Second Life sex program lawsuit
by Alexander Sliwinski 
{ Aug 11th 2007 at 8:27PM }
A sex program for virtual world Second Life has forced its owner to hire real-world lawyers to hunt down the identity of a person who has been allegedly reselling his work. Kevin Alderman, who created the sex program and owns Eros LLC, makes realistic genitalia and creates sexual moves for Second Life citizens. He's been doing it for about four years now. An avatar named "Volkov Catteneo" stole the code Alderman created and has been reselling it. When Alderman confronted the avatar, the person behind it said, "What are you going to do? Sue me?" And that's exactly what Alderman is trying to do.Linden Labs, who owns Second Life, says they are unaware of any other real-world litigation going on between customers of the game. The key to this suit is that items created by users in the game are "owned" by them, along with the copyright. Although this suit involves the titillating concept of sex, it's your run-of-the-mill copyright infringement and theft story. Alderman's suit does not specify damages but his lawyers are currently subpoenaing PayPal records and putting together the virtual paper trail of theft. Fred von Lohman, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, locks it up saying, "This seems like a relatively straightforward case. It sounds like there is a real copyright issue."
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jouten @ Aug 11th 2007 8:43PM
Interesting. The line continues to blur between Real Life and Cyber Life.
Definitely interesting to see how this turns out.
Neebs @ Aug 11th 2007 9:03PM
I, for one, could care less about Second Life.
Ocho @ Aug 11th 2007 10:12PM
That is to say, you couldn't care less about Second Life.
Billiam247 @ Aug 11th 2007 11:59PM
Grammer FTW!
konajinx @ Aug 12th 2007 12:08AM
Kelsey Grammer, perhaps?
ShortFuse @ Aug 12th 2007 12:43AM
It's not grammatically incorrect. It's a common phrase, as wrong as it sounds.
http://dictionary.reference.com/help/faq/language/g09.html
Zombie Dog @ Aug 12th 2007 12:56AM
You can always care less. It's a nonsense phrase that means you still hold whatever you're talking about in some esteem. The better thing to say is "I, for one, like Second Life." That's more concise.
Of course it's not grammatically incorrect. It's a perfectly cromulent sentence.
If you meant that you couldn't care less about Second Life, I'm with you.
jcmschwa @ Aug 12th 2007 11:38AM
i feel like joystiq commenters have gotten more intelligent since the upgrade to the new layout...anyone see that trend as well or is this just a rare occurrence right here?
Neebs @ Aug 12th 2007 2:46PM
Or perhaps they've not gotten smarter, just more easy to distinguish by avatars? E.g., I'm clearly the guy with the Is It A Spider Avatar, whereas many others I recognize have variations of Mario.
StrangeBum @ Aug 12th 2007 3:15PM
Wasn't the argument about the phrase 'Could(n't) care less...' on Joystiq not too long ago.
Whatever, I agree with Jouten though, the line between Reality and Cybereality is constantly becoming more and more blurred, and this is just one more step up the ladder.
hvnlysoldr @ Aug 11th 2007 9:49PM
People should stop playing Second Life and instead play 4th Life. With the power of the 4th Dimension!
Misquito @ Aug 11th 2007 10:30PM
Because when i want to have sex, I think Second Life.
ssuk @ Aug 12th 2007 5:04AM
Sadly, some people do...
BPM @ Aug 11th 2007 10:33PM
Hmm... Interesting.
On one hand, I think, "lol Second Life."
On the other hand, they do have a point, since the users, not Linden Labs, own the content they create, I guess.
Plus, I hate smartassed brats. Go for it, Alderman!
Ratchet the Lombax @ Aug 11th 2007 10:54PM
The only real reason I could see for having virtual sex would be if you and your mate were not together for some reason. Say one was in the army and the other was at home, with this program and an erotic phone call it could get interesting.
All in all I don't see this program being nearly as lame as those sex games on the PC where there's no one playing with you. At least with this you have another person at the other end to interact with. Either way I have no interest in such things as I prefer the real thing.
Anthony @ Aug 11th 2007 10:58PM
And you call yourself a gamer? For shame
Cal @ Aug 12th 2007 2:42AM
Second Life has voice chat now, apparently.
Mabui @ Aug 11th 2007 10:58PM
.. Second life is just ripe with strange news.
Naota @ Aug 11th 2007 11:11PM
i really dont care about second life, but i hope that guy hangs!
Word of the street. @ Aug 11th 2007 11:11PM
First I want to say man I wish I had photoshop those avatars you people do are really cool.
Second,something like this happened to the PSP homebrew community once.Someguy stole a program of some other dude develop and he was taking credit for it and selling it in the web(Ebay),the other guy was all "WTF?",I think he sue him as well but I dont know what happened mostly because I didn't care.
Seriously I dont know how can anyone sue over the right of an unlicensed(Well I dont know if it is licensed which would be weird) program or mod.
Third,The internet is for porn but this is ridiculous.
Catprog @ Aug 12th 2007 12:36AM
The things is you own the copyright for anything that you create in second life.
Word of the street. @ Aug 12th 2007 1:20AM
Even the commercialization rights?
Psaakyrn @ Aug 12th 2007 1:49AM
Then you probably lack imagination. There's a LOT of things which is for all intents and purposes impossible to perform IRL. (see also: furry fandom)
But for that case, I frankly would suggest text-based programs. There's only so much you can do in a imaged environment due to inadequate precision of controls.
gameplayFanBoy @ Aug 13th 2007 12:01PM
People who use the acronym "IRL" casually make me chuckle inside.
Crono @ Aug 13th 2007 10:17AM
Bow chika...
...Bow wow
TheSarge00 @ Sep 20th 2007 11:05AM
Wow - what are the statistical odds of finding an entire gaming forum where not one of it's members has .. "taken matters into their own hands" while viewing a bit of inspiration... especially since it's a behavior you even find in lower primates, much less the first neolithic man who went off to the bushes clutching his little carving of the Venus of Willendorf, to "umm... worship the goddess"...
Never tried virtual sex in SL, mainly because I'm happily ensconced with a first life partner, but I imagine it would be more satisfying than hiding in the bathroom with the faucet running while ogling the Victoria's Secret catalogue, because at the other end of those pixels in front of you is another living breathing person as happy to be there as you are.
It's a disconnect a lot of people, both in and out of SL, have - that just because it uses game mechanics, that it's a game. SL is a communication system. As valid as your phone, or email, or IM's. It's a way for one individual to impart information to one or more others. Sure, where there's a communication system, some folks are going to use it for sex - "See cave painting Og make? It HOT!". However, plenty of others use SL for all manner of other purposes.
Dunno bout you, but I got pretty tired of game theory whose main accomplishment is for you to "kill" x number of pixels to gain x number of points and advance to bigger tools to kill the same pixels in drag.
Personally, I much prefer setting my own goals, my own milestones creating something that not just any user can accomplish just by being there.
If you can write off the validity of virtual experience then why are you expecting anyone to take you seriously here in a forum, in the form of words rendered by pixels, transmitted over phonelines... written words that are by their nature, one of the first forms of virtual communication?