Slashdot Mirror
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."
money can be found on people selling their DAOC, EverQuest, and even Ultima Online characters.
Sometimes I wonder... why not just buy a character and spend the rest of your time doing something more productive. After all, if you take your salary at an hourly rate, you're really losing money by playing games all day/night/forever.
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Free your mind.
Thats all we need, another tangled mess of laws to do with frigging online chatrooms and shit.
Listen.
Your virtual house in the Sims is worth nothing. No more than if I kicked in your sandcastle at the beach, or knocked over your chess board in the park.
I can be charged with mischief, or maybe even assault if I threatened you as I knock all your checkers into the sewer grate.
No more zany computer laws!
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
For those who don't know...
A bit of relevant history! Social justice, if you will.
DISCUSS!
-Professor B.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
If something malicious done in-game causes damages in the outside world, then that should be treated as any other crime would and punished accordingly. This really only applies to server and software hacks, not duping the new guy into giving you all his gold. If you use a hack to alter the gamestate to say give yourself an item or take an item from someone else, this should be prosecuted because it is deriving other players the game that they are most likely paying for.
kc
MMORPG's and their ilk are beginning to tread into a world that has long been known to text-based mudders. As a nerd who worked in development on various text muds on and off for the past 10 years, I can see clearly the failures of those who administrate these online communities. By and large, the folks running the games of today are not the ones who have years and years of experience doing it (as most people who played text games still do as a matter of preference).
I have particular concern for those who use published tools (like NWN's Aurora toolset) to create persistent online worlds. Rarely do these individuals seem to have a firm grasp on what they're getting themselves into.. least of all on issues of virtual rights that may or may not present themselves.
Most places I have worked had agreements with builders that virtual property created for the game would become the property of the game and its administrators. As for actual items in the game, it's ludicrous to expect (in spite of the incessant everquest ebay activity) those items to be protected legally. Game administrators need to know their rights, however, to keep the few litigious individuals at bay. (How bored and obsessed do you have to be to sue because the server crashed and you lost your vorpal sword of owning +2?).
It's a thankless job running an online game.
Will sell my Slashdot "avatar" for no less than $5000.
Many Insightful and Funny posts, not many Informative ones though. Currently one Moderator point left.
I cast level 9 flame bait argument
You block with level 10 slashdot shielding
I cast Level 1 Alt F4
Poof your gone!
Ave Molech Setting
Now people can play lawyers on MMORPGs instead of Slashdot!
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Eh, I'm not sure we need any new legalese to deal with this. If you crack a system, you can be liable if that system belongs to someone else. This could easily be construed to include server-side cheats in addition to the time-honored tactic of rooting the server and changing the database (which I had been known to do in Phantasia and a few MUDs/BBSs back in the early '90s, sad to say.)
Why complicate matters further?
Further, damages (in terms of $$$) are easy to calculate...how many hours/months/billable time increments did it take a person to achieve what was destroyed? How much can be got back? Total it out, it's simple math. Perhaps not enough compensation for some basement loser who plays such things 80+ hrs/wk (like my roommate =P), but I think those folks are in the very small minority anyway.
"America has done some terrible things. But I know that Americans don't cheer when innocents die." -Dave Barry
Would you like be sitting on the chair for being a PK? Or even fragging an opponent? It's intentional murder, after all (well, that's what some lawyers say at least).
Now, do you still want physical laws applying in MMORPG or other games?
These are only virtual realities. They are not, and shouldn't be protected in the same way as physical properties.
However, if you view the value of things as how many man-hours go into it, then yes, there is some kind of value, and right associated with these characters, and products. However, just because there is time involved, does not inherently imply value, or even many rights.
The company has a say in this more than the Gov't, or the gamer. The company runs the server, the company saves your profiles. If this company were to go under, they have no reason to hold onto those profiles, as they are simply another part of their business, which they own. You have no say, no matter what you think. However, a nice company may do something like transfer their servers, code, or other necessary info to open source, and thus preserving the environment. This does not mean individual properties are saved, which is what people would want to save, most of all.
Really, if your life is so consumed by the internet as to make it a pseudo-physical part of your life, then you need to think about something else for a while. Go into a rehab facillity, something. Please get some sunshine and a tan, we all need it (me especially...).
... if people are willing to exchange it for money (and evidently this is the case).
Your values are not my values, but value is in the eye of the purchaser (or in cases of extortion, the vendor...?)
