Has anyone successfully sued anyone in Second Life and won

[Kathlen Onyx]

There have been a few posts lately about copyright and trademarks that I was curious if anyone has/or knows of someone that successfully sued a private person in Second Life, won and actually collected damages?  I'm not talking about Filing a DMCA or companies such as Disney but a creator actually suing another resident for use of their items in any way not authorized. Not someone suing Linden Labs directly. 

It is my opinion that there is a lot of fearmongering going on from people that post things as fact when they are not qualified in the legal field whatsoever.  

[Alwin Alcott]

21 minutes ago, Sam Bellisserian said:

It is my opinion that there is a lot of fearmongering going on from people that post things as fact when they are not qualified in the legal field whatsoever.  

It's no fearmongering, breaking copyright/trademarks is breaking a law, and cán cause a lot of trouble, for that you don't need a qualification in the legal field.

And as it is protected, it cán lead to expensive and long lasting conflicts when lawyers get put on such cases.
BTW if somebody wants to put a claim on the table, a DMCA is required for a company , as SL, and others, to act on a claim.
Most cases end in a settlement without going to court. And íf somebody lost... do yo think they want to have that announced? It will ruin their brand.
Often a slight change in a design is enough to get cases being dropped.
 

Edited December 30, 2023 by Alwin Alcott

[Kathlen Onyx]

3 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

It's no fearmongering, breaking copyright/trademarks is breaking a law, and cán cause a lot of trouble, for that you don't need a qualification in the legal field.

And as it is protected, it cán lead to expensive and long lasting conflicts when lawyers get put on such cases.
BTW if somebody wants to put a claim on the table, a DMCA is required for a company , as SL, and others, to act on a claim.
 

Interesting post but the question was: Has a private person sued another resident and won? If you don't know then just say so.

[Alwin Alcott]

5 minutes ago, Sam Bellisserian said:

Interesting post but the question was: Has a private person sued another resident and won? If you don't know then just say so.

i respond to parts of your post. If you don't want that, don't write those lines in the body of the thread but leave it at the title.

[Stephanie Misfit]

1 hour ago, Sam Bellisserian said:

There have been a few posts lately about copyright and trademarks that I was curious if anyone has/or knows of someone that successfully sued a private person in Second Life, won and actually collected damages?  I'm not talking about Filing a DMCA or companies such as Disney but a creator actually suing another resident for use of their items in any way not authorized. Not someone suing Linden Labs directly. 

It is my opinion that there is a lot of fearmongering going on from people that post things as fact when they are not qualified in the legal field whatsoever.  

I believe Stroker Serpentine was successful in his lawsuits against other residents. I can think of one big case quite a few years ago of a lawsuit that was settled, with the parties wishing to avoid escalating legal costs.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

1 hour ago, Mistress Morbid said:

I believe Stroker Serpentine was successful in his lawsuits against other residents. I can think of one big case quite a few years ago of a lawsuit that was settled, with the parties wishing to avoid escalating legal costs.

https://www.engadget.com/2009-09-16-eros-llc-shannon-grei-form-class-action-against-linden-lab-for.html

[Phil Deakins]

3 hours ago, Mistress Morbid said:

I believe Stroker Serpentine was successful in his lawsuits against other residents. I can think of one big case quite a few years ago of a lawsuit that was settled, with the parties wishing to avoid escalating legal costs.

I believe that Stroker took LL to court and lost. He claimed that he'd made a million US$ in SL and lost it all in legal fees.

[Stephanie Misfit]

39 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

I believe that Stroker took LL to court and lost. He claimed that he'd made a million US$ in SL and lost it all in legal fees.

I was talking about the court cases that involved other residents, he was successful in a couple of those.

[elleevelyn]

two more as I remember

there was a legal action between parties in a then quite popular breedable (i won't say which as some of the people are still active in SL). The RL court filings were over payment (or lack of) for the use of intellectual property. As I remember I believe a settlement was  reached 

another was a legal action between skin makers. One of who withdrew from SL as a result

[Rowan Amore]

Any cases NOT about someone stealing and trying to sell another's product?  Any cases specifically about selling a picture taken without getting permission from every single creator whose items are in the picture?  

In cases cited, one person was profiting specifically from the theft of another's property.  A picture of an object in SL does in no way steal profits from the creator.  They aren't selling that item.  

