Almajano et al. on v-mWater: An e-Government Application for Water Rights Agreements

Pablo Almajano, Dr. Tomas Trescak, Dr. Marc Esteva, Professor Dr. Inmaculada Rodríguez, and Professor Dr. Maite López-Sánchez, have published v-mWater: An e-Government Application for Water Rights Agreements, in Agreement Technologies (pp. 583-595), edited by Sascha Ossowski (Springer 2013).

Here is the abstract:

Nowadays, governments are increasingly taking advantage of Information and Communication Technologies to provide services over the internet (the so-called e-Government applications) to citizens, businesses, employees, and agencies. We argue that e-government services will benefit from being distributed and intelligent, and thus, that they can be modelled as Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). The field of MAS focuses on the design and development of systems composed of autonomous entities which interact within an environment in order to achieve their common or individual goals. Nevertheless, although humans can be seen as autonomous entities, most MAS methodologies and infrastructures do not consider direct human participation. In general, the human role is limited to acting behind the scenes by customising provided agent templates. The resulting agents participate in the system on humans’ behalf. In order to overcome this limitation we propose using 3D Virtual Worlds, which is one of a very few technologies that provides all the necessary means for direct human inclusion inside software systems. 3D Virtual Worlds are 3D graphical environments where humans participate represented as graphical embodied characters (avatars) and can interact there by using simple and intuitive control facilities. We advocate that 3D Virtual Worlds technology can be successfully used for “opening” multiagent systems to humans. This idea is used in Virtual Institutions, which combine Electronic Institutions and 3D Virtual Worlds to engineer applications where participants may be human and software agents. In this chapter we present the prototype v-mWater, a virtual market based on trading Water. It is an e-Government application in the agriculture domain modelled as a Virtual Institution where participants are irrigators and employees of a hydrographic basin. We present the specification of the system, the virtual world generation from this specification and its deployment using the Virtual Institution eXEcution Environment (VIXEE). Finally, we show an example execution of our virtual market in order to illustrate the advantages of our approach.

Richardson on E-Possession

Sally B. Richardson, Esq. presented a paper entitled E-Possession, at ALPS 2011: The Association for Law, Property, and Society Annual Meeting, held 4-5 March 2011 at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC, USA. Here is the abstract:

To acquire title to real property via adverse possession, the taking party must physically use the property in a continuous, uninterrupted, peaceable, public, and unequivocal manner for a statutorily required time period. Historically, one of the reasons for requiring a party to meet all of these requirements—particularly the requirement of actual, physical use of the property—was to put the record owner on notice of the existence of the adverse claimant. Today, courts and scholars cite that same rationale when reciting the traditional, and still enforceable, elements. Much has changed, however, since the doctrine of adverse possession was first promulgated. Given changes in how individuals own land and changes in technology, this Article questions whether all elements of adverse possession remain necessary. Specifically, the Article contemplates whether technology has developed such that requiring actual use of property in order to acquire the property through adverse possession leads to the wasteful use of property, not only from the perspective of the adverse claimant, but also from the point of view of the record owner. After discussing whether the traditional elements of adverse possession encourage waste, this Article develops the concept of electronically possessing real property (“e-possession”) as a means of acquiring title. In developing the idea of e-possession, the Article considers the positives and negatives of applying the concept and how e-possession would operate.

Thanks to Ms. Richardson for sending the abstract.

New on VoxPopuLII: Čyras on Legal Frameworks of Virtual Worlds

Professor Dr. Vytautas Čyras of the Vilnius University Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics has posted On a Legal Framework in a Virtual World: Lessons from the VirtualLife Project, on the VoxPopuLII Blog, published by the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University Law School.

In this post, Professor Čyras describes the regulatory infrastructure of VirtualLife, the experimental European Union-funded virtual world. In this infrastructure, legal and technological constraints are used together in an attempt to provide effective but flexible regulation.

