Keeping it Virtual, practical metaverse marketing

People in Second Life are used to everyone claiming to be the first to do things… but the inaugural seminar by the SL Bar Association, which I attended last night, could lay claim to some pretty amazing firsts.

The meeting was the first virtual event for which UK attendees could claim credits towards their continuing professional development (CPD) hours from the Law Society.  Additionally, the California State Bar allowed credits towards Minimum Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) hours for lawyers in their association.

The meeting was introduced by a guest speaker, Paul Marsh, who is incoming President of the Law Society, and I felt it was an indication that the establishment is beginning to sit up and take notice of the potential that virtual worlds, particularly Second Life, has for education and collaboration, that he attended.

Anyone thinking that ths was going to be a seminar lite and an easy way to gain their credits was soon illumined:  SLBA President Solomon Cortes, known as David Naylor from Field Fisher Waterhouse in real life, gave a densely-packed discourse on the virtual world and the ways in which it might be interesting to lawyers.

Solomon used voice with a slide presentation for the event, which worked remarkably well for most people.  There were a couple of people with no experience in using voice who struggled to get it set up and working, but  I had no technical problems, or problems in understanding the very interesting lecture from Solomon. It could, of course, only skim the surface of some very interesting questions, but I see from the schedule for the rest of the series that there are some more detailed seminars on specific subjects promised.  There will be supporting documentation and I believe a recording of the talk available.  (I will check that and post a comment to confirm it and give a link if possible, under this post.)

I won’t attempt to cover all that Solomon spoke about in two hours, but there were a few very important things which were mentioned more than once, and some things which were new to me, although I keep my ear close to the ground, as you know, dear reader.

Solomon emphasised the need for companies in Second Life to be aware of the differences in law around the world, most particularly in the area of privacy.  There are stringent laws in Europe regarding privacy and the keeping of data on people, even if their real names are not identified, and anyone recording information on individuals who may be in Europe would do well to familiarise themselves with the rules.

He touched on the possibility that relevant laws on employment, tax, consumer law, consumer protection, privacy and crime may or may not apply to activities in a virtual world.  Also that although Linden Labs have used Californian law as the basis for their legal wording and applicable laws, the indication from the Bragg case was that the relevance and applicability of Californian law might not be accepted by other courts.

I hadn’t realised that the Electric Sheep had been involved with the IRS over the status of their greeters for CSI:New York.  The IRS decided that the greeters were indeed employed by the Electric Sheep company. That could potentally have profound implications for people who employ others in Second Life.  For example, if a UK court decided that someone in Second Life was employed, rather than a contractor or freelancer, then there are laws on minimum wages which would be brought into play.

He mentioned the possible criminal problems in virtual worlds, such as theft and defamation, and the differences in the way that the law treats offences in different jurisdictions.  He talked about the difficulty of knowing what laws were applicable, and who has jurisdiction. Who has ownership of assets, and what meaning does that have in virtual worlds where the platform provider can control access to the platform?

There was a brief look at copyright and trademark theft, which I found very interesting, though frustratingly brief.  Solomon barely touched upon the issue of IP theft within SL, but spoke mainly about copyright from real life companies.  He speculated that there is a lot of copyright theft in Second Life, and touched upon the problem that real life law has with categorising the assets in virtual worlds, as they seem neither to qualify as goods or services.

He gave examples of some builds in Second Life that might be infringing copyright, and surmised that it is difficult to know whether the copyright holder would regard Second Life builds as potential advertising or potentially denting their revenue.

He touched upon the problem that companies may not be in a position to grant licences which cover the whole world in the way that Second Life potentially does, and that may be a hindrance to people who wish to do things properly.

He had some interesting things to say about the use of trade marks in virtual worlds, as trade marks are generally registered against a particular area of interest.  His view was that it might be quite hard to establish a right to a trademark if, for example, your trade mark was registered for the manufacture of real life cars, and the case for infringement was against a maker of Second Life pixellated cars.  He wasn’t entirely sure that the case would be won unless a trade mark holder had had the perspicacity to register the trade mark for digitally-created cars too.

A case which he mentioned in passing in this respect was one brought by Marvel comics, protesting the use of Marvel-designed characters as avatars in an online game, City of Heroes.  They lost the case.

Solomon’s view was that companies can be learning a lot about trade mark infringement and detection of that infringement, by studying what was happening in the virtual world, which I thought was a very interesting point. I’d say that a difference which needs to be considered hard by brands is that often in the virtual world, a replica made by a passionate fan may be better quality than a replica made by a contractor working for a real life company.  In the real world, pirated copies are generally poor quality and may damage the brand they are counterfeiting… in Second Life in particular, things aren’t that simple.

The next in this series of seminars is on Intellectual Property enforcement in virtual worlds, by Juris Amat, which I expect will be swamped with interest, on July 22 at 12 noon SLT.

You may also be interested in the very interesting and well-written  Virtually Blind website, which covers legal matters of interest in virtual worlds.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 at 2:44 am and is filed under Events, SLBA, Second Life, Virtual Worlds. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.