Oct 31 2007
User-organized government, virtual property discussed at VWFE
At the Virtual Worlds Forum Europe last week, TechDigest reports on a panel of lawyers discussing ‘Legal and regulatory issues relating to virtual worlds’:
So, intellectual property infringement, which David says theres’ a lot of within Second Life and other worlds, with brands not sure what to do about it.
Hmm, he’s talking about a bank that went bust within Second Life, and left users $750,000 worse off (that’s real dollars, not Linden Dollars). Apparently there were queues of avatars trying to get their money out of in-world ATMs, like a virtual Northern Rock.
More generally: “There appears to be a common perception that laws don’t apply within virtual worlds,” says David. “They do.”
…
David says there are some moves to create an in-world legal system for Second Life, which may be able to arbitrate in certain disputes without having to take them to a real-world court (one project is the Metaverse Republic, he says).