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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."

2 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.