T.L. Taylor is visiting today, and gave a very interesting talk on Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games. Her perspective was intellectual property rights. Who owns an avatar?
Many people have sold theyr MMORPG avatars on eBay and similar sites. Game developers do not like this, and Sony (owner of EverQuest) have taken many measures to stop this and similar activities. But do Sony really own an avatar that the user has spent years to make and mature?
Furthermore, who has the rights to a fan site? When users have contributed with graphics, code, debugging, how much of the game really belongs to the developers?
<< Previously in Surftrail:
Machill on search engines
Next: >>
ditching the Dock