15. Virtual Worlds, Real Rules

Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, 2010

The paper addresses the implementation of legal rules in online virtual world software. The development is performed within a peer-to-peer virtual world platform in the frame of the FP7 VirtualLife project. The goal of the project is to create a serious, secure and legally ruled collaboration environment. The novelty of the platform is an in-world legal framework, which is real world compliant. The approach "From rules in law to rules in artifact" is followed. The development accords with the conception "Code is law" advocated by Lawrence Lessig. The approach implies the transformation of legal rules (that are formulated in a natural language) into machine-readable format. Such a transformation can be viewed as a kind of translation. Automating the translation requires human expert abilities. This is needed in both the interpretation of legal rules and legal knowledge representation.

2008 Requirements Engineering and Law, 2008

This paper addresses policy challenges of complex virtual environments such as virtual worlds, social network sites, and massive multiplayer online games. The complexity of these environments-apparent by the rich user interactions and sophisticated user-generated content that they offer-poses unique challenges for policy management and compliance. These challenges are also impacting the life cycle of the software system that implements the virtual environment. The goal of this paper is to identify and sketch important legal and policy challenges of virtual environments and how they affect stakeholders (i.e., operators, users, and lawmakers). Given the increasing significance of virtual environments, we expect that tackling these challenges will become increasingly important in the future.

2009

The paper addresses the purposes and design decisions produced while developing a peer-topeer virtual world platform. The work is being done within the FP7 VirtualLife project. The purpose of the project is to create a safe, democratic and legally ruled collaboration environment. The novelty of the platform is mainly in the issues of security and trust and in the implementation of an in-world legal framework, which is real world compliant. The rule of law principle is extended to a virtual world. Such an extension advances the level of intelligence of an artifact. The approach accords with a trend in legal informatics “From norms in law to rules in artifact”. In the paper the authors reflect on user needs and learning support in a university virtual campus, a potential scenario. Virtual worlds’ opportunities in enhancing learning are discussed. A new paradigm of the content is characterized as interaction versus information.

The paper addresses the purposes and design decisions produced while developing a peer-to-peer virtual world platform. The work is being done within the FP7 VirtualLife project. The purpose of the project is to create a safe, democratic and legally ruled collaboration environment. The novelty of the platform is mainly in the issues of security and trust and in the implementation of an in-world legal framework, which is real world compliant. The rule of law principle is extended to a virtual world. Such an extension advances the level of intelligence of an artifact. The approach accords with a trend in legal informatics “From norms in law to rules in artifact”. In the paper the authors reflect on user needs and learning support in a university virtual campus, a potential scenario. Virtual worlds’ opportunities in enhancing learning are discussed. A new paradigm of the content is characterized as interaction versus information.

As virtual worlds grow in size and acceptance, increasing amounts of time and energy are spent by their users in the pursuit and creation of virtual property. This paper argues that the current governing regimes of these worlds, end user licensing agreements, are insufficient to deal with these interests. The author examines several of these worlds, the conflicts within them, and the inadequacy of end user licensing agreements to govern them.

Quality of Legislation - Principles and Instruments, 2011

Its unique features demand new legal mechanisms. The qualities of legal realization are original in virtual environment. The peculiarities of virtual realization are most apparent in comparison to the realization of the regulations in traditional environment. In traditional mechanism for legal realization of legal relations and legal consequences are achieved by means of the operation of legal subjects. There are no factors and phenomena providing any means. The regulations of normative acts, legal subjects and their active behaviour are necessary and sufficient facts for the manifestation of legal mechanisms. The operation of legal subjects, give rise to the realization of legal regulations and lead to the origination of legal consequences.

An Exploration of EULAw in Virtual Worlds and MMORPGs – The Problem of Property Online games and Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) are governed by End User License Agreements (EULAs). Each user is required to consent to the EULA of a particular game or world. Such agreements present legal issues; they often deprive users of rights in intellectual property and virtual property to anything developed in the game. In addition to this, the same agreements prevent RMT (real money trade) of game items. There are strong arguments relating to freedom of contract and deprivation of rights in this area, and the increasing economic activities and prevalence of online games – and their disputes – suggests that such issues need examining.

2010

Virtual worlds provide a vibrant and exciting new venue for the conduct of social research. New social phenomena have emerged in the context of these worlds as individuals and groups use the worlds' social communication tools to overcome limitations of time and distance. Yet these worlds also pose some novel ethical problems for social researchers who wish to conduct their work in these contexts. The present paper discusses ethical dimensions of research in virtual worlds in order to uncover some of these novel problems. The paper reports and analyzes a case study in which the author participated in a virtual world research study. The paper discusses a preliminary version of a virtual world subject's bill of rights that can serve as the basis for further discussion among social researchers. The paper concludes with recommendations for virtual worlds researchers on strategies for working with their institutional review boards (human subjects ethics review) to obtain approval for their research proposals.