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Second Life Copyright Infringement Case
Lucky Cynic
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
SL business sues for copyright infringement
Tue Jul 3, 2007 12:07pm PDT
By Eric Reuters
SECOND LIFE, July 3 (Reuters) - Second Life entrepreneur Kevin Alderman filed a copyright infringement lawsuit on Tuesday against Second Life resident Volkov Catteneo, and Alderman’s lawyer said he plans to subpoena Linden Lab to force it to disclose Catteneo’s real-world identity.
Alderman (Second Life name: Stroker Serpentine) runs the adult-content company Eros LLC. One of the company’s most popular products is the SexGen bed, virtual furniture that contains more than 150 sex animations and retails for L$12,000 (US$45.11).
In “Eros LLC vs John Doe,†filed in the U.S. District Court in Tampa, Alderman accuses Catteneo of illicitly copying and selling the SexGen bed for as little as L$4,000, sharply cutting into Eros’ sales.
Filing a copyright infringement case against “John Doe†is an established practice in Internet cases where the defendant’s identity is not initially apparent, said Alderman’s lawyer, Francis Taney of Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney. For example, the music industry has filed thousands of “John Doe†lawsuits against people it alleges have illicitly shared music online.
Taney said he will seek Catteneo’s identity, chat histories, and financial records from Linden Lab and PayPal.
“Despite reasonable efforts, Eros does not presently know Defendant’s true identity or address but intends to obtain this information by way of subpoenas directed to one or more internet service providers that are likely to have obtained said information from Defendant,†the lawsuit states.
Catteneo told Reuters in a Second Life interview that Alderman had never been in touch with him. Catteneo said he had sold about 50 of the beds on behalf of a third party who pocketed the proceeds.
Catteneo, who declined to provide his real name, said he doesn’t fear the subpoena. “I’m not some kind of noob,†Catteneo said. “My name isn’t on [Linden Lab’s] file. I don’t even have a permanent address [in real life] either.â€
Alderman estimated that Eros has sold 100,000 of the beds. Earlier this month the Amsterdam sims, another Alderman creation, were sold to Dutch media firm Boom BV for US$50,000.
The SexGen beds are sold as “no-copy†objects, normally prohibiting their replication. Alderman said he doesn’t know how a copyable version of his product began to circulate in Second Life.
Alderman said he tried to report the copyright violation to Linden Lab in accordance with its Digital Millennium Copyright Act compliance policy, but that he was told to use the in-world “abuse reporting†system.
Linden Lab was not immediately available for comment.
The lawsuit seeks damages equal to three times the damages sustained by Eros or three times the defendant’s profits. But Alderman said he’s less interested in winning damages than stopping the theft of his property.
“We’re not going to sue him for a million dollars,†he said. “I don’t want to crucify the guy. I’m trying to protect my income and my family.â€
A copy of the legal filing is available by clicking here (7.5 MB PDF file).
Here's the URL to the original story.
Basically a guy made some item in Second Life, in this case, a sex bed with 150 animations that normally sells for $45. The guy found some other user in SL redistributing his sex bed for much cheaper and has since launched an anonymous copyright infringement lawsuit against the guy because he is only known by his in game avatar and IP address. It will be interesting how this plays out since not only is the offender's identity anonymous but also the item is digital. I don't think the courts will throw out this case since it is not exactly chump change. I think we can all expect more stuff like this to go on however, especially with how people can actually make money in these online economies...
Thoughts?
Lucky Cynic on
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Get a real fucking job like the rest of us. [/rant]
On topic I can't see this being legal because I'm sure the Second Life EULA states that anything created in game is actually property of whoever owns Second Life (Linden Labs?) so technically they could sue this fellow for suing for copyright infringement (?). Seems dumb but that's the way some people are.
in other news, how sad is it that the first major case like this involves a sex bed?
