It's not every complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York that identifies the defendant by his Second Life name of "Rase Kenzo" or that identifies as the subject matter of the lawsuit "the SexGen Platinum Base Unit+Diamond v.5.01" or the "DE Day Walker Resurrection."
Such are the specifics of a case just filed in federal court, in which several virtual  object vendors accuse Thomas Simon (aka Rase Kenzo) of creating knockoff copies of their virtual products and selling them under their legitimate trademarks.
While such a dispute might seem like it could be handled within the confines of Second Life, the sales of these things mean real money for their creators.
Virtual Theft, Real Money
"It's stealing," insisted Kevin Alderman, a Florida man who goes by the name Stroker Serpentine. Alderman sells Second Life furniture with computer code that facilitates sex between Second Life avatars.
Another plaintiff, Shannon Grei (avatar name: Munchflower Zaius) sells virtual clothing -- everything from t-shirts to formal wear. A single mother, Grei charges up to $4 for her wares and makes enough to support herself and her two young children. While the fraudulent sales might be virtual, the damages are very real, she said. "Over time, it's going to add up, and it's going to add up quickly," she told the New York Post.
"This is not a joke," Frank Taney, the plaintiffs' lawyer, said. "This is not a game. This hurts them."
Simon's defense appears to be that real-world law doesn't apply in cyberspace. "They can say whatever they want to say," Simon told the New York Post. "It's a video game." He added: "I didn't know you could sue anyone over it."
Avatar Subpoenaed, Identified
Meanwhile, Alderman has identified another thief of his sex furniture. Alderman had sued an avatar named Volkov Catteneo in July, but the real-life identity of Catteneo was unknown. Last week, through private investigation and subpoenas of Second Life creator Linden Lab, PayPal, AT&T , and Charter Communications, Alderman's legal team fingered Robert Leatherwood, 19, of Texas, as Catteneo.
In a Second Life interview in July, the avatar Catteneo told Reuters that he had sold about 50 copies of Alderman's sex beds on behalf of a third party. Catteneo said he had no fear of being identified. "I'm not some kind of noob," Catteneo said. "My name isn't on [Linden Lab's] file. I don't even have a permanent address [in real life] either," he said.
According to Taney, the subpoenas led to two addresses: Leatherwood's family home outside of Dallas and another Dallas-area house. "I've spoken to several members of that house, and they told me he [Leatherwood] brought his computer over there and plugged into their connection," Taney told Reuters.
A private investigator offered Leatherwood a settlement, giving him 20 days to respond before discovery begins in the case.
The thefts appear to have been the result of an exploit of a bug in Second Life's copy protection software. Some users apparently intentionally caused the software to crash, which triggered a rollback of the Second Life inventory server to a previous point in time. The users removed the targeted objects and forced a crash. When the system rolled back, a duplicate item was created. Repeating the process creates more duplicates.
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