OK - you have a point that RMT is not in your current list of accronyms but if you read the article that this article is a follow up to you will see RMT defined for you in the first paragraph.

    They did link to an article that was posted 4 days ago here on slashdot that was all about RMT. Perhaps they gave us credit for being able to remember that far back.

    --
    All generalizations are false, including this one. Mark Twain
  4. Re:It's not a game.... by Peganthyrus · · Score: 3, Informative

    "Snow Crash" is a bible around Linden Labs. They've explicitly said things like "we're trying to create the Metaverse" in the past.

    --
    egypt urnash minimal art.