New York Times on Gold Farming
posted by Greg Lastowka
The New York Times carries a story today on gold farming activities in virtual worlds. “Gold farming” is the term used for acquiring virtual wealth within multi-player games like World of Warcraft and then selling it to other players for real cash. As the Times notes, it is a growing industry, despite the fact that the sales are usually in violation of the software contract of the games.
I mention this because exploring the legal issues raised by these environments has been a pet project of mine, and it has been interesting to see the popular media attention increasingly given to multi-player games as their demographics expand. In many ways, the predecessors of World of Warcraft were part of the impetus for the debates in the 1990′s over the growing importance of cyberlaw as a field for legal inquiry. For instance, William Mitchell’s City of Bits, about the construction of digital social spaces, is a book from 1994 that is well worth reading today.
If you want a crash course on the economics and society of virtual worlds, I’d recommend Virtual Worlds by Ted Castronova, Unreal Estate by Julian Dibbell, and this blog. For some thoughts on the legal dimensions, Dan Hunter and I have published two articles on point: The Laws of the Virtual Worlds and Virtual Crime. Among other writings on the topic are Virtual Property by Josh Fairfield and Virtual Liberty by Jack Balkin.
Even Judge Posner thinks this stuff is cool.
December 9, 2005 at 8:25 am
Posted in: Technology
Print This Post
Responses (4)
washerdreyer - December 9, 2005 at 9:29 am
A couple more resources on the topic are available in week two of this syllabus, though there is substantial overlap with what you already listed.
Greg Lastowka - December 9, 2005 at 9:53 am
Thanks, that’s a neat syllabus — I might steal a day or two of it for my cyberlaw class.
And it’s great to see that Jack gives James Grimmelmann’s Yale piece “key concept” status — I think it’s the start of a more sophisticated debate over the “code is law” assertion that has been long overdue.
The University of Chicago Law School Faculty Blog - December 9, 2005 at 1:10 pm
Gold Farming
There’s an interesting Times article today on the latest form of outsourcing, and Greg Lastowka, who has written neat scholarship on the law of virtual worlds, blogs about it here. Essentially, large numbers of Chinese workers are employed playing vide…
The University of Chicago Law School Faculty Blog - December 9, 2005 at 1:14 pm
Gold Farming
There’s an interesting Times article today on the latest form of outsourcing, and Greg Lastowka, who has written neat scholarship on the law of virtual worlds, blogs about it here. Essentially, large numbers of Chinese workers are employed playing vide…
Leave a Reply