Law and Virtual Worlds

Greg Lastowka writes "In light of yesterday's spirited discussion of the Shadowbane hack, I thought folks might be interested in this forthcoming article about the laws of virtual worlds. The article has three parts: 1) a history of virtual worlds (e.g. Space War --> MMORPGs), 2) a theoretical analysis of whether virtual world "property" can/should be treated as legal property, and 3) an analysis of whether virtual worlds can/should give rise to any other legal rights, i.e. rights of avatars -- an idea first floated by Raph Koster. I realize there are plenty of strongly-held and divergent opinions on this, so hopefully this might add to the ongoing conversation. Also, we're revising this for publication over the summer, so we will be reading the comments for any corrections/insights/humor that we can incorporate into our revisions."

We are still talking about a GAME

[serutan]

Here's an excerpt from the Declaration of the Rights of Avatars: "That avatars are the manifestation of actual people in an online medium, and that their utterances, actions, thoughts, and emotions should be considered to be as valid as the utterances, actions, thoughts, and emotions of people in any other forum, venue, location, or space."

Well I certainly wouldn't play RPGs if I had to worry about being charged with criminal assault for starting a brawl in a Greyhawk tavern as Zorgo the Rogue. The whole point of RPGs is to ESCAPE from reality into different worlds with their own rules. Let's not drag the real world into it, PUH-LEEEEEEEASE!!!

Re:Short Answers

[Anonymous Coward]

The terms of service for MMORPG's spell it out very clearly; All the content on the servers is the property of the game company. Just like E-mail at your work! Players who sell characters, etc. on eBay are breaking the TOS and can be kicked. There have been instances of a character being cancelled after being purchased on eBay.

Contract/agreement

[DreadSpoon]

This really should belong to the companies/organization running the virtual world. If they state, "we own all virtual property, blah blah" then that's that. And honestly, every single MUD/MMORPG/etc. should have that in the agreement...

People make claims about how they put time and money into building characters and amassing equipment in these games. People need to realize you're paying for the right/time/resources for you to _have fun_ while doing this. You paid to be allowed to spend your time playing a game.

It's like an arcade; you don't own the game or anything when you put in a quarter (or dollar, as is becomming common), you are just paying for the right to play the game for a while.

If you don't like those rules... don't give them your money to play!