the SL Economy

It may be easy if you use one of the methods they do allow.
However they dont allow as many methods as normal internet shops, and place odd restrictions on paypal that you wouldnt have if you were, for example buying a book from an online book store.
Each difficulty they impose, (especially to things commonly used for internet money transfers eg paypal) will reduce their potential customer base of paying customers.

There is that.. but age verification is really a Pandora's box. Part of the problem is that the COPA itself, the US act which created those requirements, has had the effect of devaluing age verification - anyone less than a certain age has to speak to an adult in order to have any account created AT ALL, for any purpose, because the law says that below a certain age no data whatsoever can be stored. So for the parents to have their child ask to sign up on a webpage for them is fairly routine.

Age verification isn't the only issue, either. For example, I don't know if non-UK people know about this, but the UK is at risk of having a pornography law passed which will ban possession of "extreme pornography". The only extenuating circumstances are that "no request was made for the material", or that the person had "no reason to suspect" the material to be extreme pornography. I'm sure you can tell this is incredibly risky for SL because of SL's status as a single monolithic service - a court could easily rule that as soon as somebody is told "watch out, there's some nasty porn around on SL", they have a "reason to suspect" _any_ content from SL as being potentially pornographic, and are "making a request for it" just by logging in.

Yes but the history of these laws is that they aren't used until there's a massive raft of surrounding evidence - the UK enforcers don't go actively looking for this as a spearhead offence, but it will get added on once someone is investigated for something else - see recent coverage of actor Chris Langham, for instance.

Also, UK law enforcement is much more careful about the evidence trail since the US cops were found to be fabricating evidence on foreign suspects as part of what, in the UK, came to be known as "Operation Ore". The law you are talking about has it's genesis in a very particular murder case, and SL is a million miles away from that in content and execution.

Merging the grids is a bad idea full stop. Myspace has got itself in a right mess by encouraging adults and kids to mix. I don't want the press to be full of adults trying to get their jollies from kids in SL and those adults who are into that shit probably don't come here in great numbers because it's supposedly 18+, it's much easier to do it on Myspace.

The other side of the coin being that if kids were here, they're going to want to see the adult content, and by encouraging them to come to the main grid, you're going to have them in greater numbers wanting to see that stuff.

Keep the kids on their grid or make a new grid where adults and kids can mix. Kids shouldn't be around the stuff that's on this grid.

Stuff not breaking, summer not happening, residents not being tools and freaking out on queue when someone says "the economy is falling!"

Your Ginko illusion would still be going strong if everyone didn't freak out and try to get all their money back at the same time.

They needed someone to do a Roosevelt and call a bank Holiday.

No, MySpace's problem is having people that don't know what they're doing run shit. The perv problems are just a symptom of that.

I think it would be good to merge the grids with age verification barring you from getting into "questionable" areas or areas where people dont' want to mix with minors...like fake bars. It seems to work reasonably well IRL!

Honestly it wouldn't be much different than it is now since a ton of SL residents aren't 18. You've probably had fake computer sex with one already!

Like so many others have said: a stable grid.

I just had an interesting thought. Someone mentioned LL going public on the New York Stock Exchange (or London or Tokyo or whereever...) Wouldn't it be interesting if LL DID go public, and before it went public, it offered SL Residents stock options? We're not employees, I know, but I'm just wondering if a) that's legal and b) would we buy into LL if we had a chance to do it before everyone else did?

They won't need to be getting into questionable areas to be engaging in questionable activities if the grid is mixed and come on, please, more kids here finding ways to get around the id verification is not the same as IRL where a bouncer or bar staff can tell the kids to do one.



Not bloody likely!

Then why fight it? You'll lose!

But seriously, there comes a point when it becomes the parents' responsibility to police their kids...just like with MySpace. Parents choose to be ignorant of what their kid's doing with the internet and that's when the trouble happens. That doesn't mean try to limit them and prevent them from doing anything...it means be aware of what's going on and don't make your kid feel like they have to sneak around in order to enjoy themselves.



