A virtual environment is a computer-generated world that can be used for training, data visualization, recreation, and commerce. The visitors of virtual environments include not only humans but also virtual avatars. The avatars can take on a range of shapes, characteristics, and personalities, and can perform a variety of tasks within the virtual environment. As the behavior of avatars becomes more realistic, sophisticated and intelligentand the avatars become more autonomous in their decision making, the question of whether virtual avatars should have legal rights separate from those of their owner becomes an issue. This paper discusses legal rights associated with the design and use of virtual avatars, commenting on the ownership rights of the creators of virtual avatars and the rights of avatars themselves should they gain intelligence and become independent decision makers and creators of intellectual property. TABLE OF CONTENTS
See Full PDF See Full PDFThis paper presents a framework for discussing issues of ownership in connection to virtual worlds. We explore how divergent interests in virtual property can be mediated by applying a constructivist perspective to the concept ownership. The simple solutions offered today entail that a contract between the game producer and the gamer gives the game developer exclusive rights to all virtual property. This appears to be unsatisfactory. A number of legitimate interests on part of both producers and gamers may be readily distinguished. More complex distributions of rights would allow many of these interests to be consistently respected.
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Information, Communication & Society
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Ownership of intellectual property in video game worlds is a sticky issue, poorly governed by end user licensing agreements (EULAs). This paper explores the thicket created by the derivative work right in creation undertake in virtual worlds.
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This paper will explore the borders between the avatar and character dimensions of the player figure, as outlined by Vella (2015), particularly in cases where this line is blurred. Through investigation of five different examples, I suggest we use the measures of avatar control and character complexity to study the relationship between avatar and character in a given instance. Avatar control refers to the amount of agency the player has in a given instance in a game compared to the default mode of agency, whereas character complexity builds on transmedia and literary theory approaches to characters, to explore what constitutes complexity of the character in question. The analysis allows us to assess whether the instance can be considered representing either character autonomy or automated avatar actions, and in turn may help us understand the relationship between the player, the avatar, and the character.
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… of the 17th Twente Workshop on …
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Human Rights jurisprudence is always about human enterprises in real world. This conventional attitude of human rights, at present, ignores the reality of human interactions in cyberspaces of Massively Multi-Player Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) where real life is super-dimensional within the harbor of reality and materially vigilant human simulation through digital selves (avatars). Human being, the users, is often found displaced in MMORPGs depriving rights to properties, time, money, skill and persistence into such digital worlds. The rules of MMORPGs (EULAs) are fixed by developers and they do not accommodate universal principles of human rights jurisprudence. State silence, corporate showdowns and State protected End User License Agreements (EULAs) marginalize avatars of MMORPGs who represent human being. Most EULAs do not recognize avatars’ ethical and rational rights to ownership over virtual properties. The legislation of MMORPGs is vested only upon developers. This state of MMORPGs challenges the conventional human rights jurisprudence on the points of principles of equality, accountability, justice and non-discrimination in ascertaining rights to ownership of virtual property. The paper critically evaluates the characters of EULAs which ought to incorporate universal principles of human rights laws. Therefore, this is critically a choral approach to excessive authoritarian tendencies of developers in framing their Austin-motivated, one-sided and feudalistic EULAs which displaces avatars or forces avatars to be displaced in MMORPGs.
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