In her article, "Virtual(ly) Law: The Emergence of Law in LambdaMOO", Jennifer L. Mnookin discusses the creation of semi-legal structures in LambdaMOO. She argues that LambdaMOO serves as a physical test of the theories of Roberto Unger. Unger argues for an "antinaturalistic" view of law, in which law is viewed as a man made construct, rather than stemming from natural principles. He believes that this would result in the formation of social structures that are more malleable and more easily disrupted. As Mnookin points out, even though the participants of LambdaMOO were quite aware of the antinaturalistic origins of their law, the tendency over time was for a majority of players, albeit not a large one, to attempt to further formalize the law, and create more fixed legal structures. When looking at the present state of virtual worlds, I believe that this tendency has become even more fixed, due to the nature of modern virtual worlds.
Unlike LambdaMOO, which was developed at a college, and existed as a primarily social and experimental world, most modern virtual worlds are created and owned by companies, and are intended to generate profit. Many of these virtual worlds are MMORPGs. and are considered to be games. This has important implications for the legal structures present. In "Rules of Play," Greg Lastowka argues that the laws that govern MMORPGS are heavily influenced by the concepts of games and play. He notes that games must have generally agreed upon rules. These rules both liberate and constrain the players, specifying what they can and cannot do, and determining what strategies are valid. The necessity of fixed rules within a game creates a potent challenge to Unger's claims. All participants in a modern MMO, such as World of Warcraft, agree to abide by an end user license agreement and the terms of use in order to play. Despite the fact that the rules of the game are clearly and explicitly fabricated by the developers, and thus inherently antinaturalistic, the fact that they are the rules to a game necessitates that they be relatively fixed. As such, the rules of game worlds like WoW are written entirely by the developers, and can only be changed by them. Unlike in less structured virtual worlds, the participants cannot be allowed to debate or alter the rules, because they would be altering the rules of a game as they played it.
As such, the game nature of most modern MMOs greatly expands upon the formalizing trend that Mnookin observed in LambdaMOO. Though the legal structures that develop are clearly antinaturalistic, this fact does not result, as Unger would have hoped, in more malleable legal and social structures, but rather less malleable ones, as agreement on the rules of a game must be nearly unanimous in order for the game to be playable. This is somewhat less of an issue in less goal-oriented and more social worlds like Second Life. However, the resources necessary to run such a massive virtual world, and the for-profit nature of the company running said world do lead to the formation of arbitrary, antinaturalistic, yet nonetheless fairly immutable legal structures.
Unlike LambdaMOO, which was developed at a college, and existed as a primarily social and experimental world, most modern virtual worlds are created and owned by companies, and are intended to generate profit. Many of these virtual worlds are MMORPGs. and are considered to be games. This has important implications for the legal structures present. In "Rules of Play," Greg Lastowka argues that the laws that govern MMORPGS are heavily influenced by the concepts of games and play. He notes that games must have generally agreed upon rules. These rules both liberate and constrain the players, specifying what they can and cannot do, and determining what strategies are valid. The necessity of fixed rules within a game creates a potent challenge to Unger's claims. All participants in a modern MMO, such as World of Warcraft, agree to abide by an end user license agreement and the terms of use in order to play. Despite the fact that the rules of the game are clearly and explicitly fabricated by the developers, and thus inherently antinaturalistic, the fact that they are the rules to a game necessitates that they be relatively fixed. As such, the rules of game worlds like WoW are written entirely by the developers, and can only be changed by them. Unlike in less structured virtual worlds, the participants cannot be allowed to debate or alter the rules, because they would be altering the rules of a game as they played it.
As such, the game nature of most modern MMOs greatly expands upon the formalizing trend that Mnookin observed in LambdaMOO. Though the legal structures that develop are clearly antinaturalistic, this fact does not result, as Unger would have hoped, in more malleable legal and social structures, but rather less malleable ones, as agreement on the rules of a game must be nearly unanimous in order for the game to be playable. This is somewhat less of an issue in less goal-oriented and more social worlds like Second Life. However, the resources necessary to run such a massive virtual world, and the for-profit nature of the company running said world do lead to the formation of arbitrary, antinaturalistic, yet nonetheless fairly immutable legal structures.
No comments:
Post a Comment