by Alphaville Herald on 15/09/09 at 8:43 pm



Lawsuit seeks injunction against Linden Research to prevent intellectual property rights infringement in Second Life

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

Shannon Grei and Kevin Aldermann's Eros LLC have filed a complaint in US District Court in Northern California against Linden Reseach alleging "Linden Lab, with knowing and conscious intent to do so, profits in multiple ways and at multiple stages from the illegal conduct" and asks for an injunction to halt the activity. Eros LLC markets a line of sex animations for the virtual world of Second Life, and has built a successful business – but the accumulated frustrations with the weak enforcement of intellectual property rights on the part of Linden Lab seem to have reached the breaking point.

When the Herald contacted Stroker Serpentine for comment, Mr. Serpentine (Kevin Aldermann in real life) said, "This is not about financialgain. Seldom do class actions result in substantial class settlements.This is about a pattern of ambivelence over six years. We wantfundamental change in the regard to the very content and creators thatmade SL what it is today."

The complaint begins:



"Plaintiffs Eros, LLC (“Eros”) and Shannon Grei, d/b/a Nomine (“Grei”) (collectively, “Plaintiffs”), bring this class action complaint against Defendants Linden Research, Inc. and Linden Research International, Inc. (collectively, “Linden Lab” or “Defendant”), headquartered in San Francisco, California, for its practice of violating the real-world intellectual property rights of proprietors of virtual content within the Second Life virtual world (“Second Life”), which Linden Lab owns and operates."

The illegal conduct alleged includes



"directly and secondarily violated the intellectual property rights of Plaintiffs and other Second Life proprietors. Linden Lab directly and secondarily infringes the trademark of Plaintiff Eros by using Eros’s mark to sell infringing virtual goods within Second Life and by providing the tools to other infringing Second Life users. Linden Lab directly and secondarily violates the copyrights of Plaintiff

Grei by reproducing and displaying her copyrighted works within Second Life, and by materially contributing to and supervising the infringing conduct of others within Second Life."





We will have much more on this breaking story once we finished reading the complaint – if Stroker is as successful with this legal action as he has been with legal actions in the past, the Lindens may have their hands full.