Virtual Worlds in a Global View

Regulation of virtual worlds has been a very controversial subject in later years. With the increasing importance of virtual worlds in everyday life it is becoming much harder to separate our real-life from our virtual lives. When there is so much time, money, effort, and commercialism involved in virtual worlds today, the need for regulation and protection of our rights is in much higher demand. Much effort has been put into the regulation of these virtual worlds and particularly many virtual worlds that started in the United States. Many EULA’s nowadays deal with the fact that disputes may arise from users in the games, and have specific instructions on how to deal with a dispute. Typically disputes are handled in the state of which the game originated. But do all these dispute policies work merely for Americans? What happens if a dispute must be handled with a game from a foreign country? Or the laws of a foreign country apply to disputes arising from a foreign game?

            Many games originate in the United States and in the United States there are currently laws to help regulate what goes on in these games and in virtual worlds. As many games start becoming a part of our everyday lives the need for regulation in them becomes increasingly important. Jack Balkin says, “ In the future, virtual worlds platforms will be adopted for commerce, for education, for professional, military, and vocational training, for medical consultation and psychotherapy, and even for social and economic experimentation to test how social norms develop” (2044) This is a very true statement that corporations like IBM have already proved, for example in the game Second Life, where they conduct business meetings already. If disputes arise with IBM in the virtual world, they can be handled through a United States courtroom. What if a dispute happens in a virtual world from another country for example Minecraft of Sweden? In their EULA the authors keep it simple having only one rule and mentioning that your personal information is covered by the Personuppgiftslagen of Sweden. If you do not speak Swedish it is hard to know exactly what the outlines of this law mean to you. Therefore you just click yes, you agree, and do not think twice about it. One reason Minecraft’s EULA is so simple is the fact that the game itself is very simple and allows the users to have a lot of freedom. But also deputes regarding games in Sweden rarely occur, it is not common in Sweden that people enter into a lawsuit to take care of conflicts and as for personal information in Sweden people are very open about theirs, for example your social security number consists mostly of your birth date.

            Balkin describes that many of the issues with virtual worlds today involve your First Amendment rights and are handled under the laws of the United States First Amendment.  Now, not all cases involve your First Amendment rights, Balkin states that, “important aspects of the freedom to design and the freedom to play are concerned with freedom from state regulation of game spaces” (2052) This means that each dispute in a game that cannot be taken to court against your First Amendment rights or other federal rights, have to be settled within your statutory laws on game regulation. Given proof that it is already problematic to deal with disputes within the United States, one can only imagine how hard it would be to start handling a dispute in or with a foreign country. If we take Minecraft for example, the first step is to try and resolve the issue with the creators/administrators of the game (which in most cases works but takes time). If not satisfied with that the next action would be to contact the Swedish law authorities or your local American embassy to see what rights you have in the country you are seeking to take legal action in. These first two steps alone are very time consuming and difficult, especially if you do not want to use a lawyer whom you must pay thousands-plus dollars to. Obviously this all sounds very discouraging and in most cases people just cut their losses.

It is not always futile to handle disputes with international game creators/administrators though. As an American citizen your intellectual property within a game can be protected by the United States law and even abroad. In most games from foreign countries the EULA’s do not prevent you from seeking protection for your intellectual property within the game, therefore you are free to do so within the confinements of the United States law. These are points on how you can protect your intellectual property within a game/virtual world that applies both in the U.S. and abroad (unless otherwise prevented by the EULA of the game):

·         In the U.S., patents may be available to any person who "invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof." Patent protection must be sought by application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

·         Trademarks protect words, names, symbols, sounds, or colors that distinguish goods and services from those manufactured or sold by others and to indicate the source of the goods. Registration with the USPTO is not required, but does provide certain advantages.

