Comments on: The legal rights to your 'Second Life' avatar

Despite a YouTube takedown, Experts claim that journalists' use of a private avatar's image in a news context falls under fair use doctrine.

[mh20932]

Should it really be called 'second life'?

...when none of its users have a 'first life'?

[thatxbxtchxnicoll]

Bad analogy, and the stance is wrong.

The Armani analogy used in this story is wrong. It's not the same.
What was done was done intentionally, and done to defame the
character, and was done by using the characters image. It shouldn't
matter if the person did it with a screen shot or with the persons
real picture, defamation is defamation.

Fair use does not cover defamation, harassment, or griefing.

[schubb]

Actually still wrong

There is very little difference between this and a political cartoon. Also as this was a "public"(in as much as it could be public) forum it can be recorded unless it was specifically expressed as a no recording venue.

It is no different than recordings of hecklers at any other public venue.

[gggg sssss]

parody

parody is fair use - even if you dont like teh parody. Second life = get a life

[cjovalle]

Then they shouldn't have used the DMCA.

Fair use covers lots of things. News of defamation, harassment, or griefing may certainly be covered by fair use, including the use of images.

Furthermore, if this were a defamation and not copyright issue, then they shouldn't have used the Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice and takedown method, which is explicitly related to copyright infringement. Of course, they are claiming copyright infringement, in my opinion wrongly.

[Booperkit]

Any publicity...

I think there will be a time in the not too distant future when these folks complaining about the 'unfair' use of their ummm....copyright-protected avatars...*cough* will be googling themselves to relive their 15 minutes of 'fame'. Hollywood celebs make regular fools of themselves over complaining about silly paparazi pics shown without their consent - these people in secondlife are in the limelight right now in a very small way for a very limited number of people - i suggest they enjoy it. I myself had a request from someone who saw her avatar's picture on snapzilla and wanted it removed. It was taken nearly a year ago (obviously she had been doing a search for pics of herself in the first place)and she didnt appear to like it as it had a pic of her a newbie wearing a *gasp* free skirt - whereas now she is all grown up and much better at dressing up her little avatar doll. Yes reality check. Avatars are dolls not the real us. It was suppose to be fun people.

[thatxbxtchxnicoll]

By your stance...

Someone stealing artwork off of someone else's siteis also in the
right.

Here's a little example for you. A couple years ago, I had a
section on my website that showcased my paintings and
drawings. In there, it also had a drawing that my daughter (who
is 5 now) did for me. Not too long ago I was browsing myspace,
and I saw my daughters picture being used on someone else's
page, saying "look what my daughter drew for me." I did not go
looking for the picture, it's the last thing I would have thought
anyone would steal, but it's still wrong, because that person that
is posting it is lying about where it came from. Why should it
matter what the source of the copyright is? If you own
something, you wouldn't want someone else taking it away and
using it for themselves without asking you.

Another case in point. I'm a webdesigner, and I have a portfolio
showing work that I have done. Is it fair use when all these
people steal my images and coding?

[HandGlad2]

DMCA abuse

"More and more people who want to stop information from flowing are realizing that they can use the DMCA in an abusive way that it wasn't intended for, to stop free speech."

...Which is exactly what people and organizations who lobbied against the creation of this ill-conceived law predicted would happen if it passed.

[tocam27]

But then...

...if that is the case, isn't it a matter of time that this law will be declared unconstitutional because it will infringe upon constitutionally protected speech?

If the DMCA were never used abusively then I don't think too many people would have an issue with it, however abusing any law to circumvent our constitution will eventually get that law declared, well, unconstitutional on those grounds. So let's hope people keep abusing the DMCA so we can have the law invalidated!

And this Anshe Chung needs to get a real life, or at the very least get laid. What the hell is wrong with these people? I suppose the socially inept ones will keep logging on to get their jollies in a make belief world, lord knows they can't make it in the real one...

[highimpact]

How on Earth is this "High Impact"?

Yet another story about yet another virtual tempest in the teapot of Second Life. Not exactly "high impact."

And I think the issue being covered here is about "right of publicity" with respect to avatars in virtual worlds, not "copyright" per se.

