How to record voice chat

I will be conducting research in SL soon for a dissertation. I have IRB approval and I will be interviewing volunteer participants. I will need to be able to record voice chat, which will later be transcribed into text for analysis. Does anyone have experience with recording voice in SL and recommendations on how to proceed? Your suggestions are much appreciated.

Isn't that a violation of privacy?

(not to mention a violation of TOS)

2 methods come to mind ..

1. Wavelab and set it record soundcard input .

2. An external recorder ( digital or analogue ) connected to PC headphone or line out.

I imagine if he had permission it wouldnt be.



Course it does lead the question unrelated to the OP's intentions - how many who are active voicers would continue to voice if they knew someone was recording everything they said?

and additionally is the voice still based on Camera location? In that can people still zoom with their camera to pick up remote conversations.

Oooh this one could get messy. With permission it might be acceptable, but dont teach everyone how to do it or I am sure there will be some unwanted recording going on. Messy Messy Messy

what is IRB and how does its permission coincide with individuals or LL? Im afraid this whole idea is breaking many laws and wouldnt touch it.

dunno how much teaching it would take since you could record someone easily by putting a tape recorder next to your speakers.

Quality recrdings take more effort Im sure. But basic recording - simple.

I was meaning permission from those he was recording. Now that you mention it I too wonder who IRB is.

?... perhaps i am not seeing something here... but how do you record sound from your PC now?

isnt it that simple?

Even if you cant use your hard drive to record sound on.. then just a connection from line out on your PC to an external cassette recorder would do.. or from your telephone to the line in on the cassette

Nero wav editor is an example of a straightforward sound recorder..
another...
http://www.mymusictools.com/articles/how-do-i-record-voice-conversations-without-recording-silence.htm?ref=sart

but there are so many i couldnt fit them on a page here...

give us some more info on why you dont have an answer, im not seeing the problem.

just another reason not tu use voice as far as im concerned

Imagine this scenario-

Your next voice chat sexual encounter gets recorded and then chopped up into 10 second sound bites.

It becomes the next Xcite compatible Sex Sounds pack with an alt of your lover making 150L per copy!

Here are the laws for recording phone calls state by state ... be aware that most times your phone calls are being recorded - sometimes without your knowledge. Most states are "one party consent". This means that only one person (even the one who iniates the recording) need know.

One way to avoid these laws entirely is to chat and record through instant message - most IM programs automatically keep a file on your computer. VOIP phone conversations and audio chat ARE NOT governed by these laws!

If you are in a two party notification state and you are TOLD you are being recorded; you have no legal rights if you continue your conversation beyond that point. Arguing with the recording party over the right to record is consent to record; based on laws governing harassment.

Here are the laws state by state:

States Requiring One Party Notification

Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
Colorado
District Of Columbia
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Nebraska
Nevada
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Oklahoma Oregon
Ohio
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming

States Requiring Two Party Notification

California
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Massachusetts
Maryland
Michigan
Montana
New Hampshire
Pennsylvania
Washington

In several states, including my own, it is illegal to record or intercept wire and oral communications, without the permission of the person being recorded.

I for one do not want my voice in SL ever recorded

The federal laws refers to telephone and wire line communications, does it apply? You would need to consult a legal professional to be sure

In Massachusetts the law can be found under
Mass general laws Chapter 272: Section 99. Interception of wire and oral communications

And I sure Maryland has a similar law - remember the Clinton / Lewinsky scandal and I do believe Linda trip got a jail term for recoding audio.

Is this considered telephone or wire line for the sake of law, I don’t know, but you should proceed with caution.........

