To that end, Pyne, a student at New York Law School, works at the campus Institute for Information Law and Policy. He also secured a summer associate job with Drakeford & Kane, a small Manhattan firm with a growing practice in virtual law.
Among Pyne's mentors is S. Gregory Boyd, a 34-year-old associate at Davis & Gilbert, who suggests that forward-thinkers may grok (a Martian word meaning to deeply understand, coined by Robert A. Heinlein for his classic sci-fi novel 'Stranger in a Strange Land') a golden future in light of two recent sales-tracking measures in the entertainment business: Opening week gross receipts for 'Iron Man,' the sci-fi action film from Paramount Pictures, were $126 million, while comparable earnings for 'Grand Theft Auto IV,' the interactive computer game set in the sex- and crime-packed virtual world of Liberty City, topped $400 million in a few days.
'These numbers tell a story greater than the interest in the virtual world among most attorneys,' says Boyd, an adjunct professor of intellectual property law at New York Law School. 'Everyone wants to be a film lawyer, but the financial power of games is relatively ignored.'
Virtual law ' running the gamut of intellectual property, copyright, tax and property law, patents, First Amendment, trademark, new media, corporate governance, license agreement and matters yet to be imagined ' is 'not the kind of thing easily picked up by people who've been practicing for a while,' says Boyd, adding that 'people like Brian [Pyne], though, are aware of which way the wind is blowing.'
As for the virtual world itself ' now mostly associated with online chat rooms where participants socialize through fictional personae, or interactive three-dimensional computer games such as 'Dungeons and Dragons,' 'EverQuest,' 'Asheron's Call' and 'Ultima Online' ' there is change in the wind. Beyond entertainment, 3-D programming has far-reaching educational value and even beneficial application ' as in the case of 'Virtual Iraq,' a program using components of the popular game 'Full Spectrum Warrior,' developed with funding from the Naval Research Office as psychological therapy for military veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
'This is all at a nascent stage,' says Sean F. Kane of New York City's Drakeford & Kane (Kane is also a member of the Board of Editors of Internet Law & Strategy, a sibling newsletter to Entertainment Law & Finance). 'The technology changes on a daily basis, which is something I find fantastically energetic.' For individuals around the globe, says Kane, the virtual world 'is about gaming, but all the big companies are looking into the 3-D social networking aspects as a potentially new Internet portal.'
Many participants in social network sites market their digital creations ' physical things such as clothing, as well as story lines ' via 'Second Life,' the popular 3-D program developed by Linden Research of San Francisco. Trading is done with virtual money known as Linden dollars, convertible via several thriving online real dollar exchanges. But legal questions abound. How, for instance, do creators protect their intellectual property?
'The business model variations are mind-boggling,' says Pyne. 'It's cutting edge. It's a communications medium, but it has property within it. People create virtual items ' housing, land, games, stories. But no one's quite sure whether this property, a digitally created shirt, for instance, is property in the same way that a shirt you buy at Old Navy is property.' He adds: 'No one's really sure how you should treat these transactions, or how these transactions might go bad.'
'The virtual world is expanding as we speak,' says Kane, 36, who noted his transition to virtual law over the past six years is at a point now where it comprises about 80% of his practice.
There is an increasing rush to the virtual world by big business ' Sony, BMG Music Entertainment, Nissan, Adidas/Reebok, American Apparel, Microsystems, Toyota and Starwood Hotels are all there ' in the same way that corporations embraced the Internet not so long ago, when it was likewise hard for most to imagine commercial payoff.
Boyd, author of 'The Business and Legal Primer for Game Development,' says the virtual world's gaming economy alone is $48 billion annually. 'The number speaks for itself. But that doesn't mean people are listening.'
In comparing blockbuster movies to blockbuster virtual world games, says Boyd: 'No film property has begun to touch the revenues from 'World of Warcraft.” Boyd and Kane share their ideas and experiences at a growing number of conferences around the country for listening lawyers. Also for the attentive, there is a new gathering place ' the Second Life Bar Association, which exists only in cyberspace at www.slba.info.
Pyne says he sees an analogy between virtual world gaming of his generation and the rise of professional sports during his grandparents' generation. In each, great fortunes were, and are, possible ' for those who create, and for those who counsel the creators.
At the moment, Pyne says, existing law is sufficient counsel. But perhaps new legal concepts will arise. Meanwhile, Pyne adds, there is the appeal of 'a certain mystery to all this.'
