Virtual Property

Scope

• Use this page to list sources related to Second Life and other legal issues arising in virtual worlds, and sources related to issues of whether domain names, web pages, bandwidth, etc. are or should be treated in the same ways as more tangible property, including all sources related to claims of conversion or trespass to chattels, particularly in response to web crawlers or screen scraping.

News / Editorial

• Alexia Tsotsis, "Is Zynga Tring To Patent Virtual Currency?", TechCrunch (Oct. 22, 2010).
• Mike Masnick, Who Owns Public Crime Data?, Techdirt (Jun. 14, 2010).
• Eva Galperin, Fair Use Gets a Fair Shake in Second Life, Electronic Frontier Foundation (Apr. 2, 2010).
• Dan Cypra, Kentucky Supreme Court Sides with State in Internet Gambling Case, Poker News Daily (Mar. 18, 2010).
• Karen Dearne, Is putting real-life law into an avatar's hands viable? ,AustralianIT (Mar. 2, 2010).
• David Kravetz, Linden Lab Targeted in Second Life Sex-Code Lawsuit, Wired.com (Sep. 17, 2009).
• Gina Keating, Power.com countersues Facebook over user data, Washington Post (Jul. 10, 2009).
• Carrie Kirby, Avatars, attorneys in new world of virtual law, San Francisco Chronicle (Apr. 27, 2009).
• Tateru Nino, Taser International vs Linden Lab: Crack Den crackdown, Massively (Apr. 21, 2009).
• T. Linden, Second Life The Second Life Economy - First Quarter 2009 in Detail, blogs.secondlife.com (Apr. 16, 2009).
• James Pethokoukis, Morningstar sued, accused of online espionage, Reuters (Feb. 2, 2009).
• Linden Research, Inc., Frequently Asked Questions from Beginning Landowners, support.secondlife.com (Jul. 4, 2008).
• Jack Linden, Quarterly Land Supply and Island Pricing Update, blogs.secondlife.com (Apr 8, 2008).
• Benjamin Duranske, Eros Reaches Settlement With Robert Leatherwood a/k/a Second Life's 'Volkov Catteneo' Virtually Blind (Mar. 14, 2008).
• Thayer Preece, Guest Commentary: Second Life Artists Rightfully Upset Over "SLART" Trademark Registration, Virtually Blind (Jan. 25, 2008).
• Eric Reuters, SL business sues for copyright infringement, Reuters (Jul. 3, 2007).

Legal Briefs / Opinions / Statutes

• CollegeSource, Inc. v. AcademyOne, Inc., 10-3542 (E.D. Pa. Apr. 22, 2011).
• Snap-on Business Solutions Inc. v. O'Neil & Assocs., Inc., No. 09-01547 (N.D. Ohio Apr. 16, 2010).
• CRS Recovery, Inc. v. John Laxton, No. 08-17306 (9th Cir. Apr. 6, 2010) (remanding whether a domain name was abandoned, taken by theft, or fraud).
• Jubber v. Search Market Direct Inc., No. 06-2299 (D. Utah, Aug. 19, 2009) (following, Margae, domain names are tangible property subject to conversion under Utah law).
• Facebook, Inc. v. Power Ventures, Inc., No. 08-5780 (N.D. Cal. May 11, 2009).
• Margae Inc. v. Clear Link Techs. LLC, No. 07-0916 (D. Utah, May 5, 2009) (under Utah law web pages were tangible property subject to protection under Utah's conversion doctrine).
• CRS Recovery v. Laxton, 2008 WL 4408001 (N.D. Cal. Sep. 26, 2008).
• Amended Complaint in Minsky v. Linden Research, Inc., No. 08-00819 (N.D.N.Y. 2008).
• Amended Class Action Complaint in Hernandez v. IGE, Inc., No. 07-21403 (S.D. Fla. 2007) (Settlement Agreement).
• Omega World Travel v. Mummagraphics, Inc., 469 F.3d 348 (4th. Cir. 2006).
• Sotelo v. DirectRevenue, LLC, 384 F.Supp.2d 1219 (N.D. Ill. 2005).
• Inventory Locator Service, LLC v. Partsbase, Inc., 2005 WL 2179185 (W.D.Tenn. 2005).
• Southwest Airlines Co. v. Farechase, Inc., 318 F. Supp. 2d 435 (N.D.Tex. 2004).
• Deborah Pierce, Amicus Brief on behalf of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in Intel v. Hamidi, 30 Cal. 4th 1342 (2003).
• Pearl Investments, LCC v. Standard I/O, Inc., 257 F.Supp.2d 326 (D. Me. 2003).
• Ticketmaster Corp. v. Tickets.com, Inc., 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6483 (C.D. Cal. 2003).
• American Airlines, Inc. v. Farechase, Inc., No. 067-194022-02 (Texas, 67th Dist., Mar. 8, 2003).
• Homestore.com, Inc. v. Bargain Network, Inc., No. 02-03397 (C.D. Cal. 2002).
• Oyster Software, Inc. v. Forms Processing, Inc., 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22520 (N.D. Cal. 2001).
• Ticketmaster Corp. v. Tickets.com, Inc., 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12987 (C.D. Cal. 2000), aff ’d, 2001 U.S. App. LEXIS 1454 (9th Cir. 2001).

Scholarship

• Adam Chodorow, Tracing Basis Through Virtual Spaces, 95 Cornell L. Rev. 283 (2010).
• Daniel Gould, Virtual Property in MMOGs, Virtually Blind (June 2008).
• Juliet M. Moringiello, Towards a System of Estates in Virtual Property, Int. J. Private Law, Vol. 1, Nos. 1/2, pp.3–13 (2008).
• Tigran Palyan, Common Law Privacy in a Not So Common World: Prospects for the Tort of Intrusion upon Seclusion in Virtual Worlds, Virtually Blind (2008).
• Marjorie A. Shields, Applicability of Common-Law Trespass Actions to Electronic Communications, 107 A.L.R.5th 549 (2008).
• Greg Lastowka, Decoding Cyberproperty, 40 Ind. L. Rev. 23 (2007).
• Kevin Hemenway and Tara Calishain, Spidering Hacks, O'Reilly (2003).
• Dan L. Burk, The Trouble With Trespass, 3 J. Small & Emerging Bus. L. 1 (1998).
• I. Trotter Hardy, The Ancient Doctrine of Trespass to Websites, 1996 J. Online L. art. 7 (1996).