Virtual vs Artificial Property in Virtual/Synthetic Worlds, (and what to do with real houses on artificial lakes)

I’ve only been here a few weeks, blogging away, and have only been in virtual worlds a few months - I admit it, I’m a newbie. So I’ve been back-tracking a bit and reading through past posts such as a thoughtful post by Nobody Fugazi on the value and definition of “property” (as in real estate) in virtual worlds.

Nobody observes that if we swap out the word virtual for artificial, we might not get so easily confused by notions of “property”. We tend to think real estate, tangible items, a closet full of frito lays. If I was to talk about owning “artificial land” I’d hardly jump to the conclusion that my artificial land was the same as real estate in the real world, even if it was on an artificial lake in Florida.

Having said that, he also points out that whether artificial or virtual, property still “feels” like property. The question is by whom and what is that property governed.

My favorite article on this subject remains “There is No Spoon” by Yochai Benkler in the book The State of Play. In this article, Benkler argues that there are three intersecting components to a virtual world:

1. The interface, which offers often rich renderings of the communications and interactions between users
2. The platform for immersive play which these interfaces give access to
3. The platform for communication and collaborative creativity that this interface has given rise to.

Benkler argues that the debate over virtual property - whether real estate, clothing, or a well scripted Xcite compatible is distracted by #1. The rendering of what are nothing more nor less than the product of interactions with an interface distracts us into believing we need to discuss a house on the beach, a spoon - but there IS NO SPOON! (He says).

Benkler argues that the arguments about spoons and real estate are really design questions as compared to policy questions. Policy equates to law. Design equates to making decisions on how the interface and its platform should be developed to mediate social and collaborative interactions, through an interface. Benkler argues that in order to come to a richer understanding of how we should consider issues of property in virtual worlds we should avoid the distraction of law and policy and instead focus on questions related to how we believe these platforms should be designed to foster collaboration and communication:

The question of “who should own this spoon” should be understood as a question about what we want the social relations using the platform to be like. That question requires that we define a range of social relations that we believe the platform will enable, and a normative belief about how those relations should go. The rest is lawyering - constructing the detailed institutional structure within which these social relations will then be played out.

Edward Castronova writes in Synthetic Worlds .

I would argue that these processes of value creation have advanced so far, even at this early date, that almost everything known as a “virtual” commodity - the gold piece, the magic helmets, the deadly spaceship, and so on - is now certifiably real. Indeed, as I argued in the introduction, the term virtual is losing its meaning. Perhaps it never had meaning. The things happening online have always been literal human things; there was never anything metaphorical, as-if, or subjunctive about them. At first it may have been convenient in many ways to think of networked human interaction as only a model of the real thing. Now, however, and specifically in the arena of synthetic worlds, the allegedly “virtual” is blending so smoothly with the allegedly “real” as to make the distinction increasingly difficult to see. There’s nothing revolutionary in this, though. It is merely a recognition that these things were always as real as anything else in the human culturesphere.

Both authors take as implicit the idea that property in virtual worlds is property because we believe it is. The question then becomes how do we define our rights to this belief, who arbitrates disputes between my belief and yours, and where does the “legal” power sit? Thankfully, there are people gathering together who have an interest in “the lawyering” (most recently in Singapore).

The lawyers will lawyer, and the politicians and judicial systems will start to encroach, and at some point an easy or uneasy truce will be found combining:

- Terms of Service
- Avatar Rights
- Property or IP law
- Consumer protection
- Taxation
- Fraud
- Etc.

But let’s assume for a minute that the lawyers will find the lowest common denominator. A system of checks and balances that protects avatars and their ‘controllers’, platform managers, corporations, and government. At the lowest common denominator we’ll still be left with the uneasy question of not having defined the deeper “design” decision.

I have often called these questions about Linden ‘policy’ - by which I typically mean the decisions Linden takes not just because of a legal reason to do so but decisions that have an impact on the communications and actions that individuals have using the Second Life rendering/interface. If this were World of Warcraft, a ‘policy’ or ‘design’ decision is something as monumental as changing the talent tree for one of the player classes or as minor as adjusting the supply of iron ore. Both can have reprecussions for which classes players are attracted to, how easy or difficult the game becomes, etc. In Second Life, when the platform is ‘open’ to different experiences, the decisions can be far-reaching and immediate or subtle and long lasting.

The decision for legal reasons to ban casinos was immediate and deeply felt. The decision to allow the import of sculpties from outside software like Maya was less immediate and subtle but may have a deeper long-term impact on how many ‘enterprises’ come to Second Life once they evaluate its interoperability with current 3D studio production environments.

In either case, it strikes me that the design decisions (which I often call policy, and which usually ARE policy when related back to a TOS or financial change like pegging the Linden at a fixed rate to the US dollar) in an ‘open world’ are far less easy to predict. In WOW you can run fairly detailed models of how the supply of iron ore might affect the revenue earned by blacksmithing, but in a world in which prims are free and the roles are as varied as the users, it must be much harder to gauge how a design change (or for that matter decisions on maintenance, upgrades, debugging etc) will impact social relations and interactions. And so, returning to Benkler:

“The question of “who should own this spoon” should be understood as a question about what we want the social relations using the platform to be like.”

It strikes me that the people with a large stake in understanding what they currently like, what they dislike, and what some of the implications of a design change might be (especially in the absence of a closed game like WoW) are its users. Which places a burden on the owners of these social relations platforms to:

1. Create platforms based on identifying a social relations model that will appeal to enough users who would be willing to pay to participate in it
2. Attempt to make normative decisions on what design decisions will facilitate this model for social relations.
3. In making these normative decisions look for reference points (past experiences, current user insight, best practices from elsewhere), in order to better predict whether those normative decisions are valid
4. Once launched look for ways to make improvements in the social relations model through a feedback mechanism

Cutting through all the mumbo jumbo? Platform owners will need to learn to think, listen, apply thoughtfully, and LISTEN again.

And Linden, if you’re listening - that last one’s for you.

P.S. Regarding real houses on artificial lakes my parents are selling, please contact me for further information.