Things We Dont Read: EULAs

                Jack M. Balkin writes the article in the, Virginia Law Review, called, “Virtual Liberty: Freedom to design and Freedom to Play in Virtual Worlds.” One of his main points he tries to get across to his readers is the fact that legal regulation of virtual worlds is inevitable. The reason behind his point is the fact that virtual worlds have items and that are bought and sold at real world value. Quoting Balkin he writes, “The single most important development that will lead to legal regulation of virtual spaces is the accelerating real-world commodification of virtual worlds” (pg. 2046)

                The Second-Life end user license agreement (EULA) is the biggest out of the three virtual world’s user license agreements that our class had to read. In Second-Life it is widely known that property is bought and sold in real life situations. This is one game that backs the reasons why Balkin believes that legal regulation is going to enter virtual worlds. It is interesting though in Second-Life’s EULA it says that Linden dollars cannot be sold or bought outside of the game. This is interesting because you can sell property but not money.

                Eve Online has a EULA that also specifies about its regulations on selling items and objects. The game does not permit the buying, selling, or auctioning on online websites outside of the Eve server. The law stopping the selling of items outside of the game on Eve contradicts Balkin’s opinion but, it is only because there is no known selling of items outside of the game. During the presentation of Eve’s EULA it was noted that there could be a black market outside of the game unknown to the average gamer that buys and sells items.

                Lastly, is Minecraft’s EULA which was the shortest EULA out of the three online games. Minecraft’s EULA seemingly only mentions in one sentence about the buying and selling of items in the real world by stating, “Remember not to distribute the changes.” With this short EULA and basically no regulations in the game there is undoubtedly the selling or buying of items or property outside of Minecraft.