Legal Committee

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Comment by Anne Pinchera on September 17, 2009 at 7:21am

From what I saw recently, there are a number of issues against SL. It will be interesting to se how the courts deal with this.

Comment by James Gatto on September 16, 2009 at 9:33am

Hi everyone. Many of you may have seen this but if not there was an interesting case just filed against. Linden. Here is a brief summary.
Eros, LLC, a seller of virtual adult products in Second
Life, filed a class action against Linden Research, Inc., in the Northern District of California. Also named as a plaintiff Shannon Grei. The Complaint alleges that Linden is infringing upon the plaintiffs¹ trademarks and Grei¹s copyrights, and is liable for contributory and vicarious trademark and copyright infringement, other state law claims were raised.
The number of lawsuits in this area is likley to increase and this is just one indication that this is happening.

Comment by Anne Pinchera on September 14, 2009 at 1:04pm

Connie -

Do you mean lawyers in general? I would think it depend on what the lawyers specialize in before determining the importance to them. Personally, I have experienced plagiarism first hand – not once, but twice. The first time was in undergrad days when a fellow student chose to copy all of my papers and submit them to the same professors I did the original work for. How dumb is that! Dumber yet was me for letting him see what I submitted never suspecting he would copy them. HA! Did you know about the legality there? I didn’t! Never let anyone see what I wrote again! The second time was a small local shopper plagiarized all my writings for a neighborhood newsletter and wrote it under a staff writer byline. What was that saying about fool me once?
This is simple plagiarism. But today with the Internet and all of the electronic media options, I think lawyers need to be well informed. There are so many things that can be stolen or copied. For me, this is a big deal. As a Prior Learning Assessment Coordinator and author for much of the coursework, there is a great deal of haggling over who owns what. I have a student in my program that just found another instructor stole his material. His question to me was what can he do about it since it was posted on the Internet through a school site. I anticipate this will soon become a big legal deal as soon as he is finished with my program.
As for your question…. Hummm… maybe this is a whole new area of law.

Comment by Connie J. Mableson on September 14, 2009 at 10:45am

Curious as to how you would answer this question. Thanks for your input!

*Why* is it important for lawyers to know about virtual worlds?

Comment by Anne Pinchera on September 14, 2009 at 8:35am

Hi all

I am sorry I am getting a late start. I have been watching the posts, but was just slow to respond. Recently, I put together a CD - more for my own use - on Intellectual Property and Copyright both document and Internet.

I do like the idea of creating a White Paper - any of the mentioned ideas will work. My 2 cents is that we start with something small and add too it - kind of like a work in progress. So much changes so quickly, I wonder if this would not be the best was to work on something like this.

We may want to begin with the last post????

Comment by Lorraine Emerick on September 11, 2009 at 3:06pm

http://www.3dtlc.net/2009/09/enterprise-notice-trademarking-your-avatars.html

Comment by Lorraine Emerick on September 11, 2009 at 3:05pm

I thought the Legal Committee would be interested in this news:

"Enterprise Notice: Trademarking Your Avatars
Law.com recently reported that Aimee Weber (real name Alyssa LaRoche), a Second Life character, applied for, and was granted, registration to for her avatar as a design mark for "claims computer programming services, namely, content creation for virtual worlds and three dimensional platforms in International Class 42." What does this mean to business and avatar makers?"

Comment by Dan Rosenthal on September 11, 2009 at 11:18am

Hi all. I just recently finished my panel on legal issues in gaming at PAX this year; I'm more than happy to offer my two cents from the MMOG side of virtual worlds, as well as my perspective as an MMO game designer. Cheers.

Comment by Connie J. Mableson on September 10, 2009 at 11:06am

Hi everyone! Thanks for the invite James. I look forward to participating and meeting all of you.

Comment by Lorraine Emerick on September 2, 2009 at 8:27am

James, thank you for inviting me to the group. I'm not a lawyer either but am in the insurance industry - where there is law...there is insurance :)

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