Professor Čyras emphasizes the decentralized, “federalist” governance structure of VirtualLife — which provides for uniform protection of core rights while permitting groups to form smaller communities and to customize the laws that govern them — the peer-to-peer architecture of VirtualLife, which complements the decentralized governance structure; the VirtualLife e-contracting environment, which offers a variety of standard contract terms while allowing parties to create their own customized terms; and “virtual laws,” which enable technological grants and enforcement of intellectual property and other rights.

This post should be of interest to all those who are interested in the legal dimension of virtual worlds, including developers, policy makers, legal professionals, information systems researchers, and information providers.

Call for Papers: COIN@AAMAS 2011

A call for papers — with submission deadline of 30 January 2011 — has been issued for COIN@AAMAS 2011: 12th International Workshop on Coordination, Organizations, Institutions and Norms in Agent Systems, at the 10th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, to be held 2-3 May 2011, in Taipei, Taiwan.

Papers are invited on the following topics:

• logics, languages and tools for specifying coordination and norms, implementing or simulating organizations and institutions;
• law of open multi-agent systems: regulatory compliance, penalty and sanctions, dispute resolution and conflict prevention;
• agent societies and communities, social networks, electronic institutions and virtual organizations;
• formal lifecycle models: formation, maintenance, evolution and dissolution of organizations, institutions and normative multi-agent systems;
• formal methods for specifying coordination and organizational structures; models for verification, validation and visualisation;
• autonomic institutions and self-organization in multi-agent systems;
• frameworks and protocols for organized and organizational adaptation;
• mechanisms for governance of common pool resources;
• agent environments: physical and institutional resources for physical capability and institutional power;
• discovery, openness and inter-operation in organizations and institutions;
• mixed human-agent coordination and institutions in virtual worlds; participatory simulation.
• reports on implemented systems.

For more information, please see the call for papers.

HT Pablo Noriega.

Čyras & Lachmayer on Technical Rules & Legal Rules in Online Virtual Worlds

Professor Dr. Vytautas Čyras of the Vilnius University Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, and Professor Dr. Friedrich Lachmayer of Universität Innsbruck Institut für Öffentliches Recht, Staats- und Verwaltungslehre, have published Technical Rules and Legal Rules in Online Virtual Worlds, in European Journal of Law and Technology, vol. 1, no. 3 (2010). Here is the abstract:

The paper presents a reflection on a legal framework of a three-dimensional virtual world. Here visualisation and symbolisation precede formalisation on the way to construction and legal knowledge representation. Thus the visualisation of virtual world issues can have a favourable effect on modelling, formal representation and implementation. The paper also identifies a legal informatics approach which is worded “From rules in law to rules in artefact”. The rules are divided into classes, such as legal, technical, professional, reputation, etc. The modes of effect of rules are distinguished, too. The differences of the technical rules and the legal rules are in the focus. The development tackles a virtual world platform within the FP7 VirtualLife project, which pursues the goal to create a secure and legally ruled collaboration environment.

Call for Papers: LSPI 2010: International Conference on Legal, Security and Privacy Issues in IT Law

A call for papers — with submission deadlines for papers of 10 September 2010 and for abstract presentations of 15 October 2010 — has been issued for LSPI 2010: International Conference on Legal, Security and Privacy Issues in IT Law, to be held 3-5 November 2010 in Barcelona, Spain.

Papers are invited on the following topics:

• “Cybercrime
• E-signatures
• E-forensics and Evidence
• Email monitoring and privacy issues in the workplace
• Data retention & protection
• Intellectual Property Rights
• Contract and Tort
• Virtual Companies
• E-commerce law
• Media & entertainment law
• Data mining
• Internet Freedom Phishing, virus, malware etc.
• Trustmarks Legal risks and protection strategies
• E-government & E-democracy
• Privacy, Virology and security issues
• Jurisdiction in Cyberspace
• Cloud computing
• Online gaming
• Mobile technology
• Robots & Intelligent agents
• Consumer Protection
• Cross-border ADR and Litigation
• Content Regulation and Liability Issues
• Telecommunication law and technology
• Licensing and franchising
• IT Outsourcing
• Taxation of cross-border transactions
• Jurisdictional barriers to regulation and enforcement
• E-trade
• Audio-visual technology
• Broadband technology
• Virtual worlds: regulation and taxation issues
• Biometrics
• Risk Management
• Brain Computer Interfaces”

For more information, please see the call for papers.

