Kristan J. Wheaton, an assistant professor of intelligence studies at Mercyhurst College, recently published a note regarding original research into potential Jihadist use of virtual worlds at Sources and Methods. The findings are far less hyperbolic than the usual coverage of this subject, and seem sound. From Wheaton’s post:

A group of five students in my winter Strategic Intelligence class were asked to take a look at “the nature, volume, and likely current use of YouTube, other hosted video sites and Second Life by jihadist networks and individuals, and what will the likely future use of these mediums be over the next 12-24 months?”

Interesting stuff here. From the key findings regarding Second Life:

• “Jihadists are likely currently very minimally using Second Life.”

• “…over the next 12-24 months jihadists will likely begin to explore the ability and utility of the virtual world’s applications for money laundering, communication, and recruitment through propaganda…Use will likely be limited to merely exploring due to currently existing alternatives…”
  

• “The most effective countermeasures will likely rely on a close, working relationship with Linden [Lab] due to the systems in place to monitor financial transactions, avatar activity, and communication.”

The students’ original research and analysis is available via a course wiki.

VB has obtained the Temporary Restraining Order against Brock Pierce (.pdf) granted to Alan Debonneville earlier this week.

The TRO prevents Pierce from “failing to comply with the terms of the settlement” of his bitter legal dispute with Debonneville (one of the co-founders of his virtual property company “Internet Gaming Entertainment”) over certain business deals associated with IGE. For the complete background of this at time highly personal suit, see VB’s complete coverage of Debonneville v. Pierce.

Specifically, the TRO states that the court, after reviewing the record, restrains Pierce from “contacting any bank for Debonneville or his attorneys for purposes of reversing any payment Pierce made to Debonneville under the terms of the parties’ settlement agreement in this lawsuit [...], attempting to reverse any payment made to Debonneville or his attorneys [...], taking any action to sell, assign, [or] transfer [...] any asset owned directly or indirectly by Pierce, unless such action is performed solely to raise funds to be paid to Debonneville, [or] filing any suit relating to the settlement, Debonneville or his attorneys, other than a personal bankruptcy suit.”

The court found that “unless Pierce … is immediately restrained from [these] acts, Pierce will commit these acts, thus causing immediate and irreparable injury to Debonneville.” The harm would be irreparable, the court said, because the acts “would be part of a wrongful scheme by Pierce, already commenced, to attempt to illegally recover settlement payments already paid to Debonneville or to avoid paying Pierce’s settlement obligations.”

A hearing as to whether the restraining order should be made permanent is scheduled for May 5 at 10:30 AM.

Blizzard and MDY have filed responses to last month’s Motions for Summary Judgment in their lawsuit over the popular World of Warcraft automation program “WoW Glider” (now “MMO Glider”). Exhibits include an expert report supporting MDY from Koleman Strumpf (PhD, Economics) of the University of Kansas School of Business.

The Strumpf report counters Edward Castronova’s (PhD, Economics) expert report filed with Blizzard’s motion for summary judgment last month. Strumpf concludes that there is no convincing evidence that Glider harms World of Warcraft or Blizzard — and even argues that Glider my actually benefit Blizzard by increasing playing time and subscribers. Blizzard, obviously, disagrees. The responses also address copyright and contract claims, among other issues.

Here are the documents:

• MDY’s Response to Blizzard’s Motion for Summary Judgment (.pdf)
• MDY’s Response to Blizzard’s Statement of Facts (.pdf)

• Blizzard’s Response to MDY’s Motion for Summary Judgment (.pdf)
• Blizzard’s Response to MDY’s Statement of Facts (.pdf)
• Impact of Glider on World of Warcraft, Koleman Strumpf, PhD (.pdf)

VB has also obtained the complete exhibit packages for each of these motions.

