Law Society: Observation and Request For Comment

This note starts with an observation and ends with two questions, to which I hope you will respond by replying to this message.

As the Law Society of Second Life develops, it will study how various laws, rules and norms emerge and evolve in SL.

With comments from others in response to an earlier posting, I put together a working list of categories of "sources of law" in SL, with an example of each and possible sanctions (an incomplete list).

First Life Law. State, national and international law. Example: Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Enforceable via fines and imprisonment.

Second Life Law. Example: LL's O/S code and Terms of Service (TOS).
Enforceably via expulsion and account disclosure to law enforcment.

Municipal Law. Example: Neualtenburg's self-government protocols.
Enforceable via privilege modification and citizenship forfeiture.

Land law. Example: Space rental agreement; sim visitor's license.
Enforceable via eviction or banning.

Contracts and Instruments Law. Examples: Employment agreement; Promissory note; Surety Bond.
Enforceable via processes to be determined.

Tribal norms. Example: Language expectations of D/s community.
Enforceable via "jawboning," humiliation or exclusion from the tribe.

Family or clan norms. Example: Mutual expectations of spouses and committed friends.
Enforceable via "jawboning," humiliation or exclusion from the relationship.

Social norms. Examples: commonly accepted courtesies, avoiding rudeness.
Enforceable via "jawboning" or exclusion from polite society.

Each of these sources, as experienced in SL, may have different characteristics worth understanding.

For example:
* Municipal and Land laws may be specific to a locale and have no force outside of that property.
* Tribal norms may be specific to certain contexts, such as when the tribe is together, but not locale-dependent.
* Family or social norms may be observed throughout SL space, without regard to locale.
* Contract and instruments law may be difficult to develop and enforce. There the usual issues of documentation, evidence and interpretation. There is the open issue resolving disputes and enforcing obligations of contract. If it is true that there is no law without a remedy (as some scholars contend), until effective remedies for contract breach are developed, one may ask if there *is* a "law" of contracts and instruments in SL.

These are the sort of subjects I forsee the Law Society members studying in detail, through observation, discussion and civilized debate.

Now the questions:

What process do you think the Society should follow to study such things?

Should the results be shared with all? If so, how? Or should they be kept proprietary?

Frank

Not that I have any involvement in this particular pursuit in SL - I just wanted to add the comment that disclosure is always the best policy. Unless you're looking for accusations of FIC-ness anyway...

That categorization appears to capture the important distinctions, although I have a slight preference for a shorter list, possibly by reorganizing the last three categories into two: social norms and family and clan norms. It's possible that 'tribal' may be subsumed under 'clan'. Social norms are interesting because they help to clarify the acceptability/unacceptability of behaviors that detract from your neighbor's enjoyment of SL. That's a very murky area for most in SL.

I'm interested in what you'd consider useful baseline data -- a snapshot of each category obtained at the start of the study.


Fun questions. A forum-based discussion is open to the widest number of participants. My experience with Thinkers meetings is that no matter which time slot is chosen for the meeting, it conflicts with the schedules of many people who would otherwise contribute. Perhaps we can get around that somehow?

By all means let's keep the results proprietary, thus giving them an inflated scarcity value, then we can enshrine them on tablets located on the mountainous summit of a no-fly sim. The tablets would be readable only by visitors who complete the trek up the mountain. We could beat out all the casinos on the Popular Places list. : D

Traxx, I like the way you think.

While awaiting others' thoughts, I agree squashing tribal and clan/family categories together makes sense to simplify the stack. They sort of meld anyway, and are distinct from "municipalities" in that they are not bound to a particular "land" space, so have to rely on different menus of sanctions.

Baseline data ... I was thinking some "field trips" by embedded Law Society Observers who visit and read up on particular municipalities, real estate developments, and tribes. Like good scientists, they would do their best to report objectively and fairly, and to not try to change the subject of the study, and keep their own opinions separate from their factual reporting. Then write up a concise, objective summary of their observations and opinions and ideas for further research. That draft could be "peer reviewed" (a.k.a. "kicked around" by Law Society Observers and a final version crafted.

Like you, its tough to expect that review to happen in-world, because of schedules. Doing the "peer reviewing / kicking around" in a moderated Group Forum would make more sense to me, because it could happen asynchronously.

A proprietary final report in a temple (library) surrounded by obstacles, dragons and squabbling villagers, requiring visitors to buy weapons and charms to get to it (like in Dark Life) would be very exciting. It sounds like a variation on the plot to "One-L," which is Scott Turow's first book ... his story of one first-year student's experience at Harvard Law, trying to get through the year past Prof. Kingsfield (Corbin) and others. But I doubt the demand for these tomes will support it as a revenue source.

What might work is the classic professional society model. The final "paper" is made a "read only, no copy, no mod" object and offered at cost or free to Society members, and offered at a higher but affordable cost to non-members interested in it. A few free copies (same restrictions) could be provided to libraries of record in communities around SL. I've encountered several with lots of book cases but not many books who might be glad to get them.

It might include copies of the organic documents and disclosures of the organization and any information gathered about contract formation and enforcement there, plus how disputes may be resolved. All of potential interest to those building their own community.

Back issues could be kept and vended from one or more machines kept on premises provided by one or more members. Probably won't have the same demand as the latest "Slutty Santa Suit" but that's life.

Others' thoughts and different ideas on this topic?

Frank

Sounds like a fascinating study and a formalization of what most people do almost every day when they get into SL to one degree or another.

