In-world courts: Iz callin' mah internetz lawyer!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxZP_ur_Tvo

In the documentary called "Another Perfect World", of which you can watch a 30 minute preview in the link above, Strokerz Serpentine & Philip Rosedale are prominently featured along with other virtual worlds. You don't see this in the preview, but at one point the issue of cyber crime is addressed specifically regarding the copybotting of Strokerz's sex bed products. Ciaran Laval speaks about this issue in his blog post about this documentary:



Can anyone envision an in-world court model within the framework of which we have to work, as it stands today? There would be a plethora of issues such as the balance of real life law, jurisdiction, favouritism and transparency amongst many other things. It would be a huge and controversial endeavour to implement something like this grid wide, but are there any community models out there that attempt to address these issues in some form of binding arbitration on a small scale? Linden Lab doesn't get involved in resident to resident disputes but do you think this might work for minor disputes that do not involve real life legal issues like the DMCA process? I could even imagine a whole new economic market from this such as streamed arbitration proceedings with advertisements for internetz lawyers, class action suits and divorce settlements a la real life shows such as Court TV, Judge Judy & Divorce Court.

Can you ever see any of this happening or is any of it happening on a minor scale already? How does it work or how do envision the process being implemented?

When (or where) there are real life laws to back up such things, yes.

I have a feeling Ciaran might be a little upset by the way you refer to him!

Pep (Quick, edit your post before he sees it!)

thanks ;P

An in-world court can't evolve without an in-world mechanism to enforce the decisions of the court.

I will fight it with everything I have, then if it is implemented, I will leave.

Don't pack your bags yet, Chris.

It's not possible, given the current structure.

Anonymity prevents knowing who the culprit is, or even who the lawyers or the judge are. Not to mention alts. What if the jury is all one person, behind twelve traffic bots?

Enforcement is impossible. Evidence (chat and IM logs) can be tampered with.

The only justice in SL is mob justice and trial by public opinion. The only punishments possible to Residents are banning, muting, and public defamation (which is itself subject to sanctions).

Now, if LL was to set itself up as a Court System, it would be another matter. But as it is, we have the capricious and uncontrolled G-Team. Judge, jury, executioner, all in one...and they often mete out justice on personal whim, not a knowledge of their own rules or the details of a particular situation.

"Judge: Jesus christ stop gesturbating!"

Stop or I'll shout stop again!!

Well yes, that's pretty obvious but I'm more interested in seeing how people would envision such a process being implemented and the manner in which it could be enforced both on a large and small scale. I have a feeling that there are some communities out there that have some loosely formalized methods for arbitration of minor resident to resident disputes. There are many issues that might be able to be addressed in such a manner that might be difficult to address in rl given the complexity of virtual worlds and rl jurisdictional issues. There are some things that are best left to the rl lawyers but I know of some online communities like LiveJournal that have elected (?) community members that sit on the abuse teams to offer their view on the interpretation of the TOS of which the decisions are enforceable. They are certainly not without controversy but as I understand it, the GTeam currently only has LL staff on it.

As an aside, here's an interesting article that addresses some of the issues around governance in virtual worlds: http://lgsg.wetpaint.com/page/Benefits+of+local+governance+in+virtual+worlds

Will sl lawyers be cheaper than my rl lawyers?

even naming names or sharing chat logs etc is forbidden, so i think an actual court system is pie-in-the-sky.

Well, let's see. Are you familiar with the mid-east peace process?

...

Well, it's currently possible for an estate to enact guidelines or laws and enforce decisions via banning or fines. That's sort of the same mechanism. You might have an estate owned by several people who would serve as a "government" body of sorts and they could create their own court system. Obviously their influence would only stretch so far as their borders (similar to real life countries I might add). Such an estate could also network and have agreements with other estates or vendors. You get permabanned from Estate XYZ and you also end up banned by Estate 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Obviously in this scenario the culprit could just circumvent banning with an alt, but if the person has a lot invested in their account, the repercussions could be enough of a deterrant. Who wants to start a new account after investing 3 years in it?

I could maybe see a number of large estates forming a "United Nations" of sorts. (wait, bad example of something effective )

My bad with regards to how the abuse team works on LiveJournal - they are not elected. http://community.livejournal.com/lj_abuse/profile

The abuse team on LJ has always been rife with complaints about FIC and a lack of transparency but is community involvement a better model than what we have now with a Linden only staffed governance team? I've never had to really deal with the GTeam here in SL but from my understanding, there could be lots of room for improvement.

