Can Avatars Make Contracts? Virtual Disputes Involve Real-World Issues
The virtual world of Second Life is the backdrop for the real-world development of virtual legal practices that consider cutting-edge legal issues.
Are virtual items sold on Second Life protected by intellectual property law? Are contracts enforceable based on agreements by the players’ online alter egos, known as avatars? Those issues, along with employment and tax law questions, are likely to arise from the online world, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
Real-life lawyer Francis Taney of Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney told the Chronicle that he devotes 20 percent to 30 percent of his practice to virtual law. Taney represented Second Life user Kevin Alderman in a suit that contended computer code for Alderman’s online sex machine was copied and sold by another Second Life player.
Alderman’s machine was known as the SexGen Platinum. Second Life characters, known as avatars, paid $45 to have make-believe sex with the online machine. Taney obtained a consent judgment against the alleged infringer. “Like so many things, virtual law started with sex,” the story says. “Specifically, the first known legal case originating in a virtual world was over a bed designed for rolls in the virtual hay.”
The article says that many law firms have created practices based on virtual worlds and video games, or have set up offices within Second Life.
One intellectual property law firm, Banner & Witcoff, set up a virtual office at Second Life and ended up representing two high-profile users as a result. The users, who were managers for a Second Life group of islands called Sailor’s Cove, claimed they were co-owners of the development. But the virtual real-estate developer disagreed. The firm obtained a financial settlement for the managers.
One issue in the case was whether conversations between online avatars can create enforceable contracts. The lawyer for the island managers, Ross Dannenberg, claims the answer is yes. “I think all users are responsible for the promises they make and the things that they type, regardless of whether they’re doing it under their own name,” he told the Chronicle.
