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The Archives
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11.08.07Legal Round-up at CNet: Copyright/Legal Dispute in Second Life – No Such Thing as Only VirtualA nice summary of the Eros legal dispute over at CNET. (If you're unaware, the maker of the SexGen beds accused Raze Kenso of selling unauthorized copies of the beds. A court later ordered the release of information related to Raze Kenso's real identity.) It makes the now (to me) self-evident point that: Assuming the complaint stands up and the litigation proceeds, the unmistakable point is that even virtual interactions that do not take place in real life can lead to real legal action in our brick-and-mortar courts when actual monetary interests are affected. If the stakes only were virtual, then perhaps the ...
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10.26.07Theory of Property and Rights in Virtual WorldsA while back I wrote a lengthy piece on the concept of property, avatar rights to property, and what we mean when we, as users, get in a "huff" about the latest shift in the winds by the Lindens. At "In the Near Future" the writer agreed to my philosophy but also argued that platform providers would always be motivated by profit. I had summarized Benkler in saying: “The question of “who should own this spoon” should be understood as a question about what we want the social relations using the platform to be like.” And then had argued that there was a benefit ...
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10.02.07Virtual vs Artificial Property in Virtual/Synthetic Worlds, (and what to do with real houses on artificial lakes)I've only been here a few weeks, blogging away, and have only been in virtual worlds a few months - I admit it, I'm a newbie. So I've been back-tracking a bit and reading through past posts such as a thoughtful post by Nobody Fugazi on the value and definition of "property" (as in real estate) in virtual worlds. Nobody observes that if we swap out the word virtual for artificial, we might not get so easily confused by notions of "property". We tend to think real estate, tangible items, a closet full of frito lays. If I was to talk ...
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