Fairfield Lectures in Second Life Virtual World
You could say Indiana Law's Joshua Fairfield is taking his study of law and virtual worlds
literally. Last month the the intellectual property and e-commerce expert presented "Anti-Social
Contracts in Virtual Worlds" within the Second Life virtual world.
Second Life is sometimes referred to as a game, but the virtual world's "residents" have their own economy, currency, and legal issues. Fairfield's talk addressed how private-law contracts govern the public law of virtual worlds. For millions of virtual world residents these contracts cancel out legal rights, including ownership of private property or freedom of expression.
Fairfield, who is currently visiting Washington and Lee University School of Law, is an expert in e-commerce, video game regulation, and virtual worlds. The lecture was sponsored by the Cornell University Johnson School and Metaversed.com, as part of the "Metanomics" series.
View the presentation (QuickTime).