This document discusses massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) and virtual worlds as part of digital society. It notes that MMORPGs like World of Warcraft have millions of subscribers and the gaming industry is economically significant. However, digital society raises issues around regulation, privacy, and legislation. These spaces are primarily governed by end user license agreements that users must accept in order to play but are one-sided contracts that exert the developer's bargaining power. While users can create content, the EULAs state they have no intellectual property rights over their in-game creations. The document argues that EULA-based governance is inadequate and "wrong law" for virtual worlds and MMORPGs

1. Kim Barker

2. MMORPGs
•Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games
•E.g. World of Warcraft, EverQuest II, Lineage II, EVE
Online,
VWs
•Virtual Worlds
E.g. Habbo Hotel, Second Life, The Sims Online
Bell (2008):
“A synchronous, persistent network of people, represented as
avatars, facilitated by networked computers”

3.  Digital society
 MMORPGs and VWs are now a central
part of society
 World of Warcraft records 12 million
subscribers
 The Department for Culture, Media & Sport
state that computer games are one of our
most valuable creative industries
 The gaming market is worth more than the
film market worldwide

4.  Digital society raises several problems:
• Regulation
• Consumption
• Privacy
• Protection
• Legislation?
• The number of IP reviews in the last decade is an
indicator in itself of the challenges digisoc poses

5.  Online games and virtual worlds are
regulated by EULAs
 End User License Agreements
• Terms of Service
• Terms of Use
• Codes of Conduct
• Rules of Play
“Adhesion contracts”

6.  End User License Agreements
 Required before a user accesses a game
or world
 Non-negotiable
 Non-proprietary
 Exertion of bargaining powers
 No consideration given to users own
creations – Lineage II example of this!

7.  Users
can create their own items in some
games and worlds – „scripting‟
 But
the EULA states they have no IPRs in
game content

8.  UCTA 1977 does not apply to IP where
there has been a „transfer‟ subject to
someone dealing as a consumer
• Do the EULA clauses constitute a „transfer‟?
• Can you “own” IP in a game?
• Are users dealing as consumers?
 Some users operate businesses in virtual spaces e.g.
Dibbell‟s experiment; Anshe Cheung

9.  The adhesion contracts users are required
to agree to are heavily weighted in favour
of developers
 No doctrine of unequal bargaining power
per se in the UK
• Can the requirement that users give up all IPR in
order to play a game be an example of an unfair
term?

10.  Copyright is designed to encourage
creativity
 Author‟s have certain moral rights
 Noattribution in online games and VW‟s
even where a user has generated
something!
• Different to the purported position in Second Life
• The Sex beds example

11.  Online games and Virtual Worlds are
different spaces
 No assumptions function in these spaces
• ‘the value in cyberspace lies in its ability to resist
singular interpretation and it would be a mistake to
try to impose one’ (Chaterjee)
 Theyare „lawless‟ spaces to an extent
 Code is law (Lessig) in such spaces
 EULAw is poor law

12.  Traditionally there has been an attitude of
adapting and interpreting law to fit a
problem or a paradox. This horseshoe
problem – solution will not work adequately
for users of games whose rights are few
and far between and may be limited by
jurisdictional dilemmas
 EULAw is Wrong Law for VWs and
MMORPGs

13. Questions?
Thank You