Libel, Breaking Contracts, etc - a part of the game of SecondLife?

I wonder if something ever went to trial in SecondLife, like breaking a L$ contract (no outside USD involved) or libelling avatars - if that would be considered to be a part of the roleplaying experience of SecondLife.

I mean, that's what we're all doing. We're roleplaying. A part of the fundamental experience is our ability to involve ourselves in risky behaviour that we can't do in real life.

So if someone libels an avatar or breaks a contract, or shoots a series of voyeuristic upskirt photographs - maybe they are just role playing?

I guess this is another reason why LL should not get involved in currency exchange, because at some point that 'third wall' will get broken down and we can no longer say it's just role playing.

Without out any form of government, yes... this is the way it is.

Sad but true.

Is it sad?

I wonder. Sometimes we can see SecondLife as an experiment for true free-market capitalism with no government oversight. Also, the opportunity to role play certain types of characters gives us all chance to discover interesting things about ourselves.

urizenus (can't remember his RL name) posted some papers on this issue and had some interesting insights.

I suspect this is something Robin Linden is pushing at universities - SL as a model to study to see what happens in true a free market world.

we got a government (LL), we got laws (TOS) and we got police (Lindens). may not be the government you want or all the laws you would choose or maybe you don't like the police but sl sure isn't an anarchy.

just because something might be against irl laws doesn't mean it's against sl laws. libel is probably covered by the TOS against harrassment. just remember it's not libel if it's true.

upskirt shots probably aren't covered by anything in the TOS unless you post them in a pg sim. if you don't like that then lobby the Lindens to give us some kind of right to privacy. we have plenty of rights in the TOS but that's not really one of them.

breaking contracts requires contract laws which we don't have so in sl you can't break a contract. no contracts to break. lobby the Lindens if you want them or do business with people you trust.

sl is like another country. there's a government that enforces laws but they may not be all the same laws from where you come from. when you go to another country you follow its laws.

i dunno where the idea that sl is an anarchy totally free market with no laws or government came from. half this forums is about people breaking sl laws and getting smacked by the government. i guess it's different enough from the US government that people don't see the forest for the trees. maybe it should be more like a question of whether the sl government is a just one and whether it's the kind you want or can live with.

and for the record i don't think it's sad either.

Well, I do find it interesting because in RL if you tried these things, you can get in very very hot water.

I believe if LindenLabs started facilitating the exchange of currency, the TOS would no longer be the ruleset but rather then the laws of the land where the individuals resided would be the law.

Because they keep it to all 'play money', they can continue to claim that this is just a game.

But, IANAL, so who knows.

Everyone should remember that SL is a world that does not afford one the opportunity for burden of proof. It is a dictatorship and shall remain one unless someone feels the need to challenge them in court. I'm cool with dictators since this is the program I signed up for.

So, no one should even consider comparing SL and RL -- particularly the U.S. system. SL has no courts, no juries, no Court TV. People can and will push the edges and break so-called contracts at every turn since they know they can either stay and conform or be tossed. Let's face it, not too many conformists here.


BTW -- who is responsible for burden of proof in libel cases under the U.S. system? How about in SL? IN SL, there is none. That is why comparing the two systems is an apples/oranges thingie!

I hear ya Zuzi. And you make some good points.

But the truth is... what we've got right now is not getting things done. We've still got griefers, we've still got upskirt museums... we've still got lag... and we've got a bunch of patches that only seem to make things worse. It's just not working.

Now I'm not gonna say that I'm about ready to quit over this stuff, but I am sayin' that I don't like it. And a lot of people agree with me, which is why this debate will continue until things change.

A contract is a contract, whether it's talking about moving pixels on a screen or selling widgets to the Acme Company. Just because your actions are indicated by the on-screen movement of an avatar doesn't mean they're any less enforceable by a legally binding agreement.

The key here, of course, is legally binding. Contracts agreed to over IMs aren't worth the paper they're written on...and most partnerships entered into on SL are 'at will' at best. But if some group was to get serious about doing RL business in SL...like say GOM or IGE does...or even long term in-world projects like multi-sim island paradises...they could enter into contracts that could very well hold up in court. Second Life may be virtual, but the promises we make within it are very real.

Second Life isn't a roleplaying game. There is no hard boundary between In Character and Out Of Character. You are responsible for what your character says and does, even if you're a 10-foot tall rabbit with a watermelon launcher.

Perhaps. However, if we were paying monopoly (or risk) and we had a side contract going and I broke my word - could you sue me?


However, I found this on the SL homepage which does lend some weight to what you are saying:



I think they are saying that L$ is worth real USD, which may means that the whole world should be regulated by business law.

Especially since everyone runs businesses under their avatar's name and not their own, they do require business licenses and they need to register their company (if they are making a reasonable amount of money).

And there is the question of the patriot act and the number of potential money laundering schemes .. however I guess the leader board takes care of that. Though... if you had enough ALTs? I wonder what IGE or GOM do in order to be compliant.

It's all very very interesting.

Eventually these problems will need to be dealt with.

IAAL, and in my opinion, the simplest way is to contract directly with the other person via paper contracts in RL. Having a contract allows you to incorporate all kinds of stuff that would be a lengthy fight in any legal proceeding.

Do you want to keep people from discussing a project you're all working on? Have every person sign an NDA.

