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E-Sign applies to transactions in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, with "transaction" defined as "an action or set of actions relating to the conduct of business, consumer, or commercial affairs between two or more persons".
It doesn't apply for all legal purposes, and suffers from a number of other problems (such as using overly broad language, lacking a defined "reasonableness" standard for demonstrating consent, and being incompatible with international standards).
I'm not at all convinced that it would apply to copyright transfers, and even if it did I'm not sure that this situation fulfills the definitions used by E-Sign (nor, as I pointed out before, would it make much difference to those outside the US).
I can see a faxed copy of a signed document holding up (although that's still just my opinion). But owning someone's copyright just because they clicked on a box? I find that very unlikely, or we'd have seen it in the big commercial MMORPGs by now - particularly considering the huge debates about content ownership.
To be legally sufficient, consideration for a promise must be legally detrimental to the promisee or legally beneficial to the promisor. In some countries the requirements are even stricter (in the UK, for example, the consideration requires something of actual economic value). $0.01 would be consideration, but I don't think "I won't remove your name from the credits section of your area file" would be - that sounds like a preexisting duty to me (without permission to use the area, you couldn't remove the credits anyway).
Consideration also requires (1) a bargain regarding terms of an exchange, (2) a mutual exchange, and (3) the exchange must be something of value. So you couldn't just throw free Uber Swords at someone and then claim you owned the copyright to their area - it would have to be negotiated in advance.
Yes, but I'm not talking about copyright law (something is pretty similar in most first world countries). I'm talking about E-Sign, which specifically a US law.
It is, but if they're not an employee then work-for-hire requires a written agreement.
In particular, I want to discourage the opinion of some mud owners that their staff automatically count as "employees", and that their copyrights are therefore automatically the property of the mud owner.
It needs a contract, which in turn requires consideration (as you pointed out). It's not something that the mud owner can just spring on their staff by surprise after they've spent a few months churning out work.
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