Free Downloads Virtual Law: Navigating The Legal Landscape Of Virtual Worlds
This book introduces readers to the emerging and exciting world of virtual law. It examines current cases and legislation impacting virtual world providers and users, and makes predictions about the future application of current law. It addresses the application of intellectual property law (copyright, trademark, and patent), criminal law, property law, contract law, securities law, tax law, and civil procedure. It also provides practical advice to lawyers who wish to create a virtual world presence for their practice or who have clients with virtual world connections. The book includes extensive appendices listing in-world and web-based resources for practitioners and legal scholars.
Paperback: 461 pages
Publisher: American Bar Association; Reprint edition (April 4, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 160442009X
ISBN-13: 978-1604420098
Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.9 x 9.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #1,766,509 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #204 in Books > Computers & Technology > History & Culture > Computer & Internet Law #306 in Books > Law > Legal Theory & Systems > Science & Technology #14852 in Books > Textbooks > Law
Everyone who operates a business that is involved with virtual worlds should be glad that this book was written. As everyone in that situation knows, virtual worlds give rise to a huge number of legal questions, and this book collects those and answers to them all in one place using a writing style that's very readable even for non lawyers like myself.One thing that I really appreciated about the book is that it describes the degree of certainty associated with different topics. For example, each chapter ends with a section on "open questions" relating to the subject of the chapter, whereas there are other places where the text states very definitively that a given thing occurring in a virtual world would or would not be treated exactly the same way as elsewhere on the Web or in the physical world.Another thing that I appreciated about the book was how clearly it is written. While it does include case law, etc. that is likely to be of intellectual interest to lawyers specializing in virtual law, it also includes a lot of very practical and accessible information for those of us who have business interests in virtual worlds.I think it will be particularly useful to three groups of people. First, it will provide a lot of information for people running in world only businesses for which legal advice is probably prohibitively expensive. Second, it will provide small and medium size businesses operating in virtual worlds enough of an understanding of the issues to judge when it's likely to be cost-effective to seek out specialized legal advice and when it's not. Third, I think it will be helpful to the large companies operating in virtual worlds. Many of them have their own legal staff, but they are often are unfamiliar with virtual worlds.
This book is a nice overview of some of the foreseeable legal issues of virtual worlds. I also attended a seminar hosted by the author, Benjamin Duranske, that was sponsored by the American Bar Association. The "session" I attended was in second life in the ABA building. You guessed it, I am a lawyer. As such, the case law in the appendixes was, for me, interesting reading.Executive Summary: The user agreement, aka terms of service (TOS), governs all (at first). The service providers can pretty much do what they want with your account as long as they don't violate their TOS. On the other hand, the service providers govern their virtual worlds as little as possible because they don't make money from governance. They see it as customer support and retention. Legal arguments aren't the best recourse because the customer support reps are judge and jury.Repeating: If you have an issue in world, read the TOS and complain to the service provider. If you have an issue with a service provider, read the TOS and then complain to the service provider. Any competent lawyer representing you in such a dispute would do exactly that. Finally, the courts are not well equipped to deal with virtual world issues. They would first look at venue (can this court properly hear this case?) which is an open subject that is somewhat addressed in the book. If the court has venue, then the first thing that is likely to happen is a detailed parsing of ... the TOS.If satisfaction can't be wrung from the service provider, then it may be time to apply real world laws. Do they apply? The author, Duranske, says it best: "... real world laws apply to virtual worlds to exactly the degree that virtual worlds attempt to offer real world possibilities.
Virtual Law: Navigating the Legal Landscape of Virtual Worlds The State of Play: Law, Games, and Virtual Worlds (Ex Machina: Law, Technology, and Society) Colonografía por TC: Principios y práctica de la colonoscopia virtual: Principios y práctica de la colonoscopia virtual (Spanish Edition) Real Virtual en la estetica y la teoria de las artes/Real Virtual in the Esthetic and the Theory of the Arts (Paidos Estetica / Ethetics) (Spanish Edition) Making Virtual Worlds: Linden Lab and Second Life Distributed Virtual Worlds Distributed Virtual Worlds: Foundations and Implementation Techniques Using VRML, Java, and CORBA Virtual Law Practice: How to Deliver Legal Services Online About Infinity, Universe and Worlds.: the philosophy of Giordano Bruno, Burned at Vatican 1600 for his belief in many worlds & denial of afterlife Norse Mythology: The Norse Gods And The Nine Worlds (Norse Mythology, Nine Worlds, Norse Gods) Time Travel and Our Parallel Worlds: Part 3 - All New In-Depth Real Life Stories In the News (Time Travel and Parallel Worlds Book 6) Business Law and the Legal Environment, Standard Edition (Business Law and the Legal Enivorment) Legal Thriller: Predatory Kill: A Brent Marks Legal Thriller (Brent Marks Legal Thrillers Book 2) Legal Thriller: The Spy Files, A Courtroom Drama: A Brent Marks Legal Thriller (Brent Marks Lawyer Legal Thrillers Series Books Book 7) English Legal System with Legal Method, Skills & Reasoning SAVER: Learning Legal Skills and Reasoning Legal Theory and the Legal Academy: Volume III (The Library of Essays in Contemporary Legal Theory) Casenotes Legal Briefs: Labor Law Keyed to Cox, Bok, Gorman & Finkin, 15th Edition (Casenote Legal Briefs) Casenote Legal Briefs: Insurance Law, Keyed to Abraham, Fifth Edition (Casenotes Legal Briefs) American Bar Association Family Legal Guide (third edition): Everything your family needs to know about the law and real estate, consumer protection, ... Association Complete Personal Legal Guide) Legal Terminology And Phrases: Essential Legal Terms Explained You Need To Know About Civil Law And Civil Procedure
