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

[Ren Reynolds]

Referring to both this thread and the whole 'Rape in cyberspace'
issue, I don't think that broad question of whether a virtual world
is 'real' or not comes into it.

'Real' is too broad a term to be useful when we are discussing these
matters. What we need to do is look at specifics and ask specific
questions. Seldom I feel will the question 'real' come into it.

I'm not sure if an analogy is helpful, but let's have a go. Think of
a game of chess in the following circumstances:

  a) 2 people sat at a table playing with physical pieces

  b) 2 people playing by email with someone else moving physical
  pieces

  c) 2 people playing on a virtual chess board

  d) 1 person playing a computer on a virtual chess board

  e) 2 computers paying each other on a virtual chess board

  f) 2 computer playing each other on a physical board via robots

Are any of these more real than any other ? Do factors such people
betting on a game or a chess players career being on the line make
any of the situations more real than any other ? Does the fact that
it's a 'game' we are talking about impact things ?

And just to reference property again - remember there is nothing
objectively real about property. There are objects (including
intellectual \ information objects), but property is a socially
constructed notion backed by another one - the law. Penalties for
stealing however can be objectively real - which is a pertinent
intersection.

To look at things ethically first. There is a growing literature on
the morality of virtual action. To me the physicality of acts or
objects seldom makes any difference, what tends to matter are things
like intentionality, the symbolic force of an act and the emotional
consequences. A good deal of ethics can be reduced to promise
breaking, so I would say that if someone in a game world steals or
cheats gold from someone else then this is an act with a real moral
dimension - irrespective of the lack of the physical nature of
things.

Now if one person is playing the character of a thief and we are
role playing then this is a different matter - and the grey area in
between is a whole thesis in itself.

Intersections of law are similar. If someone starts to use
trademarked images from say Coca Cola all over a game world. Then no
one is going start to ask whether these are real or not - no someone
is going to get sued for trademark infringement.

So in every case you need to look at context and act. The exact
extent of how far we want to extend laws generally into virtual
worlds is something we all need to think about. My personal project
is to look at the relationship of identity between individual and
avatar as I think when we understand this we will understand much
more about the nature of agency on line and hence the kind of laws
we should apply.


On 25 September 2003 09:52 Crosbie Fitch wrote

> no doubt Bilbo would reply "I don't know what mushrooms you've
> been eating Frodo, but I think you'll find that in this physical
> world of ours called Middle Earth, I do have person-hood and
> moreover, have all the necessary legal documents to prove my title
> to this hobbit hole. I certainly don't want to waste my time on
> discussions concerning epistemology

I wonder a lot what we mean by this. Assuming that these are player
characters to what degree is the person-hood in question only that
of the player. I think in cases like this, unless we specifically
carve out laws that have protected spaces (some one has suggested I
look into private ordering here) then we are always going mix game
rules with external law.

Even if we think about contact sports where much of what goes on
would be considered assault if there were not common consent during
the game and the law agreed to ring-fence the acts - people can, and
do, get charged with assault when they take it too far. In the UK an
official in a rugby match was recently found negligent in not
performing their duty of care when a player was injured (Vowles v
Evans and others [2003] ER 134). So I'm not sure the virtual worlds
can escape the law - however real or otherwise we think them to be.


Ren
www.renreynolds.com

PS - If anyone is interested J Searle's The Construction of Social
Reality, is interesting on how statements such as 'I have $5' 'my
sister got married' can be 'true' when these 'facts' are only such
though some form of social agreement.
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