Virtual Property?

 

The following is my reply to a recent post on Slashdot. It is my opinion on "virtual property." The question is: is a gamer legally entitled to his "virtual property." Virtual property is defined as the gamer's player(s) and items or anything else under his control in the virtual world ( Everquest, Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, etc.)

 

Second Life is more like a webhost, where as a MMORPG is like going to the carnival. The pricing structure for Second Life is totally different, you pay by the amount of space you have to build on.

The law could easily play on both sides here. EULA says you can't sell on eBay, you did, now you get fined for braking the EULA. Or the law could toss out the EULA and say you do own the stuff. Quite frankly I don't think this is an issue worth using the court system or tax paying money on. We all know how the internet works. There is always a loophole. Let these for profit game businesses run the game how they like. If they screw it up -- people leave. They can choose to ban people who sell on ebay, or just ignore it. They can go after emulated servers, or they can leave them.

The system is certainly far from perfect. I remember the first days and months UO was released. All the bugs scared me away until several years later. Lineage currently has a huge problem with harvesting from what I understand. It looks like a great MMORPG, but I'll be staying away from that too for a while.

MMORPG are around to make money. If someone spends 40 hours a week playing Everquest, they've got issues. I don't believe that the law should either hinder or allow selling virtual items.

When I run a business I make damn sure that I'm not signing away my rights to a partner or to another company. Webhost wants to own the copyright to my work? Sorry. Maybe they pull some B.S. like certain companies have in switching the EULA without giving me proper notification.


As I said before, we know there are loopholes -- especially with the internet. Gambling sites banned in the U.S., then they flourish on some tropical island along with their owner. Too much of a pain to host a MMORPG in the U.S., then they are going to move to another country.