Well, I know plenty of people probably have.

That's exactly the problem though - although it might have been the US police who fabricated evidence, it was the UK police who pushed the charges as hard as they could using that evidence. And that resulted in the suicides of several innocent people, because their lives were ruined by just being under investigation.

I know about the murder case you're describing, but nothing limits the use of that law only to suspected murderers. At least one protest group is already warning that the police have stated that they'll use the new law to get convictions wherever they can, because they're paid for convictions, after all.

Oh I agree entirely with you on this point. Parents do have a responsibility and keeping the main grid 18+ points out that responsibility. I know some parents only think 18+ needs to be applied regarding porn, they'll buy 18+ computer games for their kids and then complain about the graphic violence and profanity but the warning is there, loud and clear.

The solution is to make and enforce the $L being only valuable inside SL. Make it a stated TOS policy that they cannot be traded outside of SL.

I suspect there are many like me who not not care about moving money in/out of SL. I am very happy to keep my $L in-world and spend them there.

I doubt there are very many making any real dollars from Sl anyway.

I enjoyed gambling in Sl. I never cost me anything in real dollars and it payed for a lot of nice SL toys.

So, I agree, let's get back to having fun. Let's keep the virtual vices virtural.

I hope you brought a helmet, man!

But seriously, it's waaaay too late for that stuff.

Then why should LL waste their resources trying to keep kids out?

That's all I'm saying...

I agree. while maybe most of them aren't getting rich, a lot of people are making a decent amount of pocket change from SL, and it would be totally reckless to pull the rug out from them. You can't put this genie back in the bottle.

YUP YUP! While my SL income only barely pays for my RL utilities, I still have the choice to take it out or keep it in the SL economy. I enjoy shopping in SL as much as the next girl, and end up dumping a couple thousand a week back into other people's products. However, if I didn't have the choice as to whether or not I could take money out, I think I'd be less inclined to work diligently on my own products.

BWahahahahahahaahahha! *ahem* Sorry.

Did you know a succesful buisness in SL can pull in @25-40k in L$ per day? That equates to 90-140 USD per day. Granted those are the larger, established buisnesses.

The smaller ones can still easily make enough L$ to convert to USD to pay for their Premium Accounts as well as for their land tier and have pocket change left over to buy all the stuff in LL they want.

While you, personally, may not care if the L$ can be exchanged for USD, there are many more that do. If in doubt, go talk to Ansche Chung and ask her if the L$ should be held to only be in SL. Concidering she's made over 1 million USD through the platform, I'm guessing she'd have somethign to say about it.

The buisnesses need to be able to cash out to make the creation process worth their while. Otherwise there wouldn't be any of those "nice toys" to buy in SL with the L$. While the successfull buisness might be a small % of the poplulation, they have a huge impact. The larger % that would not really be affected is the "working class". Mainly since there is no such class in SL. You eaither run a buisness, or you don't. There's no need for workers in a virtual world. (yes I know of stores having salespersons, but that is a facet of the buisness' marketing, not a need to run said buisness).

Let's just all face facts that gambling is gone and move on, hmmmm?

~Jessy

Remember the euphoria you may have felt when you won a game of monolopy and accumilated millions of 'currency', only to have to simply give it all back and put it in the box?... Not that much fun for your efforts... My opinion is that the balance is right.. being able to take the fruits of your labour into the real world, given the quantities of values transacted whereby on a small few actually make a killing. Afterall, what we 'play' at doing now, will become the internet culture of the future.

lol



Some of us are making a great deal more than that actually. I think the average user has absolutely no consept of the money that is being made here as it`s not widely spoke about other than that chung person.

*Directed @ "Locked"*...

I truly believe one of the reasons SL is such a thriving community is because we have the ability to "cash out."

