I'm reading James Grimmelmann's wonderful essay on the interpenetration of real and virtual worlds (here's a link ) -- and you should too.
The paper builds on a distinction that I think is absolutely critical between the cyberanarchist (law should stay out of virtual worlds) and unexceptionalist (law is already a part of virtual worlds) legal positions. The paper quite rightly rejects both of those, and moves forward with a middle road.
James's compromise is this: Virtual worlds are intrinsically connected to -- and enrich -- the real world. But, much of this enrichment derives from a different and evolving set of values. Can we get both? Sure. James points out that a "measure of independence" for virtual worlds gets us most of what we need, but that we must also recognize the legitimate interests of real-world communities in protecting their denizens. James recognizes not only interconnectedness, but reciprocity: both virtual and real worlds have values and interests that must be respected.
To my mind, we can also look at it this way: the question is not whether law CAN penetrate virtual worlds. The fact that real people are involved with virtual worlds alone means that law ALREADY governs virtual worlds. If I send a credible death threat via World of Warcraft, the police will have every reason to knock on my door, just as if I'd said it in person, or said it via email or telephone.
But what the law CAN do, it often OUGHT NOT to do. How do we make "good" law? Often it's by asking the local constituency -- the people most affected by the set of laws -- to vote! This is the entire precept of local self-governance, and of vertical federalism. The fact that virtual worlds are as much an industry as a community shouldn't hamper this -- we let industries develop common standards all the time, and the custom and practice of the industry is routinely given legal weight.
So -- does law penetrate virtual worlds? Manifestly. Should it walk softly and defer to community standards in an attempt to respect self-governance? Absolutely.
I don't know ... with the brass balls some people seem to grow under the nurturing lamp of anonymity (there's a stretch for an analogy) I sometimes almost wish the "law" would come down hard in VW's. Of course, that is just a knee-jerk reaction to some tiny injustice or other that I have experienced. Still, there's a place for law in any community, real or virtual. The real worry, to me, is how the government will come in under the auspices (word choice?) of providing security for citizens online when they are merely figuring out how to make a buck. Yep, that's me, Dr. Cynical.
Posted by: Chip Hinshaw | Jan 11, 2006 at 12:11
Seems to be a perfect topic to point out the ">http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.3402:"> Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005 is already causing speculation about and how it might affect email or instant messaging.
What about Virtual Worlds?
Background: The small change amends section 223 of the http://www.fcc.gov/Reports/1934new.pdf”>Communications Act of 1934 to expand the definition of a telecommunication device to include any device or software communicating over the internet.
Section 223 defines the crime of sending over a telecommunication device, “any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication which is obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent, with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass another person”
It also addresses situations where someone “knowingly permits any telecommunications facility under his control to be used for any activity prohibited by paragraph (1) with the intent that it be used for such activity.”
Now, intent, I understand, can be very hard to prove, but if “griefing” is the intentional effort of harassing another player or group of players, would such conduct now be covered under this offense?
While “chat” is the most obvious form of communication, would “nonverbal” transmissions (including emotes or the use of game mechanics) be “communication?”
It seems like the law would apply to conduct online- what it would take to cross that threshold and get the attention of the law enforcement officials... that's another matter.
Posted by: Chas York | Jan 11, 2006 at 13:18
Chas York >What about Virtual Worlds?
Not to derail the conversation, but the thought occured to me when I saw Declan's article, and I had a closer look at the legislation. Section 113 of the new legislation says:
Making the required changes to the old legislation:
The statute would still include the clause "does not include an interactive computer service". Not sure what that means in specific, but I would imagine it includes a virtual world, no? Which would mean it probably doesn't apply to griefers and other miscreants - although I'd be curious to hear other interpretations...
Posted by: Peter Edelmann | Jan 11, 2006 at 15:12
To get back to the OP (I am too easily distracted...), it's a fascinating article - I always enjoy reading James' stuff. And overall, a very good overview of the issues - translating Orin Kerr's perspective analysis to a virtualist-realist split creates some interesting terminology (although I've always been uncomfortable with the "real" being opposed to the virtual, but perhaps that is a language thing... ultimately, the recognition of the "real" aspects of virtual communities is the salient point, and James takes us there pretty effectively).
