Virtual Sex Toys + Hacks = Second Life Lawsuit

indeed... definitely a WTF moment

@someguy

actually, it's a civil matter, so 'innocent until proven guilty' really doesn't apply. A preponderance of information is required. Theoretically, if they can prove the IP address of the defendant is the same one tied to the account that did the duplicating and illegal transactions, then, in civil courts, they have a pretty strong case. Hell, a recent RIAA case in Deleuth was held on pretty much the exact same pieces of evidence, and the defendant was found guilty.

What I am really interested in is the application of copyright law in a virtual world. It is my understanding that these products are actually copyrighted by their owners, but how does Linden Labs certify a copyright certificate, and who do they go through?

Furthermore, if the defendant and the co-conspirators (or the other 10 does who were caught in this net) found an exploit, and reported it, will Linden Labs take action against the accounts. I mean, for this to get to this point after it sounds like LL was given a heads up by not only the plaintiff, but by several members in the blogging community, they'd have to do something to save face, and establish that they are indeed in control of their environment.

If anyone's going to go the whole "It's just stuff in a game" line, just remember that you can strip down any and all works into basic formats in the same argument.

Music is merely vibration of air molecules in a certain rhythm. Games are merely 1's and 0's coded into a disc, movies are nothing more than pixels on a screen, books are just ink on paper, computer applications are made up of data chiseled into the hard drive. The list goes on and on. These things, however, are all covered by copyright laws. How, then, should something like Second Life be different? The "it's not real" argument no longer holds any water because half the things we enjoy or use are 'not real,' in essence. The money in your bank account is electronic records of how much money you have. The entire internet is made up of nothing but code.

In this day and age the line between real and virtual goods is slowly, but surely becoming more and more blurred, so what makes people think they can judge what can be counted as 'work' or 'real' anymore? The only thing here is that it's less 'socially acceptable' and that's how people are going off of it.

I'm equally amazed by the responses to this, and by the attitude in the original article. Someone creates something and puts it up for sale (for actual money) then seeks legal action when someone else copies the thing and distributes it themselves. And people think he's being ridiculous?

I wonder how many of these people have ever tried to make money themselves.

If the plaintiffs wins I am going to be rich. I mean who hasn't gotten hacked. So now I can sue all those that have taken items for on Runescape and other game. GO PLAINTIFF!!!!

Yah hmmm... When i get hack on a game i don't sue. I suck it up and i ether quite or I just try to make it back. It not the big of a deal. I am sorry but this is not a legal matter this is matter for the game designers and admins not the courts.

Well, it's definitely a form of plagiarism or stealing of art design. Even if it involves sex toy designers. Yeah. It'd be like someone stealing my design for a website and using it for their website, except instead it involves virtual sex toys.

Personally a cease and desist is probably all they need to do, though, suing over it seems pointless. Unless they want money, in which case it becomes yet another frivolous lawsuit.

Oh, and I believe copyright or something along those lines can take place without a formal copyright written up. It's a lot easier to defend your works without it, but there are basic rights involved if you have written or made a work of art or what have you and you can prove you wrote it prior to the other person (and probably released it publicly, as well, I mean.) You don't HAVE to have the copyright certificate to have copyright rights. Uh, yeah.

Oh, and Second Life is apparently going to be the source of a CBS Evening News story. And yes, it's sensationalist ("SURE IT'S JUST A GAME, BUT IT DEPICTS MURDERS, AND DO YOUR KIDS HAVE TOO EASY ACCESS TO IT?!")

You know I've been waiting for something like this to happen in second life. With the way it is set up it was just a matter of time...

Personally I hope they win and I'll tell ya why. They spent time on those items and if he truely did just steal a copy of them and start selling then he deserves it. It would be akin to someone stealing a game mod, slapping his name on it, and then selling it.

Though my support for the fellow ends if he can not prove that the fellow stole his coding. I think anyone and everyone has the right to make an item "like" his if they put in the work.

This is what happens when you introduce a real world monetary system into a virtual world.

This just reinforces my theory that Second Life is only populated by sex fetishists and politicians.

@dog_welder

I assume those are the only people who would be able to deal with the crappy controls and still want to be there.

personally I, at one time did try Second life, but after about 10 minutes, trying to understand the "flying" controls and how to make items, I simply gave up and resumed playing World of Warcraft (btw, anyone play on tortheldrin here? =p )

@fridgemagnet

While I'm onboard with ya on most your stuff. I just have to say this:

Innocent till proven guilty.

It can "seem" like the dude is guilty till the end of time, but unless they can prove it..... Now don't get me wrong if the dude did steal said items/coding he deserves whats coming to em. Though in a game like that theres only so many ways to code the same effect and you in my opinion can't hold a copyright to that. Perhaps he saw their business and made his own? Sure most likely not, but still...

