Should LL take legal action against griefers?

This harkens back to James Miller's idea of an inworld court system complete with fines and grievance mediation. The only problem is that it would have to be linden backed. So LL would have to appoint a full time LL judge or liason to keep the system from becoming biased or mob controlled and players would have to be willing to serve the court either as attorneys or jury members. I would love to see a full on web based court system seperate from the constraints of the rl courts and specific to our needs. Maybe James could post in responce to this as I may be off base completely.

I think that if more than X number (kept secret by LL) of people compain / file an abuse report on a given night, that your credit card should be charged 25 dollars. No, you're not banned or anything like that. Each night you have more than X number of complaints then you pay 25 dollars.

Then LL could put all of that money into a pool and actually upgrade the servers that are old, and everyone could have higher FPS, so, the griefers would be doing something constructive!

Eventually they will learn, OMG, I owe HOW MUCH this month??? They should write that into the TOS.

The money collected would HAVE to go back towards the community though through increased service, upgrades, whatever. ie. not LL profit.

Just a half baked idea

Jess

That's open for griefing too. Say a person (for instance Korg, though it could as easily be you or me) had upset enough people, and they decided to try to hurt him financially, all they'd need do is file a whole heap of abuse reports which might or might not have any real value (you can report a forum post for instance) and that would be that.

The idea has merit, but it shouldn't just be a count of abuse reports...

The only problem with that idea is that it could be gamed very easily. Say I had a real beef with you and so I got all my buddies on skype together and we decided off world to log in and file complaints about you. You would then be charged rl money for an sl crime. Not good, but at least an idea so your on the right track.

LOL, great minds think alike... or something.

I dont know how american law stands right now, but portuguese law is very clear on this matter, and i would be surprised if yours wasnt either.
(taken from our "informatic criminality" law of 1991)

Article 5 - Damage relative to computer data or programs

1 - He who, without proper authorization, acts with intent to cause harm to a third party or illictly obtain a benefit for himself or a third party, erases, destroys, in whole or in part, damages, supresses or renders unusabele computer data or programs belonging to others, or by any form affects their ability to be used, will be punished by imprisonment up to three years, or fine.

2 - The attempt is punishable.

3 - If the damage is elevated, the penalty shall be imprisonment up to 5 years or a fine equivalent to 600 days.

4 - If the damage is consideraby elevated, the penalty shall be imprisonment from 1 to 10 years.


You can see the original text here: http://www.cnpd.pt/Leis/lei_10991.htm
Babelfish it if you so desire.

I choose or something...as your mind is great and mine is drunk before noon on mondays (monday is my sunday or something like that)

Ah, mine's usually not drunk until 8 or 9pm, except on Sundays, where sometimes noon is about right, lol. Nothing great about my mind, lol.

At present most relevant laws treat incursions using variants of "breaking and entering". Put another way, the laws recognize transport level violations but not the application level. As long as the griefer has a valid login and password, the laws simply don't apply. I think that's what's confusing people.

I'm not in favor of griefing, or prim-griefing, but the today's law doesn't care.

I feel a bit dirty and tawdry for hijacking the thread but ahh well...I just got home from an early morning mimosa and bloody mary party , so my mind is fubar but that is alright.

Your mind however is always top notch and I am not kissing your bum, just telling ya what is already known by most and if not should be. You never attack anyone and your infrequent posts either offer humor or some nibblette of information needed by the masses. Much love sweets...


Ohh and again I would hate to see the adjudication of SL residents move outside of LL. I believe that we can as a community create a better and more just system if we wished to do so. It would take a bit of work but a global community working together towards a democratic court system would not be a bad thing....

In fairness, though, there is actually a section of the law that deals with this. It's been a year or so since I read the cybercrime laws, but there is wording to the effect of "... or exceeds given levels of access ...", as I recall, which would seem to apply here.

That's OK, It's a good way to feel
Pfft! Infrequent posts? Look at my post count hun

Why not just ban the troublemakers and be done with it?
Or set your land so that objects can't be created on it by others?

If, hypotheticly, I wanted to prim-grief someone, no-build land wouldn't stop me.

Lol but for as long as you have been around that shouldn't be beyond the norm especially considering the fact that your posts are condusive to the forwarding of a conversation....

