Of Copyright And Virtual World Creations

A business is suing a Second Life avatar for copyright infringement and trademark infringement, and since this impacts more than SecondLife, I'll write something of it here.

Case Specific

Generally speaking, as Eric Rice writes, a virtual bed is like code. And VintFalken wonders, too, how the bed was to be had. But then, if you read the legal filing (7.5 megabyte PDF), you'll find some interesting things.

Consider this timeline gleaned from the filing:

No later than in or about April, 2007: Alleged infringement starts.
June 11th, 2007: Eros filed an application to obtain a federal trademark registration (Serial Number 77202601)
June 25th, 2007, copyright applications were sent in.

Does it strike anyone as odd that the applications for trademark and copyright were sent in about a month after the 'infringement' started?

And in the legal filing, there is no demonstration that the objects are the same - they may look the same, but functionally speaking they may not be. That would have to be demonstrated (I'd love to be a fly in the courtroom for that.

Quoting Second Life sex bed spawns virtual copyright action, emphasis mine:

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