@dog weilder

I could go into second life for a class on how to make video games. I stopped going after i dropped out of the college. But i still get emails for it.

@someguy: Sure, quite right, and sometimes big content creators in SL are ridiculously snippy about chasing people who have, in fact, just made something that looks like something the creator made.

However, having looked at the screenshots, reading up on the exploit and the history and the letters sent, I'm very very very suspicious indeed, put it that way. This isn't simple stuff to duplicate, it takes a long time to make.

There's a lot more about it on Virtually Blind:
http://virtuallyblind.com/2007/10/27/content-creators-sue-rase-kenzo/

They can say whatever they want to say. It’s a video game. I didn’t know you could sue anyone over it.

Doesn't Second Life's terms of service (among other things) spell out pretty clearly that everything a player creates in the game becomes his or her intellectual property?

yet more proof to my theory that everyone who obsesses over Second Life doesn't have a first one. (also, Germans Love David Hasselhoff)

but i was pretty sure SL has all sorts of things in the ToS to protect against people stealing your crazy ideas.

To clarify, not all of the creators in the suit make sex objects. Nephalilne of Pixel Dolls is a long established clothing maker, as is Munchflower Zaius (Nomine), LeCadre sells a variety of things...

@Ghost coins: if there was a successful court case I think LL would certainly end up banning the avatars concerned, that would be a breach of their ToS. But they're taking a very hands-off approach at the moment as far as I can see, like they usually do with "resident disputes". The account certainly isn't banned right now.

In the past people have been suspended for just _posting_ exploits even after they've reported them, so I doubt that if the defendants actually _used_ exploits, having reported them would save them.

Just pretend it's music and not video game code and there's no question this lawsuit would be a cakewalk.

No really, what the f***?

This might actually be more interesting than people give it credit for. According to the brief, the plaintiffs are claiming they've lost over $75,000 in stolen sales. If the creators have the intellectual property rights to this (SL pretty clearly states they do, and several of the items are actually copyrighted under federal law), then this is, in fact, a pretty hefty theft. The analogy made earlier about this being akin to music piracy is fairly accurate - the defendants took the items sold by the SL merchants, and promptly copied and resold the items without paying the merchant. If this was a real world situation or dealing with pirated music, this would barely register as news.

Yeah, we can all make the jokes about "OMG, stolen virtual sex toys? LOLZ", but there is a legitimate case here. These SL merchants filled a niche, and their sales were demonstrably hurt by this theft. I imagine any judge who is able to get past the 'virtual' part of the suit will rule in favor of the SL merchants.

Addendum: Was only skimming over the brief (IANAL - yet) - the $75,000 may be including penalties sought, and not just lost sales.

@-Jes-: Pretty fair summary of the permissions system, I'd say. What I understand happened here is that items marked "transfer no-copy" (i.e. you can give them to someone else or resell them, but only once, you lose it once you've transferred it as you can't take a copy) were duplicated many times by using an exploit involving server rollbacks. This means you can sell the duplicates, even if you don't, yourself, have full copy permission.

("Transfer copy" permission enables you to sell as many copies as you like, but nobody's fool enough to actually sell items with those permissions unless they want them ripped off everywhere. "Copy no-transfer" is also popular as it means you can make copies of things for your own safe-keeping, in case the server crashes or you delete them by accident, but you can't then sell or give them to other people.)

@neoSpider

Yeah, even I have to agree that the 'code should be free' has some interesting arguments behind it. I kinda straddle the boarder since I work for a commercial software company which also interacts with the open source community.

I think the big issue here is that the artist didn't want his creations to be freely distributed, Second Life had a framework in place to implement that desire, then someone found a way around that. Reselling the items for a profit took away any support the guy might have had ^_^;

For mediums that don't have natural tie ins (Movies have merchandise, music has live shows and merchandise, software MIGHT have 'services') this becomes a big deal. It is tempting to say 'the right balance is hard to reach' but in the end, we need multiple balance for multiple needs.

It is my understanding that these products are actually copyrighted by their owners, but how does Linden Labs certify a copyright certificate, and who do they go through?

The way I understand it, copyright certificates are proof of copyright, but they aren't a requirement for a copyright to exist. The essay I'm writing for my college English class is copyrighted by me automatically because I created it. Hypothetically if someone took it and started printing copies of it and passing them around without my permission I could take action, but I'd have a hard time proving it was mine originally, which is what copyright certificates are for.

Again, I'm no expert on law but that's my understanding. Second Life probably has its own ways to keep track of who made what, so if Linden Labs were willing to cooperate and hand that information over a copyright certificate might not be necessary to prove anything.

Somehow, I don't think the law of the United States applies in the virtual world.