Terra Nova

…but we agreed, we have a contract! waaaah

Not if you contracted in Second Life you don't.

Or do you...? 

Goodwill Calling

Today,  I come into find out & read  Andrew Herman, Rosemary J. Coombe & Lewis Kaye's article titled as "YOUR SECOND LIFE?  Goodwill and perfomativity of intellectual property in online digital gaming" from virtual law bibliography in Lawspot online.

www.yorku.ca/rcoombe/publications/YourSecondLife.pdf  (2006)

This article deals with the governance issue of VW(eg. SL), the key tool for argument is not an exclusive proprietary one such as IP or VP but -- to my delight-- an inclusive one, corporate goodwill.

With regard to this, I tell you I registered an article on SSRN recently.

Real Money Trading in MMORPG items from a Legal and Policy perspective

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1113327

It was originally presented at 13. Dec. 2004 in Future Game Seminar held by Korea Game Development & Promotion Institute.  By virtue of professor Yee Fen Lim and lawyer Nicholas Suzor's encouragement and assistance, I could published it in complete english version.

My article deals with the RMT issues of VW(eg. Lineage), and the key tool is Gwonri-geum(a korean legal concept similar to goodwill, strictly speaking, more akin to that of 'lease goodwill'  in England, Austrailia).

*Nic Suzor thankfully made a nice abstract of the article, you can read it here

My paper, same to that of Andew Herman at al, centers on the creation and management of goodwill, an intangible asset of considerable value to VW itself based on affective bonds between players, MMO platform operators, and their commodities in the marketplace. (Differences are, i approached in micro level with economic's support, while they did in macro level with communication & cultural studies)

I hope recalling these two goodwill be an international goodwill, then help in concluding a peace treaty between properties(IP v. VP), and carve out the identity of VW & its virtue.

Blizzard v WoW Glider: Interesting, no?

The EFF's Fred von Lohmann just sent round a note on an email list about the summary judgment briefs in the WoW Glider case. I've mirrored the briefs here and here for those who are interested, and below the fold I'm gonna engage in rampant copyright infringement by reposting all of Fred's message. He sums it up too well to bother trying to explain any better, and I'm sure that he'll forgive the infringement...

Surveillance: whose territory is a virtual world anyway?

When I visited mid January 2008 a technology crime police team in
Amsterdam, they told me about the internet related issues they were
struggling with. One issue was related to the physical location of a server.

They said to have permission to open someone’s mail box
only if the servers are physically located in the Netherlands.
In any other case they needed permission from the “hosting” state.

There had been a case where a mother killed her child and the
Yahoo-mailbox showed an unread e-mail with a subject that
seemed highly relevant for the case. Not looking at this e-mail
because the mail is hosted in the  US seems to me an
unjust territorialisation of the internet.

How should this policy be applied to virtual words?

An Avatar's Day in Court

Farnaz Alemi, an associate at the law firm of Latham & Watkins, has just published a piece in UCLA J. of Law & Tech. about the resolution of disputes within (and without) VWs. From the abstract:

"Though the real world is attempting to recognize in-game property rights to provide relief, it is not the viable solution some may think. As this paper demonstrates, parties face major obstacles in the real world attempting to resolve in-game disputes. Thus, I have proposed a two-tiered justice system: the In-Game Justice System (the "IGJ") and the Real World Justice System (the "RWJ") to provide a potential means of resolving in-game disputes using various real world theories of law and judicial proceedings. More importantly, real world courts would now be sought as a venue of last resort if an aggrieving player pierces the virtual veil (the "PVV"). This proposal intends to provide justice and relief to victims of virtual worlds, and hopefully a means towards understanding the interplay between the virtual world and the real world."

Sustain That Brand

State of Play V, from immaculate Singapore, kicked off this morning with a panel on "Building Businesses in Virtual Worlds." As I write I'm listening as the panel wraps up, with the panelists -- all involved in business development companies that focus to some extent on virtual worlds -- taking questions from the audience. But continuing to resonate in my mind is a phrase that panel participant Ken Brady of Centric used in his remarks to characterize what businesses should aim for in virtual worlds moving forward: "sustainable branding." This idea was echoed by the others on the panel as the discussion progressed, and to me this should prompt us to continue to think about the current era of virtual worlds as one that is beginning to be defined less by the relationship between their makers and their users (as individuals or nascent groups), and more by the expansion (one might even say colonization) of them by both emergent and pre-existing institutions.

All Bets Are Off

Linden Lab has recently changed their policy about gambling in Second Life, effectively banning it (find a clutch of news reports here). The specific demands, in terms of policy and regulation, that gambling and other significant-stakes gaming make on virtual worlds have drawn my attention on TN before. Here I'd like to ask TN-at-large the following: What do you think the effects of this policy are likely to be on SL? On virtual worlds in general (if any)?

Anti-Social Contracts

Why do we let contracts govern virtual communities?  Contracts are private law.  Communities need public law.  Contracts are about helping two (or a few) people negotiate their preferences.  Communities are large numbers of people, who shift in and out of the community, and really don't have time for all that negotiation.  For communities to really thrive, as Greg Lastowka remarked to me recently, "we need to get beyond the EULA."   So I wrote an article about it.

SWI's Declaration of Virtual World Policy

Ted's Synthetic Worlds Initiative at Indiana University convened the second Ludium Conference this past weekend in Bloomington. Attendees were charged with hammering out a well-considered platform to guide virtual world policy. We were successful, and the Declaration of Virtual World Policy [Edit: along with its wiki] has been posted by the conference's designers, Studio Cypher. Here it is for your perusal and comment (along with more details):

Bragg and IGE cases

Many many legal happenings on virtual property and assets. First off, the judge in the Bragg v Linden case has dismissed Linden's Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Jurisdiction and Motion to Compel Arbitration. Lots to say about this Order, but I need some time to digest it. Also, a South Florida law firm has brought a consumer class action on behalf of US WoW subscribers against IGE for their gold farming activities. Much to be said here in a bit.

The highpoint of my brief reading to date is the opening paragraph of the Order in the Bragg case:

This case is about virtual property maintained on a virtual world on the Internet. Plaintiff, March Bragg, Esq., claims an ownership interest in such virtual property. Bragg contends that Defendants, the operators of the virtual world, unlawfully confiscated his virtual property and denied him access to their virtual world. Ultimately at issue in this case are the novel questions of what rights and obligations grow out of the relationship between the owner and creator of a virtual world and its resident-customers. While the property and the world where it is found are "virtual," the dispute is real.