Having said that, I think it's nuts that people exchange money for this sort of thing.
Mod early, mod often.
So true...I play Asheron's Call and found that the worst parts of the game were the tedious things like shopping for magic supplies and running from place to place (commuting). Over time the game designers have eased the pain of shopping and added more portals and other ways to jump quickly from place to place, allowing players to spend more time killing stuff. :-)
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
If you let kill-joy technocrats put laws around your games. Although it would be funny if you kill another player's character and your superbadass wizard in Diablo and a little virtual cop car rolls up and gives him life in prison.
Even the story of this game being hacked. It's really cheap... bad sportsmanship... but in the end you've gotta laugh that someone was able to do that. If this game was a subscription service I think the company in charge should have a backup policy in place to prevent this from ruining what you've really paid for... Otherwise... it's a game, lighten up.
imagine, you create some kind of Ueber-universal Avatar, that you use everywhere: in games, but also in places like /., other forums...
Some people build up quite a reputation in several fields, through hard work, searching studying,...teaching things online.
Let's imagine, I'm using this avatar 'Mr. Smith' (Yea...,) widely recognized in certain semi-pro forums, et.c. If somebody hacked into my ueber-avatar-account and start posting spurious things in my name, or go on a rampage in some games, using hacks,... my Avatar would lose a lot of it's 'worth,' however virtual it may seem, but i would be really pissed off, for the so-called virtual money-worth-karma-acceptance et.c. is, or could be, in fact very important to me for my work, research, et.c.
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!!!
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!
Perhaps it makes sense to regulate offline actions affecting in game actions -- such as hacking into the game. But on the other hand, I have no problem with selling in-game items for real world money. Why not? It's not like the in-game items were manufactured out of nothing. Someone had to go through the work. Who cares if money changed hands in the game or in real life? And besides, people who do that are likely to do it both ways, so the economy of the game is likely to balance out.
The point is, aside from outside problems like hacking, things like murder and theft within the game must be controlled by the virtual society -- if you get mugged in the game, next time, you'll make sure to travel in a group. Or maybe you and your friends will get together and form a police force. And so on.
The same societal forces apply to the game as to the real world, because the same minds control both. But it's okay if your game persona gets killed from time to time or goes to jail or whatever. That's what makes the game different from real life and what makes it a useful diversion. If people stick with it, some form of order will eventually emerge, just like it does in any other group.
In an RPG, you can choose to play an "evil" character. A "lawless" or "chaotic" character.
At the very heart of role-playing, you act (in-game) in accordance with how your character should. That may well include "Kill the wimpy newb and take its stuff".
The main idea of this thread would effectively kill the entire idea of an RPG - Basically, a player couldn't do anything except stroll along the bunny-grounds holding hands and singing kumba-ya.
And let's not overlook when PETA and the like get into the act. Plan to level? Better not kill any of the game's "indigenous" life, or end up whacked with a virtual-cruelty-to-animals charge. Want to solve a quest and get some powerful ancient weapon? Oops, distubing an archaological site has some hefty fines to go along with it.
Grow up, people. This topic deals with GAMES. Games, games, games, games, games. NOT the real world. If you have trouble telling them apart, and in-game losses "hurt" you IRL, you need to jack-out right now and go interact with other humans, in a real, live, actual physycal setting.
If someone gives me a dollar for no reason, then I have given them nothing in return. There was an exchange there, even though one half of that transaction was nothing. Does that mean that nothing is worth something?
If so, then every day I work, I lose something (nothing) by coming in to work when I could be at home doing nothing (something). Therefore, my employer is robbing me of something (nothing) for 40 hours a week! Instead of just paying me for working, they are also taking away my nothing. I did not agree to that when I took this job, so now I can sue them to oblivion! USA! USA!
At some point, someone has to draw the line on this stupid shit.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
There is no difference. That is the point of a fiat currency - it is only as valuable as the confidence people put in it.
If people decide to stop taking your dollars you cannot go to the Federal Reserver and get gold instead. You are screwed.
You can argue around it all you want but ultimately the value of your cash is based on confidence, not a secured asset.
The whole point of participating in a virtual game is that anything goes. Dungeons and Dragons, Mechwarrior, Warhammer 40K are the predecessors to these virtual worlds, and the whole point of these games was to destroy your opponents and play with your teammates. It was like that because of the rules. If you did't like the rules, or the game master, you didn't play the game. So if Shadowbane can't control the game properly, whether it is because of bad programming that left a vulnerability, or for any other reason, don't both playing.
