Samantha Murphy, contributor
(Image: Jo Ito)
Tens of millions of people live, work and play in virtual worlds where anything goes. Greg Lastowka thinks we need to police these lawless frontiers
What prompted you to write your new book, Virtual Justice?
I've always been interested in technology law, and the issues surrounding law in virtual worlds are like canaries in a coal mine. Society is increasingly migrating to the internet, and virtual worlds are an intense version of that. The issues that arise in virtual worlds will ultimately filter through to broader society.
Do you think we need laws covering things like electronic commerce, freedom of speech and defamation in the virtual world?
Yes, we definitely do. Virtual law is interesting because these environments are in one sense fictional, in another very real. People invest real money and time and create real relationships. So, the question is: to what extent should the things that are happening in these environments be treated as if they were happening in physical space or in conventional online forums, email or blogs?
What kinds of laws do you think we need most?
We need to give careful consideration to how copyright operates in virtual worlds, where everything is mediated by the software. To a certain degree, copyright law is the umbrella regime for virtual worlds. You are dealing with copyright when you create a virtual world and also when you enter one. Once people are interacting in virtual worlds, such as Second Life, they are often creating and selling their own content. Their creativity is tied up with the copyright interests of the creators of those virtual worlds.
Then there's the question of virtual property. There are many virtual worlds in which currency and objects are exchanged for real money, and these virtual economies are growing. Already we have billions of dollars in transactions in virtual property. Yet the legal system has not determined whether virtual property should be treated as if it were physical property. The resolution of these issues will have implications for tax laws, criminal proceedings on theft and transfer of ownership, inheritance planning and more.
Have there been cases of people coming to grief over virtual theft?
One that I talk about in the book is the case of a Chinese gamer named Qiu Chegwei. His friend stole his dragon sabre - a virtual object in the online game Legend of Mir 3 - and sold it, converting the profits into real money and keeping the proceeds. Because the original property was intangible and only existed within the game, the police refused to treat it as a theft. So Chegwei took the law into his own hands and killed his friend. He's now serving a life sentence in prison.
If we don't regulate the virtual property economy and if the law turns a blind eye to it, what you end up with is an anarchic frontier online. Money can change hands, social expectations can be disregarded and people can write malicious code that harvests passwords and gathers virtual property from others' accounts. All sorts of criminal or quasi-criminal activity can take place given the fact that these are very real economies, even if they have no legal status in the real world.
Surely technology has always influenced law. Are things fundamentally different today?
Yes, I think so. To an extent, technology is displacing law. A virtual world owner has a choice between law and technology as tools to further their interests - and they are generally turning to technology first. In 1999, Lawrence Lessig used the phrase "code is law", and it applies to virtual worlds today. If you control the very nature of the simulation - how gravity works, how a person walks, where they go, what they can say - then you have the power to govern the environment in a way that no sovereign in real space can.
So virtual law could end up being quite powerful?
The government can do a lot of things but it can't reverse the direction of gravity. Owners of virtual worlds can do an amazing number of things with regard to surveillance and interpersonal interactions.
In the online community LambdaMoo, for instance, the owners of that virtual world invented toading as a system of punishment for criminals. If you do something wrong, they turn your avatar into a toad. In a sense, technology has outpaced the law. Any owner of a technological platform essentially has the ability to regulate society.