• MDY’s Exhibits (.zip)
• Blizzard’s Exhibits (.zip)

For the background of this case, see VB’s complete coverage of MDY v. Blizzard. Very briefly, Glider is a program that users run along with World of Warcraft. It automates key tasks in World of Warcraft, making it possible to play the game essentially unattended. Glider users can thus both harvest resources and generate high level characters without actually playing. MDY originally filed this lawsuit in federal court in Arizona seeking a declaratory judgment that MDY does not violate Blizzard’s intellectual property rights by selling the Glider program. Blizzard counterclaimed, alleging trademark and copyright infringement, as well as a handful of business torts. The case is now at the summary judgment stage, where the judge will decide any issues that are sufficiently established as a matter of law that they need not go to the jury.

I typically run excerpts from documents like these, but I am on the road this week and unable to do the task justice. Rather than do it poorly or wait a week to share these, I’ll post them now and leave picking through the responses and exhibits to readers. I have read the responses though, and I must say that both sides put forth creative, compelling arguments as to why Glider does or does not violate Blizzard’s copyright and why Glider does or does not cost Blizzard money. These are some of the strongest briefs I’ve read since I started covering game and virtual world lawsuits. Additionally, the exhibits contain a goldmine of information — including deposition excerpts, forum posts, and more.

The best way to read these documents is to start with the responses to the motions, and then move to the responses to the statements of facts — those reference the exhibits directly in context. Note that there may be one or two exhibits missing from the exhibit packs — those were filed under seal and not available to the public.

Download the full documents and exhibit packs if you are interested, and if you find anything particularly compelling, please post a note in the comments.

VB has obtained court minutes (.pdf) indicating that the Debonneville v. Pierce court recently granted a request for a temporary restraining order filed on behalf of Alan Debonneville against Brock Pierce.

The request and the proposed order are sealed, so what, exactly Brock Pierce is restrained from doing is not presently known. [4/30/08 update -- the final order has been filed publicly, more information here.] Plaintiff Alan Debonneville was required to put up a $10,000 bond, which is fairly standard procedure for TROs because it guarantees that the party seeking the order can pay damages if it turns out that the TRO was not justified. A hearing as to whether the mystery TRO should be made permanent is set for May 5.

Pierce and Debonneville are co-founders of IGE, a virtual property company. They have been locked in a bitter, highly personal lawsuit since last summer.

According to minutes (.pdf) obtained by Virtually Blind, Judge Manuel Real of the Central District of California has, on his own motion, ordered a status conference in Debonneville v. Pierce — presumably to ask why the parties have not yet finalized the settlement they reached last month.

Readers will recall that last month virtual property company IGE founders Brock Pierce and Alan Debonneville — who have been locked in a nasty, often highly personal lawsuit since last summer — told the court that they’d reached a settlement on all essential terms. Magistrate Judge Margaret Nagle (who is handling discovery and some pretrial issues in this case) ordered the parties to file a stipulation of dismissal with the Court by Monday, April 14, or else tell the Clerk of Court why they had not. At that time, VB noted that although settlement seemed imminent, with the parties behaving as antagonistically as they had so far, nothing was certain. As it turns out, no stipulation was filed by that date, and none has been yet.

Today, the Honorable Manuel Real, the District Court Judge assigned to the case, ordered a status conference for Friday (tomorrow) at 10:00 AM. This seems to indicate there is — surprise, surprise — some hang-up with the settlement. That alone would be interesting enough, but what makes this the equivalent of must-see-TV for people following game and virtual world lawsuits is the fact that the Honorable Manuel Real (pronounced as in “real world”) has a reputation for running a, um, rather tight ship in his courtroom, and isn’t likely to be impressed with the history of this case or the parties’ behavior.

It isn’t clear if the status conference is to be held by phone or in person, but either way, status conferences are typically held in open court and on the record. If the parties need to discuss specifics of the settlement, however, Judge Real may hold part or all of the conference behind closed doors. For Los Angeles readers with some time to kill tomorrow (who don’t mind gambling a bit of time against the chance that it’ll be closed to the public) Judge Real is in Courtroom 8 at the Federal Courthouse on Spring Street, and the status conference is scheduled for 10:00 AM. If you happen to attend and anything interesting happens, please drop by afterward with a report.