Alby,

That would be wonderful if it worked. Thus far it has not. It has already been discussed that changing IP's and CC's is fairly easy and a person would have no problem gaining access after being banned. The problem is how does one punish a griefer and at the same time keep SL an open and free society. I say why not come up with some more inventive methods of punishment such as revoking build privileges or chat privileges or the jail scenario that another person came up with a time back. Or if the person is a land owner then they are tied to their land without the ability to travel. I just think that we should exhaust all possibilities within LL before moving into the court system.

Hire Security Forces.. '

Maybe this is a challenge for somebody to create a device that boots griefers if a certain trigger level is exceeded. Then Auto-Bans them if possible. Just a thought.

Malachi, according to your reasoning, it would be perfectly legal to steal internet access through an open WiFi link. After all, their DHCP server is actively broadcasting and assigning IPs to anyone in range, and I didnt need a username and password to do it.

So like a department of homeland security?

Oh, yes, just what we need

According to people who know more than me wardriving does not yet appear illegal. You might be able to nail someone who then uses this method to then steal IP services, but not for unauthorized 802 attachment because it is in fact de facto authorized. The "breaking and entering" metaphor does not obtain in this case. Given the relatively low value of IP traffic, even theft of service would be hard to assess enough damages to make pursuit worthwhile.

Disclaimer again: not saying there shouldn't be better law, just that there isn't.

You raise some valid points with regard to the value of the content in real life dollars. I don't necessarily disagree, though I hope that the issue could be handled with better tools, client backup ability and a better enforced TOS with fines given to the victim in addition to banning.

However, I have to say that if it comes down to an actual potential for criminal prosecution for griefing then I will have to make the decision that it is far to great a risk to Real Life to participate in Second Life any longer. As it is, I am reluctant to play with certain types of scripts (after I saw what happened to Lordfly).

It would never be my intention to grief but I could see myself making a mistake with a script and having it get out of hand and crash a sim. Or worse yet, perhaps one of my family member's teenage kid watches me log in and then when everyone is occupied elsewhere, they log in behind my back and grief people. Bad situations can happen even to those with the best of intentions.

The potential for criminal prosecution or real life liability would simply be to great a risk for me to consider continuing SL. Worrying about it would remove the joy of being part of the Second Life community. For me, Second Life is a recreation not a job.

Heh, I've had a few of my scripts run awry myself... I can still hear the screaming..

here here...which is why SL needs an internal system reorganization in order to deal with the grief minded individuals instead of relying on the already overburdened court systems.
I understand that some folks are outraged at the griefers but to take the acts of a griefer in what is still a game into the real world court system is a bit much. How far will we go? What will we determine is prosecutable and what is not? It is far different if a person has a contractual obligation to another outside of SL than if someone spawns a butt load of objects on your land. One is a breach of contract the a person gaming the system. Anyway you look at it what goes on in SL should stay in SL. Let us create our own system of order, international and beyond the reach of the American court house.

Alby, can you please not quote yourself using your alt? It's insulting to our intelligence.

Ghod I take a Hiatus and y'all loose your friggen minds.

I mean seriously, RL Jail time for game antics/griefing.

Please tell me this isnt like taking God off the Dollar bill or something.

This is getting way to full of shit for me. I have said it once I have said it a million times. There is a simple policy to follow in life.

A. Be kind to everyone.

B. If they burn you be kind to them again.

C. If they burn you twice drop napalm or Nukes on their asses and be done with them.

Simple. Not hard to follow. Oh wait Im sorry I forgot to put in there you have to try to understand them along with being Kind.

After continued thought that they are simply to stupid to realize to give up then you take action but take it legally within the bounds of the set rules AKA TOS.

Otherwise by pursuing civil actions you are no better than the supposed griefer by in essence picking up a bigger stick (Civil Actions/Suing).

Sorry its a virtual world if people need be scared of civil actions if they goof up or jail time for that matter then whats the existance of SL for. The mindless drones???

Sorry Eggy, ya blew it on this one. Idea was at best an off the hip potshot at griefers in general and at best they are LTAO at you right now.

In Simple terms its called comming of age there is a point where the point of stupidity/imaturity no longer exists and maturity kicks in apparently I have attained that stage to see the blatent ignorance of this theory.

Sorry Eggy, your still my friend n all but this Idea Suxxors.

Shadow