Overall I agree with the analysis - regulation of virtual communities faces the same challenges as any other form of legal pluralism, and the relative weight of the normative orders will undoubtedly vary with the communities in question (Ren's four worlds might be treated differently, for example). I think there are plenty of examples ranging from international law to sports law to provide insight into such issues - and I agree that is probably the most fruitful direction for us to go. As was mentioned in the discussion here at the time, the "Great Debate" would perhaps have been more interesting as a discussion of the limits of state regulation rather than revisiting the exclusivity/absolute sovereignty issue.
The one nagging problem I had with the paper, however, was with the central example of RMT. I don't think it provides a strong enough example to carry the rest of the paper. Except for Ted (and I'm not even sure about his views - only halfway through Synthetic Worlds), I don't think the exceptionalists like Richard are arguing for the kind of intervention on RMT which James alludes to. I think the key concern for people like Richard is not to have the law regulate RMT, but the very converse of that - the concern is that RMT transactions/frauds/property rights/etc. would be enforced against the devs. This is a very different concern. The "sovereign" dev can either design an RMT-free world, or enforce a ban on RMT within the world by banning accounts, toading, expropriating, etc. The problem from the dev perspective arises if the players can then turn around and sue them in RL court for deleting player "property". (IIRC, this is what Ted's interration idea was meant to prevent - it would protect the devs from liability and cut off any property claims - but it wouldn't use RL courts to ban RMT). Ultimately, I generally agree with where the paper ends up, and think we can have some very fruitful discussions about what lies down that path - including with respect to RMT and property issues. However, setting up an RMT strawman perhaps isn't the most helpful example with which to start down the path.
Posted by: Peter Edelmann | Jan 11, 2006 at 15:26
Joshua> But what the law CAN do, it often OUGHT NOT to do.
Agreed. This notion needs also to be applied to the notion of the IRS taxing virtual items that Julian has reported on. In terms of economics, there's no difference between real and virtual sales. But the IRS ought not to tax virtual ones, for reasons having little to do with the economics.
Posted by: Edward Castronova | Jan 11, 2006 at 15:31
My first thought was contamination of the magic circle, especially with respect to the power of anonymity, which has both bad and good results. The essential result of anonymity is typically freer expression, which may lead to bad things ("brass balls", griefing, etc.) and good things (self-exploration, willingness to lead, artistic renaissance, etc.). Without having experienced anonymity, I don't think I would have had the guts to put my public came on words like this.
Thus, I think it might be a good idea to take a page out of Ren Reynolds' book and start formally separating and classifying virtual worlds, such that you can form reasonable expectations of them based on this taxonomy. If you make a death threat in a civil world, then the law should apply exactly as if you had in person or over the phone. If you do so in a game world, however, it must first show that the threat was directed at the actual player, rather than the avatar represented.
Of course, that gets into the messy business of avatar-ness, which I'm so not ready to play in. =)
Posted by: Michael Chui | Jan 11, 2006 at 16:01
First off, great article. It does an excellent job of exploring interpenetration.
I wonder, though, how much of the apparent ambiguities and the tension between designer-as-king and users as members of an authentic community instantiated in a virtual substrate is do to the lack of a clear enumeration of what positive rights users can expect.
Synthetic worlds traditionally have only supplied negative descriptions of user rights--what rights they don't have. But what if instead of simply stacking these negative descriptions in a EULA, the operators of synthetic worlds provided as positive list of rights, outlining the sort of expectations users can have when they 'agree' to the social contract of a given world and, in short, what the broad intention is for the existence of a that world.
This is where theories like Ren's have a definite role into play. It also ties into Raph's notion of avatar bills of rights. The problem is that currently we have nothing to go by from the designers/developers/operators as to what kind of weighting among, say the ludic, the social and the civil they envision for their products. As a result, the discussion necessarily starts from pure speculation and there is little on which to build a dialogue between user and operator that the law could look to to analyze the appropriateness and the nature of proposed intervention schemes.