U.S. District Judge James Cohn (Southern District, Florida) recently issued an Order moving the Hernandez v. IGE trial date (.pdf) pursuant to the parties’ joint request last week. The parties had sought a three week trial commencing February 16, 2009, citing the involvement of new counsel for IGE, the complexity of the case, and the fact that the parties had not yet engaged in significant discovery. Judge Cohn acknowledged the parties’ need to move the trial date, but scheduled the trial for only two weeks and calendered a start date of December 8, 2008 — more than two months earlier than the date the parties had sought. He also expressed some dissatisfaction with the progress of the case so far, and noted his concern regarding key aspects of Hernandez’s claims.

For the background of this suit, see VB’s complete coverage of Hernadez v. IGE. Very briefly, the suit involves a not-yet-certified class of users led by Antonio Hernandez, who are suing virtual property dealer Internet Gaming Entertainment (IGE) for diminishing the intended World of Warcraft experience by spamming chat, farming gold, and engaging in a number of other activities that allegedly violate Blizzard’s Terms of Use.

Judge Cohn’s Order gives a fair bit of commentary on the case’s status, and indicates some unhappiness with the lack of progress so far. From the Order:

This case has been pending for nearly one year, having been filed on June 1, 2007. Plaintiff apparently did nothing for nearly three months, until an amended complaint was filed on August 17, 2007 and the single domestic defendant, IGE U.S. LLC was served on September 4, 2007. On September 26, 2007, this Court reset the trial for August of 2008, a sufficient amount of time even for a class action. The parties sought and received a delay in setting the scheduling conference before Magistrate Judge Seltzer. The parties briefly engaged in motion practice, but the motion to stay or dismiss filed by IGE U.S. was withdrawn on December 10, 2007. The foreign defendant was dropped by Plaintiff on December 21, 2007, and IGE U.S. filed an Answer on January 3, 2008.

Apparently, though the parties should have been engaged in discovery at this point, not much was accomplished during the next three months. On March 31, 2008, IGE U.S. changed counsel. It is this change of counsel that is one of the arguments the parties rely upon in seeking a significant continuance in this case.

While the Court will grant in part the extended continuance as requested so as to not prejudice either party, counsel must be aware that this case did not recently begin, and by the time of the new trial date in 2009, this action will likely be one of this Court’s oldest cases. Thus, additional continuances are unlikely.

Also of note, Judge Cohn signaled that he questions Hernandez’ standing to sue and ability to prove liability in a footnote to this Order, writing:

The Court also notes that based upon the minimal record in the case to date, and without of course prejudging any issue, it appears that liability and standing issues seem the most challenging issues for Plaintiffs, rather than the parties’ apparent focus on class certification issues.

Dropping a footnote like this in a scheduling order is somewhat atypical, and IGE will likely take this as a signal that the Court may look favorably on an eventual motion for summary judgment, particularly regarding standing to sue. To establish standing, a plaintiff must show that (1) he has suffered an injury-in-fact; (2) the injury is fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant; and (3) it is likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision. It will be interesting to see how Hernandez handles this, given that the judge has signaled some skepticism.

A number of VB’s readers are lawyers and executives who are interested in virtual worlds, but who don’t have a virtual world presence yet. Setting one up just got a little easier.

Second Life is the leading world at the moment, and frankly, it is a bit of a pain to get started there. The interface is sort of cumbersome and the software requires a moderately robust PC, but most modern systems will work, and most users will be able to figure out how to move around and use the software… with a little help. Help is here; as part of this week’s vBusiness Expo the Clever Zebra people have put together a whole “welcome to Second Life” portal for new users, with a streamlined sign up page and some really good in-world help on the basics (like moving around, finding colleagues and groups, and customizing your avatar).

Bottom line: if you’re a lawyer or executive who has been toying with the idea of getting involved in this space, this is a great way to get started.

From the press release:

It’s Nick from Clever Zebra here. We’re really proud to announce the launch of the vBusiness Second Life Registration Portal today. If you’ve not yet registered for Second Life, please use that link now. You’ll be able to arrive right at vBusiness Central in Second Life where we have a quick and simple introduction all lined up for you.