--
Luck is just skill you didn't know you had.
The biggest issue here isn't simply "do avatars have rights online?". Some people live their lives almost exclusively online. Their dearest friends are found and interacted with in a digital sense. These people, in all honesty, are in fact their avatars. That is WHO THEY ARE.
On the other hand, some others use the internet as a supplement to their life. They utilize it to keep in contact with their real-life friends and have few, if any, online aquaintances. Some others are in the middle. ( I am excluding those who do not use the internet at all or only use it for communication for their jobs. i.e. email.)
There are several layers of "immersion" that people undergo. I am reminded of a story my "democracy and technology" class discussed a few years ago. Here is a reference to the story. Essentially, some college kids 'hacked' a chat program; the kind where each person has a visible avatar. They used some commands to make unsuspecting chatters "rape" each other or do other "naughty" acts to each other. If I remember correctly, it was only via text that this occured. (The visual avatars did not animate).
The question posed, was this illegal? Was it virtual rape and assult? On one hand, if the abused person was very immersed in his or her 'virtual reality', the incident would indeed be traumatic (to some degree at least). If the immersion was low, the abused would likely become annoyed and go on with his/her life.
The same thing goes for MMORPG's. Some people spend incredible amounts of time ammassing items and power in these games. It's an ivestment of time, money, and energy to them, so if someone hacks their account, they stand to lose quite a bit. How could you not say that a crime hasn't been committed if someone loses something that they worked so hard for. However, let's be realistic. It's digital information. It's 1's and 0's on a computer server far far away... or is it?
Right now, the arguements are using two sets of facts. One side is deeply immersed in the 'bodyless' virtual reality and to them, there is little difference between an avatar and the person controlling it. Thus, the person's rights should carry into the avatar's world.
The other side says that a virtual crime is not a crime at all. That people need to seriously reconsider their priorities and realize what exactly constitutes their reality. Yadda Yadda Yadda...
At this present time, with so many people of varying degrees of immersion into this new world without rules, there can be NO law that will satisfy everyone. In fact, I don't believe any law can even come close to addressing the widely chasmatic viewpoints that people hold regarding this topic. But who knows.
-John
"The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing and hoping for different results"
While I admit, that I'd be upset if I spent time building a character only to have it destroyed by another player. However, if this is "outlawed", there will be no bad guys, and no fun. Who wants to play against the computer all the time -- that defeats the purpose of online gaming.
These laws aren't meant to restrict the way the game works itself, but rather the consequences from out-of-game actions.
For example, if I killed your character and stole your stuff according to the rules of the game, I'd be fine. If, however, I used some exploit or hacked into the game server, or committed some fraud to destroy that character and your items, then you'd be talking about a crime.
At least, that's how I read the originating articles.
-Zipwow
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
In the real world, you can spend a lot of money and time producing something that is worth much less (if anything at all) than the resources you put into it.
Why do people continue to believe that the things they arguably "create" online have a value equivalent to the amount of time and money they put into producing them?
When OU was initially released, it had a realistic economic engine that ruined the game play. With todays economic engines, nearly everything you do betters your standing in the game. While this is good for promoting people doing things in the game, it has no bearing on the real world.
So if you spend months building up the character on your game of choice and a you have a contract indicating that someone is willing to buy your character at a price, you should have a case (under the normal pre-existing laws), but you shouldn't expect compensation for voluntary work should you find it worthless (lost, erased, destroyed) after-the-fact.
Disclaimer: Never played Ultima OnLine, but read interesting articles about online economic systems. Nor am I a lawyer, but if you think this is legal advice, I doubt a real lawyer could help in any way.
That's why there are pretend worlds and crap online, so you don't risk losing actual assetts. You play a car-racing GAME because you don't want to trash your ACTUAL car. If you crash your car in the game, do you cry and try to find someone to sue? No, because it's fairly obvious that it's PRETEND. You will not suffer REAL financial hardships because of this; you won't have to buy a new car. You won't have to shell out REAL money for repairs. You spend time in imaginary places to avoid real consequences. Now you want to get real compensation for imaginary losses? Okay, but how about if we then make a law that if your imaginary character dies, you must be killed too?