Without this kind of positive contribution from the producers of synthetic worlds, it's hard to see how any attempt to meaningfully reconcile the many varied degrees of interpenetration we're seeing emerge in synthetic worlds can be successful.
Posted by: monkeysan | Jan 11, 2006 at 16:47
It's a very nicely written essay... and contains some interestingly and intelligently worded ideas. But... how to put this nicely... the basic thesis is just plain wrong.
Grimmelmann's basic point is that creators of virtual worlds are speaking in a contradictory fashion when they say the following two things:
1. "Real-world governments shouldn’t subject my world to inappropriate laws." and;
2. "The law should shut down black-market sales of in-world items for real-life money."
His point seems to be that VW creators want to have it "both ways." Well, yeah. So do we all. Let's look at the following:
1. "Police shouldn't barge into my house."
2. "Except when I call and beg them to because someone is trying to kill me."
Or...
1. "Armed agents of another country entering my country constitutes an act of war."
2. "Unless we're working together to catch a known and commonly wanted criminal."
The key word here, and he leaves it in place, is "inappropriate."
Let's leave it as a given that, no matter what the owners/creators of a VW *want* to happen, governments and lawyers *will* try to apply all kinds of inappropriate outside laws to virtual space. We can be sure that this will happen. Why? Because they do so in physical space. People get sued over crazy, stupid stuff and gonzo laws get made all the time. To think the virtual worlds will escape this morass simply because they are somewhat more purposefully designed is wishful, foolish thinking.
Let us satisfy ourself with a discussion of *intent.*
Do we intend that a particular VW be congruous or harmonious with real-world law? And to what extent? I have yet to play a MMO that didn't require me to accept the usual ridiculous click-wrap that basically says, "We, the owners of the game, are in control. Have fun, if you can. Everything else? Game at your own risk and it all belongs to us." That's cleary where they "4th Wall" ends and the usher asks you to get your feet off the chair in front of you, please.
As a player, I get so caught up in the "rules" of particular games -- be they live or computer-based -- that I often forget that they are nested within many other sets of rules and, yes, laws.
One of the many good points made in Grimmelmann's article is that you can't use free speech as a legal excuse for bad in-game behavior; except when maybe you can. If I yell, "Die, you evil swine!" in real life, I may be in for some assault charges. In WoW? Ho-hum. But if I were to type an IM in WoW that specified someone's real-life name and made a real threat... oh, yeah. That's got real 911 written all over it.
To Joshua's original point: should real life law "walk softly" in deference to "community standards" in virtual worlds in an attempt to respect "self governance?" I'm going to play ignorant here and ask... why should it? We already have an example of entities acting as "virtual worlds" that play off the various cracks and whimsies of different governmental and legal entities in order to promote their own interests, often at the expense of other communities. We call them "corporations." They want exceptions from some laws, and protection by others. They want to be treated as sovereign in some cases, and as helpless individuals in others. They stand up and salute the flag when it suits their interests, and then turn around and salute other flags on other days.
I really, really like virtual worlds and MMOs. I'm a player, and as such, enjoy them. I'm a writer, and as such, a "content guy." I believe in the power of shared imagination and the potential for fun, learning and social growth these spaces provide.
But they are not real places. And people don't "live" there. And when you talk about a "community of users," it is, to a large extent, a metaphor. Users put down their mice, log off, and buy food in their actual communities; go to school and jobs; attend religious services; have kids. To suggest that the laws that govern the real world in which we eat, sleep, get sick, love, fight and die shouldn't hold massive sway over a work of fiction -- no matter how gripping, hugely populated or important -- is (IMHO) asking for big, big trouble.
Why? Because it is unrealistic. In the end, until I can upload my entire self, net worth, brain, soul, gonads and dreams onto The Grid... the flesh wins out over any virtual space. And if you prick me in Second Life, do I not bleed in Ohio. And if I can't sue you in the vasty reaches of the Delta Quandrant... I'll see you in Federal Court in Cleveland.
