Crimes

I am thinking about a non-profit organization, a kind of community. An in-game law comunity. You know there are "crimes" which are not crimes according to TOS.
Some of on my mind are:
1-> stealing things(clothes, buildings, scripts ...)
2-> stealing land.
3-> breaking in-game contracts.
....
You can add to the list.

How the community(lets call it as LC(law community)) can work:
*-> Residents(who want) claim that they will obey the community rules. Can form a group for it. And all the residents who claim can join to the group. 3 lindens can be officers of the group.
*-> Members of that group will choose judges of the community.
*-> When making a contract about a business between these community members, a judge will be near them to approve the contract as a LC contract.
*-> If one of the members breaks a contract, there will be a court to solve this and will decide something. And members will have to obey the results of the court.
--> What if they dont obey?: They will be dismissed from the group and will be announced in the group: "this guy no longer has crediblity, this guy is not under LC laws anymore."
*-> If a LC member, breaks a law(for example steals a script etc), there will be again a court with a judge.
*-> If a LC member doesnt like the result of the court, can apply to the high council(council of judges) to discuss his/her point.
*-> The things you made, can be copyrighted under LC laws.
......

I got this idea 2 mins ago didnt think on it alot, but can be discussed here i think. So we can solve some of our in-game problems without applying to support. In most cases which we see as crimes but are not crimes for TOS, support is unable to enforce that which they do not acknowledge as breaking the law. No residents will have to obey the rules, but the ones who obey them will be under guarantee of LC laws. And it will be a guarantee for residents.
And this can create also new in-world jobs: lawyers companies.

Thanks for the heads-up, Kaz.

Question: would an approach as simple as a "Better Business Bureau" perhaps offer some of the benefits that you are describing here?

You're right in recognizing that neither RL legislation nor, at times, Linden TOS clauses, are likely to be able to keep up with the wild, wild west climate in something as pioneering as SL. My only concern with a peer-juried approach is that while people will want to do the right thing, this is an incredibly complex thing to cultivate. Things like chat transcripts being provided as evidence can be in violation of the TOS, and the inevitable shades of gray that will come into any given transaction/interaction are a bit mind boggling. Perhaps I'm cowering, but I'm not sure I would even know where to start with something as big and complex as this.

I do have colleagues who are lawyers specializing in intellectual property, and I suspect they'd have some curiousity about this. It's certainly a frontier with incrediblly grey edges right now, and in bad need of developing.

Anxious to hear more of your thinking on this, and what others may share here as well.

Cheers,

Sue.

You are right, it is too complex for a start. As i said, it was an instant idea, lets make the circle smaller for the start.
For example, forget about contracts and forget about land stealing. Only focus on registering things you produced(clothes, scripts, buildings etc..). I just want to start a discussion here so we can reach a point. And ty for your helpfull reply.

All of the issues that just occurred to you have been the subject of recurring threads and studies over the past year. Many of them are indicated in threads in this PoliSci forum, others in the forum of the Law Society (link in my sig).

Before reinventing the wheel (unless you are so bored you enjoy that sort of thing), I'd start with a review of the literature within these forums.

You might search for "Better Business Bureau" or "BBB" for the many threads on that, such as:
/108/19/73012/1.html.

You might search for "Contract Enforcement" to find the thread on a theory for contract enforcement in game at:
/148/86/78317/1.html.

You'll also find a link about design "theft" in the Law Society's thread about links to Intellectual Property issues at:
/246/a4/81260/1.html

You'll also find many more relevant pieces.

A scholar starts by reading, asking questions and listening. You have the opportunity to do a great deal of homework about others' efforts to address these issues.

Some thoughts.


Laws, courts, and such in Second Life may may protect good people from other good people.

But there is precedent that any system won't protect good people from bad people.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/03/26/ebay.fraud.ap/



So where does that leave us? We either embrace the Wild, Wild West and live in ways that make sense in it, or be stuck holding the bag when bad faith strikes.

No lending, incredible care with land transfers, so on and so forth. Living without trust.




One might expect true justice to eventually come from an unexpected source: land barons.

- they can reclaim a criminal's land instantly (presuming the criminal is a tenant)

- make treaties with other barons, so criminals can't protect assets so easily

- if there was unfairness the tenants would take their income and leave

- it's hard for a land baron to 'disappear' without losing a lot of money.

Desmond, this is a nice concise outline of the concept behind the Theory for Enforcing Contract, Resolving Disputes & Incorporation

I might point out Neualtenburg works much this way, saving that rather than trusting in one land baron to be an enlightened despot, we have a democratic system.

Excellent point, Aliasi. Neualt superimposes a republican system, while retaining a single trustee who actually holds the land powers that enable what Desmond pointed out.

For those interested in the Neualtenburg Projeckt, see: "Case Study of Neualtenburg and RFC".

Tyvm for the links Actually i am relatively a newbie. So it is highly possible i missed most of discussions like these ones. So i would prefer some of high experienced residents to lead this. And i saw some sim or in-game state names(via ingame IMs and posts), i am not interested with these things, i am talking about a general-nonprofit organization. I ld really love some of the old residents to lead such project.
And ty again i will read all of he posts related to this topic.

