Fake World, Real Money, Real Problems

We've been watching this one for a while, but it appears as if the lawsuit against Second Life avatar Volkov Catteneo (supposedly 19-year-old Texan Robert Leatherwood) has come to a very real and very serious conclusion.

If you don't know anything about this case, here are the basic facts: Eros LLC (owned by SL entrpraneur Kevin Alderman) created and sold the SexGen bed and sold it in Second Life for L$12,000 per copy. Despite the 'no-copy' protections, Catteneo somehow managed to copy it and sold unauthorized copies of the bed for L$4,000 each. After filing suit against Catteneo in July and a lengthy search using IP address searches and private investigators, Leatherwod was identified as Catteneo.

Since then, Leatherwood failed to respond to the lawsuit and, now that the response time has expired, it looks like he will have a default verdict levied against him. This will make him legally responsible for Catteneo's actions whether Leatherwood is actually Catteneo or not.

Let this be a lesson to everyone who thinks these are just games. By failing to respond to the lawsuit, Mr. Leatherwood has taken a very big step towards ruining his young life. Problems like this don't go away. If he has a default judgment entered against him, Leatherwood can have his assets seized, his wages garnished, and his credit report ruined.

This case also highlights the difficulties of copyright issues in places like SL. (Read this article form Reuters SL about some of the current problems, or check out the TerraNova blog for some great articles about MMORPG issues.) Players like Leatherwood probably have a sense of secure anonymity when playing games like SL, but it's just an illusion. When there is money involved, you can be found.