Posted by: Andy Havens | Jan 11, 2006 at 17:37
Whoops. Hit Post a bit too soon.
My point being this -- Real world courts and law will always trump your in game community standards and rules. It is best to think (from the onset, if possible) about how to make them jive in harmonious ways than to talk about how to circumvent or avoid real world law in VWs.
The two statements that Grimmelmann finds so contradictory are actually, I think, a decent attempt to do just that.
Posted by: Andy Havens | Jan 11, 2006 at 17:41
Just to throw an odd wrench into the works, because it just occurred to me, and I would like to hear the responses:
What if two people engaged in potential real world business meet in a virtual world and in the course of their conversation in game, reach an agreement to do business together? That conversation is now officially a business record for both parties - just as much as if it had been reached via IM, Email or paper correspondance. Unless they saved a text transcript no record will exist of course and even that is rather slim as a record since it can easily be edited (I suppose server logs maintained by the company might constitute a record that was less easily tampered). Of course since both parties were present in Avatar form, it would have to be established that both were in fact who they claimed to be, but its not at all impossible to forsee a business agreement being reached under such circumstances.
In such a case, the legal world has unavoidably entered into the virtual world. Unless some law exists that formally states that agreements made in Avatar format are not legally binding in the real world (not an unreasonable law to propose, given the requirement to prove one's identity), I don't see why they couldn't be construed as being any less legally binding than a verbal agreement between the two parties.
Posted by: Warren Grant | Jan 11, 2006 at 17:44
Warren Grant >I don't see why they couldn't be construed as being any less legally binding than a verbal agreement
Setting aside issues like identity, repudiation and intent you're probably right. But how does it affect the virtual world? If the world is simply being used as a communication medium, it would seem to be no more implicated by the agreement than the phone company is by an agreement made over the phone, or a tavern is by a verbal agreement made face to face over a beer by its patrons.
Posted by: Peter Edelmann | Jan 11, 2006 at 18:17
Well it might be affected the first time one of those parties renegs on its agreement. At that point the only record of the agreement might be virtual - and server logs from that virtual environment.
Posted by: Warren Grant | Jan 11, 2006 at 18:30
Michael Chui: Thus, I think it might be a good idea to take a page out of Ren Reynolds' book and start formally separating and classifying virtual worlds, such that you can form reasonable expectations of them based on this taxonomy.
This approach has a virtue that will be appealing to lawyerly minds: it imposes a clear set of categories on an otherwise baffling question. Whether or not Ren's kinds of worlds are the best way to taxonomize virtual worlds, and whether or not they can really be taxonomized at all, just saying that there are different categories and giving them names can be enough to get the idea across. That is, instead of asking, "should this in-world conduct be treated as real-world conduct?" it can be easier to ask "is this world a game world or a civil world?" The latter doesn't sound like it's begging the question and it seems closer to something that a court would feel comfortable deciding. Formalism has its virtues.
Posted by: James Grimmelmann | Jan 11, 2006 at 20:14
Peter Edelmann: The one nagging problem I had with the paper, however, was with the central example of RMT. I don't think it provides a strong enough example to carry the rest of the paper. Except for Ted (and I'm not even sure about his views - only halfway through Synthetic Worlds), I don't think the exceptionalists like Richard are arguing for the kind of intervention on RMT which James alludes to.
I agree that it's a bit straw-mannish, in the sense that relatively few people are going around loudly asking for that kind of intervention. (Although some of them are going around quietly hoping, even planning, for it, I know that.) Had I written this more recently, I might have tried to hang that half of the paper on the Second Life gridcrashing affair. That would have generated a slightly different set of arguments and counters, but I think it would have converged on the endpoint of interdependence all the same.
Still, I did have some positive reasons for picking RMT as an example. First, the property issues created by VWs are, to my mind, going to be deep and tough problems, both theoretically and practically. Whenever I can do a bit towards clearing away some of the underbrush, I try to. Josh has done a lot; plenty of others have, too. I see figuring out many of these issues as a significant long-term issue that hasn't been as well-explored as, say, virtual sovereignty or anonymous online speech. Going with RMT was a way of shining my candle into darker corners rather than already-better-lit ones.
