Law, Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality
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UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA LAW REVIEW Founded 1852 Formerly AMERICAN LAW REGISTER © 2018 University of Pennsylvania Law Review VOL. 166 APRIL 2018 NO. 5 ARTICLE LAW, VIRTUAL REALITY, AND AUGMENTED REALITY MARK A. LEMLEY† & EUGENE VOLOKH†† Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are going to be big—not just for gaming but for work, for social life, and for evaluating and buying real-world products. Like many big technological advances, they will in some ways challenge legal doctrine. In this Article, we will speculate about some of these upcoming challenges, asking: † William H. Neukom Professor, Stanford Law School; partner, Durie Tangri LLP. Article © 2018 Mark A. Lemley & Eugene Volokh. †† Gary T. Schwartz Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law; academic affiliate, Mayer Brown LLP. Thanks to Sam Bray, Ryan Calo, Anupam Chander, Julie Cohen, Kristen Eichensehr, Nita Farahany, James Grimmelmann, Rose Hagan, Claire Hill, Chad Huston, Sarah Jeong, Bill McGeveran, Emily Murphy, Lisa Ouellette, Richard Re, Zahr Said, Rebecca Tushnet, Vladimir Volokh, and the participants at the UC Davis conference on Future-Proofing Law, the Stanford Law School conference on regulating disruption, the Internet Law Works in Progress Conference, and workshops at Stanford Law School, Duke Law School, the University of Minnesota Law School, and the University of Washington for comments on prior drafts; and to Tyler O’Brien and James Yoon for research assistance. (1051) 1052 University of Pennsylvania Law Review [Vol. 166: 1051 (1) How might the law treat “street crimes” in VR and AR—behavior such as disturbing the peace, indecent exposure, deliberately harmful visuals (such as strobe lighting used to provoke seizures in people with epilepsy), and “virtual groping”? Two key aspects of this, we will argue, are the Bangladesh problem (which will make criminal law very hard to practically enforce) and technologically enabled self-help (which will offer an attractive alternative protection to users, but also a further excuse for real-world police departments not to get involved). (2) How might the law handle tort lawsuits, by users against users, users against VR and AR environment operators, outsiders (such as copyright owners whose works are being copied by users) against users, and outsiders against the environment operators? (3) How might the law treat users’ alteration of other users’ avatars, or creation of their own avatars that borrow someone else’s name and likeness? (4) How might privacy law deal with the likely pervasive storage of all the sensory information that VR and AR systems present to their users, and that they gather from the users in the course of presenting it? (5) How might these analyses reflect on broader debates even outside VR and AR, especially order without law and the speech–conduct distinction? INTRODUCTION ............................................................................ 1053 I. THE RISE OF THE MACHINES ............................................... 1058 A. The Technological Background ..................................................... 1058 B. The Practical Applications .......................................................... 1059 C. The Effect on our Interaction with the World ................................. 1063 1. Distraction ....................................................................... 1063 2. Immersion ........................................................................ 1064 3. Image ............................................................................... 1066 4. Data ................................................................................. 1069 II. CRIME ON THE VIRTUAL STREET .......................................... 1070 A. What Would VR/AR Street Crimes Be Like? ................................. 1070 1. Disturbing the Peace and the Bangladesh Problem .............. 1071 2. Indecent Exposure ............................................................ 1076 3. Virtual Intrusion ............................................................... 1080 4. Strobe Lighting and Virtual Assault .................................. 1081 5. “Virtual Groping” ............................................................. 1082 6. Crimes that Can’t be Easily Technologically Avoided—Extortion, Threats, and the Like ....................... 1085 7. AR Crimes that Can’t Be Easily Technologically 2018] Law, Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality 1053 Avoided—Startling ........................................................... 1086 B. Diversity of Sensescape ............................................................... 1087 C. Defaults and the Initial Intrusion ................................................. 