Do you want to make sure that if a deal for USD fails, the contract dispute is handled in your home state? Include a choice of law clause.

Consult an attorney in your area if you really want to CYA against getting screwed in RL from transactions that take place in SL.


EDIT -- As an aside, unless you're looking at large sums of cash, enforcing a contract in court will cost you more money than it's worth. Granted, if you win, you can probably get your court costs back, but are you willing to gamble over a sale for $200 US?

Also, if LL had to shut down the servers permanently, and your contract was still in effect, odds are the contract would have to either A) provide for that event or B) would be pretty much null at that point.

Roleplaying or not, alot of deals get made in SL which involve real money.

Fraud is fraud, despite the medium. likewise contract disputes at a civil level rise up on occasion. (ie) hired for services, building etc, which involve realtime labors, therefore give rise to civil disputes.

Sadly, there are too many obstacles. Out of state/province/country jurisdictions, privacy policies and general indifference from the service provider make remedy difficult.

There is a way to sidestep LL in this matter and is a method I am currently persuing because of an issue I have been dealing with. I set up a temporary server and streamed the audio to my land for a couple days. I was able to log the IP of the person in question.

I agree with this, actually.

Interestingly enough, this could go to the heart of what Catherine Cotton is trying to say when she says "money" is bad for SL.

Because real money is involved, we lose our ability to appreciate this world for what it can possibly be - a risk-free opportunity to role play in another universe.

Because money is involved, the two worlds are necessarily and intimately tied and the boundaries between FL and SL do not exist.

One possible solution (note, I like the real money part) is that SL persues the World of Warcraft approach, add it to their EULA and start suing GOM / IGE.

Obviously this will not happen. Until it does though, we all have to accept that SL is not a game.

We already know what happened in a true free market world. One existed a hundred years ago and it was a disaster. Competition was destructive, growth was hindered, and things tended to be settled with guns and clubs. If she's pushing it at universities, I wonder if she's been asked yet if the SL economy serves as a negative example?

Well a free market society given the general amount of education in our society has a lot more potential.

Presumably we, as a general population, are somewhat more enlightened then we used to be. Also, with technology such as the internet there is a greater degree of transparency.

I'm not here to roleplay. My avatar is a tool I use to explore the nonphysical environment of Second Life--my avatar is not a "character," it's a utensil.

I'd like to see anything that transpires in Second Life show up in real court. That'd be a hell of a precedent, and extremely interesting. Unless I'm the one getting sued.

we still got plenty of crime irl where we have contracts and complicated laws and governments of all kinds too. i don't think problems like that can be solved cause it's just human nature. now we might be able to reduce it with a good system but we got to be realistic.

also i don't think lag and patches are relevant since they're more like laws of nature than anything a government would or should deal with. with griefers you can think of the Lindens as a government (or player government if you like) but with lag you should think of Lindens as gods.

also is the upskirt museum still around and does it actually bother anyone for real? do people know that the person who originally posted about it being a big evil problem was the person who made it and they posted as a joke? seemed like artificial outrage back then but some people took it seriously. just asking cause i haven't heard many people say they were offended by some pics of avatar undies.

half the people in sl in tiny lil miniskirts don't even bother to wear underwear so it can't be that much of a problem hehe.

Zuzi, a reality about the Upskirt Museum is that, like so many other situations on here, unfortunately, not enough questions were asked to the creator of it -- one Taco Rubio, who is a good friend of mine. I have many friends with many conflicting opinions and that's fine with me as long as they can respect each other to hold that opinion in a well-asserted and civil context. People don't have to agree, but we should get along.

This only applies to me, so my personal perspectives only, skewed yet jolly: I would not roleplay as a jerk, nor engage in extended acerbic satire here. The other day, I posted a joke thread which clearly indicate it was such:

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but yet, some had genuine concerns about it being an attack on Bel Muse. I have strived to be friendly and gracious in the SL Community, and certainly not one to archetype any sort of antagonistic villainy. Now, even if that "evolness" was the case, why weren't more questions asked to me or Bel? There we go again.

Even with all parties in consent, I'm concerned in a virtual world like this, that onlookers may freak out and jump to conclusions -- again, without asking questions. It has happened before, and will happen again.

Each of us has our own unique reasons for being here: I've heard "I'm roleplaying" used to justify behavior that violated the TOS, but I've also heard it used in some very creative and thought-provoking situations. Take the instance of the Hobo Railroad -- they're not really bums, but it does get some people thinking about actual poverty. Even I lived in the Midnight City Dumpster for awhile and am quite in fact sensitive to harsh backgrounds, given my late father's youth, but I do think SL offers us a unique sphere of experiences in which to engage, compel, and INTERACT.

Speaking of my father (not Torley Sr. but my offline one), he related to me that there was an actual time where he felt solidarity with a number of his business partners and could make a deal good on a handshake. Through the decades, he met more and more unreliable and disreputable people, and this was not just a matter of "bad luck". Simply stating that as the backdrop for my own decisions and hopefully learning from the wisdom of the ages, I would not break a contract out of "roleplaying" because as been stated in this thread, there's genuine money -- not to mention emotions and human beings -- involved.

I'm enjoying the continuum.

And when I'm in doubt, I'm gonna ask questions. And this thread certainly raises some very good ones.