Dr. Tanya Byron has raided airwaves again with her latest endeavor with video games. After her six-month review of game violence, she was able to write and front a BBC TV show wherein she linked playing video games to heroin addiction. More details can be found in the full article.

Napster, Torrent sites, and YouTube were all mired down in legal suits for copyright real-life property being freely shared through their P2P services.  Now here's something new: Kevin Alderman, infamous internet Adult Entertainment businessman, is suing for copyright infringement on his virtual property.
 
Alderman owns the internet company Eros LLC, which specializes in Adult products, 90% of which are for the online virtual world, Second Life, where Alderman has his own avatar, Stroker Serpentine. He recently made news by selling the virtual property Amsterdam for US$ 50,000 on eBay.

Alderman was the virtual author of a bed (for Adults only, let's leave it at that,) that sold for US$ 45 in Second Life. For those who aren't familiar with Second Life, you should know that the virtual money they use in-game (called Linden Dollars) has a corresponding value in real life. This bed has already sold an estimated 100,000 copies. That's a lot of cash for a non-existant piece of furniture. 

 

Now another guy in Second Life, named Volkov Catteneo, made a copy of the bed, or at least a near copy, and sold his version for US$ 15. You can imagine how Alderman would feel with this guy cutting into his profits with his own design.

The problem now is that no one knows the real identity of Catteneo. Alderman wants to file a subpoena to acquire the information on Catteneo's real identity but the developers behind Second Life, Linden Lab, has yet to give a solid reply to this legal action and are unavailable for comment. Catteneo, on the other hand, has this to say about the subpeona: “I’m not some kind of noob. My name isn’t on file.”  Not knowing the real identity of Catteneo, the lawsuit refers to him as John Doe.

Another thing about the case is the actual nuances of copyright on virtual property. Anything virtual is in essence only lines of code, so even though the bed may look the same when seen in the virtual world, the code isn't necessarily the same. Therefore, pinpointing where the actual infringement was made may be a problem.

Alderman feels that his company, Eros LLC, "has been damaged, and continues to be irreparably damaged by diversion of sales." He is suing Catteneo for three times the profits he has made with the copy of the bed.

The MMORPG Second Life by Linden Lab is one of the most popular games on the market with 5 million subscribers as of last March 27. Essentially a virtual world where anything is possible, it has become the subject of much talk and controversy.

Recently, it has become a staging ground for groups who want their messages to be heard. Certain groups have gone so far as to stage terrorists attacks and political protests online. The organization Adventure Ecology didn't do anything as radical as that. They simply decided to flood various parts of the virtual world last April 4.

London, Amsterdam, Ibiza, Tokyo and other regions in Second Life were subjected to a sudden flash flood which thankfully lasted for only a few hours. The flooding of the areas was done to show the financial, and more importantly, environmental implications of global warming. David de Rothschild, a London-based environmentalist and founder of Adventure Ecology, spoke about the event saying that "Our message was, you may have a second life, but [you still need to] offset your second life in real life."

Most of the players handled the flooding well according to most reports. Many of them even spent time speaking with members of Adventure Ecology about global warming and its dangers.

It's no surprise that the event was well received by the SL community since their support for other events such as Red Nose Day has been well documented. Hopefully, this successful venture may inspire other environmental groups to stage events which will inform the public on the environmental problems we are experiencing.

European Vanguard users sure know how to make their voices heard, because Sigil has just announced the release of a brand new EU server!

According to Sigil Games, the response they got from the game's European player base was so overwhelming that they just had to bring another Euro server online. The new server, called Infinium, will be a PVE server located in Amsterdam (like the other EU servers).

With that in mind, they also want to thank all their overseas players for supporting the game. Infinium is now live and online so go and log in right now to check it out.

This particular bit reminds me of the Musical Youth song, Pass the Dutchie. Anyhow, we all know how prostitution lingers around in the MMO, Second Life. But if you want more uhmm, "entertainment" in your MMO and if you're 18 years old and older, then the virtual world of Red Light Center might just be your thing.

Red Light Center is a virtual reality universe modeled after Amsterdam's legal yet controversial Red Light District. In it, they offer users with nightclubs, hotels, bars, movie theaters, and stores - all of them virtual. Their new offering is a virtual Amsterdam-style smoking room and if you do a bit of research, you may realize why this made me remember the Musical Youth song.

The new feature was introduced this past New Year and according to Brian Shuster, CEO of Utherverse which is the parent company of RedLightCenter, "the response from our community has been overwhelmingly positive...We’re offering a neat experience that’s totally safe and legal."

Clicking on the read-link below will take you to their site. It's a good thing that you should be 18 years old and older to get in, but in the end, the decision of seeing what's in it is entirely up to you. We just dish out the news here anyway.

Martial Arts MMORPG's are common in Asia, but there seems to be a great pent-up demand for them in Europe as well.

At least thats what Amsterdam-based Game Entertainment Europe BV is banking on as they prepare to release their first MMORPG, Martial Heroes. Developed by Korean company CR-Space Co. Ltd., MH has been available in Korea, China and Malaysia for awhile. Although there is no word on when the European version of the game will be released, GEEBV's MH website is scheduled to be online this coming August, where eventually the game itself can be downloaded for free.

Richard van Barneveld, CEO of Game Entertainment Europe, issued the following statement:

“There are many more great online community games besides those from well known publishers like NCSoft and Webzen. Many games that are successful in Asia are hardly available for gamers in Europe. We are the first company to offer a complete solution to the many problems that game developers face in offering their games in Europe."

The company will be offering the game in 28 languages, starting with Dutch, German, French and English, with others added as the gaming community grows.

About the game itself, players will choose a role and advance by playing quests while using items such as swords and horses. Players will also have the opportunity to form or join guilds. There will be "unlimited levels," and the addition of new content, expansions and in-game events will be a regular occurrence.