Slashdot Mirror
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."
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..
Naaa, he should just go on Cyber Jerry Springer or Cyber Maury and present his case to the people.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
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.
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.
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?
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
I bet anyone who read that will never look at Pinocchio the same.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
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?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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.....
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
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
I'll believe in corporations having personhood when Texas executes one... - advocate_one
is that selling sex toys in Second Life apparently pays more than a unionized contracting gig like plumbing.
Actually, SL is pretty good about IP. You can imbue items with "no copy" proprties and stuff like that.
Posting from a Wii btw.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
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.
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...
http://secondlife.reuters.com/media/SDOC1202.pdf
You could read the court filing, instead of guessing.
He's claiming both trademark and copyright infringement. It looks like the emphasis is on the trademark, since that's a more clear cut case.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Belgian police patrols Second Life to prevent rape
The articles that were being sold were digital duplicates. The plaintiff was selling them based on the popularity of our "SexGen" line. This is not a matter of competition, it is a matter of exploit and theft. All the scripts, animations and sounds were identical. We would not have brought this suit to court otherwise.