Second, the whole tone of the piece is deliberately straw-mannish. Andy, I think you're picking up on this. I don't think much of my piece significantly disgrees with much of what you say. Should I be more explicit that I am caricaturing common argumentative tropes, that I'm not saying people are actually contradicting themselves? In the end, I'm just trying to argue that both sets of arguments wind up valuing the virtual and that valuing it can require both nearness and distance from real life.
The only thing you say that I think I'd really take issue (though this might be enough to make our disagreement truly fundamental) with is the claim that VW "communities" are just a metaphor. Ted has quipped that he studies real economies in virtual worlds, not virtual economies. Same thing -- I think there are real communities in virtual worlds. People participate in many communities -- the United States, Chicago, the regulars at Meg's Tavern, Norrath, the University of Washington, your favorite uberguild, and so on. Communities coexist and overlap.
Finally, several VW companies have claimed the right to shut down third-party RMT sites, to the point of actually having those sites shut down or the listings pulled. If anything, the scholarship may be lagging a little behind what people in the real world have actually claimed as their real enforceable rights. In this sense, I think the issue is quite genuine.
Posted by: James Grimmelmann | Jan 11, 2006 at 20:37
(Caveat - I haven't read the paper yet, I plan to tonight...)
Sooner or later the courts will run up against the "avatarness" issue. Perhaps some precedent already exists from a related area like improv theater. If anyone has any links to writings on the issue, legal or ludic or any other flavor, I'd love to see them.
Imagine I receive a VW death threat in several different contexts:
1) Ludic world with PvP.
2) Ludic world without PvP.
3) Social world with no combat whatsoever.
4) Social world, and I know the player of the threatening avatar in RL.
5) PvP game world, but the player of the threatening avatar is my RL abusive spouse who I'm hiding out from.
Certainly the courts will take into account the cultural context, and no reasonable judge would find #1 criminal. But juries are harder to predict. In any case, it will be interesting when a higher court finally does consider this, in either a civil or a criminal case. We'll probably see it in civil cases before criminal cases, breach of contract perhaps, but who knows? Criminal defenses tend to get more outlandish than civil defenses, so the "it wasn't me, it was my avatar" defense may appear first in a criminal trial. Whether a jury buys it, who knows. The interesting part happens when they do, and it goes to an appeals court. And the anonymous avatar criminal cases will be interesting too.
Eventually some judge will define a test for this, which they love to do. Some possible prongs: 1) Could/did the virtual crime cause real-world harm? 2) Was the intent of the act targeted at the avatar, the player, both, or indeterminate? 3) Are there extenuating circumstances outside the VW, i.e., some relationship between the players, even if that relationship is purely digital? For example, perhaps in the long run it might be seen that one avatar annoying another in a purely VW way (e.g., kill-stealing) is not criminal, but if I virtually harass multiple characters of the same player knowingly, then I've transcended into a criminal act because the target is a human, not an avatar.
Posted by: David Noha | Jan 11, 2006 at 21:20
Certainly the courts will take into account the cultural context, and no reasonable judge would find #1 criminal.
While I don't know the specific circumstances of the event, I remember a report that a Lineage guild actually drove to another internet cafe and killed the members of an opposing guild.
But I think the gist of the argument boils nonetheless down to a simple notion: if the threat refers to a virtual construct, then it should be handled within the virtual context; if the threat refers to a real-world, meat body, then it should be handled within the real-world, meat context, i.e. standard law enforcement.
Context determines appropriateness of response, which is why you had to add #5: the threat is not merely virtual, though in any other case it probably is.
Posted by: Michael Chui | Jan 12, 2006 at 00:45
I enjoyed the paper and like the elegance of the "VW as community" focus. However, I think that this view (perhaps intentionally) takes as a premise that real-world law (as applied to the VW in question is a somewhat cohesive or unified body of law (i.e. the law supported by a particular governmental entity).
