Friend of the (games)Blog and founder of the Virtual Policy Network think tank, Ren Reynolds has announced a virtual worlds-oriented conference happening in two weeks time, just before the busy Develop Conference takes off in Brighton. It's called Virtual Policy 08 and is co-sponsored by BERR, the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (former DTI). Taking as its starting points four key legal and regulatory issues, this event aims to bring together practitioners, policy makers and public servants for two days to grapple with Intellectual Property Rights, Financial Transaction, Children Online and Governance Frameworks.
From Ren's post on Terra Nova,
What interests me about this event is that much of the debate about virtual worlds that one sees in academia, at least, has been driven by the US. This means that North American issues, rhetoric and sensibilities have been given primacy. Hosting an event in the UK should help to flush out those areas where Europeans either don't think an issue is important or have a very different framing of it.
