Second Life Gives Users IP Rights to their Characters

Lawmeme reports that Second Life, an avatar game discussed in recent posts, has made a decision to let player-characters keep the intellectual property rights they create. Players, for instance, have the right to sell movie rights for their character. See Participant Content under the Second Life terms of service agreement. Of course, the player also grants Second Life nonexclusive rights to the content, but nevertheless, this is a fascinating decision with regard to virtual property. I think it also has some interesting implications regarding the idea that games can be a creative environment, in which players actually make new “works” that could have some economic value.

This post was originally published on Grand Text Auto.