Bailenson on Transformed Social Interaction in Virtual Reality

Professor Jeremy N. Bailenson of the Stanford University Department of Communication on 25 January 2010 gave a presentation, entitled Transformed Social Interaction in Virtual Reality, at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Several aspects of the presentation may be of interest to legal informatics or legal communication researchers:

• Professor Bailenson discussed his research on the acquisition of false memories in virtual reality: Kathryn Y. Segovia & Jeremy N. Bailenson, Virtually True: Children’s Acquisition of False Memories in Virtual Reality, 12 Media Psychology 371 (2009).

Abstract: Previous work on human memory has shown that prompting participants with false events and self-relevant information via different types of media such as narratives, edited 2-dimensional images, and mental imagery creates false memories. This study tested a new form of media for studying false memory formation: Immersive Virtual Environment Technology (IVET). Using this tool, we examined how memory was affected by viewing dynamic simulations of avatars performing novel actions. In the study, 55 preschool and elementary children were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 memory prompt conditions (idle, mental imagery, IVET simulation of another child, or IVET simulation of self). Each child was questioned 3 different times: once before the memory prompt, once immediately after the memory prompt, and once approximately 5 days after the memory prompt. Results showed that preschool children were equally likely to develop false memories regardless of memory prompt condition. But, for elementary children, the mental imagery and IVET self conditions caused significantly more false memories than the idle condition. Implications regarding the use of digital media in courtroom settings, clinical therapy settings, entertainment, and other applications are discussed.

• Professor Bailenson discussed several studies suggesting techniques that make one more or less persuasive, or more or less confident while communicating, in virtual reality. That research may be of interest to those studying potential applications of virtual reality to legal communication and decisionmaking, such as in legislative or administrative lawmaking, judicial or administrative proceedings, online alternative dispute resolution, legal negotiation, communication with clients, policy debates, etc.;
• During the discussion, Professor Julie E. Cohen of Georgetown Law Center remarked that Professor Bailenson’s research suggests that virtual reality vitiates perhaps the most important basis of evidentiary validity in U.S. evidence law: personal knowledge obtained via direct perception;
• Throughout the presentation and discussion, Professor Bailenson discussed a variety of innovative methods for conducting empirical research on human cognition and behavior in virtual reality; many of those methods seem applicable to a range of legal informatics and legal communication research.

[NOTE: The following was added on 13 February 2010:] Click here for Professor Judith Donath’s post about the presentation.

Segovia & Bailenson on Children’s Acquisition of False Memories in Virtual Reality

Kathryn Y. Segovia & Professor Jeremy N. Bailenson, both of the Stanford University Department of Communication, have published Virtually True: Children’s Acquisition of False Memories in Virtual Reality, 12 Media Psychology 371 (2009). Here is the abstract:

Previous work on human memory has shown that prompting participants with false events and self-relevant information via different types of media such as narratives, edited 2-dimensional images, and mental imagery creates false memories. This study tested a new form of media for studying false memory formation: Immersive Virtual Environment Technology (IVET). Using this tool, we examined how memory was affected by viewing dynamic simulations of avatars performing novel actions. In the study, 55 preschool and elementary children were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 memory prompt conditions (idle, mental imagery, IVET simulation of another child, or IVET simulation of self). Each child was questioned 3 different times: once before the memory prompt, once immediately after the memory prompt, and once approximately 5 days after the memory prompt. Results showed that preschool children were equally likely to develop false memories regardless of memory prompt condition. But, for elementary children, the mental imagery and IVET self conditions caused significantly more false memories than the idle condition. Implications regarding the use of digital media in courtroom settings, clinical therapy settings, entertainment, and other applications are discussed.

