Intellectual Property Law

Benjamin Duranske of Virtually Blind hosts this week's Blawg Review. Whether or not you keep up with Blawg Review, the resulting post is an interesting and entertaining insight into the legal issues associated with virtual worlds. According to Duranske, 3D worlds such as Second Life are a glimpse at the future:

"The 3D internet is coming next, and now is a great time to get familiar with it."

Duranske's post briefly covers legal issues to do with virtual worlds such as intellectual property rights, dispute resolution and employment law. Well worth a look.

If, like me, you find these kind of worlds interesting in theory, but tricky to use in practice (system crashing, walking into walls and disjointed conversations), Duranske's prediction on the 3D internet isn't something that you'll be cracking open the champagne to celebrate.

That said, virtual worlds are already popular and some have proved profitable for both their operators and more entrepreneurial users. Some worlds have been around for years and so this doesn't look to be a part of the internet that will be abandoned by users when the next Facebook comes along. In addition, user interface technology is improving all the time - for example, touch screens (iPhone), motion-sensitive controllers (Nintendo Wii). Technological advances in this area could mean that interacting with virtual worlds becomes more of a pleasure than a pain.

Notably, user creativity virtual worlds has also resulted in a new film form: machinima. We were lucky enough to be part of panel of a legal session at the Machinima Festival Europe 07. An article on the main legal issues,  wrote after the event, can be found in the February/March 08 issue of Computers & Law magazine, and a summary will appear on IMPACT in the near future.