Sure, you want the good of reality, and the good of imaginary. You want to have your cake and eat it too. And you want to waste our time on this. Go blow a dog.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
1. Ownership. The person who 'owns' a MUCK, MOO, MUD, MUX, or MMRPG, is the person who owns the physical machine hosting it. It's just that simple. They can turn it on, and they can turn it off. Your 'avatar' is nothing but a collection of 1's and 0's that reside on/in the owner's hardware. Of course, paid susbscriptions would fall under contract law I'd imagine, but outside of that, the owner could simply turn off/move/disconnect/wipe the machine and that's that.
Next level is the wizcore/admin/staff/whatever. Generally speaking, they are given administrative domain of those 1's and 0's on the machine, and as such, have some limited legal responsibility. Hence why servers carry AUPs (Acceptable Use Policies), most of which basically say 'As someone physically owns this machine and can be held responsible for it's contents, you WILL play by these rules or you will be removed from this server. We're just following the rules of CYA. If you don't like it, go somewhere else.'
2. The ownership of 'areas.' I've seen this issue wrangled over before and have the following to say: -PLAYERS- make an area, not just the physical setting. Someone may have developed the background, feel, and descriptions of an area, but once you let players run amok in an area, it becomes a collective work-in-progress between everyone involved. You may have designed the area and 'own' that design (more on this later), but you do not own an area AS IT IS NOW.
3. You can always disconnect. I hear tales of character rape, abuse, any number of things where people make the claim 'I was forced to do X.' Bullshit. At any time, you can disconnect from the machine, or even turn off your computer. You can say 'Sorry, nope, not gonna be a part of this,' get out of the situation, and report it. Where your 'avatar' may be a collection of 1's and 0's bound by the laws of the server programming, YOU are not. IMNSHO, if someone can manipulate you mentally/emotionally that easily, you shouldn't be on the 'net to begin with. For the most part, yes, in character actions have in character consequences (ie. you killed someone and the local authorities are gonna execute you for it), but if there are things not in accordance with the AUP (ie. someone's got psionic control over you, drags you off into a dark alley and is going to rape you), you DON'T have to RP it out. Staying pretty much equals consent, as 99.99% of the time you can EASILY get out of it through out of character means.
4. Develop areas/characters/items -outside- of a game first. If you ever want to use a character/area/whatever outside of a game (ie. a novel), make sure you develop it -outside- of a game before moving it into the game, so you have at least some form of 'prior art' available to you.
Most of all, remember, it's only a game. If you make real-world contracts for the transfer of characters/property, that's all well and fine, you have a real-world contract. If you play on a server with an AUP, the administration has full rights to boot you for non-compliance.
In conclusion, most of the time the administration -wants- to keep the players happy. Wether it's a pay service or the 'reward' for the staff is simply the game itself, a server is nothing without a player base. There many more servers out there, if you don't like how one is going, you can always pick up all your marbles and go play somewhere else...
There's no wrong way, to eat a Rhesus...
...to NBC, Law And Order: Special Moderators Unit
Bailiff: All rise, the Honorable Cmdr Taco, presiding.
[...]
DA McCoy: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we will show beyond a reasonable doubt that on the evening of November 22nd, the defendant, Mr. H4x0rD00d, did knowingly and willfully employ an aimbot and an OpenGL wallhack during the commission of...
Defense Attorney: OMG, LOL! Objection!
Judge Taco: Overruled. STFU.
[...]
Judge Taco: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, how do you find the defendant?
Foreman: On the count of wallhacking in the first degree, we find the defendant guilty. On the count of using an aimbot with intent to 0wn, we find the defendant guilty. On the count of misdemeanor page-widening, we find the defendant not guilty. On the count of trolling with intent to flame, we find the defendant not guilty. On the count of felony sock-puppetry, we find the defenNO CARRIER
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
"Avatars, the user-controlled entities that interact with virtual worlds, are a persistent extension of their human users, and users identify with them so closely that the human-avatar being can be thought of as a cyborg. We examine the issue of cyborg rights within virtual worlds and whether they may have real world significance."
A cell phone is a user-controlled entity that interacts with the provided communications netwrok, is a persistent extension of its human user, and users identify with them so closely (custom ringtones, faceplates, voice-dialing, etc.) that the human-cell phone being can be thought of as a cyborg.
So my cell phone needs civil rights?
