Copyright versus Intellectual Property rights

On the heels of the Anshe Chung and Kokomo disasters there have been many article written in discussion on the right or wrong of such actions and how they will affect creativity in Second Life.

My understanding is that Linden Lab or Second Life allows creators of objects in Second Life Intellectual property rights to those who create said objects, but that should not be confused with copyrights which are not given to residents but are retained by Linden Lab. Which Linden lab would have to have to stream all the object to the users within Second Life…
What is the difference? Well I am not an attorney, and I am still in the process of searching around attempting to determine the difference and its legal ramifications. Care to take a look at the early findings in my search?

First I did a google search for both terms, and decided to look first at the Wikipeda of both terms… lets start with Copyright (link) which seems to stand for a set of exclusive rights (link) regulating the use of a particular expression of an idea or information; it is literally “the right to copy” an original creation. It is not designed or intended to cover the actual idea, concepts, facts, styles, or techniques which may be embodied in or represented by the copyright work.
Now a glance at Intellectual rights (link) or Intellectual property (link) which suggest a group of rights in relation to the manner in which ideas or information are expressed or manifested, but not in relation to the ideas or concepts themselves. In other words Intellectual property gives legal rights which authors, inventors and other intellectual property holders, but not the actual work itself.

The purpose of Intellectual property is to encourage the making and disclosure of the innovation into public domain for the betterment of a society , by giving the authors and makers exclusive rights to exploit their work for a limited period.

What about theft of intellectual property? Theft of IP is an ongoing controversy…. commonly the law defines theft as requiring deprivation of the rightful owner of the right to possess, use, or destroy the property. Say someone takes your gun, you are deprived the right to use or even have access to it and certainly are then unable to destroy it. Now with intellectual property any where on the web especially within Second Life are easily reproduced and no one is deprived of their intellectual nor the use of said property… does that meet the non-rival test for public goods (link) ?

Intellectual property rights in the digital era (link) ouch my head is hurting! I think I will simply leave you to decide whether to follow that link or not!