Stealing Code in Second Life Is Still Stealing

Eros, a company that creates and sells adult products for use in Second Life, filed suit last week against Volkov Catteneo for copyright infringement.

It seems Catteneo has been posing as an authorized reseller and hawking Eros's SexGen Platinum Base v4.01 and SexGen Platinum+Diamond Base v5.01 code packs for about a third of their regular retail price of around $45.

At press time, neither Eros founder Stroker Serpentine nor Second Life creator Linden Lab were sure exactly how Catteneo (his Second Life name -- Eros plans to subpoena Linden Lab and PayPal for his real name) got around the "no copy" setting on the original, or what the possible exploit means for other in-world creators.

But seemingly because the stolen product is an application designed to facilitate sexual connection -- it's a set of avatar animations ranging from cuddling to intercourse to group fetish play -- observers are indulging in delighted shock that a virtual-world violation is being pursued in a physical world court.

I'm not sure why that's such a surprise. Copyright on things you can't touch has been around a long time, and it's already been established that digital works count the same as physical ones.

This column, for example, exists in the same sense that a cybersex bed does. You can't jump on it, you can't smell or taste it. Yet time, skill and thought have gone into it. No one would question my filing a lawsuit if someone printed and bound a bunch of columns, and started selling the book without permission from me or from Wired.

The Eros lawsuit is important because it will formally address some questions of intellectual property ownership within 3-D worlds, and hopefully provide some clarity that "copyright is copyright, regardless of platform." The suit might also set a precedent for how much responsibility a company like Linden Lab has toward residents and their businesses.

I bet you $45 that Linden Lab isn't the only world-builder giving its end-user license agreement a long, thoughtful look.

But much as I love a good legal document (.pdf) with my Sunday morning latte, I'm more interested in how people are reacting than in the case itself.

Slashdot comments are fairly representative. Puffed up with anti-role-play superiority, pundits exhort Second Life residents to "get a life" (as if they don't already have two!), accuse Stroker of cluttering an already overloaded court system with frivolous cases and insist that because the product in question is not "real" the situation should not be handled in "real" court.

It makes me wonder how geekdom would react if the stolen code were centered around business meetings, with actions like drumming fingers on the table or pacing in front of the office windows, or fiddling with a virtual projector and then pointing to slides?

Would the scorn and dismissal be as vehement if the code provided avatars with calendars, to-do lists and birthday reminders? Or made it easier for all members of an in-world group to collect virtual funds in the form of Lindens, then convert them to U.S. dollars and donate them to Habitat for Humanity or Heifer International?

The SexGen base-code packages are Eros's core product and, like any other software, its sales help its developers pay their bills. Whether you believe its application is pointless or puerile doesn’t change the fact that a created work is copyrighted. And whether they have the time and money to do so or not, creators lose their copyright if they don't immediately go after hijackers.

Catteneo might believe that Second Life is "just a game," but it only takes a glance at the sports page to know that games are big business. And given that residents own their intellectual property -- you're not just borrowing it for playing with in the game -- it's not an imaginary theft.

Besides, scorning Eros and its customers because the product is virtual and sexual is pure hypocrisy.

As Americans, we are taught to dismiss fantasy and apply ourselves to "more productive" endeavors, like our careers. At least, that's the surface message: you can be anything, do anything, if you just apply yourself and work hard.

But what do we spend our money on, after housing, health insurance and food? What do we buy to make us feel productive and successful and hard working?

Fantasy.

Movies, video games, fad diets, huge televisions with surround sound and hundreds of channels, fancy cars, designer clothing, anti-cellulite cream, hair-restoration lotion. We long for bigger houses and smaller bellies and greener lawns and reliable cell-phone service.

It doesn't get any more fantastic than that.

Last week, I wrote about the growing recognition among researchers of how important sexual fantasy is to our sexual health, satisfaction and relationships.

Eros develops tools that help customers share sexual fantasy and emotional experiences. They might not be for everyone. But we should no more dismiss the theft of its products than we would if some thug robbed Good Vibrations and set up a kiosk in the Haight-Ashbury to sell the booty.

Once again it falls to an adult company to break trail for future entrepreneurs who will certainly face similar crimes in the future. If those companies get taken more seriously because their products aren't sexual, so be it. We'll know that without sex-tech to show the way, none of the rest would have a chance.