Virtual Law Quicklinks: Boycotts v. Courts; Footnotes on Money; Tenure for Noveck; Kwari Interview
September 21st, 2007 by Benjamin Duranske
VB runs “Virtual Law Quicklinks” whenever we have a backlog of interesting items that aren’t big enough for full posts. One link, one sentence, a little commentary. Here’s today’s batch.
- Essay on Virtual Courts vs. Consumer Action – Second Life’s ‘Ashcroft Burnham’ has an essay up at metaverserepublic.org arguing that in-world courts are better than boycotts to control bad business practices; good essay, and I think a virtual court is generally a good idea, but I wonder… aren’t you stuck with a boycott against a corrupt in-world court?
- Law Journal Article on Virtual World Currency – The Illinois Business Law Journal has a well-footnoted overview article up on money and games and virtual worlds that hits all the important points from a legal perspective; definitely worth the click.
- Tenure for Beth Simone Noveck – New York Law School just made Beth Simone Noveck (who founded State of Play, launched Democracy Island in Second Life, and blogs at Cairns) a full Professor of Law with tenure; congratulations from VB.
- Interview with Kwari Founder – RCEUniverse has an interview up with Kwari (“your virtual arms dealer”) founder Eddie Gill; good stuff, including commentary on cheating, the business model, and gameplay.
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One Response to “Virtual Law Quicklinks: Boycotts v. Courts; Footnotes on Money; Tenure for Noveck; Kwari Interview”
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Thank you for the link, Ben :-)
You are indeed correct, of course, that direct public action would be the way to deal with a thoroughly corrupt legal system in a virtual world (a well-designed system such as the Metaverse Republic will have mechanisms for dealing with potential corruption: individual officers of state will be able to be impeached). In the case of the Metaverse Republic, the kind of direct public action would be very simple: mass unsubscription.
What I perhaps did not make as clear as I ought to have done in the original article was that such direct action can be the best way of dealing with things in some cases (such as, for example, where consumers refuse to purchase goods from a trader employing methods that, whilst they are not – and should not be – unlawful, are nonetheless undesirable), but that, in a great many cases, users of SecondLife and other virtual worlds have no option other than to take direct action, even when it is manifestly unsuitable or extremely inefficient, for all the reasons given in the original post.