Volkov Catteneo: Yes, I am Robert Leatherwood

Robert Leatherwood confirmed to Reuters over the weekend that he was indeed the owner of the Volkov Catteneo avatar.

Last year, Kevin Alderman (Second Life: Stroker Serpentine) sued Catteneo in the first Second Life-based copyright infringement case. Alderman did not know the real life name behind the account. After a four-month investigation employing subpoenas and private detectives, Alderman identified Leatherwood, 19, as Catteneo.

Leatherwood ignored court papers, resulting in a default judgment for Alderman. But until this weekend Leatherwood insisted that Alderman had identified the wrong person, and the Catteneo account, still active in Second Life, also referred to Leatherwood as a separate person.

Leatherwood has dropped the charade. “You are correct in that we are the same person,” Leatherwood/Catteneo said in response to questions in a Second Life interview. “I didn’t see a logical point in admitting my identity back in that time in order to help structure Stroker’s flimsy case in any way.”

The veil of anonymity between Second Life avatars and real world identities, a cherished aspect of Linden Lab’s virtual world, can be problematic for virtual world businesses pursuing civil actions such as copyright infringement lawsuits.

The route taken by Alderman, a subpoena to Linden Lab and PayPal to get Internet Service Provider information, followed by further subpoenas of the ISPs to identify account holders, is likely to be the standard procedure for Second Life-based lawsuits, said Sean Kane, a lawyer with expertise in virtual worlds.

“Just to identify someone in order to serve them, you’re easily talking upwards of ten thousand dollars,” Kane said. Even as claims of theft in Second Life increase, the financial burdens of discovering real-world identities make lawsuits in most cases unlikely.

性爱床盗版案被告认罪

罗伯特.利德伍德在周末向路透社承认，他就是帐号为Volkov Catteneo的Second Life化身的主人。

去年，Second Life中的成人用品商人Stroker Serpentine ，真人名叫Kevin Alderman，在虚拟世界性爱床盗版案起诉一个虚拟名叫Volkov Catteneo的人侵犯版权。起初，Alderman不知道这个帐号所代表的真人。经过4个月的追踪，雇佣了私人侦探，使用了法庭传票（要求ISP提供IP地址追踪技术），Alderman终于锁定罗伯特.利德伍德就是Catteneo。

由于Leatherwood未对相关的法庭文件作出回应，导致法庭按照Alderman的要求执行默认裁定。就在上周末罗伯特.利德伍德还坚持声称Alderman弄错了人，仍然活跃在Second Life的Volkov Catteneo帐号不是他。

然而，现在罗伯特.利德伍德已经放弃了捉迷藏的游戏。‘你是对的，我就是那个人，’罗伯特.利德伍德/Volkov Catteneo在Second Life的采访中回应道‘以前我还没意识到承认真实身份会对那个破“自慰器”案子有帮助’（言不由衷）。

因为林登实验室运营的虚拟世界对用户隐私的保护很在意，Second Life化身与真实世界身份之间蒙上一层匿名面纱，这导致了一些问题，比如虚拟世界商业活动中的民事版权侵犯诉讼。

原告Alderman采取了这样的办法，先给林登实验室和PayPal传票，弄到ISP（互联网接入服务提供商）的信息，然后再给ISP传票，以查明（侵权）帐号的所有者。原告代理律师Sean Kane认为，这很可能会成为Second Life类案件的标准流程，他也是专业虚拟世界律师。

原告代理律师Kane说，‘只要查明诉讼对象的真实身份，很容易就能赚到上万美元’。但是从路透社的报导来看，大部分类似的案件中，查明Second Life窃贼的真实身份所需的代价是有差别的。

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