[MUD-Dev] BIZ: Who owns my sword?

[Jeff Cole]

From: Matt Mihaly
> On Thu, 11 Sep 2003, Crosbie Fitch wrote:
>> From: Matt Mihaly

>> Just as with software, perhaps players don't get to own anything,
>> they are simply given a lease/privilege to play the game (which
>> includes exclusive operation of an avatar).

>> Exchange of virtual items (arranged via eBay) by players should
>> be ignored.  That co-incidentally, money changes hands in the
>> real world contingent on exchanges happening in the virtual,
>> should remain co-incidental and unrelated. If the law decides to
>> treat virtual items as real property, well, it's bonkers.

> My god, you've said something I agree with. ;)

Is the irony in that lost on you two?  That is exactly a transaction
involving a property right/interest.

It's that "lease/privilege" to "exclusively operat[e]" an avatar
that gives rise to the property right--regardless of whether or not
the company could just shutdown the servers.  The law already plenty
of property rights that are not absolute, that are conditional, or
that can be revoked (like the server getting shutdown).  It happens
all the time with "real" (in the legal sense, not in the sense
Crosbie uses it, to distinguish between real and personal property)
property.

Yrs. Affcty,
Jeff Cole
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev