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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..
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.
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