21500650
submission
pacergh writes
"Is it illegal to hop on that open WiFi network nearby? Wired.com has an article on the issue, and Lex Technologiae examines the legal issues more in-depth."Link to Original Source
16881356
submission
pacergh writes
"A number of legal commentaries on virtual worlds argue that property laws should extend to the accounts, characters, and virtual stuff in these worlds. The rational is that these virtual resources are valuable and should be protected.
Yet none of these legal commentaries step out of the virtual world metaphor. Each pre-supposes that a property-centric view is the only way to look at these resources.
In a follow-up to The Virtual Property Problem, the article A Virtual Property Solution steps out of the property-metaphor for virtual worlds and examines them for what they are – playgrounds of the mind where harms are not visited upon a gamer’s waller, but rather on a gamer’s mind.
From the abstract, “Privacy laws can protect virtual worlds and their users where property law cannot.” The article goes on to argue that “[t]he very foundation of the virtual is the imagination of each individual player” and that “[v]iewing these harms through the lens of privacy will help lay a framework for the creation of future laws that will work alongside the imagination of the virtual rather than forcing themselves into a virtual world and destroying that world’s very value—the ability to pretend, to imagine, and to escape the real.”"Link to Original Source
5540085
submission
pacergh writes
"Many legal commentaries on virtual property argue that it should exist. Others argue why it can exist. None seem to explicitly spell out what virtual property will look like or how it will affect online worlds.
Lost in the technology love-fest are the problems virtual property might bring. The Virtual Property Problem lays out a model for what virtual property might look like and then applies it to various scenarios. This highlights the problems of carving virtual property out of a game developer's rights in his creation.
From the abstract, "'Virtual property' is a solution looking for a problem." The article explains the "failure of property rights to benefit the users, developers, and virtual resources of virtual worlds.""
