'Second Life' Sexual Genitalia Spawns Lawsuit
Second Life is becoming more and more of a mirror of the real world. Real estate, relationships, sex and commerce. Where there's commerce, there are lawsuits. The 3D virtual world now has its first, not-so virtual, copyright lawsuit. Kevin Alderman, owner of SexGen, is suing an avatar (virtual game character) named Volkov Catteneo.SexGen changes your Ken and Barbie-esque 'Second Life' avatar into an anatomically correct model with 3D-rendered genitalia. The software package also adds a collection of "sexy" animations for your avatar to perform.
Alderman alleges that the man behind Volkov cracked his copy protection scheme and sold illegal copies of the SexGen software. When confronted, Volkov taunted Alderman saying, "What are you going to do? Sue me?" So Alderman sued him. The case is rooted in basic copyright infringement law, and is drawing attention more because of the sexual nature of the content and the fact the lawsuit started in a virtual world.
From USA Today
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Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
webby @ Aug 23rd 2007 7:08PM
What the hell is this now?
joi @ Sep 4th 2007 9:26PM
Would this not be classified under the "Intellectual Properties " laws??
Jeffery Feingold @ Sep 9th 2007 12:53PM
I do have some fear about this. What I've seen called a SexGen bed uses freely available public pose scripts and poses. The creator of the Sex Gen bed is saying the copy cat stole his code.
So it seems either the copy cat used free code instead of the original scripts or the SexGen creator used free code to start with.
This is the first lawsute but not the first time someone accused someone else of stealing.
A diffrent example would be one guy hired a builder to make a fantastic replica of a populare World War II gun and used it for a finished working weapon that owes it's popularity to the code.
Others have made replicas of exactly the same weapon.
So this guy just presumes every replica is a prim copy of his. He just can't believe this weapon can be reproduced by so many diffrent builders.
Same issue I think. It's not even that hard to make a sex bed. They have been around for a long time. Mostly using the same free scripts.
Maybe there is an issue with the name "SexGen" seeing how it is unique but I seriously doupt any code theft happend here.
Keanu @ Sep 18th 2007 6:47PM
It's about people not having lives playing second life (which is a bs comment) or that it's a "game". The problem is that a person invented a product, that many people have bought and will buy. He makes large sums of Lindens which I'm sure he's traded in for American dollars. Some jerkoff comes along, steals your product info, slaps a new name on it and sells it like they came up with the design is crazy. Yeah I'd sue him. If he stole something of mine and caused me to lose business, yes I'd sue. It's not like it was a similar product, it's the exact item renamed.
Drew @ Nov 15th 2007 6:46PM
Hasn't Microsoft made a booming business out of taking an idea that wasn't theirs and making it their own? Whats the difference?
art @ Nov 20th 2007 11:31AM
If he can prove in court it's his creation and nobody else's, he should sue. Just because it's a game or a virtual world doesn't make it less of a crime. It's intellectual property. As the article says, the case is rooted in basic copyright infringement law. However, if he can't legally show it to be his exclusive creation, then he's trying to cash in/take credit where it isn't due.
Melissa @ Mar 12th 2008 12:14AM
Keanu, thanks for putting that so well. And for those who think gamers need to "get a life"...I would say creating ANYTHING is more of a life than mindlessly staring at a TV, which I'm betting you are doing instead of gaming, or anything creative.