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Can Avatars Make Contracts?
edadams sends in a story about the legal questions that are starting to crop up over property disputes in virtual worlds. A lawsuit in March 2008 that stopped one Second Life user from selling a virtual product created by another user marked the beginning of a significant amount of casework for several law firms, in large part due to the way Second Life's currency interacts closely with real money. (And yes, apparently the product in that particular case was for cybersex — did you have to ask?) "As transactions grow in volume, it's inevitable that disagreements will crop up. Linden says that although it will enforce its terms of service, including its ban on violating other users' intellectual property, it can't settle most disputes for users." A lawyer for one intellectual property firm handled a case in which the co-ownership of virtual real estate had to be determined, ending with a financial settlement given to two users who helped a virtual land developer run a group of Second Life islands. As virtual worlds get more popular and their business models more directly affect real-life finances, we can expect these legal issues to become more common as well.
Wow! They've productized cybersex? I thought it was a service! Is it over-the-counter yet? Does it come in a gel or powder that I apply to my genitals? I have so many questions on how it works. Can I get it delivered to my house discretely? Brilliant move but the physics are still a little confusing to me.
My work here is dung.
If you signed your name on an actual contract, you're liable for the contract. If, on the other hand, you're an idiot and sign it with your Second Life avatar (or Slashdot ID for that matter), I would imagine the contract is at least called into heavy question.
I did contract work in SL for 3 years. I always signed my name on real, mailed-over contracts. I had to do work with other contractors, though, who in a fit of privacy histrionics, refused to divulge any part of their private life to these real-world companies they were working for, and thus "signed" a "contract" inside the virtual world.
Not surprisingly, they either didn't last long doing contract work or got so heavily ostracized for their insanity they never got another call again.
In short, don't be a moron. Get a real contract, in real paper, and sign it with your real name (and make sure they do too!)
Anything else is just roleplay.
hookers and grits.
Trying to get the long arm of the law around cybersex cases could be a really sticky situation.
You've got to hand it to them though.
Hey, if androids can dream of electric sheep, why shouldn't avatars get into the fun? ;)
Bark less. Wag more.
Too ban lawyers aren't virtual people.
I'm not the biggest geek in the world but I consider myself to still be very geeky and I find this to be the most pointless waste of time and effort I've heard about since Twitter. Virtual lawsuits? Only if I can DM the lawyers.
I don't think us geeks are going to be complaining about the music kids listen to these days or getting off the lawn, we'll just bitch about how the impractical and useless the latest techno-geek fad is. "Twitter? What, blogs with RSS updates aren't good enough for you, son? Back in my day--"
"Back in your day your CPU only had one core and you liked it, right? Your polygons didn't even have textures, you had to customize your config.sys and autoexec.bat just to play--"
"Aw, shut up. And get off my lawn."
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Brilliant move but the physics are still a little confusing to me.
Me too. Cybersex is easier to get than money. Apparenty retards stay that way, no matter how many lives you give them.
IAAL and the last thing--the very last thing--that I want to do in a computer game is form legally binding relationships. Today it's contracts and cybersex. Tomorrow its libel and "You wrongfully damaged the value of my avatar!"
If I get in a contract dispute in a computer game, I don't want to end up in court--I want a virtual duel with swords or pistols! I want to be able to cheat somebody in a (virtual) contract and laugh at them down the barrel of a plasma blaster when they complain.
Some MMOGs want to create a game environment that can get people sued in real life--all the while disclaiming ANY liability on their part for the social cost of such wasteful, stupid lawsuits. I'll run, screaming, away from such utter lunacy.
But, hey, its good business for lawyers . . . what the hell!
I guess this is one way to think outside of the box in tough economic times...
Ultimately for a contract to be valid, both sides have to agree to it.
Exactly. Plus, the Statute of Frauds requires certain transactions to be documented in a signed "writing." But what is a "writing" under the law? Does this mean hard copy? Will the courts really enforce the Statute of Frauds strictly enough to avoid liability under electronic contracts as the Internet proliferates? Now that handwriting software and peripherals are an alternative to keyboard input, the signature requirement of the Statute of Frauds may no longer be an issue.
And what about the three-day right of rescission afforded consumers in certain transactions in California? For example, home solicitation contracts may be rescinded within three days of formation of the contract. These agreements are the result of solicitations by vendors at the consumer's home. The consumer must be provided with a hard-copy form that simply requires his or her signature and mailing within the three day period to void the contract. This "change of mind" provision may or may not apply to solicitations on the Internet if received on a PC at home. But perhaps they should. Likewise, seminar sales solicitations also allow a three-day right of rescission under different provisions of the California Civil Code.
