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On IP, Legality, And Virtual Worlds
Thanks to LawMeme for their complex article discussing how to regulate player content in virtual worlds, with particular relevance to the recent announcement that MMO Second Life "now recognizes the ownership of in-world content made by subscribers." The author starts with a question posed by a third party at the time of the announcement: "You're creating this world in which people come to play and be creative, and yet you've given this world a system that has been extensively criticized as limiting creativity. Haven't you just given them a new set of hurdles to creativity?" He then outlines his worries: "If your game platform - your game's rules and infrastructure - is non-coercive, then your game is going to have a serious problem resisting the intrusion of decidedly unfree real-life values as soon as your players start to care greatly about it. Only if your game is so trivial and so boring that no one attaches any significance to what happens there will the sense of play survive unaided."
FIRST POST. Ok, had to get that out of the way, but its funny that THERE.com has been doing it right along. We develope the content, pay an ingame amount of money to sell our objects. And our name is taged to the object saying we designed it.
i got to say i would love to generate my own outfits for my character etc. however i would see a large portion of the people out there creating content to make their character appear nude. i play FFXI and i think they did a great job on the game. no player created content though, and i would say for the right reasons
Even Ultima Online would brand created objects with a user's name... (didn't it?)
The article also discusses EULAs as a sort of social contract between players--by agreeing to play on the server, players agree to a set of rules, in exchange for the priviledge of playing on a server where everyone is forced to obey those same rules.
Still, one part that mystified me was the mention that Second Life is a system that "has been extensively criticized as limiting creativity." Where could I see this extensive criticism?--it sounds interesting.
What will be interesting is when people in MMOG's that are allowed to create and sell things can support their own subscriptions with the money they make from selling virtual items. Or better yet, when they can turn a better profit then they would in the real world.
for example, say I found out a way to gain the level of Jedi in Star Wars Galaxies in 8 hours of gameplay and the going price for a Jedi account on E-Bay is $500. Should I quit my day job and just start producing Jedi? Then again, if I found such a thing I probably wouldn't have a day job in the first place!
Are we talking about "Intellectual Property" or IP as in IP addresses?
...i'm not the only person who ever MUDded, am i?
on three seperate MUDs i began as a player, and graduated later to a creator. issues like, "who did it first?" were never brought up, because people didn't copy... of course, most of the people i played with were both intelligent and reasonable. the ones that weren't? never graduated to creators.
the whole, "players owning copyrights" is an attractive idea at first, but why bring copyright into it at all? if the community is active enough, people will notice when things are being copied and as a result shun those who copy. and i speak as a pretty hardcore gamer when i say, "games IS games"! this game nor any game in the near future is going to revolutionize the economy, social interaction, or anything else. the best in-game social experiences i've ever had are approximately equal to mediocre real-life social experiences i've had.