There's several problems with a "general nonprofit organization", though - you lack any power to ENFORCE your laws.

A private estate, on the other hand, can send you to Coventry - kick you out. One idea we had in Neualtenburg was pushing the fact that you can meaningfully file a complaint against an SL business based inour sim.

Ah, sorry if I hadn't been keeping up - I'd been meaning to read all the stuff the Law Society did... but forgive me, sometimes reading up on law can be rather dry. So take all the credit, I'm late to the party.

I do like the idea of democracies for first life government.

But for virtual worlds with highschoolish cliques in them... it seems to me that democracies here (like everything else) rest upon the integrity of the tier payer.

When push comes to shove, who can penalise a sim owner? Only those who can cease paying to stay in the sim.




Yet, I can't think of anything more embarrassingly pathetic than to set oneself up as a 'king' on the internet.

Kind of like Babar the Elephant, yes?

I've grappled with this, seeing as how I'll be dealing with my own sim soon. The buy-in money I've already made, but the content isn't quite finished.

The best thing I can think of: make it clear that the sim is a monarchy (as pathetic as it sounds), because in full honesty, when push comes to shove, all sims are.

I'd say 'dictatorship' but I'm not first-life rich enough. Thus the landed gentry in the sim really *will be* a powerful aristocracy in my pathetic case - I shall have 195 reasons every month to listen to them, and over a thousand reasons not to screw up and lose the sim.

If they all want snow terrain, you better believe it's going to get whiter and fast.



I rarely come down from 700m unless it's a business necessity. Dispute resolution is anathema to me - to be avoided if at all possible. I'm hoping I can foist 'stewardship' onto each tenant for a little while, and I'll only get called in if something really ugly happens.

Maybe I can trick Torley into joining my sim? A little gold circlet on the pony's brow indicating Stewardship... that would solve so many problems! O Tooorley....

We do need some kind of system to protect us against cheaters and unethical players.
Some kind of court system. Do we need lawyers? Punishment for the guity could be some method of making public their crime, so others can beware of the criminal

We don't need a court..that would be residents put in power over eachother, which is not second lifes policy (disregarding the ignorant resmod program of course).

Besides a court requires a jury, and you'll be waiting for the Titanic to start flying before someone like me agrees to come do jury service on a program I pay to -relax- on.

Edit: if it became a 'come if you are connected or be suspended' issue, I'm sure I could come upw ith something to do offline during the trial. or maybe I would play along..but deliberately intend to screw your system up, constantly switching sides to make a hung jury every time I'm called.

No, I refuse to do a serious jury duty on SL. I would turn it into entertainment, including massing gestures during peoples questionings..

I think it's a good idea to publish the names of the bad guys. Doing that, we can all add their names to the ban lists of our parcel so they won't have nowhere to go (just like in jail). But this requires an infinite ban list instead of the limited one we currently have (50 names per list).

Doing so violates the TOS Mad..let the Lindens handle abuse.

I have been cheated by merchants several times for large amounts of linden. For example, I bought a skin from what I thought was a reputable store, and it was nothing like the picture shown. I IM the seller and told them but did no good. They can continue to cheat people. This does not seem fair.

Who watch the watchers?

Sounds like someone whining because they got spanked...

Unless it is the land baron doing the pirateering, or believing that's the right way to behave....
/130/54/94418/1.html

Frankly, if Anshe doesn't get it, your chances of this working are zero.
Cali

The only crime I see on this thread (and others where you post) is continued and repeated libel and attempts of character assassination.

In the thread you link to I have pointed out one legal situation that you have decide to disagree about, while the only real lawyer posting on the thread fully agreed with me. But no matter whose interpretation of legal situation you apply (the one you posted or the one the lawyer posted): Of course I am not pirateering content, have never done so and don't plan to do so. You making such claims is totally nuts and highly immoral!

I ask you to immediately stop slandering my name and refrain from future attempt to mislead people into believe that I would engage in illegal, immoral or other activitivies that in fact I have nothing to do with.

I agree. Anshe bashing seems to be a completely acceptable form of behavior both in game and here on the discussion boards...and it shouldn't be. I chalk most of it up to "sour grapes" for those who are envious of your success.

Any court set up in this way will be a court of public opinion, that "1st Life" has effectively demonstrated is not desirable. All the games I have been in the forums have an endless march of "so-and-so messed me over, don't deal with them" and I just dismiss those out of hand. With no way to determine whether someone really got cheated or is just reputation-griefing, spending time worrying about them is pointless.

As a noob still learning about things I don't see how someone can steal property or items from anyone unless you give it away or leave things copyable by anyone who happens along.

Vending machines that take $L and do not deliver an item, I can see that as both possible and a problem. Non-game-mechanic-based agreements or arrangements can certainly not be honored. The rest of it I would think can be prevented by proper flags.

Any policing or citizen action group based on hearsay would almost certainly be abused.

If a machine takes $L and gives something back, then is that somehow logged in Linden records that could be used to investigate reports of cheating?