On IP, Legality, And Virtual Worlds 15
Thanks to LawMeme for their complex article discussing how to regulate player content in virtual worlds, with particular relevance to the recent announcement that MMO Second Life "now recognizes the ownership of in-world content made by subscribers." The author starts with a question posed by a third party at the time of the announcement: "You're creating this world in which people come to play and be creative, and yet you've given this world a system that has been extensively criticized as limiting creativity. Haven't you just given them a new set of hurdles to creativity?" He then outlines his worries: "If your game platform - your game's rules and infrastructure - is non-coercive, then your game is going to have a serious problem resisting the intrusion of decidedly unfree real-life values as soon as your players start to care greatly about it. Only if your game is so trivial and so boring that no one attaches any significance to what happens there will the sense of play survive unaided."
YAHOOO (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:YAHOOO (Score:2, Informative)
Re:YAHOOO (Score:2)
Also, Second Live doesn't have a oversight system to approve customizations -- they happen immediately.
I personally don't see too much of a problem with in-game copyright voiolations. If you have set the permissions on your objects to be non-copyable, then it is enforced by the server.
If someone does manage to roughly duplicate your objec
creating content (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:creating content (Score:3, Funny)
The interesting part to me... (Score:2)
Professional MMOG player. (Score:2)
for example, say I found out a way to gain the level of Jedi in Star Wars Galaxies in 8 hours of gameplay and the going price for a Jedi account on E-Bay is $500. Should I quit my day job and just start producing Jedi? Then again, if I fo
Re:Professional MMOG player. (Score:1)
Actually, I looked last week (just for kicks and giggles, mind you. I refuse to play an MMORPG where people are obsessed enough to pay real money for in-game items, whereas I'm limited to playing a few hours a week so I can pay my bills ^_^).
The Jedi character slot was for sale starting at $3999.99.
I kid you not. I don't know what kind of brass
Re:What sort of "IP" are we talking here? (Score:1)
a user-created and user-run online game? (Score:1)
on three seperate MUDs i began as a player, and graduated later to a creator. issues like, "who did it first?" were never brought up, because people didn't copy... of course, most of the people i played with were both intelligent and reasonable. the ones that weren't? never graduated to creators.
the whole, "players owning copyrights" is an attractive idea at first, but why bring copyright into it at all? if the community is active enough, people will not
Re:a user-created and user-run online game? (Score:1)