What is Virtual Law?

Excerpted from Virtual Law: Navigating the Legal Landscape of Virtual Worlds

By Benjamin Tyson Duranske

Virtual law also refers to the internal governance structures that are beginning to appear in some virtual worlds (such as community “court” systems, mediation programs, and private organizations with contract-based codes of conduct) to the degree that those mimic, draw on, and sometimes interact with “real-world” law. Virtual law includes aspects of civil procedure, constitutional law, contract law, copyright law, criminal law, tort law, trade secret law, publicity law, securities law, tax law, trade secret law, trademark law, international law, and Internet law. In each area, questions similar to those that arise in relation to real-world activity arise when law is applied to activity that takes place in virtual worlds, though with different, sometimes surprising, implications.

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