Sharing IM's

I boo-booed once and posted part of a private IM in my picks explaining why I was boycotting a certain store in SL.
The proprieter in question made sure to IM me and let me know that several other patrons saw it and it disturbed them.
He let me know under no uncertain terms that this was a violation of ToS and he could--in theory--report me to LL. I took down the boycott from my picks, b/c I was in violation, but here's the thing:
He didn't do this out of any sense of altruism. He did it because he had behaved like a total ass to me and some others IN GROUP IMs! He basically threatened me rather than admit that he had also done wrong.
As it stands right now, the boycott on my part continues. I had spent several thousand Ls in that store and was treated abysmally by this person. I had conceded that I had done wrong and took steps to make amends. However, he did not want to seem to let it go. So then *I* informed HIM that if he IMd me about this anymore, *I* was going to report HIM to LL for harrassment. I then muted him and b/c of his shoddy business practices (not respecting the customer PRIOR to my blunder), he has lost a well-paying patron.
As a merchant myself, I can still only shake my head at this kind of arrogance. Without our customers, we have no business. I asked a simple question of this guy, and got dog-piled for it. He lost me and several of my friends as well over this. This is not good business, and using ToS to rationalize one's behavior to me is just as much a violation of CS than the faux paux I made. The difference? I admitted I was wrong and remedied the situation. He didn't.

how exactly saying in your picks you're boycoting someone and why is against the official LL rules?

Actually, I find the assumption that all IMs should be considered private a strange one.

Telling one person ultra-sensitive secrets is one use of IM. But most of the time, I use IM simply because what I have to say is only relevant to one person, and I don't want to spam up public chat.

People who IM me aren't always my close friends. Sometimes they are strangers who IM me with weird things. Why am I not allow to tell my friends about these weird IM conversations that a stranger might start with me? Or why should I have to paraphrase rather than cut-and-paste?

I can usually tell by context which IM conversations are meant to remain a secret, and for which ones secrecy doesn't matter.

(Incidentally, if someone tells you they are going to kill someone by IM, reporting it to law enforcement and saving someone's life would be a bannable offense.)

It's kinda odd to me that Linden Lab would want to regulate social interaction to that level of detail (it's a bannable offense to reveal a friend's IMed secret), but money scams are "resident disputes" in which Linden Lab will not get involved. I understand the rule against revealing the real-life information, because that can be a safety issue; but to prohibit sharing IMs seems to be unnecessary.

Well according to the person who caused me to boycott, it's because I included part of the private IM chat between me and him in the pick.

While I wouldn't normally share IM's if LL doesn't want us to share them why can we record all IM's?....just playing devils advocate here lol

Myself and my partner regularly cut &paste IMs we receive, As a previous poster has said, we know what is said in confidence ALWAYS stays in confidence. I have a snippet of a conversation between me and my partner in my picks, is this illegal/wrong? I understand that posting IMs in Local Chat is illegal but surely not betweeen you and your other half, or am i just being naive? Another thing is, i know a few RL Husband and Wife Avatars here, and as they sit next to each other at home obviously they can see each others IMs! Is this also against TOS?




"One smile makes two people happy"

Thats an interesting point about Hubby and wife as I sit next to my wife and we often read each others screen. It as it was said earlier I do not see IM's as private conversations just a way to contact someone that I am not near at the time or a way not to jam up public chat.

Personally, unless I had good reason to, I wouldn't share or post chat logs, the only exception there is chats with Lindens as they are a company spokesman and if they say something to me I feel is right to share then I will. You have to remember that anything you type in SL can end up anyway on the internet so always speak with honesty and it will never cause you any problems at a later date if it ever happens

Just my thoughts though

I hear what your saying and it makes some sense what your saying. I would reiterate there is a TOS you signed when joining. Doesn't mean it doesn't make sense but still there is that rule.

My main point on what you said was this... "But most of the time, I use IM simply because what I have to say is only relevant to one person," That I would fully agree with.

If thats the case then why share it with anyone else? Kind of a rhetorical question cause I do understand what your saying, I'm just pointing it out.

Your right about reporting something you feel could be dangerous or illegal. You should report that to LL though.

I get the impression that some folks feel that if it goes into their eyes, or onto their screen they should be able to share it. I suppose in all reality thats true. I kinda feel society has stepped away from respecting peoples right to privacy though when that happens. You may feel its ok to share things with anyone. What about when your talking to someone who wishes to remain private about their conversation? Is it then ok for you to just share that or do you respect those persons wishes? If you are going to say you would respect the wishes of people wanting to remain private in IMs then I'd say everyone has asked for that by agreeing to the TOS. hehe.

Contracts simply described *anywhere* are not valid.