·         Copyrights protect original works of authorship, including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic and certain other works, both published and unpublished. In the United States, the U.S. Copyright Office handles copyright registration that, although not required for protection, does confer advantages.

http://www.stopfakes.gov/sf_how.asp#q2

Obviously the downside of this entire thing still is that it takes a lot of time, effort, and money to pursue action. One other thing to also take into account is that the laws of a foreign country may not always be as forgiving as the laws of the United States, when it comes to taking legal action in those countries. An example of this would be a U.S. Marine who was convicted of spying for the CIA. The marine was sentenced to death in Iranian courts for using video games to manipulate public opinion about U.S. military in Iran, Iraq, and around the world. Great advice to attain from that is to use caution when handling disputes abroad.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/01/global-conflict-on-computer-games.html

            As virtual worlds continue to grow and affect real-life, real-life will also affect these virtual worlds. The freedom virtual worlds have provided us with through time might start to diminish as they slowly turn into more of a reality. It is inevitable that games and virtual worlds will be regulated more strictly in the future by laws all around the world. As there are global organizations that regulate interactions between different countries within commerce, currency, and crime there may soon be an organization to regulate virtual international interactions. Balkin puts it perfectly when he says, “Precisely because virtual worlds are fast becoming important parts of people’s lives, and because they are likely to be used for more and more purposes in the future, legal regulation of virtual worlds is inevitable” (2045). This quote puts it best and as “real-world commodification” continues to increase, intellectual property continues to become more real for every individual, as will the consequences of our actions in virtual worlds. For every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction.

Governance of the Internet

Much controversy has arisen over internet governance and how uncontrolled it is. The fact that the internet has no physical location makes it hard to govern what is shared online.  Information can be shared from computers all around the world almost instantly, that is the great thing about the internet, and it brings the world together. But if any information can be shared, then good as well as bad information can be distributed. For example, personal information about anyone can fall into the wrong hands because there is no governance and who is there to control the consequences of your personal information being exploited? The answer right now is no one.

                Because there is no physical location for the internet or cyberspace, territorial based governance and control is not applicable with internet cases. In an article by David Post he states, “Cyberspace has no territorially-based boundaries, because the cost and speed of message transmission on the Net is almost entirely independent of physical location: Messages can be transmitted from any physical location to any other location without degradation, decay, or substantial delay, and without any physical cues or barriers that might otherwise keep certain geographically remote places and people separate from one another”. Post is saying that there is no physical address for these computers that are transmitting information across the internet, just IP addresses. This is the problem with controlling what these computers share. Even if you are to find the physical location of the IP address, by the time you get there the person using the computer could have moved anywhere, still online though carrying on with their business. Without being able to completely control and dictate what is shared on the internet governance over it becomes futile.

                One country that has been pretty successful in governing their internet is China. The Chinese government has successfully blocked citizens from numerous user generated websites, according to ABC reporter Emily MacDonald, “When you try to access Facebook in China, an error message appears saying “Network Timeout.” This means that Chinese residents are without Youtube, Twitter, and other sites where content is predominantly user generated”. Even though there are Chinese equivalents to these websites the Chinese have successfully blocked the access in order to stop international criticism. Sites in China such as Google that have not been blocked are still closely monitored by the government. When you search for something via Google that has to with for example the riots in Urumqi, Xinjiang, which is bad publicity for China, the search engine will abruptly stop working for a while. This is all in effort to censor negative Chinese media, and it works.

                The way China deals with their internet would not work for every country in the world though. In the United States this oppression would be considered against our constitutional rights. In many other countries the effort to block international criticism is not nearly as important as it is in China. Though, the issue of governance of cyberspace and the internet remains an issue for everyone. There are so many possibilities with the use of cyberspace and computers, if it is not regulated somehow vital information could fall into the wrong hands. If something like that would happen a so called “fire sale” (as seen in the movie Live Free or Die Hard) could be possible and would be able to destroy the world as we know it today. A “Fire Sale” is an assault against the government, transportation, and economy by computer hackers. This could put the world into chaos in a very short period of time; this is why the internet needs a better governance system and laws before it is too late.

