Get a (Second) Life

Recommending that the issue be pursued under the DMCA is interesting because the DMCA protects copyrighted content. Things created in the virtual world of Second Life are “copyrighted” so to speak only within the realms of Second Life, they are not given any real trademarks by any official patent offices. How can they then be prosecuted under the DMCA?

Further, how can the US legal system have jurisdiction for actions within a virtual world? All laws are created by the developers of the world, all the policing is done by developers of the world (as shown in the example), and the idea of intellectual property and the means by which it is given is also controlled entirely by the developers of the game.

How can anyone possibly be given the task of policing something over which they have absolutely no control?

Even if all of that is forgotten, even if a government could find laws that had been broken, how would this be any different from the current situation with spam and viruses originating from servers not in the US (or relevant country), would the government have any jurisdiction at all? The answer is a resounding "no", not under current laws.

The other issue that stems from this is that of taxes. Currently it is being investigated by authorities in the US as to whether or not these virtual worlds need to be taxed. They have normal transactions purchasing goods suggesting a sales tax, and they could eventually have steady incomes within the game so income tax is a possibility later on. The issue is however that the government does not provide any services to these virtual worlds.

There is no infrastructure that they are providing that facilitates any tax on in world activities (everything of that sort is provided by the games developers). The only possible service that the real world governments may be able to provide is that of a legal base on which the worlds can rely, however as shown in the above example this is highly unlikely to occur. The only taxes that can be charged are on the avatars real world counterparts.

That is, if a person pulls out a real world profit from their business in the virtual world, then this would have to be counted as a profit in the real world, no different essentially from making profit from overseas ventures for a transnational corporation.

That analogy is actually quite significant. That is, Second Life is to America what Japan is to Australia, they are just different countries that are able to exchange currencies and trade. That’s essentially what I’ve been leading towards: that each virtual world will need to be seen as a new country in legal and economic terms without any possibility of regulating the activities within the worlds by any governing body other than the worlds creators (just as Japan can’t regulate activities within Australia under its legal system).

The second that any attempt at regulation will be made, the worlds will instantly jump to offshore servers making the regulation irrelevant, although this jump is likely to occur anyway.

Now that it can be seen that these virtual worlds are no different from any sovereign nation with their economies and governments, it follows that they would be subject to the rises and falls in value and strength that any economy today has to deal with.

As mentioned on Four Corners, the virtual worlds have a GDP at the moment equivalent to Bulgaria in per capita terms.

The stability of world markets however comes from the natural floor on prices and demand imposed by humanity. This floor comes from the basic needs that humans can’t suppress, we need sustenance and shelter, or put simply we’re just hungry and cold. In the virtual world that is Second Life, there is no basic need that the residents have.