UCLA law student Kevin Deenihan has published a new paper that should be required reading for anyone involved in the legal side of virtual worlds and MMOs.
"The litigants with the most incentive to sue, and thus to have their interest recognized, are typically those whose role in Virtual Worlds is considered negative by wide swathes of the playerbase: gold farmers, account sellers, and exploiters."The Virtually Blind blog has published Deenihan's study, while sportingly admitting that its main conclusion is "at odds... with the very premise of this site". Of course, where there's hype, there's sure to be a battalion of lawyers queuing up to make money - which explains some of the high-profile real-world cases involving virtual worlds. From a non-lawyer's standpoint, it seems that such cases will only increase in the future - particularly when there's real-world money at stake, rather than in-world or in-game currency and/or status. Anyway, it's well worth a read, via the link below. Leave Those Orcs Alone
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