Because a) there are exceptions to the no-sharing rule, and b) there are other uses for having those records, besides sharing them. For example, if a friend mentions a birthday, I'm not going to bring up my calendar while I'm in SL, but I may go back to the chat or IM log later to write it down, so that I can send a birthday greeting the following year.

If you have permission to pass the IM along then it is ok..but if you use some contract on your picks it's not gonna hold to anything..

In that sense i could put this in my picks and never get banned..If you come within 20 meters of me you give me permission to grief you..

You best have Permission in the conversation instead of assuming someone read your picks..
Anyone could do what they wanted if it was as simple as putting something in your picks to change the TOS or Community standards..

Ya' know, I think that the original intent for this being put in the ToS was to prevent people from divulging RL information or anything pertinent that could be related to a safety issue. It is my opinion that people have gotten carried away with it (as George Carlin said "We Americans, when are we gonna have a meeting? We took a good idea and ran off the edge of the G*dd*mn*d earth with it!" and are interpreting it to the ultra-conservative extreme.

actually it's pretty clear in there..


Disclosure

(((Residents are entitled to a reasonable level of privacy with regard to their Second Life experience.)))

Sharing personal information about a fellow Resident --including gender, religion, age, marital status, race, sexual preference, and real-world location beyond what is provided by the Resident in the First Life page of their Resident profile is a violation of that Resident's privacy.

(((Remotely monitoring conversations, posting conversation logs, or sharing conversation logs without consent are all prohibited in Second Life and on the Second Life Forums.)))

post the boycott pick again, but this time retell the conversation with your own words, that wouldn't be a problem, would it?

As someone else mentioned, it's most probably the copyright issue.

As I understand it, some years ago case law involving the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the USA established that the copyright for any written material posted on the internet is automatically the sole property of the poster, who is the only person who can grant permission for its distribution beyond the confines of the original posting. This has most often been applied to email, but it has also been applied to postings on discussion forums. Applying it to multi-party conversations seems to me to go beyond the intent of the law, which was intended to protect copyright for written material that has lasting literary or informational value, but nobody said common sense was a requirement for being a communications industry lawyer.

I think it's really that simple. LL isn't concerned about courtesy or privacy or secrets or anything like that. They simply view this as a matter of due diligence in copyright enforcement.

Sharing private conversations with others for the purpose of spreading happiness is nice. Doing it to ridicule people is tacky. From a legal point of view, neither content nor purpose matter.

If there is a need to pass along info, I ASK if it ok to do so. Since all of my convos in world are logged, I have the agreement to do so logged

Nah probably not, but at this point, I just don't care enough to bother.

It's not the copyright issue, because a) LL filed this with other privacy concerns; and b) there are all sorts of fair use cases that still wouldn't get past LL.

I'd love to see a case that ruled on whether an IM log, being a dialog, was legally a work of joint authorship with both participants having full rights to copy and use the entire work.

I suppose. I can easily envision a scenario where some lawyer, whose marching orders consist entirely of "CYA", chose to ignore fair use, and wrote a policy. Then some exec with an MBA read it and said, "Hey, this sounds like privacy to me" and stuck it in the privacy section.

The most common mistake anybody makes about modern copyright law is to forget about fair use; the second most common mistake is to claim protections where fair use provides none.



Me too. But then I'm still waiting for the big case that declares all software EULAs null and void because they are invalid contracts of adhesion.

I've been waiting over twenty years for that one, ever since I read the first draconian "license agreement" that came with my first computer and Windows 3.0. I still sigh in resignation every time I click the "Agree" button for a new install of something.

It'd sure set the software world on its ear, though, wouldn't it?

I think you'd have to challenge the DMCA all the way to the SC to get that to fly.

They are not making any such claim, are they? I think they are just saying that if you disclose IMs to a third party, they consider that a violation of your contract and they might sanction you. And I don't think it matters whether it is in-world or not. If they feel that you made a disclosure, however it happened, they will sanction you. And the contract doesn't require them to "prove" anything - LL can do whatever it wants in this regard. (And if you don't like it, try taking legal action. Good luck with that.)

Hey, I can dream, can't I?

DUH~I don't understand what all these abbrevations mean...!

I was looking for a copy of the TOS on the new website. I had trouble finding it, but I did accidentally stumble upon this by following an small, inconspicuous link: It's a big, long document about how Linden Lab may use the information it collects with you, concluding by saying that, "Your use of the Linden Lab websites and/or any Linden Lab products or services (including without limitation Second Life) noted above signifies your assent to this Linden Lab Privacy Policy."

This seems to be the equivalent of one putting in one's Profile that, "By talking to me, you give up all your privacy, worldly possessions, and your first-born child to me." But not in the 2nd Life tab of the Profile, in your Picks under the seventh entry that you have titled "Miscellaneous."