The Guardian’s Tech Weekly podcast, hosted by Aleks Krotoski (whom is also on the Virtual Worlds Forum Advisory Board), has produced a special edition on virtual worlds. In particular, they looked at “the ways virtual worlds are being integrated into the decisions politicians, policy makers and the legal system are making.”
The discussion on governmental regulation of virtual worlds was particularly interesting. In essence, the problem is this: virtual words are more centralised than the internet, and so it is possible (at least in theory) to regulate them to a much greater extent. Linden Labs, for example, has banned gambling in Second Life, in a way that it would be impossible for Google, for example, to ban gambling on the internet. However, when governments start to get involved in regulation, things become much more complicated. Which jurisdiction does a virtual world fall in? Do the fairly strong intellectual property rights of the west prevail, or the weaker IP rights of countries such as China? Is jurisdiction to be determined by the country in which the world is hosted, or the country in which the user resides?
A mire of difficult questions relating to public policy and law enforcement quickly emerges, and the only obvious thing is that there will be no quick solution. As virtual worlds reach the mainstream, and as their economies develop to an even greater extent, the tensions in the way in which they are regulated will likely become more and more apparent until a sensible method of regulation is found.