Do you own the game character you create?

I had missed this the other week:

Linden Lab, creator of online world Second Life , today announced a significant breakthrough in digital property rights for its customers and for users of online worlds. Changes to Second Life's Terms of Service now recognize the ownership of in-world content by the subscribers who make it. The revised TOS allows subscribers to retain full intellectual property protection for the digital content they create, including characters, clothing, scripts, textures, objects and designs. ...

Steve Bryant has some thoughts on it all over at NYU's ReadMe, here and here. Thanks to Sheila for the pointer.