Should LL take legal action against griefers?

People have gone to jail for a lot less than what this poll is about.

Now if you take it at the least possible offense, minor vandalism of private property, that's essentially a misdemener. A minor crime, community service and all that (maybe a fine and slap on the wrist). Doing it many times however, will still get you in jail just as fast as if you stole a car.

On the double standard thing, yeah, that's decerebrate.

I agree, Tcoz.

The bottom line with power is that it can only be exerted if people have it to begin with.

*grins deviously*

Of course, there are more forms of power than simple Linden muscle. Of course, I'm a proponent for rights for everyone, not just me and you and people who have a lot of friends in SL who can boycott / blacklist the hell out of people. I'd much rather have a solution that keeps the little guy safe, too.

Ryen, I'm talkign seriously now, I don't give a damn, and I have no intention of leaving just because you think I should.

See, I don't see SL as a computer game, any more than I do the internet. It occasionaly takes on the aspects of a game, but it has potential for vastly more. I see SL as a fledgeling "Next Thing", along the same lines as the internet, and as such, I think griefing (Such as being discussed here) is on par with destroying a website IRL. I don't think either are just "harmless fun" or "playing rough", nor do I find them acceptable.

If you wanna act like a horses ass and get your jollies by being rude and nasty to other human beings, go play Quake, or Ultima Online, or something.

I disagree that griefing trashes Second Life. It is an action that is done using Second Life and is entirely within Second Life's designed operating abilities. So no call to the police. It is more like the slow dancing analogy (an unwanted action) than something that does actual harm.

I've bolded, italicised, underlined, and enlarged your own words so you will be able to focus.
SL was not designed to be a place for griefers, according to white papers, TOS, and Linden Lab's continued enforcement. Period.

But it WAS designed for the creation of prims, the auto return of prims when a plot is over it's allocation... It was designed for running scripts, it was designed for building walls, possibly large ones. It was designed for all these things. You can use these design features for good or for being a nuisance but they are part of the operation of second life. By creating thousands of prims you are not trashing second life, you are using it normally. Maybe you're using it with bad intentions, but that's a judgement call for the operators. But you're not trashing it. Trashing it would be wiping the sim servers' hard drives, or yanking out network cables etc...

This is utter subjective postmodernist nihilism.

For that matter, punching you in the face is is what my body is certainly capable of doing, but it sure as hell isn't a moral, ethical, or legal thing, either.

That's right, if you punch me you're not trashing or abusing your body, the ability to punch is a function of the human machine. Wether it's right to punch or not punch must be a judgement call for the operator.

Quoted for truth and slow-thinkers.

And by your logic, I can judge it fine to punch you with no consequences. But even if I was amoral about it, I choose to live in a legal system that forbids assault except for defense.

So, essentially you're pro-anarchy. Which you're entitled to be, strictly philosophically speaking. But, and I'll say this in hopes that if I say it enough times you'll get it - Linden Lab owns the servers, they have chosen not to have anarchy. You sign a legal, RL contract called the "Terms of Service" to play, agreeing not to grief people. They have every right to ask you not to grief on their own servers, and they have every right to stop you from griefing.

They have designed a computer software program, and like any, it has flaws. If you exploit the flaws in any computer system, it's hacking. If you do it in a malicious way, it's cracking, and that's prosecutable by law. If you exploited Windows, crashed a boatload of computers with a virus, and hid behind your arguments, you'd be in jail for a long time, buddy.

No it's not, it's assault, and therefore a crime, albeit in most cases not exactly a serious one.

Suspending or banning an account IS legal action, but hey, by all means go to court (if you can find a DA who wants to prosecute for something which happened in a video game) and present your case of "Some guy made my virtual reality house vanish, please make him give me money". In a case like this, if you sued for the MAXIMUM amount, you'd be looking at about 5 dollars, and that's if you got a judge who played second life and was extremely sympathetic. If you read the agreement you signed properly, you'll find yourself and linden labs are mainly responsible for what happens, in court, the only way you'd be able to take criminal action would be if the Lindens removed all other countermeasures for banning and changed the agreement to specfically make people responsible for your virtual property and it's cost in the real world.

Hello mr. newbie.
Do you realize that some people have thrown thousands of dollars at this "video game"?
No, you dont.
Do you realize how much money you can make in SL, or even that some people practically LIVE off of this?
No, apparently you dont either.
A friend of mine from beta hasnt even built anything new since october, and just by letting his shop sit around in the same place it has always been, he is making $300 a month.
Can anyone post one single logical reason why SL stores should be treated differently from WWW stores or RL stores?
I imagine that if someone went to amazon.com and trashed the place, their heads would roll REAL fast
Some people apparently think that anything with pretty graphics is a "video game", or that anything that doesn't involve physical items, but rather takes place inside a computer, is not serious, and should not be taken seriously.
This is a dangerously narrow view of the world. Your entire bank account has no real physical item behind it. Your salary is mere digits on a computer disk, somewhere. Your boss tells some grunt to punch in the proper keys and a "deposit" is made by adding a few numbers together inside a CPU somewhere.
SL is NOT a game. SL is the new web. A metaverse. In the future, a significant percentage of people will work online in worlds like these, just as we now have one hell of a lot of people working on the World Wide Web.

This thread is stupid. It would be far too costly to pursue griefers other than simply to lock them out of SL.

The Lindens have made a reasonable effort to prevent griefing, and that is all that can be expected of them.

Being an asshole is NOT against the law. God Bless America!

Which is a shame...
Why? I thought America was trying to take God out of the equation.

No, but being a vandal is, which was the thrust of that post that you convieniently missed.

Good Point,

God Bless the Greenback!!

Better, S? tee hee hee

Ah, but was anything actually vandalized in the eyes of the law? I'm not sure what the conditions for vandalism are, but if it never physically took place, I'm doubtful it could be termed 'vandalism'.

Wall Street, I'm not talking about FILING LAWSUITS for everyone who does as little as pull out a PUSH GUN.
I'm just saying that in this specific case, and future cases of similar magnitude, where a malicious attack that exploits a bug in the software and results in massive losses of content, forcing LL to intervene, roll back simulators, and waste their time and money, those responsible should be turned over to the authorities.

Eggy,

I agree with you in principle. However, try finding a DA or a Judge who won't laugh you out of court. :-/

Plus,

I just thought of something. Suppose a minor is committing the "vandalism" a.k.a. Griefing.

Absolutely nothing will happen to them. Hell, minors can commit murder and never see a day of time.

As a generic term. It would lump it under the same catagory as a DoS attack against a website, so I guess it's technicly not vandalism, but still a crime.

Minors aren't immune. It's just harder to nail their asses to the wall for the shit they pull. It happens, when the stars are all in alignment.

Wow, lots of folks are confusing what they wish the state of law with respect to virtual worlds was in actuality true.

There may come a day when virtual property is considered "real" enough to be able to damage but we aren't there yet. As it is, the courts are stumbling over the estate's rights to some decedent's yahoo mail and this is like migs and megs easier than what your build in Limantour is worth.