Clever Zebra did a really good job with the registration portal and in-world build. Here’s a guide to the vBusiness Expo (.pdf) if you need more encouragement. Registration is still open, though I know space is limited. There are a lot of great presentations scheduled for this four-day event, and with the introduction of this portal for new users, it looks like a terrific opportunity to get your feet wet if you’re new to the space. There’s even a virtual law panel on Friday moderated by VB’s Editor. Hope to see you there!

Welcome to Blawg Review #156, hosted at Virtually Blind. Blawg Review is a weekly traveling roundup of legal news from around the legal blogosphere. I’ve followed Blawg Review for a long time, and I’m excited to host it this week. If you’re a regular Blawg Review reader visiting VB for the first time, I hope you stick around. If you’re a regular VB reader already, then I hope this feature will send you on a few interesting side-trips to other legal blogs.

Because virtual law is such a new field (my book, Virtual Law: Navigating the Legal Landscape of Virtual Worlds, is the first book to comprehensively examine this emerging field, and it was published just this month), I am going to structure this post as a set of questions and answers on virtual law. I’ll cover the basics, and will illustrate the answers with links to a number of legal blogs, covering both real-world and virtual world legal issues.

Along the way, we’ll explore this week’s important real-world legal issues, including the Supreme Court’s decision that lethal injection does not violate the Constitution (via SCOTUSblog), the debate over Berkeley Law professor John Yoo’s “torture memos” for the Bush administration (via The Nation), the ongoing Harry Potter copyright case (via the WSJ Law Blog), and other breaking news from the legal blogosphere. First, some questions and answers on virtual law.

What the heck is virtual law?

Well, in a virtual world–

Slow down there, geek. What the heck is a virtual world?

Have you ever played (or watched your kids play) a modern, first person 3D computer game? In these games, you move a character — an “avatar” — on the screen. That avatar represents you. In a lot of these now, there are other real people there too at the same time you are. The whole thing is hosted on a server somewhere, not on your individual computer, so people can participate from all over the world at the same time.

An “ava-what?” I’m bored. I’m going to go read about that guy who told a Fifth Circuit judge he doesn’t read cases on the Legal Profession Blog.

Wait! Come back! I’ll talk about detachable genitals and a video of a 3D computer-generated Harry Potter going to a strip club later on…

Now you’re talking! So what are these anyway, video games?

Some are, but not all of them. Collectively, these places are referred to as “virtual worlds” or “3D networked environments.” In game-based 3D environments, you’re usually fighting monsters, casting spells, picking locks, or shooting bad guys. The most popular game-based virtual world right now is World of Warcraft, boasting over 10 million active subscribers.

If you get rid of all of the game stuff and add in tools that let users build things, you get a “social virtual world.” You can find literally anything you can imagine in these places. Real money — sometimes lots — changes hands. Besides a lot of residents who are making some portion of their real life living in these places renting land, selling virtual products, and offering services, there is also a large contingent of real-life lawyers, executives (via Cisco’s Virtual Worlds Blog), doctors (via Health Care Law Blog), law professors (via Washington & Lee University School of Law and Harvard Law School), and even congresspeople (via Tech Law Prof Blog) who use virtual worlds for education, training, advertising, networking, communication, and more.

The most popular free-form social virtual world for adults at the moment is Second Life, but there are others too, and there are dozens for kids that have even larger subscriber bases. Altogether, there are hundreds of social virtual worlds and games; the industry is booming, but is in a real state of flux.

Okay, but legal issues? Seriously?

Many people, including me, believe that we aren’t just seeing a bunch of play and social places, but the emergence of the 3D internet. Basically, we think that the internet is going to look more like an interactive movie than a newspaper in 5-10 years. If this is right, whatever legal issues you see involving web sites now, you’re going to see involving 3D spaces in the future.

It’s not just the future we’re talking about though — the legal issues, even now, are very real. The reason is mainly that there’s money involved — a lot of money. One estimate puts the market for “virtual stuff” in games and social virtual worlds at well over $2 billion annually already. The property law questions alone are enough to keep a lot of people scratching their heads. There are also potential issues around defamation, intellectual property infringement, fraud, stalking, contract law, and much more. There have even been some lawsuits over this stuff already. Dig around VB a little when you’re done reading the Blawg Review post and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Didn’t somebody on one of the yelling-heads news shows say 3D games and virtual worlds are swamps of sexual content and brain-rotting badness?

