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
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.
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!!!
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.
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"
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
...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