Professor Bailenson discussed this and other research findings at his 25 January 2010 presentation, entitled Transformed Social Interaction in Virtual Reality, at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Calls for Papers: IMCIC, ISAS, KGCM, CCCT, ICETI, & ICSIT 2010

Calls for papers, all having a submission deadline of 20 January 2010, have been issued for the following conferences:

• IMCIC 2010: The International Multi-Conference on Complexity, Informatics and Cybernetics;
• ISAS 2010: The 16th International Conference on Information Systems Analysis and Synthesis;
• KGCM Spring 2010: The SPRING 4th International Conference on Knowledge Generation, Communication and Management;
• CCCT 2010: The 8th International Conference on Computing, Communications and Control Technologies;
• ICETI 2010: The International Conference on Education, Training and Informatics;
• ICSIT 2010: The International Conference on Society and Information Technologies.

The conferences are being held concurrently on 6-9 April 2010, in Orlando, Florida, USA, and appear to have the same deadlines. Please check each conference Website to verify submission deadlines and other important dates. All of the conference Websites are also linked from this Eventseer post.

Papers are invited on topics that include:

• legal information retrieval;
• legal multiagent systems;
• legal knowledge representation;
• legal ontologies;
• Semantic Web and law;
• the modeling of legal reasoning;
• the modeling of legal logic, including nonmonotonic reasoning and deontic logic;
• legal argumentation systems;
• eCommerce;
• Web 2.0 and law;
• law and virtual worlds;
• robotics and law; and
• legal instructional technology.

Please check the calls for papers, all of which are linked from the conference Websites listed above, for additional topics.

For more information, please see the calls for papers, all of which are linked from the conference Websites listed above.

HT Eventseer.

Research on Law and Virtual Worlds from the VirtualLife Project

A number of interesting recent papers on law in virtual worlds are available from the research page of VirtualLife, a virtual world project of the European Commission’s Seventh Research Framework Programme (FP7), Information & Communication Technologies (ICT), Objective 1.5 Networked Media (Netmedia). The project’s main academic partners are Vilniaus universitetas, Matematikos ir informatikos fakultetas, and Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Juristische Fakultät, Lehrstuhl Prof. Dr. Gerald Spindler. Here are the VirtualLife research works related to legal informatics/communication:

• G. Spindler, K. Anton, J. Wehage, Overview of the legal issues in virtual worlds. In: Proceedings of the 1st International ICST Conference on User Centric Media, UCMedia 2009, Venice, 9-11 December 2009.
• Summary: The paper discusses virtual world property, user evaluation systems, data protection, intellectual property, advertising, the virtual world provider’s liability for user-generated content, and online dispute resolution in the VirtualLife system.
• Dan Bogdanov & Ilja Livenson, VirtualLife: Secure identity management in peer-to-peer systems. In: Proceedings of the 1st International ICST Conference on User Centric Media, UCMedia 2009, Venice, 9-11 December 2009,
• Abstract: “The popularity of virtual worlds and their increasing economic impact has created a situation where the value of trusted identification has risen substantially. We propose an identity management solution that provides the user with secure credentials and allows to decrease the required trust that the user must have towards the server running the virtual world. Additionally, the identity management system allows the virtual world to incorporate reputation information. This allows the ‘wisdom of the crowd’ to provide more input to users about the reliability of a certain identity. We describe how to use these identities to provide secure services in the virtual world. These include secure communications, digital signatures and secure bindings to external services.”
• Vytautas Čyras, Transforming legal rules into virtual world rules: a case study in the VirtualLife platform. In: Proceedings of the 1st International ICST Conference on User Centric Media, UCMedia 2009, Venice, 9-11 December 2009; TrustVWs workshop “Virtual Worlds: Trust, Security, Rule of Law.”
• Abstract: “The paper addresses the implementation of legal rules in online virtual world software. The development is performed within a peer-to-peer virtual world platform in the frame of the FP7 VirtualLife project. The goal of the project is to create a serious, secure and legally ruled collaboration environment. The novelty of the platform is an in-world legal framework, which is real world compliant. The approach ‘From rules in law to rules in artifact’ is followed. The development accords with the conception ‘Code is law’ advocated by Lawrence Lessig. The approach implies the transformation of legal rules (that are formulated in a natural language) into machine-readable format. Such a transformation can be viewed as a kind of translation. Automating the translation requires human expert abilities. This is needed in both the interpretation of legal rules and legal knowledge representation.”
• D. Bogdanov, M.V. Crispino, V. Čyras, K. Lapin, M. Panebarco and F. Zuliani. Virtual world platform VirtualLife: P2P, security, rule of law and learning support. In: Proceedings of 2009 NEM Summit Towards Future Media Internet, 28-30 September 2009, Saint-Malo, pp. 124-129.
• Abstract: “This paper addresses the purposes, design decisions and innovative features produced while developing a peer-to-peer virtual world platform within the FP7 VirtualLife project. VirtualLife project aims to create a safe, democratic and legally ruled collaboration environment to be used for business, education and entertainment. The novelty of the platform is mainly in the issues of security and trust and in the implementation of an in-world legal framework, which is real world law compliant. Nevertheless, the research has also been focused on other technical aspects such as network, scripting and real-time 3D engine issues.”
• Čyras, V., Lapin K. User needs and legally ruled collaboration in virtual world platform VirtualLife. In Methods of Artificial Intelligence, Burczynski, T., Cholewa, W. and Moczulski, W. (eds.) AI-METH Series, Gliwice, Poland, November 2009, pp. 69-76. AI-METH 2009 Symposium on Methods of Artificial Intelligence. ISBN 83-60759-15-4.
• Abstract: “The paper addresses the purposes and design decisions produced while developing a peer-to-peer virtual world platform. The work is being done within the FP7 VirtualLife project. The purpose of the project is to create a safe, democratic and legally ruled collaboration environment. The novelty of the platform is mainly in the issues of security and trust and in the implementation of an in-world legal framework, which is real world compliant. The rule of law principle is extended to a virtual world. Such an extension advances the level of intelligence of an artifact. The approach accords with a trend in legal informatics ‘From norms in law to rules in artifact’. In the paper the authors reflect on user needs and learning support in a university virtual campus, a potential scenario. Virtual worlds’ opportunities in enhancing learning are discussed. A new paradigm of the content is characterized as interaction versus information.”
• V. Čyras & K. Lapin. Learning support and legally ruled collaboration in the VirtualLife virtual world platform. In: Proceedings of Associated Workshops and Doctoral Consortium of the13th East-European Conference, ADBIS 2009, Riga, Latvia, September 7-10, 2009, Grundspenkis, J. et al. (eds.) LNCS, Springer (in print). INTEL-EDU workshop.
• Abstract: “The paper addresses the purposes and design decisions produced while developing a peer-to-peer virtual world platform. The work is being done within the FP7 VirtualLife project. The purpose of the project is to create a safe, democratic and legally ruled collaboration environment. The novelty of the platform is mainly in the issues of security and trust and in the implementation of an in-world legal framework, which is real world compliant. In the paper the authors reflect on user needs and learning support in a university virtual campus, a potential scenario. The opportunities of a virtual world in enhancing learning are discussed. A new paradigm of the content is characterized as interaction versus information.”
