Dave Elchoness' Page

For the full interview at VirtuallyBlind.com Interview: Employment Attorney Dave Elchoness Discusses IRS Ruling Holding that Electric Sheep’s Virtual World Greeters Are “Employees” May 15th, 2008 by Benjamin Duranske An The Second Life Herald recently reported that the IRS issued a ruling that the Electric Sheep Company’s Second Life greeters for its CSI:NY promotion were “employees” rather than contractors, implicati… Continue

Just got a big crew in to the AVW from ActiveWorlds. I haven't spent a lot of time in ActiveWorlds, but do recall being a touristy-looking avatar there with a hat, hawaiian shirt, and bermuda shorts for a while. A stocky fellow I think. I enjoyed the world and looking around it. At the time, I was doing a survey of a whole number of worlds, and as such moved on. Having ActiveWorlders here is fantastic as this is an organization seeking to further the medium of virtual worlds rather than any bra… Continue

I spoke today at the Midwinter Meeting of the American Bar Association's Technology in the Practice & Workplace Committee in Chicago (link). What a pleasant experience this was. Sure seems like we're getting somewhere when attorneys outside of IP spend valuable time thinking about virtual worlds and their impact. On the panel with me were some excellent attorneys from private practice, government, academia, and ADR. A wonder… Continue

cross-posted at www.VRWorkplace.com Way back when Double Happiness Jeans was announced as manufacturing its jeans inside of Second Life using avatar workers, I suggested in a number of places including Business Communicators of Second Life (http://tiny.cc/dCLST) that this kind of employment remains subject to real life workplace laws including minimum wage, benefits, pension, etc. Double Happiness was, of course, compensating avatars at the rate of, I believe, L200 an hour (or about .90$) plus… Continue

When you spend as much time as I do reading through what's written about the metaverse everyday, you sometimes get a bit down about what you see day after day. Invariably it's the same article written time and again and typically it includes the "I have a first life, I don't need a Second" refrain from the journalist who probably has never set virtual foot in a virtual world. Sometimes you see writing that recognizes the potential of virtual worlds. Only very rarely, in my opinion, do you see th… Continue