This paper considers the issue of online gamer rights and how they are likely to be treated by the law primarily designed to encourage and protect creative expression - copyright law. Online gaming introduces a new genre of experience where consumers buy the entertainment to produce their own entertainment. This hybrid role of a consumer/ producer has been described as that of a ‘conducer’. The conducer phenomenon is not just limited to online gaming but is reflective of the greater interactivity which digital technologies introduce for people, traditionally referred to as consumers, to experience information and entertainment. It is in online gaming, however, that this phenomenon is most apparent. Taking recent controversies in the online gaming world surrounding out of game auctions of in game items, the proliferation of ‘cheats’ and creative fan expression, this paper explores how the issue of gamer rights raises foundational questions such as what is authorship and who is entitled to claim rights and compensation as an author? It also discusses how online gamer rights challenge existing rights schemas and whether historically recognized rights are appropriate to be transported ‘as is’ to this new digital landscape. Ultimately, the paper concludes that these challenges expose the problematic ideal of the Romantic, original author and the derivative works paradox. The likely assertion of traditional concepts of original authorship in favor of online gaming companies, at the expense of gamers, in the possibility space created and explored by gamers or “conducers” is problematic because it denies them the use of cultural signifiers to describe themselves and their experiences.