1091 D. Beyond the Audiovisual: Haptic Assault ....................................... 1094 E. Consent .................................................................................... 1096 F. Consent and Impersonation ......................................................... 1100 III. TORT, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, AND VR/AR PROVIDER LIABILITY ................................................................................ 1101 A. Direct Tort Lawsuits Against Offenders: The Causes of Action .......... 1101 B. Direct Tort Lawsuits Against Offenders: Practicalities (and Impracticalities) ......................................................................... 1103 C. Tort Lawsuits for Physical Injuries to Outsiders .............................. 1104 D. Using Tort Law to Draft VR/AR Operators into Preventing Misbehavior by Users ................................................................. 1106 E. Copyright and Trademark Liability to Outsiders ............................. 1111 F. 47 U.S.C. § 230 as a Limit on VR/AR Operator Liability ................ 1113 G. Tort Liability for Physical Injury to Users; Terms of Use as Contractual Limits on Liability .................................................... 1114 IV. HOW OTHER PEOPLE SEE YOU, EVEN IF YOU DON’T SEE IT ..... 1117 A. Your Role in Others’ Personal Sensescapes ...................................... 1117 B. Display to Others ....................................................................... 1120 C. Pervasive Display ....................................................................... 1122 V. PERVASIVE INFORMATION CAPTURE ...................................... 1125 VI. COMPULSORY VR EXPERIENCES ............................................ 1128 VII. PRIVATIZATION ...................................................................... 1130 A. Monopolies ................................................................................ 1130 B. Free Speech ............................................................................... 1132 VIII. THE LIGHT VR AND AR CAN SHED ON LEGAL DEBATES MORE BROADLY ................................................................................ 1134 A. Order Without (Much) Law ........................................................1134 B. Virtual Reality and the Speech–Conduct Distinction ........................1136 C. The Virtual, the Real, and the Nature of Harm .............................. 1137 CONCLUSION ................................................................................. 1138 INTRODUCTION In 2016, the world suddenly went crazy for Pokémon GO. Millions of people were traveling to spaces public and private to catch, train, and fight with monsters that only they could see. As the mania spread, cities and parks 1054 University of Pennsylvania Law Review [Vol. 166: 1051 held Pokémon GO parties.1 Hospitals and the Holocaust Museum put up signs warning players that no Pokémon could be found there.2 At least one police station politely asked people who came searching for Pokémon to do so outside the building.3 Gamers and those nostalgic for the Pokémon card game loved the Pokémon GO phenomenon. People whose property was invaded by dozens or hundreds of Pokémon GO players hated it, or adapted to it, or tried to make money from it.4 Many others were puzzled by it. And us? We’re law professors, so naturally our first thought was “just imagine how many potential legal questions this raises!” That’s why lawyers are so much fun at cocktail parties. Pokémon GO was the first exposure most of the world had to augmented reality (AR). AR allows digital content to be layered over the real world. Using special glasses or, more commonly for now, a smartphone, AR users can see the real world as it actually exists, but with digital images superimposed on the world so that they seem to exist as part of the world. And while gaming is the first application to reach the mass market, it won’t be the last. Our experience of the real world will increasingly be overlaid with information and 5 images—sometimes related to what we physically see, sometimes not. 1 See, e.g., Irv Leavitt, Northbrook Police Plan Pokemon Go Hunt with Northbrook Kids, CHI. TRIB. (Aug. 2, 2016, 4:56 PM), http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/northbrook/news/ct-nbs-pokemon- walk-tl-0804-20160802-story.html [https://perma.cc/BW5E-R3CT]. 2 Suzanne Baker, At Naperville Hospital and Schools, It’s Pokemon ‘No’, CHI. TRIB. (Jul. 19, 2016, 6:20 PM), http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/naperville-sun/ct-nvs-naperville-pokemon-no-st-0720-20160719- story.html [https://perma.cc/L8KM-GSS4]; Andrea Peterson, Holocaust Museum to Visitors: Please Stop Catching Pokémon Here, WASH. POST (Jul. 12, 2016), https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/ 2016/07/12/holocaust-museum-to-visitors-please-stop-catching-pokemon-here/?utm_term=.667536c9b43b