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."

Comments

Re:USA laws don't apply there

[sohare]

Why should a virtual not be beholden to the laws of a specific nation? Frankly, the game is a service put out by a company and they should be, like every business, subject to the laws of the particular nation they operate out of.

What really irks me is people who try and make the case that the internet is its own reality.

copyright gone awry

[nanosquid]

a Sex Gen is kind of a machine that manipulates avatars into various positions. [...] Alderman said Volkov Catteneo is not the only avatar who has done him wrong. "A lot of people copy me, copy my work, copy my ideas," he said. "Because it's an anonymous platform where you're an avatar cartoon character, as opposed to a real-life person, people think they can operate with impunity."

He's basically talking about animation files. Now, if people literally copy the bits in his animation files, that would be a copyright violation; he'd have a case. But SL makes it pretty hard to do that, and that doesn't sound like what he is complaining about.

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.

Re:copyright gone awry

[man_ls]

It's common in real life, obviously, but in the world he is voicing a complaint about, it's some proportion of novel and non-obvious. Copyright infringement happens when you create a derivative work from an original as well, importing many characteristics of the original. Also, since technically the sex animation is a computer program of some sort, and computer programs are covered by copyright law, it's pretty easy to make the claim that someone who stole and slightly-modified a product to resell is violating his copyright.

Let's instead liken this to fan fiction vs. commercial fiction. The original producer of the SL sex device wrote a series of novels, developed characters, etc. in a coherent world and sells them. Someone else comes along and without permission, begins to write other novels using the same characters, world and stories and sell them in competition with the original author. That is, clearly, not permissible.

Re:copyright gone awry

[nanosquid]

It's common in real life, obviously, but in the world he is voicing a complaint about, it's some proportion of novel and non-obvious.

The ability to create avatar animations is built into the system. Not only is it obvious, it's documented and exists there specifically for this purpose, with the expectation that users create, distribute, and improve life-like animations.

Copyright infringement happens when you create a derivative work from an original as well, importing many characteristics of the original.

That sentence is wrong. Yes, copyright infringement occurs when you create a derivative work, but "importing characteristics of the original" is not necessarily "creating a derivative work".

Let's instead liken this to fan fiction vs. commercial fiction. The original producer of the SL sex device wrote a series of novels, developed characters, etc. in a coherent world and sells them. Someone else comes along and without permission, begins to write other novels using the same characters, world and stories and sell them in competition with the original author. That is, clearly, not permissible.

But that analogy is wrong: there is nothing particularly creative, novel, or distinctive about his animations; he is simply trying to create life-like motions. The proper analogy would be that someone writes a boy-meets-girl-boy-loses-girl novel in ebook format, and then claims that all future such novels violate his copyright--clearly unreasonable.

Furthermore, prohibitions against fan fiction are usually not based on copyright but trademarks (specifically, trademarks on the names of characters and places).

Re:Remember when games were just for fun?

[GigsVT]

Nothing happened. Second Life isn't a game, any more than the web is a game.

Just What We Need More Of.....

[IHC Navistar]

The Old World had:

1. Lawsuits.
2. Taxes.
3. Life

So what does the New World have?

1. Virtual Lawsuits.
2. Virtual Taxes.
3. Virtual Life.

Kinda makes you wonder if people are really as stupid and detached from reality as they act.....

The important thing here...

[Guppy06]

is that selling sex toys in Second Life apparently pays more than a unionized contracting gig like plumbing.

Don't See Anything Wrong

[phalse phace]

So this guy is complaining about competition? As long as the sex toys are not exactly the same, then I see nothing wrong.

Alderman said Volkov Catteneo is not the only avatar who has done him wrong. "A lot of people copy me, copy my work, copy my ideas," he said

This is like HP complaining that Lexmark copied their work/idea about selling printers and expensive inkjet cartridges.

Someone needs to go out a get a third life.

Re:USA laws don't apply there

[MMC Monster]

What if the owners of Second Life were to change their operations to another country. Say, one that decided that all enforced different laws about art and wished to execute not just artists, but those that supported artists in second life?

Not a good idea to support real-world laws to a digital world.

Re:USA laws don't apply there

[Don_dumb]

I hope to god that Jack Thompson doesn't read that post. Who knows what damage he could do with a quote.

Re:Virtual

[Kjella]

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.

Look, as much as I hate taxes, if there's anything I hate more there's an unevenly applied tax. Particularly in SL where it sounds like you're actually coding new items and you get paid in a currency that's officially convertable to USD, is there any reason this should be any different than if I hire a US developer to some coding work for me, payable in NOK? If so, I'm going to build a virtual world with virtual x86 machines where people work on virtual software, and I don't need to pay taxes. Then I'll copy-paste the software out in the real world and sell it. Think the IRS will buy that?

Re:Secondlife Copyright Lawsuit

[Slashcrap]

The articles that were being sold were digital duplicates.

Look, here's how it goes. If your business model is based on the assumption that people can't make exact digital duplicates of your products, then you are fucked. No ifs, no buts, it is a bad business model. And for a business like that, profitability is a very, very temporary state. Using realworld legal action to try and protect a business model like this is the epitome of stupid. You made some money, the flaws in your plan were exposed and now you're trying to get a court to fix it for you. Businesses fail all the time, your's is nothing special (except in humour terms).

I can only assume that you don't realise this because your world view has been distorted by spending too much time in Second Life. This can easily be fixed. Simply go to the nearest (real) bar and explain to each patron in turn what Second Life is. Then explain what Dildonics is. You may as well also mention Furries and Yiffing, because lets face it they probably feature heavily amongst your customers. Finally, round it all off by telling them all about your business and how you're actually going to a real court to sue an unknown person who is copying your digital creations. Let us know how many people didn't laugh at you.

personally....

[josepha48]

.. I think these people need to get a first life before they can have a second life... I guess the reality of being a plumber sucks and his real fantasy is to be selling sex toys... dude f*** the lawsuit and start selling sex toys on line 4 real!

ROFLOL