Linden Lab to Be Subpoenaed in Copyright Case

Kevin Alderman (aka Stroker Serpentine) has filed a copyright infringement suit against Second Life resident Volkov Catteneo. Alderman's lawyer, Francis Taney of Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney, plans to subpoena Linden Lab for Catteneo's real-life identity, though the lawsuit also identifies Catteneo as Aaron Long.

Kevin Alderman, who built the first in-world sex bed, runs Eros LLC, a business that among other things sells the SexGen bed for L$12000. In his suit filed in the District Court in Tampa, he accuses Catteneo of copying and selling the bed for L$4000 and hurting Euro LLC's profits at least since April 2007.

Taney plans to uncover Catteneo's identity, chat histories, and financial records. 

In an interview with Second Life Reuters, Catteneo said, “I’m not some kind of noob,” Catteneo said.  “My name isn’t on [Linden Lab’s] file. I don’t even have a permanent address [in real life] either.”

In addition to monetary damages, the suit seeks the "requiring and impounding and destruction of all infringing copies of the Items and of all articles by means of which infringing copies of the Items may be reproduced." 

With all the recent stir over ownership rights and culpability in Second Life, this should be another interesting case to follow for precedents.

Joey Seiler
www.VirtualWorldsNews.com 
joey (at) showinitiative.com
(512) 535-8650
skype: joey.seiler.vwnews

Comments

[Nobody Fugazi]

Very interesting case. If you read through the filing, you'll find that the trademark registration and the copyright application are dated after the alleged abuse had begun - I wrote it up as well - which should not be an issue for the copyright, but tosses the trademark bit down the tubes.

The thing that *is* missing from this case is the smoking gun. Linden Lab would have to validate the claim that it is copyright infringement by comparing scripts and objects, as well as animations. If any one of those matches, then it would be a copyright violation. But there is no real reference to the smoking gun - Linden Lab seems to have to provide that, which should be interesting. Cattaneo's no longer around to look at his profile.

Big question mark on this. How did one verify that the objects were 100% the same? This sounds more like an explorative case...