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April 14 - New Second Life TOS and Metanomics 100th Episode

On Wednesday, April 14, Metanomics interviewed law professor Joshua Fairfield on the new Second Life terms of service and the legal implications of mixed reality. We want to thank everyone for sticking around for our 100th episode party, we hope you had a blast!

Metanomics host Robert Bloomfield interviewed Joshua Fairfield, a law professor at the Washington and Lee University School of Law on Wednesday, April 14 at 12pm PST. They discussed the new Terms of Service that Second Life creator Linden Lab rolled out on March 31st, which has caused some controversy with its aggressive stance on their ownership of property and unclear wording regarding Machinima and images taken from Second Life. You can watch the archived episode on this page.

Professor Fairfield is an expert in mixed reality and the legal aspect of virtual world’s, e-commerce and videogames. His research explores the law and economics of online contracts and he has experience with everything from terrorist activity to law enforcement in virtual worlds. His basic proposition is that contracts which govern virtual worlds are beginning to bleed over to realspace, as virtual objects and experiences are pushed into the real world. One example is that of the kindle – in the ‘real world’ a consumer might own a physial copy of a book, whereas with an e-book the consumer merely licenses a copy.

Professor Fairfield sent along this information from an abstract he wrote:

“Over 200 articles have been published on law and virtual worlds or virtual reality in recent years. To date none has focused primarily on the legal impact of far more commercially important and common Mixed Reality applications. This gap is all the more significant as computing migrates from desktop to laptop to mobile applications, which increases the value of augmenting real places with virtual data. With the advent of smartphone technology, the importance and depth of adoption of Mixed Reality far outstrips that of virtual reality.

Further, the ubiquitous and pervasive computing literature predicts and evaluates the potential embedding of computing into the real world: processors in your shoes, toaster, and refrigerator. But that literature has missed the mark as well. The technology necessary to augment the real world with rich data has developed far before the advent of miniature computers embedded throughout the real environment. Thus, the real world has become virtualized well before the advent of ubiquitous and pervasive computing.”

Metanomics 100th Episode Spectacular!

There was a short break after the episode and then the party began in celebration of Metanomics’ 100th episode! Host Robert Bloomfield sang with his jazz band, Beyers and the ReZtones, there was a GIANT cake and many other surprises! As a special treat, we’re including a video of Beyers & The ReZtones as they sang a thank-you song for all those people who have helped bring Metanomics to virtual life over the last 100 episodes. A very special thank you goes to Chantal Harvey who created this video!

Beyers & The ReZtones

Live from Ithaca ,NY

Robert Bloomfield – vocals
Doug Robinson – Bass
Brian Earle – Clarinet
Al Hartland – Drums
Chad Lieberman – Piano

Cake , decorations & champagne created by the amazing artist, Tasia Tonic of ‘ The Tastery ‘ in Second Life™

Guest Biographies

Joshua Fairfield

An expert in the law and regulation of e-commerce and videogames, Prof. Fairfield’s research and scholarship explores the law and economics of online contracts and the application of standard economic models to virtual environments.

In addition, Prof. Fairfield is one of the nation’s leading voices in the analysis of virtual worlds, such as the popular Second Life. He has briefed intelligence officials on terrorist activity and law enforcement within virtual worlds and has written on strategies for protecting children online. In October 2008, Fairfield organized and hosted a first-of-its-kind symposium at the School of Law exploring the legal and social challenges of virtual worlds built specifically for children, the fastest growing area of virtual environments.

Professor Fairfield is regularly quoted in national and international media on information technology topics including the law of video games, online regulation, and the law and economics of virtual worlds. You can view Professor Fairfield’s research at the Social Science Research Network.

“More info on Prof. Fairfield.”:http://law.wlu.edu/faculty/profiledetail.asp?id=242