The Law And Virtual Worlds

Via GamePolitics, commentary on the Game Tycoon and Terra Nova sites about how virtual world events and the law can interact. Property rights seem to be the largest sticking point of late, with a recent event in 2L being the focus of the discussion. From the Terra Nova article: "In introducing Point to Point (P2P) movement in Second Life, Linden Lab fundamentally altered the economic structure of the virtual space. In response to protests Linden has offered to buy back land as a form of 'compensation'. Taken together with the recent FBI reports is this the dawn of a liability culture within Second Life heralding a new form of virtual space?"

Comments

cool that they're doing that...

[Malor]

The fundamental design of SL was meant to be something like a city. You could 'teleport' to telehubs, much like riding a subway, and then you'd have to fly/drive/whatever to your final destination.

This was done on purpose, to give the world a sense of space; with point to point teleport, the entire world collapses into one dimension. Everything is next to everything. With the telehub approach, the world had some 'space' to it... you couldn't instantly arrive just anywhere. (I liked this approach a lot, you got to see things you'd otherwise miss.)

So this made telehub land worth more than other land; you had a chance to advertise and catch the eyes of passers-by. If you had land near a popular telehub, it could be quite profitable...where land out in the boondocks is worth less, from fewer eyeballs.

SL itself has been pushing the idea of virtual property and virtual ownership; they like, very much, the fact that virtual land has value, and that they can sell their virtual currency for real dollars. When they suddenly change the rules on how things work, they damage the value of things that took advantage of the old way of doing things. Changing the rules cost many of these people real money, in some cases a great deal of it.

I'm glad they stepped up to the plate and took responsibility for the damage... when they're the ones pushing the idea of virtual commerce and property, it behooves them to make people whole if they purposely damage some folks' assets.