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Designer Fights For Second Life Rights

Posted by Soulskill on from the get-a-first-right dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A London-based industrial designer has had his work ripped off in Second Life and is now looking to file a DMCA grievance against his client. Commissioned to recreate the French Quarter in New Orleans, the designer, Gospel Voom, spent six months on the project, only to sign on to Second Life after its completion to find it was deleted by the client. She claimed it was taken down because it wasn't making money. However, despite having signed a contract that let Voom retain creative rights over his work, he later found out it was sold to another community, OpenLife, without his knowledge or permission."

5 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. Doesn't take Karnak the Magnificent... by daniel_mcl · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... to see how this thread will go. Soon it'll be flooded with debates about virtual property, whatever that means, and whether you should be able to prosecute someone for murdering your Elf Lord or whatever. The fact is that this guy was commissioned for an artistic project, retained full rights, and then had his property deleted. Take an entirely analogous situation: suppose that Ray Charles -- whose contract stated that he owned the original masters of all his recordings -- goes into a studio to record an album, and the studio subsequently throws said recordings away. Ray would have a pretty solid case, and so does this guy. This case has nothing to do with the MMO aspects of the incident; however, I can solidly say that at least half the population of Slashdot will *make* it about that, somehow.

    --
    I used to read Caltizzle. I was a lot cooler than you.
    1. Re:Doesn't take Karnak the Magnificent... by stephanruby · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Soon it'll be flooded with debates about virtual property...
      [...]
      I can solidly say that at least half the population of Slashdot will *make* it about that, somehow.

      This debate isn't about virtual property, it's about stolen credit.

      This guy basically negotiated the fact that he would get credit for his work. The original client resold his work (erasing all traces of his authorship). And adding insult to insult, the original client is telling people that the author's original work was so bad for its purpose, that it was purposefully destroyed (this isn't what I'd call a great reference by the way). If I was that original artist, I would certainly be pissed.

    2. Re:Doesn't take Karnak the Magnificent... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      1. "retain[ed] creative rights" is nowhere near "retained full rights", so you're wrong on that account.
      2. The deletion is probably irrelevant. Just because Voom "retain[ed] creative rights" almost certainly does not mean Second Life could never delete their copies. But I've done independent coding under similar conditions, and I don't think I've ever had a "You must keep this forever" clause, and I seriously doubt Second Life did.
      3. The sale may or may not violate the contract between Voom. Without a contract to examine, it's impossible to say. I've never seen a contract that prohibited the buyer from selling to someone else the entire package of what I sold them.

      And finally, if the "there's no such thing as IMAGINARY property" folks ran the world, Voom would be totally SHIT OUT OF LUCK here, because once the code/product was in Second Life hands, without the concept of intellectual property Voom would have no claim at all.

      Even more interesting, Voom's claims, if true, are almost certainly based on COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT.

  2. Re:Virtual Court? by SL+Baur · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You're incorrect from what I read from the article. He did not sell all rights to his artwork and it was basically moved to a different game with his name removed.

    I can see his point, but if he didn't have it in a contract in writing, he's probably screwed. I sympathize. My only real payment for my Open Source work in Linux is that if you grep for my name in the various ChangeLogs, you will find it. I do feel his pain.

    Oh, look, I can already see in the distance the World of Warcraft players flooding into Slashdot to tell people to get a first life.

    /rude

    That was uncalled for.

  3. Re:Clear case of copyright infringement by SvnLyrBrto · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Honestly... After years upon of goatse.cx, tubgirl, and penis bird links; can you blame someone for not clicking on a link out from slashdot?

    And no, the link being in the summary is no protection. I recall at least three separate cases when some poor individual had his server crushed by a slashdotting and did a redirect to goatse.cx out of either spite or mischievousness.

    --
    Imagine all the people...