VB runs “Virtual Law Quicklinks” whenever we have a backlog of interesting items that aren’t big enough for full posts. Here’s today’s batch.

• Brooklyn Law Review just published a student note on defamation in virtual worlds that is worth reading. The author is Bettina Chin. I should have run this a couple of weeks ago, but it slipped through somehow. Hat tip to Greg Lastowka over at VB’s more studious neighbor, Terra Nova, for catching it as part of his regular virtual law update. I don’t agree with every one of Ms. Chin’s conclusions, but her analysis is sound, the article is very readable, and she raises interesting points. One highlight: “[I]n order to bring a justiciable claim of defamation to a real-world court, the Second Life plaintiff must be able to prove that defamation of her avatar is equivalent to defamation of herself.”

• Also worth your clicks are three articles from Dove Lane focused on government, business, and non-profit organizations in virtual worlds. I just added Dove Lane to my morning stumble through the virtual world blogosphere, and have been uniformly impressed with the quality of Kaye Vivian’s stuff so far. These three are part of a series called Virtual Worlds: At the Tipping Point at Last.

• Finally, Orient Lodge — a satisfyingly difficult-to-pigeonhole blog by Aldon Hynes — is running a post on one of the first trademark cease and desist letters I’ve heard of sent from a mainstream business to a virtual world business. Neither the trademark holder or the in-world (Second Life) business is named, but post is interesting nonetheless, and I’ll be watching closely to see how this plays out.

The Second Life Patent & Trademark Office, has opened its doors, offering Second Life users a suite of new intellectual property protection tools. The SLPTO, now in live, free, open alpha-testing, is the brainchild of Second Life developer ‘FlipperPA Peregrine‘ (Tim Allen) and Michael Eckstein, an international IT business consultant and former CEO of a Blue Shield technology subsidiary.

The SLPTO plans to eventually offer a full suite of intellectual property protection tools, including individual item registration, automated DMCA notices and copyright applications, limited edition numbering, and private, time-stamped storage of evidence of creation. The SLPTO’s web site is now live, and users can register and experiment with some of the tools under development. Peregrine noted, however, that the service is in alpha, and that the ToS and Privacy Policy are not yet finalized. “We’re adding new features daily,” he said, “and still finishing our legalese.”

VB interviewed ‘Peregrine’ about the new service. We discussed the tools available at the SLPTO, the recent content creator copyright lawsuit, and Linden Lab’s handling of in-world copyright infringement allegations.

Virtually Blind: What is the SLPTO?

FlipperPA Peregrine: SLPTO stands for the Second Life Patent and Trademark Office. Before anyone states that we are trying to be the government, the most important thing to say is what we are not. We have no legal authority, nor do we have any special power over Linden Lab. However, we are a neutral third party where you can register dated information, some public, and some private, about your creations. We hope to be a suite of tools for content creators to help protect their intellectual property, educate creators on their rights, and add value to their products.

Many Second Life creators don’t have the means to afford the hourly rates of an attorney; we hope to automate some processes, such as DMCA notices and copyright applications.

VB: Why did you create the SLPTO?

I’ve been in Second Life for four years now, and as it has become exponentially bigger, so have the problems with protecting one’s intellectual property. Not a day goes by now where I don’t hear of a problem of intellectual property theft. Some people seem to think that anonymity gives them the right to steal, as we’ve seen with the World Wide Web. I’m a Second Life content creator myself, and good friends with many: some attended my real-life wedding, and I’m married to a Second Life clothing designer.

Over the years, I have become close to many content creators – and their concerns – by founding and running the popular web shopping portal SLBoutique. The chief concern I’ve heard over the years from creators is protecting their intellectual property. Many Second Life creators don’t have the means to afford the hourly rates of an attorney; we hope to automate some processes, such as DMCA notices and copyright applications. We hope to educate on the differences between copyright, trademark, and patent. We hope to add value by allowing creators to sell their items as registered, numbered limited editions.

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Virtual law is in the mainstream news media today. The recently-filed lawsuit in which six major Second Life designers are suing Thomas Simon, a New York man who allegedly used the avatar ‘Rase Kenzo’ to make thousands of copies best-selling in-world items, has landed on the front page of the inimitable New York Post.

The headline? Booty and the Geek. The article includes a picture of Simon, several quotes from the plaintiffs, and a few comments from the defendant, including a claim that he views Second Life as just “a video game” in spite of the fact that more than a million U.S. dollars change hands in-world every day.

For more on the story, see VB‘s earlier coverage of the lawsuit.

