08-14-2004, 10:51 PM
I just looked over a paper by Yale law professor Jack Balkin (one of the top constitutional law and First Amendment scholars in the country) about some tort liability and First Amendment issues relating to MMRPG's. There turn out to be a surprising number of potential legal issues. Can a person be sued in tort (and should they be allowed to) for defrauding another player of valuable in-game items? On the flip side, is the nature of a video game such that the expressive act is protected by the First Amendment? And if someone PK's you and steals your items, do you have a legal right to force the game operator to identify the theif so that you can bring a suit against him?
Balkin's abstract of the article notes:
Virtually all activity in virtual worlds must begin as some form of expression, and therefore virtually all forms of legally redressable injury in virtual worlds will be some form of communications tort. However, the law of the First Amendment, as it currently exists, does not adequately protect many important features of the rights to design and play. Many virtual spaces are rapidly becoming sites of real world and virtual world commerce. In the future game designers will likely attempt to invoke the First Amendment to avoid regulation of their business practices.
Professor Balkin's paper is an interesting analysis of the legal issues at play here. It is available, free, from the SSRN, at:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abs...tract_id=555683
(Warning: It's about 50 pages long. And it's actually quite breezy reading for a legal article, but non-legal types might find it to be a complicated read).
Balkin's abstract of the article notes:
Virtually all activity in virtual worlds must begin as some form of expression, and therefore virtually all forms of legally redressable injury in virtual worlds will be some form of communications tort. However, the law of the First Amendment, as it currently exists, does not adequately protect many important features of the rights to design and play. Many virtual spaces are rapidly becoming sites of real world and virtual world commerce. In the future game designers will likely attempt to invoke the First Amendment to avoid regulation of their business practices.
Professor Balkin's paper is an interesting analysis of the legal issues at play here. It is available, free, from the SSRN, at:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abs...tract_id=555683
(Warning: It's about 50 pages long. And it's actually quite breezy reading for a legal article, but non-legal types might find it to be a complicated read).
