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Role Playing (Games) Government The Courts News

The Law And Virtual Worlds 30

Posted by Zonk from the 60-lawyer-lfg-pst dept.
Via GamePolitics, commentary on the Game Tycoon and Terra Nova sites about how virtual world events and the law can interact. Property rights seem to be the largest sticking point of late, with a recent event in 2L being the focus of the discussion. From the Terra Nova article: "In introducing Point to Point (P2P) movement in Second Life, Linden Lab fundamentally altered the economic structure of the virtual space. In response to protests Linden has offered to buy back land as a form of 'compensation'. Taken together with the recent FBI reports is this the dawn of a liability culture within Second Life heralding a new form of virtual space?"
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The Law And Virtual Worlds More

The Law And Virtual Worlds

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  • cool that they're doing that... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Malor ( 3658 ) on Wednesday January 04, 2006 @04:45PM (#14395138) Journal
    The fundamental design of SL was meant to be something like a city. You could 'teleport' to telehubs, much like riding a subway, and then you'd have to fly/drive/whatever to your final destination.

    This was done on purpose, to give the world a sense of space; with point to point teleport, the entire world collapses into one dimension. Everything is next to everything. With the telehub approach, the world had some 'space' to it... you couldn't instantly arrive just anywhere. (I liked this approach a lot, you got to see things you'd otherwise miss.)

    So this made telehub land worth more than other land; you had a chance to advertise and catch the eyes of passers-by. If you had land near a popular telehub, it could be quite profitable...where land out in the boondocks is worth less, from fewer eyeballs.

    SL itself has been pushing the idea of virtual property and virtual ownership; they like, very much, the fact that virtual land has value, and that they can sell their virtual currency for real dollars. When they suddenly change the rules on how things work, they damage the value of things that took advantage of the old way of doing things. Changing the rules cost many of these people real money, in some cases a great deal of it.

    I'm glad they stepped up to the plate and took responsibility for the damage... when they're the ones pushing the idea of virtual commerce and property, it behooves them to make people whole if they purposely damage some folks' assets.
    • Disclaimer: I don't play the game personally.

      What was the motivation behind this change? In just about any MMO, being able to travel anywhere instantly is a BAD thing, and is avoided. Hell, in Eve Online they have actively tried to increase how much people have to travel to break up the major trade hubs into more regionalized markets.

      There seems to be some major problems with instant travel, so what are the benefits?
      • SL is not a traditional MMO. There is no direct competition or conflict built into the game. SL is a virtual environment. The key aspect of the game is that any player can write programs and build 3d objects that other players can interact with according to the physical rules of the game. It is a meta-game in the purest sense possible so far. Within SL there are RPGs, board games, 'real' games like pool and bowling, etc. There are people who just build pretty sculptures and statues. The only marginal
        • Mind actually answering my question?

          Let me clarify. Players make virtual products which they can sell in the virtual world. Real estate in the virtual world had value based on it's visability in the game world. Basically, highly travelled areas had high visibility and high value. P2P travel completely eliminates that dynamic from the meta-game. With such travel, area is completely valueless from a visibility standpoint, as noone will see it unless it's their destination.

          What are the intended benefit
          • Now a player who wants to play some Settlers of Catan and then do some bowling can do both without wasting 30 minutes getting from one game to another. SL is less a world and more a lobby for a thousand other games.

            A house/store in UO plummeted in value every time the game world got larger and new areas were added that drew people away from the travel route that the store was located near, and possibly even became negative in worth if visiting the location became a burden on the player who owned it as he w

            • Even if you consider this a direct analog to real property, the government is not liable to billboard owners (or owners of the land beneath them) when a highway is relocated such that the billboards become non-visible.

              Then again, the government doesn't control the laws of physics, so the analogy breaks down a bit.

    • Re:cool that they're doing that... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by eggstasy ( 458692 ) on Wednesday January 04, 2006 @08:43PM (#14397099) Journal
      This post is slightly misleading. May I ask what is your name in SL? Did you join in 2004 or later?
      Second Life has always had P2P teleportation. It was certainly there when Beta started in 2002, and even after telehubs arrived, you could still offer someone a teleport and they would bypass the hub system, instantly arriving at your location.
      I run a second life history wiki: http://history.secondserver.org/ [secondserver.org]
      If you like it and decide to join SL, feel free to use my referral link, and I will gladly give you the referral money and help you get started.
      • Second Life has had person to person teleportation, but not POINT TO POINT teleportation. If someone was already in a place you wanted to go, you could be summoned there. (this still works, but it's kind of outmoded now.) You could not, however, just randomly show up anywhere on the map. That is the new default behavior, unless the land owner turns off that feature. There may have been point-to-point teleportation at one time... I know people have talked about being charged to teleport in the very ear
  • Dear: Slashdot
    I've never tried second life, and really don't get why people spend so much money on it. Is something wrong with me?
                                      Signed: Outofloop.

  • Not the first step, but still... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AsiNisiMasa ( 910721 ) on Wednesday January 04, 2006 @05:01PM (#14395278) Homepage
    I'm pretty sure that this is the next step in a long running, logical progression that's been gaining steam as the MMOGs have been increasing in complexity, popularity, and stability.

