Second Life roiled by by Linden Lab's DMCA policies

Cyndy Aleo-Carreira — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:38:07 -0700

It seems that he Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is the topic du jour. From the current AP flap to the music industry, intellectual property and the legal issues that surround it are being debated everywhere, including the virtual worlds.

Second Life is having its own issues with DMCA enforcement as well. Piracy in the virtual world is a hotly contested issue made all the more difficult because every object in a virtual world can be subject to copyright. Our own Ian Lamont had noted the issue that many Second Life content creators had with piracy concerns a year ago, and apparently, residents still have those same concerns about Linden Lab enforcement.

With a virtual world like Second Life, DMCA take-downs can have a relatively simple solution: simply delete all copies of the offending item. As the blog post notes (along with several commenters), the process is flawed and isn't completely transparent. Some users who lost items may not have been aware that the items they had in their inventory were copied illegally.

As in the real world, Second Life intellectual property can be a money-maker. The content created, however, is relatively easy to copy and redistribute, which makes piracy an almost foregone conclusion. In addition, DMCA complaints are often filed as a form of griefing, even with the huge fines that can be levied for false DMCA claims. The struggles over intellectual property may be magnified in the virtual world, but they are also mirroring the same issues playing out in the real world.

More news, commentary, and predictions from The Industry Standard:

Prediction: Second Life usage will not break 40 million user hours per month by the end of 2008
Analysis: Sony's PS3 Home timeline goes from bad to worse
Analysis: The real reason Microsoft won't bring Blu-ray to the Xbox: HDi
Analysis: Independent gaming could flourish on the iPhone

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Second Life roiled by by Linden Lab's DMCA policies