The Five Indicia of Virtual Property

[Excerpt] “Many Americans use “it” every day. Although it is intangible, it may be worth thousands of dollars. Because we can both control it and prevent other people from controlling it, we assume, without much thought, that we own it. Sometimes we pay someone a monthly fee to hold it for us. Sometimes, simply by using it, we increase its value. When we finish using it, we often sell it. “It” is virtual property, and it may take the form of an email address, a website, a bidding agent, a video game character, or any number of other intangible, digital commodities. If it were to be damaged or stolen, the immediate questions would be: (1) how should a court identify it; and (2) what degree of legal protection should it receive? Because no court or legislature in the United States yet has recognized virtual property interests, a combination of contract and custom currently controls the relationship between Internet users and service providers. […] The question therefore becomes, how should courts identify protectable virtual property interests? Partially due to the dramatic success of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs)9 and the rise of secondary markets for virtual characters and treasures from those games, a recent frenzy of legal scholarship has struggled to resolve this question. This note supports the legal recognition of virtual property interests, as already convincingly justified by the legal analogy to traditional property interests set forth by Professor Joshua Fairfield, buttressed by the practical reality that virtual property has significant economic value. Building on these rationales, this note proposes five indicia, common to most forms of virtual property, which a court should use to identify legally protectable virtual property interests on the Internet. These indicia are: (1) rivalry; (2) persistence; (3) interconnectivity; (4) secondary markets; and (5) value-added-by-users. This note cautions, however, against applying this newfound definition indiscriminately against the interests of the very entities without whom the property would not exist: the businesses hosting the remotely accessed computer resources (i.e., the service providers). […] Part III of this note applies the five indicia to the well-established framework of traditional property to illustrate this balancing process. Throughout the development of the law in this area, courts must retain the freedom and flexibility to craft appropriate equitable remedies on a case-by-case basis, and special attention should be directed to the practical issues commonly faced by Internet service providers. The ultimate purpose of virtual property jurisprudence should be to strike a balance that provides legal redress to users whose legitimate virtual property interests have been violated while simultaneously reducing liability and disincentives to service providers who promote and sustain the growth of the Internet.

Jesus and the Breath of Life: An Exegesis of John 20:22 in Historical and Modern Interpretation an Obscure and Mysterious Text

John 20:22 is an obscure and mysterious text where Jesus is represented as breathing upon his disciples in a manner that appears to resemble the insufflation of humanity by God, or the breathing of the breath of life in Adam\u27s nostrils in Genesis 2:7. Through an exegetical study of Johannine text and the Greek term έμφυσάω in relationship with the LXX, Apocrypha and Qumran Scrolls, a direct correlation is established between the theology of John and the theology in the LXX. The relevant historical, Nicene and post-Nicene Fathers, and modem interpretations are examined in order to discover what crucial issues are of the utmost importance for the interpretation of John 20:22. The conclusion of this exegetical study is that during its writing the author of the Gospel of John had in mind a creation motif and a new covenant theology born out of Genesis 2:7, which is represented through Jesus\u27 action of breathing the breath of life into the disciples