Second Life is a virtual world where participants
create avatars
(characters or representations of themselves) to interact. 

CNET News.com described it
well: “Second Life is an
open-ended, 3D, digital virtual world in which members can create nearly
anything they can imagine, and in which anyone owns the intellectual property
rights to what they create. As a result, there are hundreds of businesses
selling clothing, vehicles, furniture and the like, all for Linden dollars.  A complex and stable economy has sprung up around such commerce."

Second Life had almost 1.4
million subscribers on November 15^th. That’s up from 1M subscribers on October 18^th. 

It’s really taking off and
many businesses are getting in on it.

There have been product
debuts, concerts, meetings, political events, and branches
of real life businesses set up in Second Life.  

Toyota will be
offering the virtual Scion there in November.

Dell
has also set up shop. 

Per Information Week, “Reuters
news agency recently opened a bureau to cover Second Life events. Other
companies active in Second Life include carmaker Nissan and clothier American
Apparel.”

Some people even make
their living there. 

While I think there’s a
great deal to be learned by looking at Second Life, what I find very interesting
is the latest news.

According to PaidContent.org,
“A new program, CopyBot, does pretty much what the name promises: It lets
characters in the virtual world copy objects they encounter as they wander
around.” 

According to Information
Week, this “… has the potential of causing serious problems for Linden Lab,
which operates what has grown into a multimillion-dollar online economy. In the
last 24 hours, for example, the 3D world’s more than 1.3 million registered
users did more than $690,000 worth of business, according to Linden Lab. In
September, they did $7.4 million… the company [has] advised victims to sue
perpetrators for copyright
infringement.”

Second Life residents are
now going to need their share of lawyers to protect their intellectual
property.

Whether in a real or virtual world, people will be people. 

It was only a matter of
time before lawyers showed up!