Here a couple of interesting technology law papers that are worth reading.
First, Leandra Lederman considers the topical issue of taxing virtual worlds:
Lederman, Leandra, "'Stranger than Fiction': Taxing Virtual Worlds" . New York University Law Review, Vol. 82, 2007 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=969984
Abstract: Virtual worlds, including massive multi-player on-line role-playing games (game worlds), such as City of Heroes, Everquest, and World of Warcraft, have become popular sources of entertainment. Game worlds provide scripted contexts for events such as quests. Other virtual worlds, such as Second Life, are unstructured virtual environments that lack specific goals but allow participants to socialize and engage virtually in such activities as shopping or attending a concert. Many of these worlds have become commodified, with millions of dollars of real-world trade in virtual items taking place every year. Most game worlds prohibit these real market transactions, but some worlds actually encourage it. Second Life, for example, grants participants intellectual property rights in their creations.
Although it seems intuitively the case that someone who accepts real money for the transfer of a virtual item should be taxed, what about the player who only accumulates items or virtual currency within a virtual world? Is valuable “loot” acquired in a game taxable, as a prize or award is? And is the profit in a purely in-game trade or sale for virtual currency taxable? This is an important set of questions, given the tax revenues at stake. Although the Internal Revenue Service has not yet attempted to tax transactions within virtual worlds, it is aware of the issue, and there is pressure on the government to determine how to resolve it, given that the economies of some virtual worlds are comparable to those of small countries. The Joint Economic Committee has announced that it is studying the issue.
Most people's intuition probably would be that accumulation of assets within a “game” should not be taxed even though the federal income tax applies even to non-cash accessions to wealth. This Article argues that federal income tax law and policy support that result. Loot “drops” in game worlds should not be treated as taxable prizes and awards, but rather should be treated like other property that requires effort to obtain, such as fish pulled from the ocean, which is taxed only upon sale. Moreover, in-game trades of virtual items should not be treated as taxable barter. If courts uphold game agreements that purport to provide players with a mere license to use the game, in-game trades do not constitute realization events and thus are not taxable. Otherwise, tax policy considerations suggest that Congress should provide nonrecognition for these exchanges.
By contrast, in virtual worlds that are intentionally commodified, such as Second Life, tax doctrine and policy counsel taxation of even in-world sales for virtual currency, regardless of whether the participant cashes out. However, as in game worlds, participants should not be taxed on purely in-world trades of non-currency items. This approach would allow entertainment value to go untaxed without creating a new tax shelter for virtual commerce.
Second, Douglas Hass evaluates GNU General Public License:
Hass, Douglas A., "A Gentlemen's Agreement: Assessing the GNU General Public License and its Adaptation to Linux" . Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property, Vol. 6, p. 213, 2007 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=951842
Abstract: The open source community is conducting a robust debate on the intellectual property issues surrounding the GNU General Public License (GPL) a popular modified public domain software license, and Linux, its most successful project to date. The Linux community has evolved its open source development model to accommodate realities of copyright law and the need to secure both significant commercial participation and widespread industry adoption. The legal issues underlying this transformation have not undergone the same robust analysis. This paper sheds light on those issues and tests some of their limits.
The GPL fails to define fundamental terms adequately, including the inconsistent use of based on (derivative works), the lack of a choice of law provision, and the ambiguous treatment of patents. The GPL holds itself out as a viral license, purporting to foist itself on any software developer who has incorporated GPL code into a project. These and other factors combined with the Linux community's outdated views on copyright protection for kernel modules make it unlikely that a court could give full effect to the GPL or protect open source code from closed source intrusions. The GPL, however, does act as the most important beacon for Linux and the rest of the open source world. Its most significant contribution may differ greatly from the one envisioned by its creators: collaborative, decentralized development rather than free software. Contrary to some non-legal analyses, the gentlemen's agreement model employed by Linux to ensure that both closed source and open source software can coexist is a legally defensible, common sense adaptation of the GPL.
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