Yeah, but she was totally wrong (via GamePolitics). Okay, in truth, there really is a fair bit of sexual content in free-form virtual worlds, particularly Second Life, but there’s a fair bit of sexual content in real life too. It is pretty easy to avoid in both the real world and the virtual one if that’s not what you’re looking for. Last year, Second Life started taking steps to keep the adult stuff somewhat isolated and only available to age-verified customers.

As for violence, there’s definitely adult-level violence in some games (less so in social virtual worlds) and parents should take an interest in what their kids are playing — just like they should take an interest in what they’re watching on television. As much press as there is on this issue, the U.S. game and virtual world industry actually does a reasonably good job policing itself, and the government is actually pretty good about letting the industry sort itself out (a few yelling-heads aside). It could be worse: Germany requires that online game companies appoint a “youth protection officer” (via Andreas Lober, writing for the Davis LLP Video Game Law Blog).

Are virtual worlds the beginning of the end of society?

No, that’s probably going to be caused by a tiny black hole (via Concurring Opinions). Seriously. Well, the odds are pretty low on that too, but it’s more likely than a new communication tool wrecking society. People have been saying that everything from the printing press to the internet was going to turn us all into antisocial shut-ins, and none of them have so far. Well, not much, anyway. What’s that? Not now. I’m playing Civilization IV.

Are there really intellectual property issues in virtual worlds?

You bet there are. If you think the recent copyright case over the Harry Potter Lexicon (summary via the Patry Copyright Blog) shows the extent to which J.K. Rowling can get upset (Techdirt says unfairly) about copyrights, I wonder how she — or Warner Brothers — would feel about an entire Second Life recreation of the key locations from the books and movies where people are selling wands, robes, and even complete “skin” and “shape” combinations that make one’s avatar look exactly like a character from the movies. It’s out there. There’s even a video floating around (on the usual web video outlets) that features Harry Potter and Ron Weasley avatars visiting a Second Life strip club and then performing sexual acts on each other.

Besides Harry Potter, there are whole areas selling unlicensed products based on the Star Wars movies, on Anne Rice novels, and on dozens of other books, films, and television shows. Straightforward trademark infringement is rampant too; there are hundreds, if not thousands, of Second Life users selling knock-off brand name products — like Nike shoes — for avatars.

Why aren’t Warner Brothers, J.K. Rowling’s lawyers, Lucasfilm, and the lawyers for Nike trying to shut this down? Mostly because they, like most mainstream companies whose copyrights and trademarks are being infringed in open-creation virtual worlds like Second Life (via Chilling Effects), have no idea it is happening yet — but that is changing as more and more mainstream companies move into these spaces. Apple is staking out some patent space here (via GigaOM), which could signal an interest in taking its Apple Stores virtual. A lot of companies have already opened virtual world outposts too, including, Herman Miller (via Canadian Lawyer Magazine), Showtime, Dell, AOL, and more than 100 others (via KZERO).

There were even two lawsuits last year over theft of intellectual property between virtual world users, neither of whom was associated with a brick-and-mortar business.

It all sounds pretty odd, right? Well, it’s no odder than IP issues in the real world. This week the great state of Oregon started sending out Cease & Desist letters to websites that republish Oregon statutes (via Oregon Legal Research).

April 26 is World IP Day (via Internet Cases). Celebrate by checking a virtual world for infringement of your favorite brand. Odds are, you’ll find it.

What about Alternative Dispute Resolution?

A recent IPKat post advocates mediation of some IP issues, and that makes a lot of sense both in the real and virtual worlds. Some virtual world organizations are trying to set up justice systems, and the government of Portugal has already set up an ADR facility that takes mediation cases (via National Arbitration Forum Blog). And many lawyers have found that mediation is, generally, a good idea (via What About Clients?).