I know this concept would be a controversial one for SL and I'm not one that is necessarily an advocate for its implementation, but I really wonder how Philip R, as quoted in the doc, along with the community, might see something like this evolving. RL lawyers? Community involvement? Voluntary binding arbitration? More questions than answers, I know - but if it's on LL's radar, we might as well talk about it now rather than being surprised by a new policy announcement.

It happens every day, in spite of all best efforts to evade or prevent it.

Just about any region owner of any scale will get bucketloads of drama, chatlogs, and whatnot sent their way, with the idea of the senders being: "Render justice!"

And I *hate* this stuff with a passion that I can barely contain.

* * * * *

Example:

Barbie and Ken are living on the estate.

One day, they catch each other's alts chatting up other people at a party.

Barbie and Ken break up.

Ken fires off an angry missive to the local land baron: "Dude, I am outta here, she can have it all." Various bitter comments complete the document.

Land baron reads note, interprets as "property transfer: -> Barbie" and gets back to sixteen concurrent IM's. He sends back "good luck, man" and that's the end of it.

Ken disappears for three days, during which time Land Baron deeds property to Barbie.

Barbie redecorates a bit, and meets GI Joe 36 hours later. Who promptly moves in.

Ken reappears and sees Joe partying with Barbie. On 500 USD worth of prime estate that he had initially paid for.

He has a conversation with Barbie. It does *not* go well.

Ken sends four somewhat edited chatlogs and a diatribe demanding financial justice to the land baron.

Barbie sends the same four (differently edited) chatlogs and a diatribe demanding Ken be removed from the estate permanently.

Land baron deletes four chatlogs (we can't read them without consent from all parties or we risk a service terms violation) and actually reads both diatribes.

Land baron digs up Ken's first note, written in haste. "Deed to Barbie." And sends a copy to Ken as his response.

Land baron reads Barbie's invective laced demands and tries to figure out if Ken is harassing or not (or how much of the note is actually true).

* * * * *

So... what happens to Ken?

Sure, one can just ignore the whole thing every single time, but there *is* such a thing as plain~as~day harassment.

Mishandle that, and everyone on the estate will hate you. At which point you won't have an estate for very long.

This is where there is no "win" for the land baron; he is thrust into the role of both judge and jury at the same time.

There is no choice but to make a decision one way or the other on hearsay evidence. And as for evidence or discovery ~ what *could* you use? Chatlogs? Screenshots? laughs... Don't even get me started on how wrong a 'trial by peers' could go.

I can't even begin to imagine some of the crap you have to go through on a daily basis. I agree it's something that couldn't be implemented all that well on a small scale community level without it quickly degrading into a dramafest, although the idea of a RP court I find intriguing or potentially hilarious. "Judge .. Mah behbeh's Daddy left me for a slutty Neko biatch and now I have no means of supporting mah 8 prim behbehs."

Perhaps I'm reading too much into what Philip R said, or if that could mean some changes for the GTeam in the future to involve the community (similar to the LiveJournal model) which would include contractual agreements and NDAs for resident abuse team members. That would open up a whole other can of worms though and more drama and popcorn would follow.

/me sits Des down in a comfy chair, hands him a tall frosty drink, removes his shoes, and massages his tired feet.

Poor dear.

phil was probably thinking to gom banlink.
no doubt it would be half-baked and attract various fees throughout.

This is where it went wrong.

The choice is simple. Barbie's hawt and Ken is not. Barbie wins.

Yes, it is a cruel world. It's smexy, though.

Josh, Philip says all sorts of high-sounding nonsense.

The man is brilliant, at least some of the time. After all, he invented SL (with a few close friends). But he is also a pie-in-the-sky nutter about many things.

And to complicate things, the Company has rather veered away from Philip's laissez-faire vision of a world created and largely run by its Residents.

Agreed. I would have interpreted it the same way...but in 20/20 hindsight, Land Baron should have sent an IM to both parties, requesting they inform him of their plans and instructing him how the property should be dispositioned.

Or, if he was a different sort of Land Baron, he might just point to the covenant clause that says "NO DRAMA" and boot them both.

I think he's in much better role dreaming up crazy ideas and letting the minions see if they are actually realistic and something you can implement. I guess I've always been fond of those types that can dream big, even if it is nonsense a lot of the times.

/me flies off to catch some pie in the sky

I've been in the middle of too many of these kinds of dramas in RL.