Six major Second Life content creators have filed a lawsuit (.pdf) in the Eastern District of New York claiming copyright and trademark infringement against Second Life user Thomas Simon of New York, who allegedly exploited a flaw in the Second Life software to duplicate thousands of copies of the creators’ products.

Simon allegedly sold copies of the creators products to other Second Life users as Second Life avatar ‘Rase Kenzo.’

The allegedly infringing items represent nearly every type of product for sale in Second Life including avatar clothing, skins and shapes, scripted objects, furniture, and more. All of the products allegedly duplicated appear to be covered by plaintiffs’ copyrights and trademarks.

Plaintiffs claim that Thomas Simon, a Flushing, NY resident, used and continues to use the ‘Rase Kenzo’ avatar to duplicate and sell unauthorized copies of the plaintiffs’ products, mainly through scripted in-world JEVN vendors, avatar-to-avatar transactions, and virtual “yard sales.”

This guy cherry-picked from every major designer in Second Life, and then duplicated all of it over and over and over.

One of the six plaintiffs is Eros, LLC. Eros’ CEO is ‘Stroker Serpentine’ (Kevin Alderman in real life). Eros brought a similar suit against a John Doe defendant earlier this year. The other five plaintiffs are also well known Second Life content creators. They are DE Designs, Inc. (‘DoC Eldritch’ in Second Life), RH Designs (‘Rebel Hope’ in-world), Le Cadre (‘Asri Falcone’), Nomine (‘Munchflower Zaius’), and Pixel Dolls (‘Nephilaine Protagonist’).

Over 150 screenshots showing alleged copies of the creators’ products placed in activated vendors (allegedly for sale) and boxes (allegedly for duplication) owned by ‘Kenzo’ are available via an anonymous Flickr album. The album has been the subject of intense speculation in the Second Life blogosphere since it appeared three weeks ago. It is directly referenced in the complaint, and appears to have been created for this litigation.

“If you look at the pictures [on Flickr] you can see boxes and boxes of this stuff,” Alderman said. “This guy cherry-picked from every major designer in Second Life, and then duplicated all of it over and over and over the same way. He has thousands of these items.”

According to Alderman, many of the allegedly infringing products were originally marked “no copy” and “no transfer,” meaning that it is theoretically impossible to replicate or sell them in Second Life.

Alderman said that he believes Simon took advantage of a fairly well known Second Life security flaw that allows user to make unauthorized duplicates of items by moving the objects from their inventory to the world (causing them to be registered on the server) during times of heavy lag or, in a related exploit, immediately before a server crashes or is rolled back. When the server catches up to the requests, duplicate items are created.

We sent a cease and desist letter and a settlement proposal, and the nature of the response established that this guy controls the ‘Rase Kenzo’ avatar.

Each of the creators is identified in the complaint with a real name. Though all except ‘Hope’ have previously made their identities known, the creators are aware that this suit will invite greater scrutiny into their real lives. “Unfortunately, that’s part of this,” said Alderman, “because legal action is our only real choice, we end up having to give up some of our own privacy.”

The alleged association between defendant Thomas Simon and the ‘Kenzo’ avatar (left, skysurfing in his Second Life profile picture) appears conclusive. Frank Taney, a partner with Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney who represents the plaintiffs in this case, said that it was not necessary to bring a complaint against a fictitious defendant in this case because a combination of real world and in-world communication with Thomas Simon pre-filing established that Simon controlled the ‘Rase Kenzo’ Second Life account.

“We sent [Simon] a cease and desist letter and a settlement proposal,” Taney said, “and the nature of the response established that this guy controls the ‘Rase Kenzo’ avatar.” Besides Simon, ten fictitious defendants are also named as part of a civil conspiracy. This makes it easier for the plaintiffs to add additional named defendants if discovery reveals potential co-conspirators.

We originally tried to go through Linden Lab. Everybody filed DMCA notices. We filed support tickets and abuse reports. We even sent a letter to Robin and copied Philip. We got nothing.

Alderman said the lawsuit follows over six weeks of fruitless negotiation. “We had hoped to resolve this without filing a suit, but that hasn’t happened.”

Plaintiffs, who have managed to keep the potential lawsuit extraordinarily quiet given the scrutiny of the Second Life blogosphere, were apparently hoping that Simon would want to preserve the reputation of his avatar. “The guy has been on the grid for two years, and he ran a DJ business,” said Alderman. “He’s pretty well known.” Alderman said that the Plaintiffs recently offered that if Simon would cease his allegedly infringing activity, surrender his inventory of allegedly duplicated goods, and covers the plaintiffs’ expenses, plaintiffs would not file the suit, “and he basically told us to take a flying leap.”

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