E-Commerce Blog

About eight months ago, the owners of a sporting goods company contacted their attorney, Doug Wolf, a partner at Wolf Greenfield. It seemed a company was using the firm’s logo and trademark without proper authorization. Setting the matter right should have been a straightforward task for Wolf — except for the fact that the intellectual property theft was happening online, specifically in Second Life. The client didn’t even know who was controlling the avatar who had set up shop using its trademarks.

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Virtual Worlds: It’s a Legal Jungle in There

Copyrights are perhaps the most common type of intellectual property (along with trademarks), and are the first stop when it comes to protecting software-based products. This is because copyrights, which protect a particular expression of an idea, exist automatically upon fixation of an author’s work in a tangible medium of expression. This means that a graphic designer’s works are protected the instant they are drawn on paper or saved on a computer. A software programmer’s works are protected the instant they are saved to disc.

Here is the original:
The Rocky Legal Landscape of Virtual Worlds, Part 3: Copyrights

The sour economy is causing industries and individuals alike to tighten their belts in just about all areas of spending, including software. Downloading free and low-cost open source software is often an attractive alternative to proprietary commercial products. The potential for enterprises and other users switching from high-priced software to open source alternatives poses a new opportunity for open source developers. Can open source meet this new niche of use in response to the economic slide industries are facing?

Excerpt from:
Open Source in a Down Economy: The Money Race Is On

Virtual worlds provide not only a new universe in which brave explorers stake their claims, but also a new legal landscape in which the colonists are often at odds with the natives from the “old world.” How do real-world laws apply? How do traditional concepts of intellectual property — patents, copyrights, and trademarks — apply in a virtual world? Can virtual worlds contract around intellectual property rights by forcing users to license their intellectual property, or forego such claims altogether?

Excerpt from:
The Rocky Legal Landscape of Virtual Worlds, Part 1: Trademarks

Terra Soft Solutions, the developer of Yellow Dog Linux, has been acquired by the Japanese software firm Fixstars Corporation, a developer of Cell Broadband Engine solutions. The new company, now known as “Fixstars Solutions,” is operating as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fixstars and will maintain its entire product line from a regional office in Loveland, Colo., where Terra Soft is based. Former Terra Soft CEO Kai Staats will serve the new company as its Chief Operating Officer.

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Terra Soft to Merge With Japanese Cell Developer Fixstars