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

[Marian Griffith]

In <URL:/archives/meow?group+local.muddev> on Fri 26 Sep, Jeff Cole wrote:
> From: Crosbie Fitch
>> From: Matt Mihaly

>> More important is whether the virtual universe is 'real' or not.

> The objects in question are "real" because a sentient person has
> the right to control, and exclude others from controlling, such
> objects.

You are already making a lot of assumptions here :)

Point is that players do not 'own' their game characters any more
than they own their play token or streets in monopoly.  They use
them to play a game.  Ownership within the game (of the so-called
virtual objects) is subject to the laws of the game world.  Or In
other words, to rules of the game. Allowing somebody else to take
over a character is similar to allowing another player to take over
from you in a game of correspondence chess.  This change does not
create a liability in the host of either game.

Any other position will eventually lead to ridiculous claims.  If
you try to mix up the laws of the game world with the real world,
you effectively equate game actions with real actions.  Murder in
the game is not punishable by a court outside it.  Harassment is
punishable, but the context in which it occurs is immaterial for the
nature of the crime. Within the game, game laws apply, but if
actions spill over in reality then real laws apply.

This position also protects the game developers from idiotic
liability and unfounded claims of 'property being stolen when the
game was nerfed'. You can not sue the fifa for changing the rules of
soccer.  A mud is a game, and the game rules are subject to
change. If the rules change you can either accept them or stop
playing, but you do not have any kind of 'right' to play by the old
rules.

This is as far as I am concerned, the only sensible point to take
with these issues, and one that does not require any new law to come
into effect.  There is of course no telling what law makers and
lawyers will do with it.

> People and companies regularly offer property that they have yet
> to acquire (and which they might not ever acquire) as security
> against loans.

True, but it still requires property they could legally acquire.
With game objects that is debatable still.  You sure can not use
your ownership of a monopoly street as security, even though the
game says it is worth $40.000


marian
--
Yes - at last - You. I Choose you. Out of all the world,
out of all the seeking, I have found you, young sister of
my heart! You are mine and I am yours - and never again
will there be loneliness ...

Rolan Choosing Talia,
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey
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