How about all the jocks/frat boys (including my own frat brothers) who make fun of me for playing video games, then spend all their free time and cash on televised sports and fantasy {foot|base|basket}ball leagues? What part of reality are they interacting with? =P
"America has done some terrible things. But I know that Americans don't cheer when innocents die." -Dave Barry
I read the entire near 100 page abstract (yeah, it's a boring day at work) and found it very interesting.
He seems to base his thesis on two decent arguments: first, investing time into making something, even if this investment is in a virtual world, gives something inherent value. secondly, that because in game properties are being sold via ebay that there is some sort of real-world value to these objects. He even points out that people have made 'us dollar to everquest platinum' currency conversions, and you can pretty easily earn around 3.24$ US dollars an hour 'working' on everquest.
I think given this base, his entirely abstract was pretty worthless other than a very good history on the evolution from the start of gaming to MUDs (which I used to frequent and appreciated the reminiscing) all the way to the everquest (graphical MUD) phenomenon.
The premise that investing time and effort into something, even virtual, makes it valuable?? seems ridiculous to me when the end result of such efforts is (realistically) changes in 0's to 1's and vice versa on a remote computer system. It seems like the author is taking the psychological effect of these games as having some sort of value. Who should really care if someone becomes emotionally invested in what really isn't more than a series of pixels on a screen.
The selling of items is merely a fluke, and I think it's partially companies like Sony's fault for letting it happen --shouldn't they have the power to just randomly delete the objects from the characters doing the selling (with some checking for fairness) ? And I'm sorry but that reference to the company hiring poor mexicans to play dark ages full time just to sell items is a hilarious(?) abuse of mythic's systems.
I played MUDs for a couple years, racked up a character with 3000 hours. I know how addicting and psychologically investing these games can be. Yet on the same note, I always understood deep down that it was just a file on a remote system, and were it to be erased then it would just be "too bad."
The phrase "it's just a game" is very overused (esp on slashdot) and I think is inappropriate because that implies that just because some people view these games as trivial that we all should. The author mentioned that a large number of people (many 80+hr/wk players) have been recorded as saying they feel their 'real life' is just a meaningless support to their lives in everquest.
I think the author hits that psychological impact right on the money, but on the same note, this shouldn't have any real world meaning except maybe feeling sorry for those who are hurt and lose property in 'virtual worlds.'
Can/should virtual world "property" be treated as legal property?
Lets look at "intellectual property". (almost an oxymoron in itself)
To say that an idea could be treated as property has always amazed me.
Property can be destroyed - an idea cannot.
Property can be stolen - and idea cannot (although it can be copied)
Upon transferal of property, the original owner loses possession - not so with an idea
And so on.........
Seem more likely that lawyers got together and realized that the only way for them to "sell" the absurd notion that an intangible "intellectual item" was "entitled" to legal rights and protection similar to real possessions, was to make those items seem "tangible" to the common public. And to that end, the term "Intelectual Property" seems to have been born.
But I digress...
Seems like virtual world property might actually be more "tangible" than "intellectual property".
Virtual world "property" exists (albeit in a virtual world), and its existence is governed by the programming/rules of that virtual world.
As such, that "property" (in the context of that virtual world) can:
Be stolen
Be destroyed
Be transferred (whereby the previous owner loses possession)
And so on...
(provided that the programming/rules permit these things).
And as such, it makes the prospect of virtual world "property" being treated as legal property even less ridiculous than "Intellectual Property"
Disclaimer: I've only read the abstract and the older article on Shadowbane.
I want to point out that there is a very important distinction between the real world and the virtual ones. The basic rules and assumptions differ. If you enter the virtual world, you abandon some of your rights. For example, in many online games you can be murdered or robbed by humans or AI agents. This means that you should not have any reasonable expectations of personal safety (or safety of your property) in the virtual world.
Hence, unless you play a simulation of Legalotopia, you accept the possibility of being killed/robbed/raped/whatever in the virtual world. There might be some law enforcement inside the game, like cops, guards, gods, GMs, etc., but you should not expect outside protection of your life, property or reputation. Players are not responsible in reality for what they do inside a virtual world.
Of course, if you hack a server, cheat, steal a password, break the agreement with the game company, etc., you can be held responsible for these action. But the punishment (if any) must not be related to the in-game results of your actions.
I don't necessarily like being categorical, but this is the only possible and rational way to resolve these problems. Anything else is (at this stage) simply nonsense.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.