eBay loves SL

Historically, eBay has not allowed auction items from virtual worlds. The policy on digitally delivered goods states: "The seller must be the owner of the underlying intellectual property, or authorized to distribute it by the intellectual property owner." According to Slashdot, eBay is delisting all auctions for virtual property.

The growing popularity of Massively Multiplayer games has brought the issue of ownership rights in virtual worlds, and the appropriateness of what is called 'real money transfer' (RMT) into an increasingly public light.

However, today eBay made an exception for items from Second Life, since "Second Life is not a game", and SL residents own the intellectual property rights to objects they create in SL.

According to Daniel Terdiman in the CNETnews.com podcast for January 29, the secondary market for virtual world items is estimated to be between 250 and 800 million US dollars.

Technorati Tags: entrepreneur, virtual worlds, SL, intellectual property