LOTRO: Revision

For my Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) toon, I decided to choose the race Elf. Mostly because of my favorite character in the Lord of the Rings movies Legolas. Also, I like the way Elf’s are portrayed in the movies, therefore I figured it would be cool to be an Elf in another world. If you have seen the Lord of the Rings movies they give you a better understanding of how the LOTRO game based its character traits. Elf’s are agile, tactical, strong with the bow and suffer no illness. Which are all great traits that will have to match the class I choose.

After examining the different classes available I decided on the hunter. I like the particular set of skills the hunter has. For example, the LOTRO website says, “Hunters are masters of field and forest, unmatched in their dexterity with the bow. They use their survival skills to guide companions and lay traps for enemies. The coming of the Enemy has forced them to adapt these skills to use against new prey.” It became very clear to me that these were the exact type of skills I felt were suitable for my race, Elf. Elf’s are forest beings and are very close with nature; also, they are very keen archers. The traits of the Elf together with the skills of the hunter class, seems to be a great match.

Richard Bartle explains four player types: the achiever, explorer, socializer and the killer. The titles of these player types are pretty self-explanatory. The achievers goal is to accomplish tasks within the game. Explorers objective is to figure out the perks of the game. The socializers enjoy the interactions with others in the game. Last but not least, killers basically get a kick out of killing other players. When considering the choice of player type I see myself most fitting for, I decided that the killer is the one. I feel like I would as well get a kick out of this role. At the same time there is an objective in mind for class which is to level up, which means that inevitably I would have to assume the role of an achiever as well. Bartle explains that the different player types do in ways correlate with each other, which obviously applies in this case too. When investigating further different player types online I stumbled across a different, but similar, model for player types, presented by Jon Radoff. I found this model more suitable for the type of gaming that we will be doing in class.

http://radoff.com/blog/2011/05/19/game-player-motivations/

With this model Radoff takes into account the element of playing together versus playing alone. His player types are a bit more complex as well. These are the different player types:

Immersion: stories, role-playing, exploration, imagination, and a sense of connectedness to the world of the game.

Achivement: sense of progress, mastery of skills and knowledge, etc.

Cooperation: player involvement in activities where they are helping each other, through creativity, shared adversity, etc.

Competition: player involvement where individuals complete over scarce resources, comparison, and win/loss situatuations.

These different player types that Radoff introduces applies more to our class gaming. The achievement player type is identical with Bartle’s “achiever” but the cooperation player type very much applies to our classroom setting considering we are playing together in groups as well as in class as a whole. This way of categorizing player types doesn’t just necessarily work for MUD’s and MMORPG’s either, but basically any type of game, which adds to its advantage.

            Needless to say, I do not quite know how I envision myself in this virtual world yet. I know I will get a kick out of being able to fire the bow and arrows in the game and kill, so my playing will emphasize the usage of my weapon and skills. I am very excited though, to embark on this journey in my new life. One of the aspects that is most exciting is that we are playing together as a class and this will be a different experience than any other class I have ever had. Socially and academically interacting with other classmates through an online virtual world is new to me, but could potentially be something that in the future may be applicable to an experience some of us might have in the job world (example in mind IBM).

LOTRO

For my Lord of the Rings Online(LOTRO) toon, I decided to choose the race elf. The reason for this decision is mostly because my favorite character in the Lord of the Ring movies is Legolas. I like the way elf’s are portrayed in the movies so I figured it would be cool to be an elf in another world.

As my class I chose the hunter. I like the particular set of skills the hunter has for example, “master of the bow”, “firing arrows to devastating effect” and “luring targets into traps to hinder them, giving the hunter time to use their bows to deadly effect”. This stealthy killer is exactly the type of toon to fit the player type I would like to be.

According to Bartle’s player types, I see myself being a killer. Not an evil killer though, I would kill for fun and for a purpose. I will only kill when I am annoyed or feel threatened. I see my character being a sort of vigilante killer, not a menace. At the same time that could change rapidly, for nevertheless my player type will be the killer.

I do not quite know how envision myself in this virtual world yet. I know I will get a kick out of being able to fire the bow and arrows in the game and kill, so my playing will emphasize the usage of my weapon and skills. I am very excited though, to embark on this journey in my new life.