And what about the Mailbox Rule? If contracts are accepted upon dispatch, does the sending of email cut off the right of an offeror to withdraw his or her offer notwithstanding the fact that the emailed acceptance has not yet been received? And what if the offeror sends his or her withdrawal of the offer before the acceptance is emailed, but the withdrawal is not received until after dispatch of the acceptance? Issues such as these must be addressed within the context of a technology that causes email delivery to be unpredictable and delivery records to be easily manipulated. The solution to these issues may be dealt with on a case-by-case basis as the specific fact patterns surface in the courts. However, a more efficient approach would be legislative committee research and formulation of a set of commercial statutes that will accommodate virtual contracts before litigation proliferates. Legislatures need not be visionaries to anticipate and resolve the inadequacy of present-day commercial law. The "Internet Commercial Code" would facilitate the free flow of commerce in the new medium and avoid the unnecessary burden of what is now foreseeable litigation. Indeed, an organization called the National Conference of Commissioners of Uniform State Laws is already working on a revised Uniform Commercial Code that will accommodate the new legal issues created by virtual contracts.
=Smidge=
Is it just my observation, or is eldavojohn an idiot?
>>As virtual worlds get more popular and their business models more directly affect
>>real-life finances, we can expect these legal issues to become more common as well.
These things are becoming *more* popular? Have I been getting out *too* much?
God save us all. Pretty soon the English language will consist only of the letters l,o, R, U, s, t, and f.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is such a dumb question and here is the scenario: say I play a businesswoman online. Now say my little brother gets ahold of my account while I'm in the bathroom and decides that I'm going to prostitute myself and gets into a binding contract. Did my avatar make the contract or my little brother THROUGH the avatar? When I get back to the keyboard is my avatar to be punished because they were 'possessed' by the spirit of my little brother?
Impossible to enforce. If there were an in game judicial system, it would be treated as temporary insanity. To which you would also NEED a judicial system for arbitration. This introduces lawyers. And now the game becomes a PVP free for all.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
But as I see it, there should be no problem signing contracts as $AVATAR - for strictly SL (or other virtual world) activity. As soon as RL enters the picture (including RL money), I agree, use your real identity.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
"product in that particular case was for cybersex"
I thought the same thing at first...but the case was in regards to a product used for cybersex.
Sure. Why not? If you can do work and exchange value there, you're going to need contracts. Avatars are just remote connections of humans. Just as you can commit to a contract via telegram, phone, fax, and web page, you can commit to one through an avatar.
It's possible to create works of art and music in Second Life. All the usual copyright issues apply. This will be more of an issue as the technology improves. We already have "Myspace bands." Bands have already played in Second Life, including a few big names.
In some circumstances, NPCs can create contracts. A vending machine, for example, creates a contract with you when you insert coins. If you don't get the product, you can sue the company operating the vending machine. The vending machine is an agent of the seller, acting within its authority. That's settled law (and a real issue for vending machines that sell things like iPods). The same legal concept applies to NPCs. This all derives from ancient law of master and servant.
Whether contracts can be formed through avatars is actually a rather subjective question. The critical question is whether the parties objectively manifested an intention to be legally bound. This might be more likely in Second Life than WoW, for instance. My guess would be no, because there's still a fantasy qualify to Second Life. Or, at least, it wouldn't be reasonable to assume that other players were taking it seriously.
Then there's the whole contracts against public policy thing. "Meretricious" contracts (i.e., where sex is part of the consideration exchanged) will not be enforced by the courts.
Analysis of these two issues would be moderately interesting, at least when compared with tomorrow's Civil Procedure final...
(IANAL, this is not legal advice, etc...)
Mod AC up please.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
Selling's legal.
Fucking's legal.
Why isn't selling fucking legal?
Thank you internets, for bringing this time old question back in yet a new way.
You can get 15 minutes of fame, but you can go down in history for infamy.
I played on secondlife for a while. It was the most irritating thing in the universe. My avatar would get in a zone, take three steps and BAM, lag. Nothing. But. Lag. It shocked the heck outta me when I learned how much people would pay to do business there. $1k for an island, when you can barely walk around without crashing your computer? Surely, you jest.
I wonder if the item in question was the ping-pong-ball-in-the-butt popper. Now THAT was funny.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
I cannot believe that people are interested in playing a GAME where you have to hire land developers and sort out legal contracts. What's next, Virtual Tax Filing and Online Toilet Sanitation?
Because Christians are betting that they can :)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This doesn't have anything to do with 'avatars making contracts' as if some intelligent agents were negotiating deals on their own behalf. This seems to resemble something like an electronic stock exchange. Where there are rules by which the participants (real life people) agree to abide by. And even if some 'intelligent agent' makes a decision to buy or sell, its just like program trading. Its done on behalf of the users standing behind those agents. Many of the transactions on such exchanges exist purely within the realm of that on line world. But if the consequences of one results in a financial obligation in 'the real world', the people behind the programs are obliged to pay up.
