When we speak of virtual economies, the first thing that may come to mind is the immersive 3D worlds like Second Life, etc. But the entire internet can be considered an near-infinite virtual world, where anything that happens is part of the complex “life” of that space. The web of activities that we participate in leave an indelible trace and builds up a significant virtual persona (for better or worse.) The Yale Law Journal has published an interesting article that discusses how to legally deal with this space where reputation becomes a kind of currency, the substance of value rather than any kind of object or item. They wonder, can reputation be considered property in this instance, with the all the legal recourse that would come with theft or damage?
They explain:
Anonymous blogging and commentary, on the other hand, correspond to the virtual world economies describe above. The reputational property this type of activity generates exists only online, associated with virtual identities that generally are not connected to any real-world identities. What enables this division from the real-world reputational economy is anonymity, which permits bloggers—or even blog commenters—to gain online status, often at the expense of others, without risking their own real-world status. And as with the online and virtual world economies, challenging problems arise when the two reputational economies meet, as happens when anonymous posters (members of the virtual-world-style reputational economy) attack nonanonymous online profiles (members of the online reputational economy). From a practical standpoint, it is difficult, though not impossible, to identify anonymous online attackers, making redress rare. But from a more theoretical standpoint, it is difficult to replace, with currency or any other kind of “old” property, the reputational property they have lost.
The Yale Law Journal: “Reputation as Property in Virtual Economies”
[via Boing Boing]
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Where is the image with the Lego men from?
January 21st, 2009 at 11:28 am
This conversation needs to expand and discuss reputation currency models such as the Local Exchange Trading System (LETS). Founded in 1982 by Michael Linton, the model is now known as Open Money, which is a platform for reputation currency applications. Please visit http://www.openmoney.org or .info.
Can your reputation be stolen? How? If you’re still here, so too is your reputation, right? In fact, if your community is conscious of your loss, your reputation may be positively affected, as people reach out and help. If something was stolen from you because you’re a fool, then people might say I’m not willing to help you.
With traditional money, if someone steels your money, then you can’t participate in the economy. But, with reputation currency, just because something is taken from you doesn’t mean you can’t participate.
February 24th, 2009 at 5:11 pm