"State of Play III: Social Revolutions" is the third annual State of Play: Law, Games, and Virtual Worlds conference on the future of cyberspace. This year, the focus of the conference is social relationships in the metaverse and how to build vibrant, flourishing, creative places. The conference is convened by the Institute for Information Law & Policy at New York Law School, the Information Society Project at Yale Law School, and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School.

The conference will be held on October 6-8, 2005 at New York Law School in New York City. This year's event is expected to be the best yet, drawing leading voices in the online virtual world and video game industries together with legal and social thinkers to explore the next generation of cyberspace and the legal implications of its massively multiplayer, immersive and graphical environments.

The conference organizers have intentionally brought together virtual world experts with technological neophytes to deepen a shared understanding of the impact of law on the virtual world and of the virtual world on our legal, social and political structures.

The conference will feature panels on:

law and journalism in virtual worlds

the law of virtual worlds

the rise of stock markets

public space and architecture in virtual worlds

and globalization and the metaverse.

This year, the conference has sponsored a Virtual Public Space Design Competition, which has solicited civic and public architecture proposals in an effort to stimulate the design of better public spaces in virtual worlds. The competition will be judged by a panel of professional architects, architectural theorists and game designers including Harvard's Nathan Glazer, renowned public intellectual and author of The Public Face of Architecture; Anne Beamish, architect and professor, University of Texas; and Yehuda Kalay, architect and professor, University of California at Berkeley. Submissions will be showcased at the State of Play conference and form the centerpiece of the panel on public architecture in the metaverse.

A special keynote panel will mark the tenth anniversary of cyberlaw with a debate about governance in the new cyberspaces. There will be the traditional State of Play keynote dinner, showcasing leading virtual world technologies and their designers; the State of the Industry breakfast; and of course, the Dance Dance Revolution Extravaganza, the Mini-Machinima Film Festival, music, art and film from the new frontier, and wonderful conversation.

For the conference schedule and registration, please visit www.nyls.edu/stateofplay.