This document discusses the legal regime applicable to virtual objects in virtual worlds, examining the challenges of applying classical property law to digital entities.
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[...] This wave of generalization does not mean that the distinction between corporeal object and incorporeal object does not persist. By definition, the corporeal object would belong to the real and physical world and would be characterized by tangibility, the incorporeal object, on the other hand, cannot be really grasped, and would be intangible. Unlike corporeal objects that can be touched, intangible goods cannot be. Jean Carbonnier argued that the very existence of these objects would essentially and 'only' rest on the rights they confer.84. [...]
[...] It is certainly that the objects exclusively created and commercialized by developers are their exclusive property. While for the others, an argument can be heard. It is necessary to distinguish, as Antoine Chéron has done,126 between traditional crafting and modern crafting. The traditional crafting is defined by Antoine Chéron as being 'recovery and fusion of pre-existing objects'. In this case, the only work of the user consists in rearranging what already exists in a certain way that is specific to the user. [...]
[...] A proposed solution would be to consider the virtual objects created within the framework of a game, for example, as composite works. This work is defined in Article L.113-2, paragraph 2 of the Intellectual Property Code as being "the new work into which a pre-existing work is incorporated without the collaboration of the latter". This qualification would allow for a balance between the software publisher who provided the pre-existing elements for creation and the rights of users who have made a derivative work on which they hold property rights." This qualification taken from intellectual property law does not allow us to establish well-defined criteria as we would expect from an ad hoc regime. [...]
[...] Judges are now basing the rule on property law98. Therefore, the intangibility of the photos used has not disqualified the protection based on property law. So an existing house, having been digitized and thus transformed into a virtual object, could be protected as a real estate property being the basis of the protection. Would it be possible to classify the virtual object in the category of real estate by ricochet? A priori, it is possible that no classification truly reflects the essence of the virtual object. [...]
[...] Based on these statements, it is possible to retain two definitions of the virtual object, adopting a rather technical conception of this object as lines of code transcribed by a graphical interface, another jurisprudential retaining the qualification of digital assets. It would now be necessary to compare the virtual object to the classic object (II). The virtual object compared to the classic object In a classical approach, the word good according to Frédéric Zenati-Castaing would refer to things 'whose utility justifies appropriation'77. Thus, the utility of the thing itself, and the existence of a specific legal regime for the thing find their essence in the added value and utility of this thing for the individual holding it. [...]