People were using the Disney and Harley Davidson brands to make a profit.  That is the difference that it seems people are missing.

[Gabriele Graves]

4 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Any cases NOT about someone stealing and trying to sell another's product?  Any cases specifically about selling a picture taken without getting permission from every single creator whose items are in the picture?  

In cases cited, one person was profiting specifically from the theft of another's property.  A picture of an object in SL does in no way steal profits from the creator.  They aren't selling that item.  

People were using the Disney and Harley Davidson brands to make a profit.  That is the difference that it seems people are missing.

^^^ That

[Theresa Tennyson]

56 minutes ago, elleevelyn said:

two more as I remember

there was a legal action between parties in a then quite popular breedable (i won't say which as some of the people are still active in SL). The RL court filings were over payment (or lack of) for the use of intellectual property. As I remember I believe a settlement was  reached 

another was a legal action between skin makers. One of who withdrew from SL as a result

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaretto_Ranch_Breedables%2C_LLC_v._Ozimals%2C_Inc.

A lot of sound and furry [sic] signifying nothing.

2) Both skinmakers are gone and have been for years. The legal action was actually started by the company that was the skeevier one, but it was in response to a DMCA takedown from the other. It ended up in a semi-confidential settlement.

A couple more similar episodes - in the early years of mesh bodies somebody started sending DMCA takedowns over dubious claims. They drove Wowmeh out of business but then made the mistake of taking on Belleza, who lawyered up and discovered that the claim was within tolerance for flat-out fraud. Circumstantial evidence would indicate that the original DMCA-sender ended up getting their booty banned from Second Life, under multiple names.

Then a head maker went ballistic over UV layouts with another - it ended up with both parties still in business and no finding of guilt. The aggressor probably should have worried more about making heads than their "intellectual property" because they've been floating around the yesterday bin for a while now.

 

Edited December 30, 2023 by Theresa Tennyson

[Doris Johnsky]

I know of a DJ who was  IP banned for claiming mixes from RL as their own in SL.

SOMEONE told LL to deal with it, so I would assume lawyers were involved. 

 

Random question: ARE there builders who make  USD millions in SL?  

A quick check in SL.com says to make 1,000,000 RL would require sales of  243,854,482 L$. 

[Alwin Alcott]

2 minutes ago, Doris Johnsky said:

I know of a DJ who was  IP banned for claiming mixes from RL as their own in SL.

SOMEONE told LL to deal with it, so I would assume lawyers were involved. 

i can't imagine LL stepped into that, because if they did they can take 9999 out of 10000 streams offline. It's all stolen content.

Most things are claimed to be open sourced of paid rights by youtube, but that's néver the case. Youtube ONLY pays for the stream on themself, not for dj's ripping or taking the music.

[Gabriele Graves]

I'm not sure this topic is going as Sam intended to be frank, please correct me if I'm wrong Sam.

One of the problems with this type of topic is that except for the high profile public cases we hear about, everything else is anecdotal and no offense to anyone but cannot be trusted as presented anymore than any claimed legal credentials can be.  That's unless accompanied with case numbers, court districts, etc. of course.

I half expected someone who wanted to reinforce their view that taking snapshots in SL and using them commercially is very risky to come up with and post a half-baked story to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt.  So far I'm very happy to have been wrong about that.

[Kathlen Onyx]

6 hours ago, Gabriele Graves said:

I'm not sure this topic is going as Sam intended to be frank, please correct me if I'm wrong Sam.

One of the problems with this type of topic is that except for the high profile public cases we hear about, everything else is anecdotal and no offense to anyone but cannot be trusted as presented anymore than any claimed legal credentials can be.  That's unless accompanied with case numbers, court districts, etc. of course.

I half expected someone who wanted to reinforce their view that taking snapshots in SL and using them commercially is very risky to come up with and post a half-baked story to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt.  So far I'm very happy to have been wrong about that.

You're correct.   Of the cases cited here they are either against LL or with LL being a party to the suit, or are from another creator suing for stealing AND profiting off reselling their creations. 

People are claiming on the forum unverifiable credentials for their opinions and expect others to just take their word for it.  

