The snarky versions is at the Inq., Gay dwarf marriages banned from MMORPG:
THE MAKER of the The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar, has decided that a feature that would allow player characters to get married online was too much of a hot potato.
Since September the game has been in beta and came [...]
Joshua Fairfiled, The Magic Circle. He writes:
The basic idea is this: Law already governs every aspect of virtual worlds — from the contract law invoked by EULAs, to tort laws premised on various theories of consent, to tax law, to criminal law. But that does not mean that we must give up everything [...]
am delighted to announce the State of Play Academy (SOPA) Spring Semester will start Monday April 23 2007 and run thru June 8, 2007. SOPA is a virtual space for conversations about law and technology located in There.com.
We are offering conversations in three tracks:
* Paper Workshops- presentations by scholars of papers related to [...]
From Slashdot:
“Having already taken the timid steps of open-sourcing the code for its client software, Linden Lab has confirmed that they’ll be going the whole way, and will soon be opening up the server code for Second Life. This furthers Second Life’s ambitions to be a fully distributed 3D network — built on interoperability and [...]
Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), The Play’s the Thing: A Theory of Taxing Virtual Worlds (SSRN).
Abstract:
Taxation is shadow life. As our culture monetizes more and more life activities, the shadow grows. This article looks at the potential tax issues arising from a new life activity: online role-playing games in virtual worlds. Currently, some 12 million people [...]
FTC Issues Report on Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children (April 2007).
The British Board of Film Classification has published a report on video games, which is available via this link. The background to the report is described as follows:
A large majority of video games sold in the UK receive a rating under the voluntary Pan-European Game Information (PEGI) system, but some games, about 6-7% of [...]
In InformationWeek Cory Doctorow distinguishes between citizens and customers and argues that players of online games are customers:
Can you be a citizen of a virtual world? That’s the question that I keep asking myself, whenever anyone tells me about the wonder of multiplayer online games, especially Second Life, the virtual world that is more creative [...]
I need a research assistant for the summer (part time only) and/or next year. If you know a 1L or 2L with some computer skills (unix, ideally), an interest in the kinds of things we talked about in this seminar, and the ability to put up with me, please send him/her my way. [...]
Anita Ramasastry, Could Second Life Be In Serious Trouble? The Risk of Real-Life Legal Consequences for Hosting Virtual Gambling:
Does Second Life’s gambling sector violate UIGEA? The creators of Second Life aren’t sure. Thus, at their request, FBI agents have been roaming the virtual landscape of Second Life to visit its virtual casinos.
In this column, I’ll [...]