• Ilja Livenson, VirtualLife Security Infrastructure. Master’s thesis. University of Tartu, 2009.
• Summary: Describes VirtualLife’s security infrastructure, which incorporates “the X.509 PKI security infrastructure standard and provides identity management, support for multiple certicates, single sign-on, generic authorisation framework, signing of multi-party contracts and other functionality.”
• User Centric Future Media Internet ( September 2008), Networked Media Unit, DG Information Society and Media of the European Commission. Contribution by M. Panebarco.
• Summary: The law-related sections discuss such topics as identity management, trust, security, virtual law, digital signatures, ecommerce, and digital rights management.
• D1.1.1 – Project Progress Report (Jan-Jun ’08 ).
• Law-Related Progress Made: “Elaboration of the concept of law governed interaction of artificial agents in multi-agent systems (MAS) in order to comply with the Constitution has been carried out. Analysing different type of commercial contracts between the avatars, a key assumption that shall always hold in VirtualLife is that liability is defined only when an avatar can be associated with a human being behind it. Ultimately only the human is liable for the actions of the avatar. A theoretical concept for the legal framework for VirtualLife has been developed. Research on data protection requirements regarding the authentication and authorisation system and the inclusion of terms of service have been concluded. Research on the liability (e.g. contributory or vicarious liability) of service providers for their users’/customers’ acts and the requirements for monetary transactions is nearly finished.”
• D1.1.2 – Project Progress Report (Jul-Dec’08)
• Law-Related Progress Made: “During the third quarter of 2008 D7.1 was finalised. On the basis of the use case scenarios developed in WP2 (D2.1 and D2.2) UGOE conducted detailed research in different areas of law evaluating, in particular, international journal articles and case law with a focus on the protection of intellectual property interests in virtual worlds arising from copyright law, the law of registered trademarks and the law against unfair competition; the protection of minors in virtual worlds; advertising in virtual worlds; user evaluation systems in virtual worlds; contract formation including the requirements regarding electronic signatures and dispute resolution in virtual worlds. (International) law journals and online publications were monitored for new publications concerning legal issues in the context of virtual world, which also resulted in an extensive list of the current state of scholarly writings in this area.”
• Law-Related Plans for Immediate Future: “In January and February 2009, there shall be an analysis of how the rules of the Supreme Constitution and the Virtual Nation Constitution can be translated into actual technical restraints in order to minimize disputes from the outset. Suggestion for the next two years: The progress of VirtualLife’s architecture as well as the fact that the law in the context of virtual worlds is developing constantly, it is advisable that the project has permanent legal support by UGOE. …”
• D2.1: End User Definition and Needs (5th May 2009)
• Summary: “This paper intends to examine the state of the art with regard to virtual worlds in 2008 and to identify the fields of applications which seem to be more promising. The final goal is to identify to which user needs Virtual Life should respond. … We present in the present work some additional information related to the overall panorama of Virtual Worlds, in which we include for the purposes of the present analysis some examples of Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games, MMORPGs, in order to provide a short overview of their main features (an in-depth analysis of these platforms is implemented in D.11.3). Moreover, the present document intends to provide a documentation of the procedure that has been followed for identifying the main requirements which will drive the development of the VirtualLife platform. A description of a roadmap setting the path for the forthcoming analysis of user needs, focused on a specific scenario that the consortium has selected due exploitation potentials is also provided.” Covers a number of law-related issues.
• WP 7 Virtual Nation Juridical System: References of D7.1 Preliminary Report of the Legal Fundamentals Concerning Virtual Worlds
• Abstract: “The ‘VirtualLife’ project aims to provide an immersive and secure environment, combining a high quality 3D virtual experience with the trustiness of a secure communication infrastructure. VirtualLife constitutes a new form of civil organization, aimed at the creation of secure and ruled places within the virtual world, where important transactions can occur. The aggregation in communities and the collaboration between users is encouraged in order to reach a management of common and private interests. This collaboration is achieved through the definition of common rules that take care of all the involved cultures. A standard collection of laws, the Virtual Constitution, finalized to the creation and regulation of a secure and trusted environment (Virtual Nation) will be studied. In order to reach high quality 3D metaverses the world objects will be distributed on a peer-to-peer network with nodes connected using a secure protocol. Thus, the resulting Virtual World will not be hosted on a central server cluster but will be based on a network of Virtual Zone Servers (VZ Servers). The peer-to-peer architecture will enable easy and fast sharing of contents without third ruling partners: the only ruling entity will be the law in force, defined by the users community and accepted by those users who join the community afterwards. Each VZ Server simulates all the entities in the zone and gives the users the possibility to create and share contents, media and data in a very intuitive way.”

HT Vytautas Čyras.