Virtual real estate entrepreneur Ailin Graef recently announced that her Second Life avatar Anshe Chung had become the first online personality with a net worth of over $1 million, but she may be living in a fantasy world.

Linden Lab, the company that created Second Life, explicitly states that Second Life residents do not own their accounts or any data on Second Life servers.

"Linden Lab retains ownership of the account and related data, regardless of intellectual property rights you may have in content you create or otherwise own," the company states in its Terms of Service agreement.

Yet the company sells the idea of ownership on its site: "Become a part of history by purchasing land and developing your own piece of Second Life," the site says. "The Pricing and Fees are simple; you pay $9.95 a month plus a Land Use Fee proportional to the amount of land you own."

"[T]he land itself and the space and everything is owned, controlled and built by the people [in Second Life]," Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale said in a July interview for the AfterTV podcast.

What do cyber property magnates really own? That depends. "Some online assets, like domain names, are recognized as legal property by case law and statutes," says Rutgers law professor F. Gregory Lastowka. "The legal status of other online assets, like the virtual property in online worlds, is less clear. Even though these assets have real monetary value, they often exist only in the context of online games."

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