Net Neutrality Under Threat: Court Ruling Opens Possibility of Paying More or Slower Internet

By Bixyl Shuftan

For years, the prinicple of "Net Neutrality," that Internet Service Providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equaly has governed how people go about online. People can download all information at an equal rate of speed instead of being offered different tiers of speed for different fees. But recently, there was a court decision that means trouble for supporters of this policy.

In 2010, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) enacted a set of rules based on the Net Neutrality idea. But on Tuesday January 14, a US Federal appeals court ruled that the FCC had no legal authority to enforce them (link). The court stated while the government can oversee crucial services like telephones and electric power, the Internet isn't a crucial service. The FCC is expected to appeal the ruling.

The ruling opens the way for Internet Service providers to start charging customers more of they want to continue to download and surf at the speed they've been using. For those who don't pay more, the company could slow down their service. Consumers could also pay more as media sites like Netflix are charged more for using lots of bandwith, and they react by passing their costs down to their customers. Gamers could find themselves tacked with a "bandwith charge."

So why not switch to an Internet Service provider that isn't charging more? For many consumers in the US, that isn't an option. Unlike say Britian where people have a choice between a dozen or so Internet service providers, many places in the United States operate under a monopoly by a single ISP.

Financial talk show host Clark Howard compared the situation to the toll roads in early 19th Century America. People complained loudly over the fees charged, and eventually the tolls were lifted. He felt it would be much the same if Internet fees were to go up as a result of the ruling. Chatting with Valkyre McGill in Second Life, whom in the past wrote for Acceler8or magazine, felt any "nickel and diming to death" from excessive charges by Internet Service Providers would be met with new encryption, and other technologies that would allow users to get around "the current centralized web model" and make the ISPs less relevant than they used to be.

Sources: CNN, CNN Money, BBC, Clark Howard, Forbes,  Acceler8tor,

Bixyl Shuftan

Dutch Supreme Court Rules Runescape Virtual Theft a Real-Life Crime

On Tuesday Jan 31st, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled over a case in which two boys had beaten up a third and threatening him with a knife forced him to log onto the game and drop his possessions where one of his assailants was waiting to pick them up. Most notable were a knife and amulet. The crime took place in 2007, and a lower court found the defendants guilty in 2009. One of them appealed to the Supreme Court of Holland.

The convicted thief based his appeal on the argument that the stolen goods "were neither tangible nor material and, unlike for example electricity, had no economic value." He also brought up the Runescape terms of service, stating the virtual goods were the property of Jagex, the company behind the game.


You agree that all intellectual property or other rights in any game character, account and items are and will remain our property. Jagex owns all rights in the Jagex Products, and you are only granted permission to use such products, subject to and in accordance with these Terms and Conditions.


The court ruled that the items had value because of the “time and energy” spent in getting them, and at the time of the theft they were the “exclusive dominion” of the victim. Therefore, the taking of these virtual goods was just as against the law as real items.

Tateru Nino thought this ruling was an interesting landmark ruling. Although virtual goods are legal property, in just about every legal jurisdiction they are the property of the “service provider.” This ruling she felt gives the Dutch users themselves property rights to the goods. So at least in Holland she felt, MMOs and virtual worlds didn’t have quite the same power over their users that they used to.

Virtualpolicy.net commented, “This case is significant because it changes the relationship between individuals and service providers in respect of digital objects. That is, Runescape’s contract clearly states that the players of the game do not own the game or any of the digital objects within it, whether they control them or not. This has long been a contentious matter as there is a large trade in the sale of objects between players for hard currency, so called Real Money Trading. This ruling means that there is a degree of control that someone can have over an object which is sufficient for that object to be stolen.”

For now, only Dutch gamers and virtual world residents are affected by this ruling. But there have been similar legal cases in South Korea and Asia in which “judges have displayed a general trend to grant more rights to players than are stated in their contract and to see digital objects as being akin to physical property in certain important respects.” This case could very well influence similar ones that are likely to come up elsewhere in Europe and the Americas.

Currently, Second Life’s Terms of Service allow residents intelectual property rights over their creatied content in the game. But the legal jargon is a bit slippery, Tateru Nino stating Linden Lab says they own “the bits and bytes of electronic data stored on its Servers.”

Sources: MSNBC, Jagex, Dwell on It, Virtualpolicy.net

Bixyl Shuftan

Judge Issues Amaretto Temporary Restraining Order Against Linden Lab in Legal Fight With Ozimals

The horses won, at least for now, in their battle with the bunnies.

In late December, Ozimals and Amaretto were heading to court over Ozimals’ claim the scripts for Amaretto’s horses had segments copied from their bunnies. On December 21, the judge over the case issued a temporary restraining order against Linden Lab, saying they could not impose a DMCA on the horse company, at least for now.

“... software copyright protection does not apply to functionality. Thus even if (Ozimals) was the first to come up with a virtual animal that requires ‘food’ to ‘live,’ and copyright it has does not prevent another company from marketing virtual animals with similar traits provided, essentially, that that company did not copy (Ozimals’) programing. Because, among other things, (Amaretto) has submitted declarations supporting the conlusion that it did not copy or otherwise ‘steal’ (Ozimals’) code (and that (Ozimals) knew this to be true when it filed the DMCA takedown notification). ... “

Eric Goldman, a law professor, had a few comments on his blog. He questioned why the ruling was made against Linden Lab and not Ozimals, saying this raised First Amendment issues of the Linden’s ability to edit the Grid. In any event, the restraining order lasts until January 11, when the court holds further hearings on Amaretto’s case.

On another note, Hamlet Au noted the judge in the case, Charles R. Bryer, was an assistant special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, which took part in the case that caused the sole resignation of a US President in it’s entire history, “Wonder how he feels in the twilight of his legal career adjudicating a dispute between virtual bunnies and horsies?“

Sources, New World Notes, Eric Goldman Tech & Market Law Blog

Bixyl Shuftan