Updated: Eros Lawsuit's John Doe Has a Name

Someone using the Second Life avatar "Volkov Cattaneo" previously boasted to Reuters that he had in fact copied the beds produced by Eros LLC in Second Life, but that his identity was untraceable due to the false information he'd provided Linden Lab. Now an amended complaint names Robert Leatherwood, of North Richland Hills, Texas, as the John Doe. Eros had sought his name through subpoenas of both PayPal and Linden Lab. Looks like it worked.  [via Virtually Blind]

Update: Reuters has the full story and information on Leatherwood, who denies that he's Cattaneo.

“The only defense they had was the grandmother said he [Robert Leatherwood] had severe attention deficit disorder and perhaps didn’t understand what he was doing,” said  Richard Slatkin, a private investigator hired by Eros' representation.

Frank Taney, who represents Eros owner Kevin Alderman, said the Leatherwood family had 20 days to move forward on a settlement or he would begin the discovery process of taking depositions from all involved.

[via Reuters]

Comments

[csven]

Besides the IP issues, I'm curious to know how Mr. Leatherwood is going to answer questions from friends/family regarding his choice of activities ("You was doin' wha? piratin' "sex beds"? What da hell are you? Some kinda registered pervert?").

[Ric Mollor]

This will be very interesting to follow. Has Volkov Cattaneo actually copied the SexGen bed or simply *created* a work-alike copy? Will it be possible to tell? There are rumors that at one time a security bug in the SL server code allowed users to change the an objects creator field to whatever they desired. If this is true then even if the questionable beds list Eros as the builder the identiy of true designer may be in doubt.

Also, isn't the bed is based on an open source script that carries the BSD license? If so, a competitor was certainly bound to appear eventually. And certainly Eros doesn't have any patents on the concept of using scripts to animate Second Life avatars.

A interesting lawsuit worthy of attention even if one has no personal interest in sex beds.

[Prokofy Neva]

And...how do you know that it isn't the granny selling the sex beds -- and using them?!

[csven]

From the Tampa Bay tribune:

"Although he acknowledged having access to the Volkov Catteneo account and using it, he said it's 'not officially mine.' "

Wordsmithing. No avatar is "officially" ours anymore than users "own" the land; Linden Lab is the game god that controls them (starting off by limiting the users choices of names).

Let's assume this kid didn't create/register the avatar. If we consider the avatar and its actions to be "real", then by virtue of the teen's *apparent* admission of having access to the avatar account and at least partial control of it, there's a strong argument for his being guilty whether or not it was he who personally engaged in the activity of which he is being accused.

In a bank robbery, law enforcement doesn't just arrest the member of the gang who carried the money out; they arrest the entire gang... including the guy in the getaway car. The U.S. government doesn't just hunt the terrorists lopping off heads, they arrest those people who channel funds to them.

If granny *is* involved, then that just means Eros has two people to sue, assuming the Tampa Tribune is accurately reporting his admission of account access. Personally, I hope she is. It'd make for a more interesting case.

[Randy]

More interesting is that there is now sense of some kind of brand protection. An ability of the creators to move against piraters in an arena where they thought they had absolute protection and anonimity.