However, I think that community idea breaks down when multiple competing (and occasionally contradictory) bodies of law (i.e the laws of multiple govenments) start to get involved. Surely it would be practically impossible to expect each government with an interest in a particular VW to walk softly and respect the community? When RL laws are applied to a VW qua community of members, I am assuming that each member of that VW community would be subject to the laws imposed (regardless of the RL existence of such member). If some governments play fair and step lightly but others don't, how would this affect the VW community as a whole?
Pardon an ignorance of basic IP or conflict of laws principles. I (to my detriment) studied neither of those subjects (or a host of other important, as I understand now, legal topics) while in law school.
Posted by: Adam Young | Jan 12, 2006 at 03:59
IANAL, and thus I would welcome correction by someone who is or has actual authority here, but:
I've always approached the subject of law and jurisdiction with a basic founding assumption: The law is an evolving set of procedures dictating action in the case of event. It grows as a result of social belief determining a different procedure for action in the case of an event; thus, a law requiring that all who directly and intentionally cause the death of another human being may be changed to consider the case of self-defense, if society believes that self-defense is justification.
So when the issue of law comes up, I don't ask whether or not governments would be willing to do so; I ask how things should be. Once you have that in mind, you can proceed to convince others of that position, and in doing so, you'll change the overall map of social belief (if, obviously, you're believed) and the law will eventually be changed to reflect that new belief. So if we decide that virtual worlds should be sacred with respect real world governments, then from there we can go about convincing governments of that, some way some how.
I know this is a bit idealistic, but I repeat that I am not a lawyer, and am open to correction.
So what if real world governments won't recognize exceptionalist worlds? If that's how it should be, then we should convince them of that, using the same general argument we used to convince ourselves of that. But we have to convince ourselves. "It will never happen" isn't a basis by which you should decide how things should be.
Posted by: Michael Chui | Jan 12, 2006 at 04:38
Warren Grant>What if two people engaged in potential real world business meet in a virtual world and in the course of their conversation in game, reach an agreement to do business together?
Just the same as if they did it over a round of golf.
More interesting is if they made the agreement but one of them was doing so under the impression that it was part of the game, and therefore "just pretend". It would then depend on whether that person could argue that the other person "should have known" it was part of the game.
Example: in the board game diplomacy, the rules explicitly allow people to break agreements with one another. Thus, if Italy agrees with Turkey to carve up Austria-Hungary, then reneges and sides with Austria-Hungary instead, that's just part of the game. Even if Italy and Turkey had a real-world written contract, Italy could argue that the contract was just a ploy to trick Turkey into a sense of false security, that Turkey's player should have known this fro the rules, and that if Italy hadn't stabbed Turkey first, Turkey would have stabbed Italy soon enough anyway. If the contract had been about a business relationship with no connection to the game, then claiming it wasn't worth the paper it was written on would be less likely to succeed as a defence.
It reminds me of the Muslim actor whose character in a play divorced that character's wife. The wife was played by the actor's real wife, and they were not happy when an Islamic court ruled that saying "I divorce you!" three times following a script in a play counted as having a divorce in the real world.
There's a bubble that surrounds much play, whether on stage , in sports or in virtual worlds, that separates it from the real world. This "magic circle" is what makes the play special, and worth protecting.
Developers of virtual worlds who ask for real-world laws to protect them but don't want real-world laws to invade their space are, at root, arguing for the law to recognise their magic circle. It really is about law and borders.
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | Jan 12, 2006 at 04:54
Should [the law] walk softly and defer to community standards in an attempt to respect self-governance? Absolutely.
Well, it would be nice; but we're having trouble getting the UK government to respect community standards like "innocent until proven guilty" at the moment.
Posted by: Peter Clay | Jan 12, 2006 at 07:38
You know -- and I'm sure you've all seen this all along and have been laughing in your sleeves at me -- the simplest reason the cyberanarchists and unexceptionalists keep talking past each other is that the central tenet of the former is normative and the central tenet of the latter is positive.
