Evans v. Linden Research, Inc.

Carl Evans and other individuals (collectively, the participants) (plaintiffs) participated in Second Life, an internet role-playing virtual-world game developed by Linden Research, Inc. (Linden) (defendant). Second Life users could create virtual characters who interacted with each other in the game’s virtual world. Among other things, Second Life characters could run businesses, buy and sell virtual personal-property items, and buy and sell pieces of virtual land. The participants used currency known as lindens to buy the land and items in the virtual world, but lindens could be purchased with and exchanged into real US dollars. Linden kept and stored the participants’ virtual items and virtual land on Linden’s computer servers. Virtual landowners could have their characters inhabit, rent, split, or resell the land in whole or in part to other characters. Beginning in 2003, Linden allegedly represented publicly that Second Life users had ownership rights to virtual land purchased from Linden and intellectual-property rights for user-created virtual items or content. Allowing such rights represented a departure from standard role-playing-game practices, and Second Life allegedly used the ownership rights to market Second Life and attract users. The Second Life homepage included prominent wording indicating that Second Life was a virtual world that was “imagined, created, and owned by its residents.” Sometime after 2007, Linden removed the word “owned” from the wording on the homepage and allegedly began depriving Second Life users of their previously held ownership rights. In 2010, Linden updated the Second Life Terms of Service (TOS) to indicate that virtual land was space within the Second Life virtual world that was merely licensed by Linden. All Second Life users, including those who had previously purchased virtual land or other virtual items in Second Life, were required to accept the new TOS to continue playing Second Life. Following the TOS updates, Linden terminated or suspended the participants’ accounts, essentially confiscating the participants’ lindens, US currency, virtual items, and virtual land. The participants brought a putative class action against Linden, asserting that the participants had actual, real-world ownership rights in the virtual land and items and that Linden had wrongfully deprived the participants of those rights without compensation. Linden asserted that the participants and other Second Life users had only intellectual-property rights (i.e., copyrights) in the virtual land and items. Linden executives argued that allowing users to own intellectual-property rights in the virtual content still represented a departure from other role-playing games and that Linden had never interfered with the participants’ copyrights.