I know I would cease logging in as often as i do if that ability was taken away, and I`m sure i`m not alone in that. While some are here to create for fun or fool around, some of us are here to make money, and there`s nothing wrong with that. Some of us are able to spend the hours we spend creating things because we are being paid for our creations, if the pay was taken away our time here would be drastically limited.


Agreed.

Well said.

Although I don't have a business in SL (RL business is more then enough for me ), I think that the "cashing out" of L$ makes SL unique and taken that away would change the game very much... and in a negative way, I am affraid.

So I am all for to keep it as it is.

Morwen.

The other problem with banning "cashing out" is that it affects smaller people too.

There are quite a lot of content creators - even some of the ones with bigger names - who don't make much or any US$ profit, just converting enough L$ to pay for their tier and that's all. This may be because they don't feel the need, or they don't make enough, or they don't want to go through the extra hassles involving tax.

The problem is that the ability to cash out is critical to even those people. Because it's what enables them to pay their tier with their earnings. And that's critical, because otherwise _they_ have to pay for what _you_ get the benefit from.

People often argue, "well, LL could just accept L$ for tier" but they couldn't because they have to pay for their servers in real money and there could be no real money coming in. The fact that a certain number of L$ were effectively destroyed (LL have no use for L$) would not guarantee that the same amount of L$ would be bought for real money from LindeX. The existing US$ system does give LL that guarantee.

I've considered an alternate solution: since L$ can't be gambled with, create a new currency that can be, and that can't be cashed out. But this still runs into the problem that the people providing gambling places will have to pay for them to exist.

SL is not a gambling site because $L is not money and has no USD value. The TOS clearly states this and if it didn't, LL would be in violation of Federal laws which prohibit anyone from making their own money.

The problem is because LL facilitates the trading of L for USD through an exchange that LL owns called the LindeX. This clearly is in opposition to their TOS and clearly LL is giving $L USD value.

Because of the LindeX, it is quite possible the whole concept of LL issuing $L now is completely illegal itself. Under US Federal Securities laws, it could be construed as issuing an "unregistered security. " Because the $L is traded for USD on the LindeX, are they in fact issuing securities for USD? If so, that IS DEFINITELY illegal under federal securities law - virtual or not. Technically securities, for all intents and purposes, are virtual anyway because you just don't see actual stock certificates anymore. $L is no different because if you buy $L basically you are hoping someone will pay more for it, or that you can exchange it for something with value, so it appears they are acting like a company issuing stock, i.e. selling virtual securities. ALL BECAUSE THEY OWN THE LINDEX.

One further point I'd like to make is that when things get bad, they tend to snowball. Because of US Federal Securities laws, we may see some "qui tam" litigation as the result. This would certainly bring on a US DOJ investigation and possibly tie up any resources LL might have to defend itself.

Qui tam lawsuits are quite unique. They are basically filed by individuals on behalf of the government. They are also sometimes called "whistleblower" lawsuits.

This type of lawsuit is particularly attractive in our litigious and greedy times because the government is required to do all the work basically and the person filing the suit is entitled to 15-30 percent of the total recovery. Additionally they receive protection from retaliation.

In 2005 alone, a record $3.1 billion was reclaimed from corrupt businesses from qui tam actions. My math sucks, but isn't 15% of 3.1 billion something like 450 million. That's quite an incentive.


"In qui tam provisions the government gives private citizens the right and the financial incentive to retain a private lawyer to file a lawsuit to act in the place of law enforcement."


Lawyers will take these on in a heartbeat without even a consultation fee. It would not surprise me to learn that one has already been filed, but I seriously doubt anyone on this forum would bother since the posts aren't read or taken seriously to begin with.


Just my two cents.



You can read more about these here.
http://www.whistleblowerfirm.com/faq.html#1

read about US Securities Laws here.
http://www.sec.gov

There's loads of people making money off of SL.

Yes there certainly are. And that won't change. The only thing that needs to change is for LL themselves NOT to facilitate the exchange of $L for USD. They can only do this by ditching the LindeX.