SecondLife….
Fascinating stuff in the virtual gaming world, SecondLife. Its becoming apparent that SecondLife can no longer be considered just a game. Something more is happening there. Its a rough raw experience but its getting better all the time.
It seems that Marc Bragg is suing SecondLife because he discovered a flaw in their system. Over at the SecondLife forums Nimrod Yaffle posts what may be the method used:
What he did was look at the auction ID and put it at the end of the regular auction URL, so he got access to the auction before it was actually started by LL. It was not on the main auction page because a linden had not set it up yet, so it was 0.00 min price.
Clearly Marc discovered and exploited a bug. The case may get thrown out quickly because it is clearly spelled out in the TOS that Linden Labs can terminate any account for any reason. Hopefully, though, the courts will use this case to start taking up the question of virtual worlds and the law.
Marc's actions resulted in the termination of his SL account. But should that be allowed? Virtual worlds present some very interesting legal questions. As virtual worlds become more and more part of people's lives will the ultimate punishment of banishment for life be allowed without the courts stepping in? Should a user be completely cut-off from close friends and even loved ones? The company hosting the virtual world?
There is significant opportunity for an enterprising judge to really move the legal world into the 21st century. Lets see who rises to the challenge.
Comments
Comment from Constantine
Time: 5/15/2006, 5:10 pm
Eli,
Thanks for stopping by. You are absolutely right, it really can’t be called a game in the traditional sense and I have never really thought of it that way. Your analogy is dead on also, (Apple e-World, AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy) is to the internet (10 years later) as Secondlife is to … (some open distributed owned by no one but everyone system in ten years).
SecondLife will evolve. It will become open and move away from the current “Walled Garden” model. It will support a robust commerce infrastructure and creativity. It will take some time and some morphing of what second life is today.
I love the Gaming as Public Media Platform stuff. Sounds like it was an excellent conference, wish I had known about it I would have made it up there.
-Gus
Comment from Lance Ball
Time: 5/22/2006, 9:23 pm
So what’s your name in 2nd life?
Signed,
Yodle Witte
Comment from Constantine
Time: 5/23/2006, 6:38 am
Hey Lance,
My name in SL is Max doctorow, will look for you next time I am online…
Comment from eli chapman
Time: 5/15/2006, 4:15 pm
secondlife never was a game. It’s the web in 1990. Currently 220K users growing at 12%/month. It’s a platform for creativity, business, and communication. You can make and own games and game businesses in secondlife. We dug into some of these things this weekend at the Open Media Developers Summit in Boston, in a session on Gaming as Public Media Platform.
Looking forward to meeting you this week at Syndicate!
-Eli