Who Owns My Avatar? Rights in Virtual Property

This paper, a 2005 DiGRA conference contribution by Anders Eriksson and Kalle Grill of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, argues that the prevailing approach to virtual property, in which license agreements grant game developers exclusive rights to everything in a virtual world, is unsatisfactory. Its central claim is that ownership should be treated not as a single fundamental relationship but as a bundle of legal rights that can be divided and distributed in more complex ways. Drawing on Sidgwick's and Honoré's analyses of property, the authors propose that a constructivist perspective allows the legitimate interests of both producers and players to be examined directly, without depending on a contested notion of full ownership.

The analysis identifies two producer interests, a subscription interest in revenue and a control interest in shaping the game world, and two gamer interests, a fairness interest in playing under the game's intended rules and a labor interest in the products of their effort. The authors treat these as legitimate because each rests on established moral practices, and they suggest that a utilitarian approach would seek to satisfy as many as possible. They then sketch a division of rights in which producers retain management of the world at large while gamers hold protected interests in their avatars and possessions, with proportionality limiting producer changes that affect player assets.

The paper is explicitly exploratory and offers no empirical data. The authors acknowledge that the effects of virtual trade on subscription rates and game functioning have not been studied, and they argue that under a general principle of liberty the burden of proof lies with those seeking prohibitions. Its evidence base consists of reported figures such as the roughly 20 hours per week average playing time, a two-week eBay trade volume for Ultima Online in 2004, and a 26,500 US dollar land sale in Project Entropia, along with case discussions including BlackSnow Interactive v. Mythic Entertainment and a Chinese court ruling on stolen virtual assets. The authors conclude that more inquiry is needed before courts and legislators confront these conflicts.