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Second Life - All News

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Tuesday - August 07, 2007
Monday - January 08, 2007
Sunday - January 07, 2007
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Tuesday - August 07, 2007

Second Life - Linden Labs Responds to Subpoena

by Inauro, 23:16

Reuters is carrying a story about Linden Labs acquiesence to a subpoena to hand over the real life details of a certain Second Life entrepreneur.

SECOND LIFE, August 6 (Reuters) - Linden Lab has complied with a subpoena requesting an avatar’s real-world identity in a Second Life copyright lawsuit, a lawyer for the plaintiff said on Monday.

Second Life firm Eros, run by Kevin Alderman (Second Life: Stroker Serpentine) sued resident Volkov Catteneo in July, charging he illicitly sold copies of Eros’ “SexGen” bed. As part of the lawsuit, Eros subpoenaed PayPal and Linden Lab in an attempt to discover Catteneo’s real-world identity.

PayPal complied with the subpoena last month.

Catteneo told Reuters that he provided fake information while registering with Linden, and predicted Eros would be unable to find him.

Frank Taney, lawyer for Eros LLC, said he is reviewing the information he received from Linden Lab and PayPal, and would ask judges in U.S. federal court in Tampa to issue additional subpoenas within the next two weeks. Asked if that meant requesting information from Internet service providers, Taney said “Yes, and others.”

Taney said he’s seeking both punitive damages against Catteneo, and an injunction barring the avatar from selling more SexGen beds or helping others make copies.

Amid speculation Catteneo may be outside the jurisdiction of American courts, the avatar told Reuters he’s a citizen of the United States living on American soil. Taney confirmed the information he’s received leads him to believe Catteneo is American.

The subpoena requested Linden provide “the entirety of identifying information” the company has on the avatar, including Catteneo’s Internet protocol addresses and chat histories. Taney wouldn’t divulge the particulars of what Linden Lab provided, but said there was no apparent plan by Linden to fight the subpoena in court.

Linden Lab declined to comment.

Monday - January 08, 2007

Second Life - Open Source @ Yahoo

by Inauro, 21:23

Yahoo finance has word that Linden Labs is to open the source code to Second Life.

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Linden Lab®, creator of 3D virtual world Second Life® (www.secondlife.com), is releasing the code of its Viewer application to the open source software development community. Developers can now access the source code to the Second Life end-user software in order to make modifications, enhancements and to add new features. The move marks Linden Lab's continued commitment to building the Second Life Grid as an open, extensible platform for development, rather than a closed proprietary system.

Sunday - January 07, 2007

Second Life - Numbers Questioned

by Dhruin, 20:32

Both Kotaku and Joystiq are running pieces on the reported numbers for Second Life, with evidence emerging the previous claims of 2.5M players are (unsurprisingly) rubbery.  Here's a snip from Joystiq:

Second Life had a backlash coming. The overhyped virtual reality world with amazing public relations and highbrow academic love is now the focus of an increasing number of reports calling foul to their claim of 2.3 million residents. American Public Radio's Marketplace says it's actually more like 250,000.

Clay Shirky, a reporter for Fortune says, "So these aren't terrible numbers, but it's certainly a much more modest success than we've been led to believe by the business stories saying 'there are millions of people using Second Life and it's growing by leaps and bounds.'"

Information about

Second Life

Developer: Linden Lab

SP/MP: Massive
Setting: Modern
Genre: MMORPG
Combat: None
Play-time: Unlimited
Voice-acting: Unknown

Regions & platforms
Internet
· Homepage
· Platform: PC
· Released: 2003-01-01
· Publisher: Linden Lab