The Volokh Conspiracy

[David Post, April 5, 2007 at 12:11pm] Trackbacks

Virtual Property:

There's a fascinating post over at Terranova -- a terrific blog on the legal, economic, and social environments in virtual worlds -- on Elizabeth Townsend Gard's experiment with her first year Property students, in which students make "expeditions" into Second Life to explore what the common law property concepts they're learning about in class (the law of finders, adverse possession, landlord-tenant law, etc.) look like in virtual space, and then they report back on what they've learned. The student projects are quite interesting, and the whole project is worth a good look, at least if you're interested in what "property law" might look like in 50 years or so . . . [Thanks to Greg Lastowka for the pointer]

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Dave N (mail):

I looked and it is fascinating. Property law 50 years from now might be very different than it is today. A rather sad commentary is that no one has posted here while there are 82 posts (including several of mine) to Orin Kerr's thread regarding "The Daily Show" and whether the NYT and/or Fox News are biased.

In the larger scheme of things, this thread is more important, though obviously less popular.

4.5.2007 6:45pm

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Jay Reding (mail) (www):

I gave Second Life a try shortly after starting my 1L Property course... it is interesting to see how the concepts apply to a virtual world. One interesting effect is how SL is an interesting playground for libertarian political philosophy -- there isn't a great deal of regulation in SL, and it shows. Much of the "mainland" has a major problem with the tragedy of the commons, and the truly desirable locales tend to be on more regulated private "islands." That doesn't surprise me, but it is quite interesting to see it applied as something other than a theoretical construct.

It would be very interesting to have a property seminar about virtual worlds taught through something like Second Life -- although I wouldn't at all be surprise to learn that something like that has already been done.

4.5.2007 8:55pm

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Kurt (www):

I did research on virtual property for a seminar at Michigan Law last semester, and became hooked on the topic. It's a fascinating collision of law, technology, and social psychology.

Those interested in further reading are welcome to check out the reading assignment I compiled last semester. It's a pretty solid introduction, I think, and can definitely point you toward relevant legal scholarship.

For something more to-the-minute, I track many virtual property developments on my blog. There's no end to the number of interesting and surprising things that crop up (taxes and gambling are two favorite recent topics).

4.5.2007 9:44pm