Intellectual Property and Law

US$4,500,000 even. I guess Stroker is more than able to pay for a good lawyer. I also hope it will be a costly experience for the copyist... would be a nice warning to future copycats.

I wandered into a resale store earlier today, upon entering the store you get a message regarding copybot protection, which was ironic considering they were selling items that have been ripped off from clothing designers.

That is true. The skin is only copyright protected because I used my texture on it. Of course other people can create a skin as well.



Of course, when you break it down to "a ball with a light in it" it becomes too simple to be legally protected. But list all features (3 light sources, colorable / hideable on click, tintable backdrop, hideable floor, etc.), and at some point you'll have something complex enough that it would be an infringement if someone copied not only the "sphere + some lights" concept, but also the overall design and the majority of the scripted features. At least when the creator patented it.

It means (my guess) that, by uploading / recreating something in SL that you have a patent / trademark on, you agree that LL may store it on their servers and distribute the object data to every user who happens to come close to your objects (the data needed for rendering & displaying the object). Otherwise you'd be able to sue LL in case of a patent breach, since they worked together with the copycat by delivering the needed data. "All purposes" = all purposes of Linden Lab, not of every single resident.

In court, it will be judged based on the level of similarity. It doesn't matter WHY it's so similar. In other words, it doesn't matter how you create an 1:1 or even a 90% copy; permission bug, CopyBot or recreated with your own hands, a copy is a copy.

I hope this does go to court, not because I necessarily want to see the other guy get the book thrown at him, but because it will serve as a good guide for future reference. If the guy intentionally made his product look just like the original and packaged it to try and fool people into thinking that it was the original product then I'd think it's a pretty valid case. If the guy just made his own bed with sex animations in it because he thought it was a good idea then it should be tossed out of court.

Of course it matters why. Noone can create a sexbed and have it *not* "closely resemble" a sexgen in appearance, animations and interface.

Nowhere in any press coverage I read does someone allege that it's an outright actual (full or partial) copy, but apparantly the court document is more clear on that.

I hope the judge and jury have to try them both out so they can tell if there's a difference.

heh.

In this particular case, from the copier's statements, it seems he meant to hurt Stroker and I agree. But for general things it would be a nasty precedent.

Sometimes someone creates purely as part of expressing themselves... but, because of the nature of SL, even something that someone just puts together in a sandbox is potentially a "product" and they automatically have the ability to manufacture unlimited copies of it.

It's wholly bad for everyone if we start arguing that because it is a potential product and because they have that manufacturing capacity (even though they can't choose to give it up), they can be sued under the kind of law and for the kind of damages that would be reserved IRL for dedicated companies with huge factories. The only response is to start getting paranoid and checking that nothing they are making is "too close" to what someone else does, and that's a huge amount of work, so most likely people will just choose not to create at all and that would tear out the heart of SL.

The *copyright* side of the case will be judged on similarity, but for a very specialized usage of "similarity": how much the "copy" resembles the "original" in ways that distinguish the original from all the other products of a similar nature. And for this, the very restricted claim of copyright over only the 2D artwork--essentially, the packaging--is probably easiest to demonstrate. Well, maybe not. If it turns out that the defendant came into possession of a legal full-perm version of the original work through no illicit means--e.g., if the complainant gave one to the defendant, or a third party created the work for the complainant without a contract barring redistribution to the defendant, or any number of other scenarios--then the complainant would have to demonstrate that the defendant was contractually encumbered from using those permissions to make and sell more copies. The suspicion that these may have been legal copies is raised by the fact that they seem to have been similar in ways for which no copying technology is known to exist. (That is, the scripts; I stand corrected--thanks, Kitty--on the ability to make illicit copies of animations. Of course, the scripts, too, could have been reverse-engineered to imitate the ways they are distinct from vanilla MLP, but anyway I'm only speculating that this case might ultimately turn into a messy contract dispute instead of a clean copyright case.)

This whole case is setting a hugely negative precedent!

They can't and haven't, to the best of my knowledge, copyrighted stormtrooper armor, or tie fighters. They can, and i expect have, trademarked the words like stormtrooper and tie fighter. And they can copyright specific images containing tie fighters and storm stormtrooper armor such as the ones that constitute the star wars movies. But only the specific expressions of an idea or information can be copyrighted. The underlining ideas may or may not be patentable but they are not copyrightable. I would be interested to see the source of your information. Please feel free to IM me inworld.

It's actually interesting to think about the example of stormtrooper armor. I mean, you can certainly copyright a sculpture, so why not stormtrooper armor? Then again, you can't copyright a bulletproof vest, so why could you copyright stormtrooper armor? Here's where we get to the real nub of the matter, what people have been bringing up again and again, that without specific details about both the complainant and alleged copy we can't tell anything. Judgements about IP rights are a somewhat nebulous and subjective thing, dependent on context and other factors. As much as people would like there to be a simple checklist of criteria that yields a definite yes or no, that's just not how it works.

furniture coyrights and the like is not enforced by the DMCA, however if its an ORIGINAL idea, meaning they did not see it in a mag and went oh that looks good i think ill make one in SL, then you may have a problem. and only IF she put a patent on the idea, design, texture etc(yes i looked into it as my partner and i may be branching out into some furniture pieces, if not sets).
they only way they may have a chance is if, like i saw earlier you copied it down to the script, and from what i read you didnt.

sidenote: last night i went furniture shopping, and saw a few stores with the same basic designs, differences being textures and scripting...do they sue each other? or live and let live? sighs i for one am kinda fed up with the whole, i came up with it first you have robbed me of future profits etc etc etc complaint, when in actuality, all you did was( in some cases) take somethign you saw RL and remade in SL. so what will You do when IKEA, JC Penny's, Macy's, Gucci, Louis Vitton and the like decide to sue the recreaters for copyright infringment?
when will this stop? where does it stop?

ps. my partner said if the script/animations were copied, and its an original one created by the maker, they may have a case. i stand corrected.