So, if it should be believed that one needs to get permission from anything shown in a photo if used as a book cover or one could be sued (btw, anyone can sue anyone for anything) I would need permission from the creators of the dress, the head, the mesh eyes, the body , the tree, the waterfall, the flowers, the sand texture, the necklace, the hair, the wall, the tattoo and the earrings (I think I got it all)

Let's use some common sense here folks.  No one is suing anyone for not getting their permission to use a photo of ones creation on a book cover.

As a side note for those that continually post that LL is going to be sued for this or that, do you really think that LL has not consulted their attorney's on every single thing that they do  before implementing something?  

P.S. Anyone who would like to use this photo on a book cover I give them permission to use it for free.

Edited December 31, 2023 by Sam Bellisserian

[elleevelyn]

9 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Amaretto_Ranch_Breedables%2C_LLC_v._Ozimals%2C_Inc.

A lot of sound and furry [sic] signifying nothing

 

 

i was thinking of another which involved Intellectual Property holders not being paid their share of sales revenue even tho an RL contract/agreement to be paid was in place. The details of the affair are way down in the chat over the street

[Doris Johnsky]

On 12/30/2023 at 11:13 AM, Alwin Alcott said:

i can't imagine LL stepped into that, because if they did they can take 9999 out of 10000 streams offline. It's all stolen content.

Most things are claimed to be open sourced of paid rights by youtube, but that's néver the case. Youtube ONLY pays for the stream on themself, not for dj's ripping or taking the music.

This was second hand to me, so you may be correct and it was something else.  I'm not sure what you CAN be IP banned for.

[Ksenia Elcano]

On 12/30/2023 at 4:09 PM, Sam Bellisserian said:

I would need permission from the creators of the dress, the head, the mesh eyes, the body , the tree, the waterfall, the flowers, the sand texture, the necklace, the hair, the wall, the tattoo and the earrings (I think I got it all)

I think they already have it based on the terms and conditions you accepted when you logged into SL.

[Dorientje Woller]

On 12/30/2023 at 6:13 PM, Alwin Alcott said:

Youtube ONLY pays for the stream on themself

Not so quiet forward. It's a bit more complicated then that. Followed link is provided to me by the artist behind Psy'Aviah: Music Streaming Payouts Comparison: A Guide for Musicians — VIRPP

[Alwin Alcott]

39 minutes ago, Dorientje Woller said:

Not so quiet forward. It's a bit more complicated then that. Followed link is provided to me by the artist behind Psy'Aviah: Music Streaming Payouts Comparison: A Guide for Musicians — VIRPP

It still says nowhere that ripped music is paid for, but only by use of listening by their channels. ( what is in the seond part of the line you quote)

[PheebyKatz]

I know I'm late to the game here, but this thread is incredibly interesting, and I'm glad I found it.

If anyone ever felt I was infringing anything of theirs, I'd do away with the item completely. Not that I would (knowingly) infringe on anyone's anything anyway, but still. I don't think things should ever even have to come to legal blows in most cases; people should just be able to admit when they're wrong and pay for the thing or service or rights like everyone else has to.

I sell things, but I'm also big on open-source stuff. Part of me wishes everyone could just use anything from anywhere and do anything because freedom, w00t, but at the same time, yeah. Just because I'm broke doesn't mean others aren't entitled to their fair share for the work they've done. And I've seen plenty of people seeking to profit off of others' hard work, without even giving them credit for it, let alone supporting them in any real way.

To the best of my knowledge, even most lawsuits don't really result in anyone winning, because at some point someone realizes they f'ed up and have to make good, and they settle out of court, but I'd certainly be interested in seeing more on this topic if anyone has it.

I participate in another field where intellectual property is considered a huge big deal thing too, and it's a community rife with theft of creative works. In many cases, others are at least happy to see someone give them credit for their original ideas and work, but more often than not, a twenty-something comes along and claims to have invented something all the 50-90 year-olds have been doing for decades, and all the other twenty-somethings fall for it and think it's new and original, and nobody gets credit for their work.

In the stage magic career field, I believe two people (one of them was Teller, the other was David Copperfield) have ever successfully won an intellectual property/copyright lawsuit.

So, yeah. I'm very interested in the SL side of all of this. I'd probably never bother suing anyone for anything myself anyway, but it's worth knowing about at least, I think.

Edited January 12 by PheebyKatz