I am indebted to Corey Akula for a lead on this story. I was alerted to the fact that Kokomo sim expects people to get permission in writing before taking photographs in the sim. I went there, stumbled around looking for such a warning, found none, took some photographs as I would in any sim in SL.

After I took the photograph, I stumbled out onto a piece of decking and was hit with a notecard, which included the following information:

"RECORDING, FILMING AND STILL PHOTOGRAPHS are strictly prohibited without first obtaining a written release from OKPride.Net LLC and any such infraction of this policy will be considered copyright infringement and pursued using all available resources in a real world court of law."

But... what are they going to sue me for? And can they really be saying that everyone who goes to their sim and takes an unauthorised photograph will be sued? And how long will they be in business if they do?

To be honest, if I hadn't had the tip off that there was a notice there banning all photographs, I shouldn't have explored far enough to find it - it seems a singularly unexciting sim to me. It leaves me with a lot of questions ... do they really think this is the way to behave in SL? Will it win friends and influence people, treating them all as though they were criminal copyright infringers?

I shall try contacting OKPride.Net and Linden lab for information. Meanwhile, please say you'll contribute to a fighting fund if OKPride Net comes after me ....