That might be an interesting topic for an article... But how about more than one example? I'm sure this isn't the only such dispute over one's avatar-related right of publicity (or even right to "privacy" - whatever *that* is).

As it is, this article should be moved to the Second Life Picayune tab.

[Jerry Dawson]

Missed the story....

So the woman in question has ammassed a fortune in 'real estate' in SL.... the question is, if you don't have to sleep or eat or work, why do you need to own property in SL? Never mind the question of who ownes an avatar created according to the rules of the game...

[ghostofitpast]

The history, not the incident

The "high impact" comes not from the specific incident being reported but from where that incident is situated in a broader view of history. In this case the subject of historical study happens to be the emergence of governance in different gatherings of individuals, whether they are the Children of Israel wandering around in the desert after being released from their bondage in Egypt, the Founding Fathers of the United States, the enlightenment philosophers behind the French Revolution, the early settlers of Deadwood, or even the "wizards" of LambdaMOO. The scope of that impact is still best captured by Marx in the opening sentences of his EIGHTEENTH BRUMAIRE OF LOUIS BONAPARTE: "Hegel observes somewhere [although no one today is quite sure where!] that all great incidents and individuals of world history occur, as it were, twice. He forget to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce." Alas, even Marx could not conceive of a society so unaware of history that there could be more than one iteration, with the farcical gradually degenerating into the mere trivial.

Nothing that matters in this episode is in any way new. All that matters is that we are hauling out the same story again and affording it less reflection than any of our predecessors did. The case of cyber-rape in LambdaMOO seems to have engendered more serious reflection and deliberation than any successors in environments with richer media; and the result was a more sober appreciation of the need for governance in virtual worlds. As that appreciation became a distant and faded memory, the Marxian iterations progressed beyond farce (which at least has literary merit) to the mindless chatter of the blogosphere whose denizens continue to be better at generating new content than at reflecting on the content that is already out there. The "high impact" comes from the continuing perpetuation of egocentric oblivion that lies at the core of the world the Internet has made!

[Prokofy Neva]

Chill on the Media

It's definitely abuse of the DMCA to use it in this manner. The victim could reasonably make a case for libel or even property damages (virtual properties can be damaged, too, it's a DNS attack) and pursue that legal angle, but it's an misuse of DMCA to invoke "copyright" on fair-use materials. It's an unnecessary chill on the media.

Here's the editorial the Second Life Herald has:
http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2007/01/greeterdan_wimp.html

[unknown unknown]

Way to draw even more attention to it

Had they not been in such a rush repeal the freedom of the press, this probably would have died pretty quick. Now they're bring even more attention to it, thus prolonging it's life and just asking for it to be posted in more places. It's impossible to completely remove something from the internet, just any celebrity with sex tape.

[Len Bullard]

This is Free Publicity for SL and Anshe

Tell me you aren't so naive as to take this story seriously. This is a Hollywood catfight: faux.

It is one of the oldest gimmicks in the marketer's trick book for getting publicity from the press: set up two divas, get them to make a public display, then reap the benefits of free publicity. In this case, it simply uses repeat postings to push the PageRank of the names involved to the top of the search rankings.

There are no legal issues here. This is CNetAsTabloid.

Cheesy but predictable.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Embarassing

Personally, I would think that her actions are even more embarassing than the incident itself. She's too full of herself and I'll be glad when she realizes that she can't take her million dollars out of the game without first paying Uncle Sam 40%+ in taxes, or if / when SL's servers hiccup and she loses it all.

I lost all my money online and Linden Labs says that since it's virtual money and not real, I have no recourse. Sorry, all your money is gone, you can't do anything about it. I hope our millionaire runs into that situation as well. If she tries to sue for the money, then it will have a real life value and she'll have to report it as taxable income- along with having to have a business license, federal tax ID, etc. Failure to do that will quickly eat up any and all profit she has made.

SL is growing too fast and catering to corporate customers. It will soon suffer collapse from its own weight with no internal support.

[inachu]

She is very pretty

Would love to date her.

[baswwe]

Where is the video or picture of the event?

I wanna see!!