While this cases current resolution does make me cringe to think of the large holes in laws regarding ownership of virtual items, I have to say that the Judge ruled correctly in deciding that current law does not cover such property. Simply looking at the complex and often misapplied laws for physical property, I don't think that expanding their scope to cover this kind of problem would be either a viable or desirable end. Since the wording of existing statutes can be twisted enough by a skilled lawyer when it is used in its intended form, I doubt it would add any clarity to simply extend them to cover an unintended area. I hope that the size of the earnings that were realized from this domain name (the article quoted hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue) will add to the pressure from other well known cases and persuade legislators to write laws specific to the electronic economy.
I suppose it's Verizon now, but when they started offering DSL service they would tie their service directly to your MAC address (they provided the modems etc...). After a few months, and the numerous crashes this authentication caused on their end, they stopped. However, the explanation they gave me for this when I called and asked was to try to stop me from using their service from more than one computer; I was told that I would have to purchase another DSL if I wanted to have another hookup in my house. While this was easy to work around, I was still surprised that they would try this.
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While this cases current resolution does make me cringe to think of the large holes in laws regarding ownership of virtual items, I have to say that the Judge ruled correctly in deciding that current law does not cover such property. Simply looking at the complex and often misapplied laws for physical property, I don't think that expanding their scope to cover this kind of problem would be either a viable or desirable end. Since the wording of existing statutes can be twisted enough by a skilled lawyer when it is used in its intended form, I doubt it would add any clarity to simply extend them to cover an unintended area. I hope that the size of the earnings that were realized from this domain name (the article quoted hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue) will add to the pressure from other well known cases and persuade legislators to write laws specific to the electronic economy.
I suppose it's Verizon now, but when they started offering DSL service they would tie their service directly to your MAC address (they provided the modems etc...). After a few months, and the numerous crashes this authentication caused on their end, they stopped. However, the explanation they gave me for this when I called and asked was to try to stop me from using their service from more than one computer; I was told that I would have to purchase another DSL if I wanted to have another hookup in my house. While this was easy to work around, I was still surprised that they would try this.