Ethics and Legal Aspects of Virtual Worlds

The development of a legal environment for virtual worlds presents issues of both law and ethics. The cross-border nature of online law and particularly law in virtual environments suggests that some lessons on its formation can be gained by looking at the development of international law, specifically the ideas of soft law and adaptive governance. In assessing the ethical implications of such environments the network of online regulations, technical solutions and the privatization of legal remedies offer some direction. While legal systems in online virtual worlds require development, the ethical acceptability of actions in these worlds is somewhat clearer, and users need to take care to ensure that their behaviors do not harm others.