ExtraEagle

For me it is always sad, when previously innovative companies make decisions purely based out of fear of the unknown.

SlashDot reports that eBay will be delisting all Auctions for Virtual Property via Emergent Chaos.

Basically you won’t be able to sell game property as used in World of Warcraft and other such games.

Mr. Hani Durzy, speaking for eBay, explained that the decision to pull these items was due to the ‘legal complexities’ surrounding virtual property. “For the overall health of the marketplace” the company felt that the proper course of action, after considerable contemplation, was to ban the sale of these items outright.

Legal complexities really boils down to the fact that there isn’t much legal precedent to this and that eBay’s legal team don’t want to be there setting precedent anymore. The funny thing is that eBay and it’s subsidiaries PayPal and Skype all were founded by setting precedent.

Emergent Chaos comments:

Some virtual artifacts fall into the eBay ban rule, but might still be okay to sell. Some games permit the resale of objects, but you can claim the people aren’t authorized to distribute, because there’s no explicit authorization of them as a sales channel. It’s definitely a gray area, especially if we consider the first-sale doctrine, but stores are not obligated to sell things they don’t want, and if eBay wanted to stop the sale of used books and records, it would also be disappointing, but within their liberty.

I don’t agree with the “no explicit authorization of them as a sales channel” deal. When it is specifically prohibited to resell, such as World of Warcraft’s terms of service says it is, then ok fair enough. But an all out ban, because they don’t understand the market dynamics is wrong.

This is a set back to the world of virtual property as it removes a large central market place. However in away it may be a blessing in disguise as it just gives a boost to many of the smaller extra legal entrepreneurs who already have setup alternative markets.

The famous economist Hernando de Soto writes:

Four billion people in developing and post-Soviet nations -two thirds of the world’s population— have been locked out of the global economy: forced to operate outside the rule of law, they have no legal identity, no credit, no capital, and thus no way to prosper.

However it is not just people in the developing world that have this problem. I wrote the following last year in my blog post What do computer consultants, immigrants and Dominican fruit sellers have in common?

I think we are heading towards a global virtual shanty town. I know many people who emigrate or work temporarily abroad. Many people who work outside the normal employer/employee framework and basically don’t fit into the boxes. I know the difference between someone like me who has a good salary and an illegal Dominican immigrant selling fruit in the streets of Panama City may look huge. However there are many more similarities than differences when you don’t fit neatly into societies boxes.

The problem is the ideas of what property, business, employment and contracts are changing. Not the concepts themselves, but the day to day realities of them. Try using your domain name that you and everyone else knows is worth at least $50,000 as collateral for a loan in a bank. Try getting credit in most countries, if you freelance for someone at the other side of the world. Just try to get the electricity connected in most countries without a local salaried job.

The concepts of credit, contract, corporations etc. were established a long time ago, now the main problem are the institutions we rely on daily to handle these concepts. If we rely on these established institutions we the people who actually live and work in this new world are quite literally screwed, following Hernando’s exact same argument above.

What we at ExtraEagle want to do is try to help provide a foundation for new institutions to sprout up and offer these same kinds of services, just modified to suit 2007 and beyond. This is not just a job for us alone. We will focus on some aspects and there will certainly be room for competition. But in the world of creating new institutions there are millions of opportunities.

Just look at the institution that John created. It can be done. Most of the structure of major institutions we have today such as banks, insurance, exchanges, corporations etc. owe their origins to a few entrepreneurial guys like John during the 17th and 18th centuries. Those times were filled with excitement and uncertainty very much like today.

Now we need a league of independent minded stubborn and brilliant entrepreneurs, coders and thinkers to battle it out to imagine and create the new institutions, the institutions that will guide us through the next 100+ years.

There is no way that existing bankers, insurance companies, judges, regulators and exchanges will want to figure out how to replace themselves. It is up to us.