What process do you think the Society should follow to study such things?
I personally think that the best way to study this is to be out there interacting in all the ways listed. Im sure the membership is involved in all the many and myriad aspects of SL and there you have a potential gold mine of data. Get them all to work up reports on their experiences and insights as well as strictly factual histories of interactions they have observed or participated in. Get some advertizing out as well requesting similar data from anyone willing or interested in submitting to the project. A bit of contact data and perhaps a form would be all that would be required although the content of these would probably not conform as closely to what would be desired as the information from the actual membership. Taking all of this one could then distribute it around and begin to formulate working theories based on reqularly occurring aspects in these reports.

:: Ducks ::

Should the results be shared with all? If so, how? Or should they be kept proprietary?
I believe they ought to be shared more or less freely and not worry too much about it remaining proprietary other than a reference to the authorship. I would find such a report interesting to read but I rather doubt I would actually be willing to shell out for it. It really depends on if you want it to be read and circulated or not.

Frank

find another game and leave this game alone we are fine as we are....dont go start messing things up for up people because those laws are no good for you i been playing sl over a year and had lots of fun.....but your just going to make it a law for this that and that,

Hmm.

It seems that if there is a sliding scale to your list, "Municipal Law" and "Land Law" need to have their spots swapped.

Like it or not, the owner of the land can do what they will on their land.

They can tear up Municipal decisions at any time and and do as they will, unless all municipal participants are officers of group-held land (thus being owners themselves, and reinforcing my point).



The landowner's SL is radically different from the 'basic' SL - rules, realities, and enforcement are quite different.

Renting from the landed gentry is *almost* the same as having land (at least until you get into a dispute with the land's lord).


I thoroughly like the thought of the fascinating legal discussions you may have, but the angle I would start with (being of a practical sort, myself) is:

- are any of your discussions ever going to result in 'law' with teeth?



If the answer is no... well then! Discussion may continue but 'results' are already in.

Save for Country and Company, the landowner's word is law. Even on a social level - most landless guests tacitly agree- the owner's jokes and puns are more witty and enjoyable on his land, even when they aren't elsewhere.

Something to think about, meant in the most constructive way possible.

Athena, thanks for your ideas. I think you and I are on the same page.

Lumina, as I conceive it (and hope to keep it), the Law Society is not about making law. Instead, it will be about observing how laws and law-like behavior evolves in SL, and discussing that objectively, comparing one form to another. Learning from it, without attempting to influence the outcome. Yet, recognizing that any observation of a phenomenon necessarily has some influence on it (Heisenberg).

Desmond, I did not see the list as a sliding scale. I think that what I tenatively called Municipal Law and Land Law are two overlapping sets. An "unincorporated" sim (one without any formal government structure, just one or more landlords) will produce land law different from another. And within a municipality's protocol (e.g. Neualtenberg), there will likely be some form of land use regulation.

I suspect that we will find that these two catagories have distinct characteristics, but one is not a sub-set of the other. Instead, independent but overlapping sets. Your comment is excellent though, as it helps one see ambiguities that may need to be clarified as we shift to a moderated Group Forum and invite initial reports from our Observers for analysis.

Frank

My experience with clients suggests that private island owners are ideal 'consumers' for the research done by the Law Society. Right now most PI sims have rules, for example to restrict laggy scripts and other problems that degrade the experience of visitors and sim residents. The sim owner has the ability to enforce those rules to the letter, promptly. Hit return on unauthorized laggy objects, or boot and ban griefers. That's your law with teeth.

However the sim owner may hesitate to bare those teeth at a business partner, tenant or guest whose participation in the enterprise helps pay the grinding monthly tier cost of that sim.

If Law Society research is available for reference the PI owner can use it as a starting point in making a set of rules along with standard operating procedures for prompt enforcement. Stakeholders might be willing to sign a notarized agreement explicitly authorizing prompt enforcement, because it increases the likelihood that one careless person can't wreck the performance of the sim for everybody else.


btw I like your library globes. : )

Mmm, yes it does seem to come down to $L first, and then land tools, and then... diplomacy when all else fails?

Harsh but (usually) effective. Perhaps someday there will be a rose-colored curtain available when looking outward from one's property, and scripts / lights / sound will be allocated resources in proportion to square meters of land. That does seem to be the direction.

And with regard to the globes... thank you! I plan a lot of work on library items, and I must admit Frank's virtually leather-bound law books might make a nice offering from him someday. Library legal book bling - is that wrong to consider?

Call me a bleeding heart liberal if you must but is there room in SL for a EU-style convention on human (or at least resident) Rights?

My chief concern is that in a world like SL, the overall executive power is wielded by the owners of the servers...

I know that SL is unlike RL in that there IS a formal social contract, ie the terms of service agreement, but I still wonder how one might approach the Lindens if they are in the wrong, for example.

In other words, could the Lindens themselves ever be held to account by an in-world court?

Velmwend, you might be interested to read the views of two leading legal scholars on the subject you raise.

Jack M. Balkin, "Virtual Liberty, Freedom to Design and Freedom to Play in Virtual Worlds," 90 Virginia Law Review 2043 (2004)< http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/jbalkin/articles/virtual_liberty1.pdf >. Jack is Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and First Amendment and the Director of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School.

James Grimmelmann, "Virtual Worlds as Comparative Law," 49 New York Law School Law Review 147 (2004) (especially Part V. "The God Problem"<http://www.nyls.edu/pdfs/v49n1p147-184.pdf >. James received his J.D. from Yale Law in 2005, was very active in the Information Society Project there, and is a prolific legal writer.

While it seems clear that Linden Labs is subject to real world law and courts, as its own TOS acknowledges, what rights participants may have are less clear cut. Jack and James discuss some of the legal issues. How limited SL participants are by the arbitration clause in the TOS is another question.

Frank