http://virtuallyblind.com/2007/05/29/…gold-farmers…/

Where the money is, lawsuits are pretty inevitable.  In this case, Eros was making enough to make this worthwhile.  Also, from what I know of the guy behind it, he’s probably hoping to help establish a legal framework for asserting virtual IP rights with this suit.  Overall, I think it’s good for the grid to get a decision or two behind the TOS provisions that say you get to keep the IP you create in some vitual worlds.

I can create a cube prim. You can create a cube prim. We can texture them similarly, and we can put a script in them so that the prim screams when touched.

Can we sue each other for a copyright violation?

Let’s say you make a prim as described, and I come along and say, “Oh, he used a library texture and an open source script”. Can I then not use the same texture, the same script, and create the same thing? Of course I can. But would I be violating a copyright?

The bed itself consists of prims, textures and scripts. The key to this, I think, would be the scripts, as well as animated 3d poses. There was no indication in the filing that the scripts are the same.

A source claiming to have insider knowledge of all of this swore that the beds were the same. I am unconvinced.

‘If the script doesn’t fit, you have to acquit.’

This does bring in open source licensing, believe it or not – something which Linden Lab has no inherent copyright protections for. Further, it may be able to be demonstrated that the Sex Gen bed itself uses the same script! Which script came first? Ouch.

This is especially important given that there IS an open source script out there which behaves the same as a ‘sex gen bed’.

And as far as trademark, even if they get past the fact that the trademark filing happened after the alleged abuse began… in some places, a soft drink is a Coke, regardless of the flavor. In Second Life, a sex bed is often called a sex-gen in the same way. In fact, changing people’s vocabulary that way may work against Eros in a business sense… but in a legal sense… I’m not convniced.

There’s no specifics as to how the copies were made, and a lot of people have focused on that, but it’s less important than it might seem in copyright law.

For example, if I print up a dozen copies of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, by Benjamin Duranske,” Scholastic would easily win a suit against me whether or not they have video of me typing it into Microsoft Word. They just let the jury look at both and determine if there was “access” and “substantial similarity.”

Regards,

-Flip

This gets into the nuts and bolts of litigation a little bit, but basically, whenever documents are produced they’re stamped (now, it’s typically done electronically) with little numbers. For instance, these documents might be stamped LL-1 through LL-200 (or whatever). In addition to the number, documents are frequently stamped with a confidentiality legend. One is “Highly Confidential – Attorney Eyes Only.” Documents marked like that can’t be shown to the client, and it’s frequently done that way to avoid exactly the problem you’re describing.

The big question is whether Linden Lab would view itself as having any obligation to do that under the terms of service and any privacy policies, and without more research, I just don’t know the answer to that. I’ll do a little digging and see what I can come up with. Any readers already familar with the possible provisions that would govern this?

Resident A competes economically in Second Life against resident B. Resident A sues resident B in case without merit. Linden Lab happily hands over a lot of irrelevant information to resident A’s lawyer.

Chat logs include discussions about new products and personal discussions that could damage resident B’s business reputation, but otherwise are not wrongful.

Resident A is now within arm’s length of information that can be used as competitive business advantage and other information that can be “leaked” to ruin competitor B’s business.

Congratulations Linden Lab for respecting your privacy policy and setting such faith inducing precedents.