Sand Castle Studios

Starting on September 14, 2009 virtual items that are in violation of real world copyrights or that infringe on brand owners’ intellectual property will no longer be for sale on Second Life’s ecommerce site, XStreet SL.

Playboy’s Q1 2008 earnings conference call, Playboy Enterprises chairman and CEO Christie Hefner (the daughter of Hugh Hefner) discussed the company’s future plans and in doing so hinted that Playboy may be developing its own virtual world in the future.

It started when Linden Lab, under the pretext of introducing the new “Second Life® Brand Center,” announced their new trademark policy. In classic Linden fashion, their delivery was mismanaged and outraged the community. The policy was also not very clear. About a week later, Linden Lab offered a further explanation of the policy, but the explanation only reiterated what was already stated and did not further answer any additional concerns or questions. With no real response to their questions, the Second Life bloggers began to protest. SL blogger Gwyneth Llewelyn wrote a petition to Linden Labs and when it went unanswered the strike was organized.