what IP "rights?"

I hear the claim that we "own" our created content and that we own the "intellectual property rights" to said content. My question is, what, specifically, are our "rights" in regards to intellectual property?

The TOS seem to spell out, very clearly, in multiple places, that we own *nothing* in "the Service."

Then theres one para that states:
"Linden acknowledges and agrees that, subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, including without limitation the limited licenses granted by you to Linden herein, you will retain any and all applicable copyright and/ or other intellectual property rights with respect to any Content you create using the Service."

As I read this line, it promises that we own whatever the rest of the agreement doesn't take away. We own nothing. We have rights to nothing.

Hey! Linden Labs! "Let me introduce you....to my LITTLE FRIEND!!!"

http://www.hugesettlements.com/articles/Baldwin_Intellectual_Property.htm

To the best of my layman's understanding here's what the LL "IP Policy" means. If you invent a novel chair (for example) in-game, many MMOs would assert that they own that design. When the IP Policy was drafted, the intention was to explicitly not claim LL ownership of your chair design in order to allow players to use SL to create possibly novel devices in vSpace.

Pragmatically, it is difficult or impossible to export your chair from SL. However, that still doesn't mean you couldn't pull the concept of the chair out of the game and patent it, for example.

There is confusing and aparently contradictory language in the ToS because (again, layman's reading) LL does own rights to anything that resides on their servers. So whereas they specifically disclaim real world ownership of the concept of your chair, any instantiation of that chair on their servers totally belongs to LL.

Yes, this is muddy, as are the rest of the IP waters to LL, academics, activists, the world's patent offices, and courts. To my knowledge, LL has not violated the spirit of their IP Policy.

And though I have my own thoughts on the recent LL/GOM dispute, I don't think that was violative of LL's IP Policy. (I say because I expect that someone will bring try to this up as a counter-example and I think in that case the "concepts" involved were as trivial as a "website shopping cart" or "one-click purchasing" which are indeed hotly contested frontiers of "IP".

For example, Tringo was created in SL by Kermitt Quirk. Instead of LL owning the copyrights/patents/trademarks involved with the creation of that game, Kermitt owns them. And the IP rights are not restricted to SL only. The patent at least, may also be applied to the RW (if it was patented). Therefore, when Nintendo came along wanting to create a version of Tringo, they couldn't do it without working with Kermitt to make it happen.

The TOS states that LL has full rights to use the Tringo game as a promotional tool - for SL - without having to pay Kermitt royalties. However, that's all LL gets out of the deal, Kermitt still owns all the IP rights to the Tringo game, and may collect royalties from Nintendo for their use of the game.

I defy this. More on the subject soon.