About Benjamin Duranske
January 21st, 2007 by Benjamin Duranske
Benjamin Duranske was the the editor and primary contributor to Virtually Blind from early 2007 to late 2008. Mr. Duranske stopped posting at Virtually Blind in December, 2008 after he accepted a position at Pillsbury helping to build the firm’s virtual worlds and games practice. Virtually Blind remains online as a research resource. Mr. Duranske is the author of Virtual Law: Navigating the Legal Landscape of Virtual Worlds (American Bar Association, 2008), and manages the website Virtual Law. He also regularly speaks on legal issues arising from virtual worlds and video games.
Mr. Duranske graduated from UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law in 2003. Before becoming an attorney, he was an IT manager. He has been involved in virtual worlds from pre-web text-based dial-up MUDs, to early PvP and RP communities in Ultima Online to, most recently, Second Life, where, as the avatar ‘Benjamin Noble,’ Mr. Duranske founded the SL Bar Association. He occasionally give talks and participates in panels about legal issues in Second Life and other virtual worlds, and works with several groups that are trying to establish independent judicial systems in these spaces.
As noted above, Mr. Duranske now practices law at Pillsbury, where he focuses on virtual law, intellectual property law, internet law, and litigation.