Of course, ethical negotiation in mediation is a big issue in the real world (via PGP Mediation), and adding a layer of anonymity and the complexities of international disputes should raise even bigger concerns in virtual world mediation. Happily, though, programming tools available in virtual worlds allow the creation of tools like virtual notary services which can help solve some of these problems in ways that just aren’t available in the real world.

Did you say some people are trying to set up justice systems in virtual worlds? Doesn’t that raise constitutional law issues?

Before we get into that, we have to put this all in perspective. It’s been a pretty big week for government and constitutional issues in the real world, at least in the United States. Of particular interest to me (because I’m a Boalt grad) are questions raised by Berkeley law professsor John Yoo’s “torture memo” for the Bush administration — and his academic fate. Sandy Levinson, Jack Balkin, Deborah Pearlstein, Orin Kerr, Stephen Griffin, Brian Tamanaha, Mark Graber, and Dale Carpenter all have interesting posts on this.

There’s also the recent Supreme Court decision in Baze v. Rees holding that Kentucky’s lethal injection protocol does not violate the Constitution. The Court also heard arguments in Kennedy v. Louisiana regarding a Louisiana law that applies the death penalty in child-rape cases. Commentary from Scott Greenfield, Dan Filler, Lyle Denniston, Douglas Berman, Sam Kamin, Alice Ristroph, and Ty Alper sheds light on these issues.

So “governance” and “constitutional” issues in virtual worlds — where we are basically talking about a private company renting server space to users — pale in comparison. But yeah, there are a few efforts out there to create microgovernments in virtual worlds, complete with constitutions, justice systems, and, typically, some kind of democracy. Usually, voting rights are tied to renting “virtual land” (really, server resources that let users keep their houses, stores, and miscellaneous stuff available to other users even when the owner is not logged in) from the microgovernment which, in turn, rents these resources from the virtual world provider.

Basically, a group of people who all choose to share space in the virtual world can vote to make that space look a certain way, to exclude certain groups, to allow or disallow adult content, or whatever.

In the end, though, there’s a lot of trust involved because the guy who rents the land from the provider can basically do whatever he or she wants — and the provider can pull the plug anytime too. At least it’s easier to control voter fraud. Though positive ID for voters is hard in the real world (via Freedom to Tinker), it is fairly easy in the virtual world, at least as far as only letting certain avatars vote — and for in-world governance, that’s all that matters.

A few examples of microgovernments in Second Life are Extropia, the Confederation of Democratic Simulators, and the Al Andalus Caliphate. There are others too; they all offer greater or lesser degrees of participatory democracy depending on their individual model. One that is hoping to create a justice system that works across the whole virtual world (not just on land owned by its creators) is the Metaverse Republic.

Any employment law issues in these places?

There sure are. People are routinely hiring each other in virtual worlds as greeters, receptionists, bouncers, dancers, and more — often for rates far lower than U.S. minimum wage (via VRWorkplace Blog). There are possibilities for real world groups to use virtual worlds for employment related tasks too, as they allow long-distance meetings with a sense of presence that exceeds phone, and even video conferencing. One wonders if virtual “face to face” meetings could facilitate the resolution of difficult situations, such as those described in an article on The Pope and Employment Law (via The Word on Employment Law with John Phillips). Another benefit of semi-anonymous employment could be fair pay for women (via the National Women’s Law Center) and the curtailment of other job-related biases.

Any other legal issues in these places?

As many as you can find on the web itself. I’ve barely scratched the surface.

Did you hear how a woman posted a YouTube video blasting her soon-to-be ex-husband for all sorts of transgressions? (Via South Carolina Family Law Blog, which, incidentally, calls it a terrible idea). How people are trawling the internet for material for custody fights? (Via International Herald Tribune.) Imagine what they’ll be able to dig up in a semi-anonymous virtual world where one of the most popular purchases is a set of detachable genitals (neither male nor female basic Second Life avatars have genitals, but third party designers offer hundreds of different, um… packages) and where about a third of the top 20 Second Life locations are explicitly sexual in nature (via a New World Notes 2007 census, but the number is about the same today).

I’m a lawyer… can I practice in a virtual world?

