Anti-Social Contracts, Post-Event Archive and Analysis

I too considered the issue of portability and its consequences. It’s the first type of dispute that comes to the minds of many, perhaps partly because of Bragg’s subject matter. But isn’t the bigger concern residents’ rights against each other? I suggest that this is the context where property rights are most necessary, and where they are most likely to be feasible.

First, on the necessity front. There’s only one Linden Labs and there are millions of residents. Many of those residents have virtual “property” in their creative works, etc. Shouldn’t they have a right to protect that “property” through the sorts of property laws that govern real life interaction? Despite Bragg’s being in the alternative context, it seems logical that these sorts of resident-resident disputes are likely to be much more common than resident-Linden disputes, if for no other reason than Linden has more to lose from disrespecting a user’s “property.” And, as people and companies integrate more of their business into virtual worlds, there will be more incentive to steal “property” as well as an increasingly strong parallel to real world for justifying property rights.

Second, on the feasibility front. It’s unlikely that there will be a market change in technological law anytime soon, so we are probably stuck with a licensing model for the foreseeable future. This leaves the EULA in its dominant position, whether we like it or not. But the EULA cannot govern resident-resident disputes, as discussed in the presentation, and thus this (unfortunate) reality does not lessen our need for property rights for residents. Moreover, there are many examples in real world law for contract superseding property default rules (e.g. an anti-assignment provision in a lease). Likewise, portability will be plagued by similar concerns – since portability is an issue determined by the relationship between an individual resident and Linden, it is within the scope of the EULA and, even with property rights, it is unlikely that restricting alienability is (at least universally) improper.

Portability is a key issue. But maybe the first battle should be for resident-resident property rights.

Bad cases make bad law. I don't see what we gain at all by ostensibly affirming the validity of virtual land through Bragg if we are also forced to give a pass to the concept that a resident can grab land from its makers through exploits, and it doesn't constitute "theft". In fact, I suspect the entire Bragg case will be argued and decided on the main issue of whether a company ("virtual government or state") can confiscate all your wealth and not just take back what it believes you stole -- without ever deciding if the virtual land in question is real, has value, was shilled to have value falsely and didn't, etc. etc. It's not relevant, since, if I'm not mistaken, the judge hasn't called the "for any reason or no reason" clause about membership "unconscionable,' he's called the old arbitration language unconscionable.

People are so eager to see virtual land validated through Bragg, that they are turning a very troublesome blind eye to all its other aspects. The validity of land value will hinge on the lawsuits or mediations that will occur when the Lindens open-source, and people on the mainland who spent $1000 or more per server on the land auction may suddenly find themselves holding worthless server space. LL doesn't -- and can't -- promise you success in business when you embark on the risky undertaking of buying its virtual "real" estate. But if it offers a product within a context of an auction with an opening bid, and continues to maintain a world where that land seemingly has value, to suddenly pull the plug on it by enabling anybody to roll it out for no cost or a fraction of the cost raises interesting questions. And there is a precedent for this: when the Lindens decided to remove telehubs from the mainland, devaluing all mall land purchased around telehubs, they compensated those landowners who had bid higher on the auction thinking they were bidding on something that depended on a feature of the server -- the telehub -- that the Lindens had not indicated they'd be removing. (The Lindens had decided to remove them, created a map for p2p travel, began coding p2p for the whole grid, but kept selling land on the auctions before they finally announced p2p and removal of hubs.)

I also don't understand why we have to be so insistent on portability to define property. I can't port my Manhattan apartment or my field in Maine, they stay put on their "servers" and yet I have a lease or deed for access to it. And virtual land works no differently.