Eros Copyright Lawsuit Update: PayPal to Identify “Some Kind of N00b”
July 21st, 2007 by Benjamin Duranske
As VB predicted two weeks ago, Reuters is now reporting that the “John Doe” in the Eros litigation left a digital trail that ties his real-life identity to his Second Life avatar, and PayPal is going to provide his name in response to Eros’ subpoena.
He’s not “some kind of n00b” or anything, it’s just a reality of moving money around now; in all but a very few cases, the perception of anonymity is false. Now that PayPal has, apparently, decided not to move to quash, it will be interesting to see what Linden Lab does with its subpoena. They got an extension, so we won’t find out until around August 3.
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4 Responses to “Eros Copyright Lawsuit Update: PayPal to Identify “Some Kind of N00b””
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Real anonymity is effectively dead. That people believe otherwise is nothing less than humorous.
This should prove fun.
I have a feeling he’s about to find out just _what_ kind of n00b he is.
[...] I hope to find out later today if Linden Lab is going to join PayPal in voluntarially complying with the Eros subpoena, but in the meantime, American.com has an interesting article up suggesting a change in civil procedure to make it harder to force companies like Linden Lab to comply with requests for the real-life identities behind avatars. From the article: [W]hen lawsuits involve subpoenas to uncover the identities of virtual avatars—or, for that matter, pseudonymous bloggers and blog commenters—both state and federal rules of civil procedure likely need to be reformed so that plaintiffs will need to satisfy some clear standard before they can force pseudonymous Internet users into the open. My suggestion: Plaintiffs should have to discuss the merits of the case itself in a fashion specific enough to survive a motion to dismiss—and thus to justify discovering the identity behind a particular avatar. [...]
[...] PayPal, which was also subpoenaed, had previously indicated it would comply, according to Reuters. Reuters also reported that Linden Lab had been granted an extension to last Friday, August 3rd. Taney confirmed today that no motion has been filed to limit or quash the subpoena. Bookmark this post on: [...]