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Your Second Life Is Virtually Here

Robert Scott Lawrence — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 02:37:08 +0000

In an age where there is never enough time for the new-new thing (nor, sadly, even enough time to read the New New Thing), millions of people who are perfectly happy with their ordinary, everyday lives as teachers, poets and big band leaders are somehow finding the time to try on what it’s like to be someone else. Didn’t get into med school and want to experience the drama and pressure of a ten-hour operation? Now you can be a brain surgeon, ophthalmologist and general practitioner all rolled into one. Can’t run a 5 minute mile to pass the fire fighter’s exam? Now you can save children from burning buildings without fear of blowback, collapsing floors, or dying from smoke inhalation. Want to effortlessly be taller, stronger, better looking, and better paid (e.g., Fabio) — while traveling the globe making friends and drinking mojitos? Now, you can be all these things with the click of a mouse, courtesy of Second Life.

And not only can you be what you want to be, you can buy what you want to buy. A multitude of businesses have set up shop within virtual worlds to sell in-game versions of their products, including, by way of example, Nike, Dell, American Apparel, Coca Cola, Reebok, and Toyota. A virtual Scion (the automobile) costs about 350 Linden dollars in Second Life, which at today’s exchange rate equates to $1. At Reebok stores in Second Life, you can buy a new pair of tennies for your avatar and then click through to the real world and have the identical sneakers delivered to your home in Neverland, Kansas the next day.

How do you find such virtual goodies, pray tell? Oh, they’re advertised. Really. Just like in real life. In fact, companies as diverse as Adidas, Sun, and the NBA have purchased virtual headquarters in Second Life from which to promote their intangible goods. Coca-Cola owns a virtual concert hall bearing its name (“Coca-Cola Pavilion”), Wells Fargo bought its own virtual island with TARP money, and Gibson Guitar runs an island where it hands out free guitars. In a realm where you can literally create an island out of nothing, owning your own genetically-enhanced land of milk and honey is no longer a dream, but a (virtual) reality. You can even grow money trees in your orchard, which will thoroughly confuse your pre-teens about the nature of finance.

Some of the recent highlights of marketing in the virtual world are intensely silly, though no sillier than one might expect when marketing executives try to capitalize on something they don’t quite understand. Thus, variously, MTV offered free virtual replicas of celebrity accessories and fashion items to encourage people to watch the 2010 MTV Video Awards show; H&M showcased its new denim collection and offered online discounts to purchase the jeans at your local mall; and Colgate has reps handing out free software coupons at metro kiosks which will — if uploaded — brighten your avatar’s smile into Sinatra-like brilliance.

Other items of interest: Coca-Cola billboards litter the virtual highways, as Coke apparently thinks the world needs to be reminded of its existence. Herman Miller ran a “Get Real” campaign offering to replace knock-off Aeron chairs that users had purchased (for their virtual internet startups) with official virtual Aeron chairs. If this sounds as odd to you as it did to me, then realize that counterfeiters have invaded Second Life, and are hawking fake Rolexes and Coach bags on every street corner as we speak. (“Hey, buddy, come take a look at this Bose sound system. It fell off of a truck *nudge* *nudge* *wink* *wink*”).

I would love to expound further upon the odd factoids of Second Life, but for now I leave you with one final oddity: the USPTO has granted a trademark registration to the avatar of a woman who uses it as her alter-ego in Second Life to sell custom-built structures, including, inter alia, islands. That’s right, you heard it. The USPTO has trademarked a . . . real estate broker!

And you thought trademarks had to be unique.

Who Owns Your Second Life?

Robert Scott Lawrence — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 21:12:24 +0000

A few years ago Julian Dibbell wrote a book called Play Money — Or, How I Quit My Day Job And Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot, which detailed the year he spent trying to win a bet with himself. The bet: that he could make more money by killing trolls and demons (or making armor) in Ultima Online than he ever had as a writer. Quirky concept, I agree, but the more you look into it the more interesting the idea gets, especially when you realize that the gold pieces used as currency by Ultima Online and other massively multiplayer online games (e.g., World of Warcraft, Eve Online or Lord of the Rings Online) are actually traded online in the same way that say, Brazil’s currency (the real) is. And many of the currencies from virtual worlds are more stable than those circulated by certain South American regimes.