As far as government deference: I'm not sure it's such a pipe dream. What is government, but people. We, and our neighbors, and the people we vote for (subject to some moral hazards of representative democracy, certainly) are the government, and it's only through this strange alchemy that the votes of us and our neighbors get transformed into some alien and hateful entity. Yes, the intrusion of power into our individual lives is bothersome -- but not as bothersome as the intrusions of other individuals unfettered by the rule of law.
Bottom line: the people who make up governments can often be persuaded of sense, especially when that sense represents a consensus rather than an extreme position. That's one thing about James's piece that makes it valuable: like it or not it's a politically sane piece.
Posted by: Joshua_Fairfield | Jan 12, 2006 at 10:57
Regarding creator’s control…
In virtual worlds the dictator’s control is absolute – extending even to the physical “laws” of the world. So long as they do not allow others to enter their worlds they can maintain that absolute control. But once they allow others to enter they can not allow only the parts of them they want to enter. An individual extended into the virtual world drags with him the communal associations that define him in a variety of jurisdictions. They may be in “Virtworld” but they are citizens of Germany and employees of British Petroleum and members of AARP. And even assuming sovereignty, admission of members of those communities inescapably creates an impact on external communities. Thus, at the level of these communities, Virtworld must deal with the interests of its peers. Within Virtworld, it becomes the combination of its creator’s action and the interaction of the participants. Thus Virtworld is not and can not be fully independent.
Regarding legal frameworks…
The earlier allusion to multi-national corporations is apt. They transcend national sovereignty while existing upon it and have to deal with multiple constituencies, both internal and external. The electronic systems of Sony are as much a virtual world as EverQuest. In the case of our kind of virtual world, would legal issues be cast differently if, instead of forming a corporation to create a virtual world that people paid to enter one formed a corporation to create a virtual world that could only be inhabited by it’s stockholders, employees, board of directors and invited guests?
Posted by: Franek | Jan 12, 2006 at 12:03
would legal issues be cast differently if, instead of forming a corporation to create a virtual world that people paid to enter one formed a corporation to create a virtual world that could only be inhabited by it’s stockholders, employees, board of directors and invited guests?
It would in fact be entirely different. By transforming players into employees, shareholders or directors, they would gain legal status and associated rights which they lack now as a EULA governed consumer. Further, multi-national/trans-national/global firms do not escape local jurisdiction governing employment and shareholders laws and rights. Attempting to make a MMO into a corporation would be an unmitigated disaster.
Posted by: Randolfe | Jan 12, 2006 at 15:34
Why restrict oneself to looking at the issue from only one direction? How far does the interest go in studying the penetration of the real world into virtual public space rather than studying the spillover from the virtual world into real public space and civil discourse?
Games are just entertainment. The game owners don't actually own that critical element that makes a virtual object a public space - the interaction between participants. They own a few mechanics which participants may or may not recognize and attempt to exercise some authorial content control in playing out narratives or other distraction. Nothing more.
The question we have to look at, is from where do laws emerge? They emerge from and in the service of community, and community is most immediately derived from both political and oeconomic interdependence.
We may observe business enterprises and institutions taking advantage of computing and communications technology in order to more closely identify the needs and wants of larger groups of people. At the same time seek avenues of providing for those same goods and services with less and less resources per client. Public space is an institution, and it is a "technology" or art developed pretty much to facillitate these kinds of concerns.
The amorphous frontier of virtual public spaces is bound to give rise to a variety of ideologies and new social cleavages. They will complement, contradict and coincide with innumerable public spaces and institutions with which we are already casually familliar, such as global, supranational or municipal structures. These are only collective fictions afterall.
The only reason we might give any attention at all to games is because they are controlled prototypes. Compared to other public spaces online, they draw multitudes, and each acts as a sort of metropolis or crusade in bringing about the self-creation of more identifiable civil space. It is only the business of avatars and virtual possessions that is the game.
My speculation on how it will transpire is that it will be largely accidental. These spaces will be used to recognize and coordinate need fullfillment on a more dynamic scale than current institutions can achieve. The success of this will bring about civil codification, and that in turn will bring in the rest of the unconnected multitudes kicking and screaming.
Posted by: genericdefect | Jan 12, 2006 at 20:46