"Everyone who is capable of logical thought should be able to see why you shouldn't sell lifetime subscriptions to an MMO. Cell phone companies and drug dealers don't offer lifetime subscriptions either, guess why?" - Mugaaz
Shogun Streams Vidya
I don't play SL but you can take US dollars and transfer them into Lindens or money inside SL. You can actually make real money from the virtual money which is what all the hoopla is all about. This guy, trying to protect his and feed his family by selling sex beds for $45 is actually being shut out by some other user who sells the exact same bed for about $15. As you can see, this means a huge loss in profits for the family man. And yes, he does own the copyright to his own material in the game.
On the other hand, the dude has apparently made around 4 million in real world dollars selling them.
Welp, I'm downloading second life...
however, i admit im not fully versed in sex bed technology, so im not speaking as an expert here.
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Of suicide.
Holy fuck. Guess who is jumping feet first into the sex bed industry!
Doesn't that make it more sad?
In Second Life, animations can be linked to objects. So the sex bed would probably have "handles" which you and your baby furry Gorean lover would click on, select a position, and go at it.
That's how I imagined it working. Sounds really nifty. :^:\
Edit:
I just called my job and told them to shove it, now lets get to making some money on SL!
I thought you were fired over a BS customer complaint from Geek Squad.
That was in October of last year, I've found a job since.
Isn't it amazing at how much information someone willfully gives about themselves freely over the internet.
What? Now you're going to find out where I live?
(Okay... so I know he lives in Dayton, OH... He got fired from a best buy in october... I know his alias is urahonky... that's all I need!)
I bet if I stalked all of your posts, I can gather what kinds of stores you shop at, what games you play (that ones isn't too hard) and what you did last summer.
Back to topic, I think I might actually check out SL just to see how open the create an item tool is, it seems complex enough to make some really cool stuff. Who knows, maybe I too can make some piece of erotic equipment that I can make money off of. Any dancing robot dongs in SL already?
The same way the RIAA does.
How does the RIAA do it?
The same way all those companies sue people who redistribute music on websites but cannot find an author or anything. They basically contact ISPs with lawyers and an IP address, and track the account to ensure it is you, and then pounce.
Okay...? Why would I care that you know what I did last summer (take a wild guess: played video games! ZOMG STALKER!!), what games I play, what stores I shop at, etc.
Seriously. Don't act like you can scare me, Mr. Cynic (omg, I know your last name! lawls!).
And I'm sure my ISP will be willing to give you that information if you called them right now. Please call them.
I still don't see what you're getting at. But whatever.
What they do is collect all IP addresses they want to sue, attach "John Doe" to the thousands of IP addresses they wish to bring to court, and handle all the cases at once.
Since nobody knows they're being sued (as their identity hasn't even been discovered yet), nobody goes in to defend themselves (at which point the case would automatically be thrown out) when the RIAA goes to court, so the judge has no choice but to summarily judge against the numerous John Does.
Flush from their insta-win, the RIAA then goes to the ISP, court order in hand, and tells the ISP to give out all information they have against the IP addresses, otherwise they will be guilty of obstruction of justice or something along those lines, which will get them fined AND sued, etc.
Most ISPs then give out the information to the RIAA, who then go their merry way suing the shit out of the individuals, and since they already have a win against this person (even though they didn't even know who they were suing at the time), they can get the person to usually settle for $10,000+.
It is one of the most unethical methods in blackmailing people, and only recently there have been judges that understand the situation who have begun to tell the RIAA to fuck off.
A virtual sex bed
A VIRTUAL FUCKING SEX BED
Isn't that a bit redundant?
it's because sex sells bro.
If you can make that shit so easily why don't you make a copy anyway and just hand them out for free? What would happen if a lot of people started making high quality shit in SL and just gave them away for free? Would the paid content be forced to progress or would everything just fucking collapse?
Here we play pin the comma on the sentence.
A VIRTUAL, FUCKING, SEX BED
A, VIRTUAL FUCKING, SEX BED
A, VIRTUAL, FUCKING SEX BED
A, VIRTUAL, FUCKING, SEX, BED