There are a number of legal issues from virtual worlds that have superficial interest or — perhaps better stated — create the equivalent of cocktail party chatter for the intellectual property crowd. For example, in many online worlds you may chose to be an honorable member of the Thieves Guild, in which case it is perfectly acceptable for you to wander the world breaking into houses and stealing jewels and gold and artifacts — you’re a thief, after all, so it’s basically your job to act in this fashion — whereupon you can trade these items for something else in virtual reality (e.g., food, weapons, a horse, a house, etc.), or if you managed to get your hands on something truly exceptional you can simply list it on eBay and sell it for real dollars. So you’re stealing from people in virtual reality, fencing the goods on eBay, and pocketing the cash in your PayPal account, all tax free, since the IRS has no idea how to value what you’re doing. And did I mention it’s all perfectly legal?

Apart from the idea of a currency exchange (which makes sense when you realize that more than 10,000,000 people play World of Warcraft regularly, and many other MMOGs have over a million subscribers), these online worlds are rapidly changing the way intellectual property law works. Intellectual property, of course, deals with intangible assets, and thus dovetails perfectly with the concept of intangible worlds. Recently, though, the questions asked have been real brain twisters. For example, who owns the rights to your avatar — the “you” you created – in the online world? What if you upload a real photograph of yourself to the game server and the character you are playing actually bears your face — which you can actually do in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10? What if the user agreement you signed (by clicking “I agree” when you logged on for the first time) says that all intellectual property in the game, including anything you create while using the game, remains the property of the corporation that owns the game? Who owns your avatar now? Most people never even read the user agreement, of course, but does the fact that it’s mandatory that you agree in order to play the game mean that it’s a contract of adhesion and can be voided, or does it mean you foolishly gave up your intellectual property rights in exchange for the privilege of being a half-elf ranger wandering the forests of Elfheim during the 22 hours a week you play the game?

If this sounds too theoretical, note that last year Taser International sued Second Life for trademark infringement because characters were using, and selling, virtual replicas of tasers in the game. Sounds silly, doesn’t it, until you find out that people pay $100 million to Linden Labs every year to buy Linden dollars so that they can clothe and feed their avatars in Second Life, and that the virtual reality gray market generates about $6 billion in revenue annually. And then someone tells you that Ben Folds Five actually did a live concert in Second Life (and you couldn’t hear it unless your avatar bought a ticket and attended), and Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has given lectures in Second Life, and Coke, Pepsi, Gap, Versace, Porsche, McDonald’s and all the other corporate sponsors are sniffing around figuring out how to protect and capitalize on their trademarks in these realms. Somehow, the more you look at it, the less silly it seems. Where real money stands to be made by playing with Monopoly money, the law perks up its ears and starts paying attention.

Disney Gets Marvel, But Who Gets the Characters?

Robert Scott Lawrence — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 03:30:59 +0000

When Disney announced that it was buying Marvel for $4 billion last fall, the hype failed to mention that Jack Kirby‘s kids were seeking to recover ownership rights to some of the most popular titles in recent times — including such luminaries as X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Spider Man, the Avengers, and the Incredible Hulk. While the notices of termination served by clan Kirby would not take effect until 2014 at the earliest, whether the heirs of the acknowledged co-creator of these characters can reclaim ownership rights is potentially a $1 billion question. Given the increasing popularity of the superhero genre at the box office and — on the heels of Avatar — the obvious interest in producing 3D tales of their heroic adventures, the battle for ownership is likely to be protracted. In response to the Kirby’s shot across the bows, Marvel last month filed suit in federal district court in Manhattan seeking a declaration that Kirby’s creation of the characters was simply work-for-hire, and that his heirs have no ownership interest nor right to any additional compensation.

If the story has a familiar ring to it, that’s because this bell has been rung before. Those of you who follow the always-entertaining rulings produced by Hollywood copyright skirmishes will recall that in 2008 the heirs of Jerry Siegal recovered a share of the copyright in Superman, which had been sold to Detective Comics for $130 in 1938. Doubtless the Kirby kids are seeking a bigger check than that.

To follow the saga of the Kirby’s claims in more detail, start with Ben Fritz’s article in the LA Times and follow the links.

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Your Second Life Is Virtually Here

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