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Where the Law Stands On Virtual Property

By Shari Claire Lewis
April 30, 2008

The filing of a complaint by a Pennsylvania lawyer against the operators of an online virtual world, and last year's decision by a Pennsylvania federal district court in that case, Bragg v. Linden Research Inc., 487 F. Supp. 2d 593 (E.D. Pa. 2007), has generated a great deal of interest in the media and among lawyers, as well as in the virtual world community. (See, e.g., Diane Duhaime, 'Why Should Corporate Counsel Become Familiar With Virtual Environments? Aren't They Just Fun and Games?,' Metropolitan Corporate Counsel, vol. 16, no. 2, p. 14 (February 2008); Dick Dahl, 'Virtual World Draws Real-Life Lawyers,' The Minnesota Lawyer (Feb. 19, 2007).)

The attention has gone well beyond that which the decision would have garnered if it had not involved a virtual world and virtual property, given that it simply found an arbitration clause in a terms-of-service agreement to be unconscionable and therefore unenforceable.

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