    As for the full article, that list isn't really as complicated as one would think. The only major issue with any of the points (besides harrassment, I guess) is that the game money can be traded for real money. Except in 2L, this is frowned upon by the developers and I think it usually is outlawed in the EULA. With that in mind, it seems that only 2L is actually in any trouble since the other MMOGs' property has no official value.

    2L has three potential paths, as far as I can tell at this point:

    1. Drop the act: stop marketting it as an extnesion of the real world and make major policy changes regarding the relationship between in game property and real world property. This would probably be met with outrage from the community so I doubt it will happen.

    2. Go all out: declare the game a true extension of the real world. This creates a whole new set of problems that are actually even worse than the one's that exist right now. Who has sovereignty over the game? What kinds of taxes are on transactions between game currency and real currency? What about minting money? I dunno about 2L, where does their money come from? There would have to be monitors for inflation to protect RL currency. What f the game crashes? This event, although even more unlikely, would mean that a set of real laws would have to be created addressing all those things, but then one must also consider if the laws affect a real person or just their avatar, etc. This would be a terrible mess and would more likely be the result of a very slow transition that a single decision.

    3. Let the lawmakers work it out. This is most likely going to be the case, unfortunately. The old men in congress have absolutely no idea what goes on inside a game and have probably never played a MMOG. Yet chances are, they will be the ones who eventually decide what kind of laws are placed within any given game world. Actually no, they'll create an all encompassing set of laws that affect all game worlds, which is even worse.

    • Let the lawmakers work it out. This is most likely going to be the case, unfortunately. The old men in congress have absolutely no idea what goes on inside a game and have probably never played a MMOG. Yet chances are, they will be the ones who eventually decide what kind of laws are placed within any given game world. Actually no, they'll create an all encompassing set of laws that affect all game worlds, which is even worse.

      Yes, but it will keep them occupied so that they do less mischief in the real wo

  • Linden Labs can be sued.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BrookHarty ( 9119 ) on Wednesday January 04, 2006 @05:08PM (#14395337) Journal
    It doesnt matter what their Terms of Service says, they promoted a world for profit and thus entered contract laws. Terms of Service cant take away your legal rights.

    Look how SONY's TOS listed spyware, doesnt legalize spyware to be installed.

    • Look how SONY's TOS listed spyware, doesnt legalize spyware to be installed.

      Yeah, and look at all the trouble they got into! Giving away an online album for everyone who signed up for the class-action? That doesn't even cost them anything...
    • It doesnt matter what their Terms of Service says, they promoted a world for profit and thus entered contract laws. Terms of Service cant take away your legal rights.

       Except...

      1.2 Changes to these Terms... Linden may amend this Agreement (including without limitation the pricing terms set forth herein) and/or modify the Community Standards at any time in its sole discretion.

       Homeowner's Associations can do it, why not a MMORPG? You sign a contract that says you agree to allow the contract to be cha
      • TOS isnt exactly the same as a written contract that you sign.

        Also depends on who has the better lawyer.

      • Homeowner's Associations can do it, why not a MMORPG? You sign a contract that says you agree to allow the contract to be changed at any time.

        What kind of HOA do you have, anyway? I sure as hell wouldn't sign something like that.

        • Seized is a strong word, most can do repairs on your property if you break the bylaws (such as repainting your pokadots without your permission) then can legally put a lean on your property for the cost of the repairs. Theoretically if your house was worth less than the cost of the repairs they would be seizing your house. This is still better than the lady whos city stole over 1 million for not cutting her grass.

  • This is remarkably akin to what has happened to land along highways that are either bypassed by Interstate freeways or land that is gobbled up to make the freeways.

    Transportation and land use are closely linked in the real world with similar effects to what is happening in the simulated world. In some countries property owners can demand and receive compensation if their land is appropriated for transportation purposes. But demanding and receiving compensation because of transportation technology changes

  • MMORGs and other virtual spaces seems to better work by the rules of Anarcho-Capitalism [wikipedia.org] than by current government regulations. How are lawmakers supposed to enforce common laws into the closed source code that runs the virtual environment?

    Internet currently works by agreements between persons, and the "virtual" economy that results would regulate through private enforcement (parentheses because nowadays the "real" economy regulated by governments is really not different for real or virtual items).

    Each new
  • I have never been a SL user, but it seems to me that they failed to disclose material facts they had at their disposal about an item they were selling. If I bought something under those circumstances, I would at least be miffed and quite possibly considering legal recourse myself

    SL also sets itself apart from most virtual worlds in that they themselves sell in game items instead of just selling accounts and access to the world itself. I don't think a claim like this would work in most other virtual wor
  • This, to me, just seems so odd. I think it is because we are seeing (yet another) conflict between what we expect in meatspace, colliding with what is possible in virtual space. I have never played SL (or any other similar MMORPG, for that matter), but I understand what is going on: I have played around with and read enough about virtual worlds and such since 1992 or thereabout, and I have read most of Gibson's and other's works - so I understand what is being done.

    What I don't understand, or at least I am

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