Update on articles about virtual worlds

I am currently “shopping around” for online and local forums that would like to hear me speak about Gamer’s Rights and how it is changing the conceptions of license agreements and forums rules.
Meanwhile, today’s post centers on the great work that other lawyer-bloggers are doing, as well as a few professional papers I recommend you MUST [...]

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AtoZVirtualWorlds

Legal activitiy AtoZ in last several months (by its nature selective)
A-Avatar (lawsuits in Madden, Guitar Hero, and Second Life for actions of avatars)
B – Banned in Games (lawsuits by Estavillo vs Sony, SD Cal Estavillo v. Sony Computer Entm’t Am. Inc., 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 86821; along with others)
C-China – China shuts down World [...]

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Gamers Rights News

A listing of Gamers Rights articles in the gaming media.
An article on Skewed and Reviewed with ECA president Hal Halpin. I’m not familiar with this Website but the article seemed to be balanced and informative.
Nearly a Million X-box users banned from X-box Live, according to an article on Redorbit.com
Excellent article about a Facebook group [...]

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October links

October Roundup
Part I: Important Papers
Journal of Virtual Worlds Research; don’t make me pick just one article.
If you were to FORCE me to, though, check out Piracy vs. Control: Models of Virtual World Governance and Their Impact on Player and User Experience, Melissa de Zwart, University of South Australia. It follows the extremely relevant question of [...]

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Death of an Avatar

What happens to your online world when your real-life world ends? When you give it up by choice, or through circumstances such as disability, or even worse, death?
This is not a long, dry exposition on the intricacies of estate law. Heck, there’s not enough case law out there to do a seminar or [...]

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Developer’s Corner, more than just a game

Today’s post is: we’ll get a lawyer when we have a dispute… why bother beforehand!
Back in the Game, Great article about when your hobby becomes your Job
Working out the legal issues is important because virtual worlds are becoming more mainstream. Sony Online Entertainment said that its Free Realms [...]

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Virtual world articles of Merit – Must Reads

Virtual Worlds are now meaning real money, here’s some of the latest articles.
Fairfield, Joshua,The Magic Circle(November 19, 2008). Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law, 2009; Washington & Lee Legal Studies Paper No. 2008-45. (Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1304234)
Synopsis listed as: The article concludes that although real-world law cannot reasonably be excluded from virtual worlds, game [...]

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