Legal issues over “ownership” of Second Life avatars

Cnet interviews Anshe Chung. Interview attacked by, forgive my bluntness, flying wangs. Video of interview makes it onto YouTube. Oh guess what? We use video, too! Now, video no longer there. Why? Anshe Chung herself demanded that YouTube delete the recording, reported Cnet, citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) and claiming that her rights were infringed because YouTube “used” her avatar image without permission.

Oh, great. The last time someone invoked DCMA in Second Life, it was during the entire CopyBot hullabaloo, although DCMA stood a snowball’s chance in the Sahara in that case. But YouTube took the video down anyway. Which brings up an interesting question: do people have absolute copyrights to their in-game avatars? I mean, say this writer were to come into The Lord of the Rings Online as Legolas’ brother Legoland. QJ takes a picture of me and uses it in the blog. Are my rights infringed?

When asked by Cnet, the legal opinion of an attorney from the Electronic Frontier Foundation is that (a) Anshe Chung owns what she creates in Second Life, and that extends to her avatar image. That doesn’t mean however, that those rights are not absolute – (b) those rights don’t override the fair use doctrine governing screenshots (a critical factor in the use of images in, say, Wikipedia). In short, no dice for Ms. Chung, as far as the EFF is concerned. But that’s EFF; Ms. Chung is of a different opinion entirely (hey, what do you expect from a real estate developer?).

The important thing to note here is that none of this virtual property stuff has really been tested in an ACTUAL court of law yet, no matter how well-established fair use doctrine is, so everything might still be up in the air as far as a judge, jury, and executioner is concerned.

Maybe Anshe Chung is just embarrassed of the entire situation? It’s like, if there was a video of you with, forgive the bluntness again, flying you-know-whats, would you want the video to be made widely available to the world? No, Ms. Jameson, we’re not talking about you.

Cnet interviews Anshe Chung. Interview attacked by, forgive my bluntness, flying wangs. Video of interview makes it onto YouTube. Oh guess what? We use video, too! Now, video no longer there. Why? Anshe Chung herself demanded that YouTube delete the recording, reported Cnet, citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) and claiming that her rights were infringed because YouTube “used” her avatar image without permission.

Oh, great. The last time someone invoked DCMA in Second Life, it was during the entire CopyBot hullabaloo, although DCMA stood a snowball’s chance in the Sahara in that case. But YouTube took the video down anyway. Which brings up an interesting question: do people have absolute copyrights to their in-game avatars? I mean, say this writer were to come into The Lord of the Rings Online as Legolas’ brother Legoland. QJ takes a picture of me and uses it in the blog. Are my rights infringed?

When asked by Cnet, the legal opinion of an attorney from the Electronic Frontier Foundation is that (a) Anshe Chung owns what she creates in Second Life, and that extends to her avatar image. That doesn’t mean however, that those rights are not absolute – (b) those rights don’t override the fair use doctrine governing screenshots (a critical factor in the use of images in, say, Wikipedia). In short, no dice for Ms. Chung, as far as the EFF is concerned. But that’s EFF; Ms. Chung is of a different opinion entirely (hey, what do you expect from a real estate developer?).

The important thing to note here is that none of this virtual property stuff has really been tested in an ACTUAL court of law yet, no matter how well-established fair use doctrine is, so everything might still be up in the air as far as a judge, jury, and executioner is concerned.

Maybe Anshe Chung is just embarrassed of the entire situation? It’s like, if there was a video of you with, forgive the bluntness again, flying you-know-whats, would you want the video to be made widely available to the world? No, Ms. Jameson, we’re not talking about you.