I'd like to see a legal discussion about the day when one of these avatars, or agents, becomes sentient and, of its own volition, enters into a contract.
Have gnu, will travel.
>Wow! They've productized cybersex?
It was a product line with a variety of custom made animations, each of which represents dozens or hundreds of hours of work, and is by all means a tangible medium of expression and as such is subject to copyright law.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Can't those avatar contracts be called "avatracts"? It seems silly to regulate virtual contracts if there is no hidden real-world contracting going on inside these avatracts.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Can I get it delivered to my house discretely?
What, as in one at a time?
I'll get my coat...
How dare you be so modest!! You conceited bastard!!
but i wish my wife let me
?
You're not creative enough, my friend.
You are assuming hanging in Cyberworlds "trashes your FirstLife" because *currently* it requires staying moderately still staring at a computer.
Watch what happens when you can visit SecondLife hands-free with monitor glasses while stuck in a meatspace queue waiting for something.
"Without enhancements" that's less than 5 years away. (But without-enhancements means a TRULY atrocious interface.)
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
+1 Android Sisters from Ruby the Galactic Gumshoe.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
CCP actually encourages all manner of double dealing, back stabbing, and fraud. Fruad is part of the game. The game's history is littered with scams where large groups of players will loose months of work because another trusted player rips them off. Unlike many other games, the game masters never intervene in these cases.
So, I wonder what would happen if two parties enter into an agreement. Party A actually expects B to perform. B knows he's going to scam A and sees it as "just part of the game." Then, A sues B. Would the "it's just a game" defense work? What if A says, "In this case I really expected A to perform. Srsly!"
It is over a crafted & scripted object USED for that act, not the act itself.
it's a game. If you're trying to make a living at it, you're a moron.
it's barely a game.
that being said, Linden labs only smiles on the way to the bank every time one of these lawsuits pops up.
as well, wouldn't anything taking place in the "second life" also be subject to the laws of the "second life"?
They're using their grammar skills there.
Don't blame the lawyers for this. The fault is entirely with the idiots hiring them. Some people are just too thick to realize that their actions lead to one inevitable outcome: taxes. Sooner or later (and in the current economic circumstances probably sooner) the government will realize that there is a whole lot of "real estate" and other "property" it forgot to tax. There will be an avatar tax, the Web site tax, the blog tax and so on.
Second Life, the online environment that asks the age-old question, "Do androids dream of cybersex with electric sheep?"
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I put on my robe and wizard hat
Seriously, the only place I've ever heard Second Life mentioned is in news articles.
I get the distinct impression that they have a good marketing team, and very very few Actual users.
"Can Avatars Make Contracts?" - come on guys, its fine to have an active fantasy life, but turn off the role play when you log out, please. There are perfectly good laws and precedents for dealing with unwritten/informal contracts - whether they are made over the phone or via a chat between avatars sitting on a flying penis should make no difference.
For practical purposes, Second Life, WoW etc. are just chunks of teh interweb offering communications, data storage and application hosting facilities. OK, so the currency issue is a complication, but is it really any differnt from the age-old idea of a "barter network"?
Please, please don't encourage our wonderful lawmakers to get distracted by the pretty 3D graphics and start trying to legislate for "virtual worlds".
If I have a "second life" I want to go to a nice post-scarcity, anarcho-communist* utopia like the Culture or the United Federation of Planets and do what the hell I want provided it stays in the virtual world. I don't want to find that the government has got there first and declared eminent domain because some judge made a batty ruling after being baffled by talk of "virtual real estate".
* For the record, I wouldn't advocate Communism in the real world, but the whole "post-scarcity" thing might just make a difference - as would being able to log out if it all went pear-shaped.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Hmm, I guess the jury is still out on "can my cat agree to a click-wrap license?"
If they ever catch her, she'll probably do 15-20 in the kennel. Kitty likes her keygens!
AFAIK land in SL costs real money to "own" and there are tons of real money transactions all over the "game" so promising someone co-ownership of a paid-for piece of ingame property does sound like they were taking it seriously.
Does cybersex count as actual sex? Seems more like regular talking to me. After all phone sex operators don't really engage in sex on the job either.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Umm. A condom is a product for sex. That doesn't me that sex itself is a product.
What some legal firms need to do is buy an island or two and then setup a branch office.
There are a few ways to have a script in SL pull up a webpage im sure that some sort of real world contract could
be signed by way of a special SL contracts page (which could require any needed SL >RL links)
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
What's next, Virtual Tax Filing and Online Toilet Sanitation?
Why not? We're already doing Virtual Off-Shoring of Gold Farming.