I'll answer this here instead of inworld, if you don't mind, since several people said that something like a Lightsaber™ or an Imerial Stormtrooper™ armor can't be copyrighted and / or George Lucas' henchmen would widely ignore and never pursue copyright infringements.

First link, a DMCA complaint against a website owner who used Star Wars related content:



I found especially one sentence interesting.
Quote:
"Those motion pictures and the characters and unique elements which appear therein (the "STAR WARS Copyrights and Trademarks" are protected by the copyright and trademark laws of the United States and other nations."

The characters and unique elements that appear within the motion pictures are also copyrighted, it seems, not only the trademarked item names.

As for Imperial Stormtrooper™ armor:



Quote:
"Lucasfilm Wins Lawsuit Against Stormtrooper Pirate
October 11, 2006

The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California has awarded Lucasfilm Ltd. $20 million in damages in a copyright infringement and unfair competition case against the British firm Shepperton Design Studios and its owner, Andrew Ainsworth.
The court found that Shepperton Design Studios had been marketing unlicensed copies of stormtrooper helmets and costumes, and TIE fighter pilot helmets from the Star Wars films, as well as making misleading claims about the authenticity and origins of these items.
[...]
"We appreciate that Star Wars has sparked the imaginations of fans around the world," he (H. Roffman, Lucas Licensing) said. "We would never want to discourage fans from showcasing their enthusiasm for the movies. However, anyone who tries to profit from using our copyrights and trademarks without authorization crosses the line; they become an infringer and we will go after them."

And even a Lightsaber™ is a trademarked / copyrighted item (someone doubted that earlier):



Quote:
"Lucasfilm Ltd. Wins Case Against Illegal Lightsabers
January 24, 2007
[...]
U.S. District Judge Ronald M. Whyte of the Northern District of California, San Jose Division, permanently barred Osburn and High-Tech Magic from using the trademarks and required that the company not sell "any facsimile of a lighted or glowing sword ... and/or parts designed to enable others to build" the infringing lightsabers.
"Lucasfilm is very serious about protecting its intellectual property rights," said Howard Roffman, President of Lucas Licensing. "We will diligently pursue companies like High-Tech Magic that try to make a profit by infringing our rights."
[...]
As in previous cases, Roffman emphasized that fans who are simply showcasing their enthusiasm for Star Wars are not at risk. "Our goal is to go after and shut down businesses that are trying to make a profit off of creations and properties that do not belong to them," he said."


But I have to agree with Ravenhurst that these cases are mostly over trademarks, not only the mere likeness to a Star Wars™ related item (although High-Tech Magic was disallowed to sell "any facsimile of a lighted or glowing sword" in the case above). You are right that Lucasfilm / Lucas Licensing has pretty much everything trademarked that appears in their movies, even words like "The Force™" (according to ).

It is possible that one could market an Imperial Stormtrooper™ armor under a different name, without any hint at the Star Wars™ universe. I wouldn't want to risk it though. Besides, everyone who illegaly sells Star Wars™ merchandise will use trademarked product descriptions like Lightsaber™, because no one is going to find a "Strange Glowing Sword" or a "Science Fiction Soldier Armor" in the classifieds or on SLX.

/Edit: Sometimes even non-profit websites get targeted by Lucasfilm, like the owner of the website Tatooine.com:

/Edit2: Made the links clickable with "img" instead of "url" tags, just read that this tag still works.

I can shed some light on the Sexgen case that may clarify things:-

The item being sold is not a SexGen bed, it is the single prim base that is linked to a bed (or other object) and contains all the scripts and animations to make the item SexGen.

It is not "similar" or "reverse-engineered" it is a direct *100% identical digital copy* of the original, right down to the packaging textures showing the trademarked name "SexGen".

Someone mentioned MLP, FYI SexGen is not MLP it is entirely proprietry code owned by Eros (Stroker's RL company).

That would be a copyright violation then.

This isn't an easy question to answer, actually. You can't sort out copyrights/patents/trademarks on general descriptions of facts; the answers are driven by specific facts.

If you do not think that you are copying someone else's work, then let the other person get you that letter from his or her attorney. Let the other person's attorney do the initial legal research for you, and hand it to you in a letter.

Of course, the other person's attorney could write a letter to you that blows a lot of smoke. On the other hand, if you don't receive a letter at all, then maybe the attorney had to give his or her client the bad news that the claim just doesn't pass the laugh test.

I think quite the opposite. If the copies are identical including scripts (and especially if bearing the same creator identity), then the only known means of creating such a copy is with a full-perm instance of the product. Unless it can be demonstrated that copies were--or at the very least, could have been--obtained by some other means, the presumption must be that the creator explicitly granted copy permission to some recipient by supplying them with a full-perm copy. At that point, a claim of copyright would be absurd unless the parties had contracted to restrict the permission grant.

(That's not to say the rest of the complaint has no merit, but ironically in this case, the more identical the copies are to the original, the more questionable the copyright claim.)

Yep, that sounds like a valid case to me. I wish Stroker the best of luck. It would be nice to see one of these people get their ass handed to them.

I don't agree. I think you have it backwards (but IANAL). It would seem to me that the presumption would be that this person was not granted permission to resell the product and the burden would be on him to show a contract to do so. For instance, say a software developer gives code to a friend or associate who volunteered to check the code. That person couldn't then turn around and sell it and say "well he didn't make me sign a contract that said I couldn't."