There are a lot of lawyers advertising their services in virtual worlds already. I expect attorneys using the 3D internet to follow the (sort of slow) path that we did, as a profession, in moving to the 2D internet. Although it took a surprisingly long time for law firms to really embrace the 2D web, most lawyers now do have web pages and some firms are really leveraging the technology. There is even a (somewhat appallingly named) matchmaking service for lawyers and potential clients called “SueEasy” (via Above the Law) on the web now. The 3D internet is coming next, and now is a great time to get familiar with it.

One note, if you are a lawyer thinking about moving into the virtual world as an early adopter, make sure that your virtual world activity is in compliance with your state’s unauthorized practice, conflict of interest, and lawyer advertising rules. A little common sense is all you really need. See you there!

Blawg Review has information about next week’s host, and instructions how to get your blawg posts reviewed in upcoming issues.

Lawyers for both sides of Hernandez v. IGE jointly filed two motions this week asking the court for a status conference (.pdf) and asking the court to extend all key deadlines (.pdf). Exhibits include the first round of each side’s requests for production of documents and interrogatories, providing an early look at each side’s strategy.

For the background of this suit, see VB’s complete coverage of Hernadez v. IGE. Very briefly, the suit involves a not-yet-certified class of users led by Antonio Hernandez, who are suing virtual property dealer Internet Gaming Entertainment (IGE) for diminishing the intended World of Warcraft experience by spamming chat, farming gold, and engaging in a number of other activities that allegedly violate Blizzard’s Terms of Use.

If the motion seeking an extension is granted, trial will be moved out six months, from August 4, 2008 to February 16, 2009. Courts routinely — though not always — grant requests for extensions at this stage in a case. Here, because the sides are in agreement about the extension, because the case involves class action claims, and because IGE just brought in new lawyers, it is likely that the court will grant the request.

More interesting than the motion to extend the case calendar itself are the discovery requests that were attached to it as exhibits. Discovery requests aren’t usually filed publicly. Here, in order to show the court how complex discovery will be (and thus support their claim that they need more time) the parties attached the first round of requests.

For non-litigator readers, here’s a quick break down of the discovery process. In U.S. litigation, both sides send each other these “discovery requests.” The recipient is under an obligation to answer the questions posed truthfully and provide the documents requested — unless there is legally defensible reason not to comply. Sometimes, the fight over whether a party has to comply with particularly contentious requests ends up before the judge, who then either orders compliance or not, depending on the request and defenses.

Although there is a lot of early-case boilerplate here (defining terms, establishing official names of entities, etc.) the latter part of each of these documents provide a rare, early glimpse of each side’s strategy.

• Document Requests from Hernandez to IGE (.pdf)
• Interrogatories from Hernandez to IGE (.pdf)
• Document Requests and Interrogatories from IGE to Hernandez (.pdf)
• Deposition Notices from Hernandez to IGE (.pdf)

Although I do not comment extensively on tactics or issues in ongoing litigation for reasons described here, I will say that there are some pretty interesting requests in these documents, a few of which I’ve excerpted below.

Read the rest of the post »

The folks at Clever Zebra just announced a legal panel for the vBusiness Expo, which will be held in Second Life next week.

The panel will be Friday, April 25th at 12:00 noon, Pacific. It will focus on legal issues associated with doing business in virtual worlds, and will cover employment issues, intellectual property issues, and more, from both a U.S. and international perspective. The panel will be presented as a structured conversation, and there will be plenty of time for audience questions. I’m the moderator, and the panelists are a great group of attorneys:

• Doug Wolf - U.S. and international intellectual property law specialist.
• Dave Elchoness - Employment law specialist and CEO of VRWorkplace.
• David Naylor - Field Fisher Waterhouse (UK) partner; IP, media, and technology specialist, and president of the SL Bar Association.

I’m hoping for a really good discussion. The whole in-world four-day vBusiness Expo (April 24-27) looks like it is coming together really well. Hat tip to Nick and Caleb and the rest of the Clever Zebra folks for putting this together. If you’ve not registered yet, here’s a link to the vBusiness Expo registration page. The whole thing is free, but registrations are limited, so you should probably sign up soon if you’re planning to attend.