Cancelled Virtual Property Rights: The Legal Landscape of Real-world Rights in the Virtual World

People are spending an increasing amount of time interacting and engaging with others in virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft, Second Life, and Fortnite. As users of these worlds build, acquire, trade, and sell virtual assets using real money, a bridge between the real-world marketplace and the economy of the virtual community begins to form. Because conflicts inevitably arise, clarifying the legal status of virtual assets is essential to understanding users’ rights to virtual assets and the legal frameworks that govern the transactions involving them. While End User License Agreements (EULAs) help define the rights and responsibilities of users and developers, legal scholars argue EULAs fail to address the tension between contractual powers of developers and the alleged property rights of user rights.

This course will explore the differences between real-world and virtual property, the legal frameworks applicable to defining rights that may be associated with virtual property, the economic consequences of asserting user rights in virtual worlds, and how user rights interact with contractual rights under EULAs. The main topics of the course will include:

Introduction to Virtual Property in the Virtual World
The course will begin with understanding the challenge of defining virtual property by explaining the nature of virtual worlds, the types of assets found therein, and how these assets are created.

Applicable Legal Frameworks to Virtual Property

The virtual economy created by the acquisition, trading, and selling of virtual property invites examination into the different legal frameworks that can be used to define the legal status of virtual property. In this section, we will discuss and introduce several different areas of law and their applicability to virtual property.
1. Real property
2. Personhood and personal property
3. Contract
4. Intellectual property
5. Consumer protection

Real-world Laws vs Virtual World Laws
This section explores the literature on whether real-world laws should be applied to virtual worlds, which has its own set of rules, norms, and customs. Traditionally, behavior deemed illegal in the real world has been acceptable in the virtual world. However, when virtual behavior gives rise to consequences in the real world, when should the courts intervene and should laws of the real world be applied? To what extent should virtual laws play a role in legal decisions made in the real world?

Enforcement of Rights to Virtual Property
Available case law from different jurisdictions involving virtual property will be analyzed to assess how different legal concepts are applied by different jurisdictions. This section will consider cases involving users enforcing their rights against third parties and developers enforcing their rights against third parties. Analysis will focus on comparing property rights based approach vs EULA contract based approach and the policy and economic impact of these decisions on society.

International Considerations
The issue of jurisdiction comes into question when a dispute in the virtual world spills over into the real world between users from different countries. This section will introduce the concept of conflicts of law and how courts have traditionally decided the appropriate forum, procedure, and applicable law for resolving a dispute. Discussion will focus on whether conflicts of law concepts need to be adapted to apply to disputes involving virtual property in the virtual world