Massachusetts requires consent of all parties unless another exception applies (Massachusetts Gen. Laws Ann. ch. 272, Sec. 99). Telephone equipment, which is furnished to a phone company subscriber and used in the ordinary course of business, is excluded from the definition of unlawful interception devices (Id. at 99(B)(3)). Office intercommunication systems used in the ordinary course of business are similarly exempt (Id. at 99(D)(1)(b)). The criminal penalty is a fine of up to $10,000, imprisonment for up to five years, or both. In civil litigation, an injured party may recover actual and punitive damages as well as costs and fees. It is a separate violation to divulge or use the information garnered through unlawful interception and an additional penalty of up to two years in prison or $5,000 may be imposed on this count.

LL is a California bsed company, isn't it?

So recording conversations would be per California law?




California prohibits telephone monitoring or recording, including the use of information obtained through interception unless all parties to the conversation consent (California Penal Code Sections 631 & 632). There is no statutory business telephone exception and the relevant case law all but excludes this possibility. California courts have recognized "implied" consent as being sufficient to satisfy the statute where one party has expressly agreed to the taping and the other continues the conversation after having been informed that the call is being recorded. Violation is punishable by a fine of up to $2,500, imprisonment for not more than one year, or both. A civil plaintiff may recover the greater of $3,000 or three times the amount of any actual damages sustained.


So a little statement at the beginning like: "This is being recorded, do you agree to be recorded?" should cover you.

LOL your knowledge on this subject is fitting a phone weasel advocate

No laws about recording however will affect people who are recording others w/o their consent for dubious reasons.

Its one of those speeding is illegal but the cops never could watch every road every day, kind of things.

If the OP is using the conversations as part of research, I think it would behoove him to include a little disclaimer that all participants knew they we being recorded and have a record of them agreeing to it, just to make sure he is all nice and legal.

True - which shouldnt be a problem since he states they are volunteers

A couple things I'd wondered was; VOIP laguished for years waiting for sfficient tech to assure that the location of the call initiator could be reliabled determined and that gov depts could wiretap well enough for evidence in trials. Is this been a factor in voice in SL? It must be.

Onther other question, Bush's wiretapping cronnies likly got past the laws by timeslicing their taps. the law having stated you could not tap for more than a millisecond or something like that (but tapping for one millisecond 900 times per second for full lenght of your conversation is OK)

How are laws regulating recording on the Public Switched Telephone Network relevant to SecondLife voice? Uvas even says "VOIP phone conversations and audio chat ARE NOT governed by these laws!" I don't think there's any legal restriction at all on recording SL voice communications, other than the ToS. (But would anyone use SL voice for private conversations anyway? Do we have reason to think the voice packets are encrypted?)

I think the OP's biggest problem will be to word the notification to participants in a way that will satisfy the Human Subjects Committee at their institution.

it's very simple to do, one way would be to get
FRAPS and you can capture not only all the voice, but everything you see as well
(that is makes a video recording)
a 2nd way would be software like Audacity

its free sound editing software and can be set up to run and record everything that goes thru your 'mixer' witch is to say anything you hear thru your pc's speakers

A 2 second Google search returned as the first result:

http://metaversed.com/12-aug-2007/video-how-record-second-life-voice-mac
http://metaversed.com/21-aug-2007/cracked-recording-second-life-voice-windows

Related, we can look forward to getting rid of 3D voice and to built-in recording:

i still want to know who the S-ell is IRB, and why is thier permission acceptable, but not LL, to record "volunteers"?

and

"sniff sniff" research = another one sided view by a "reporter"?

The state laws might have a bearing, especially in those states requiring the consent of both parties. There have been several cases in recent months where the police pressed charges against citizens for taping their conversations, because the citizen did not inform the cop or get his consent. This only applied to audio, video is usually still protected. This is another of the grey areas where your local laws will maybe apply.

IRB is Institutional Review Board. All research, including dissertations, must be reviewed by an IRB (usually at a university) as a means of protecting people against harmful and unethical research. If this is a dissertation, the university IRB would review the proposal and could approve it as meeting ethical standards of research.

Usually IRBs require informed consent, especially if the research that is being conducted has the risk of violating the privacy of participants, or creating harm in other ways.

Here is a link to the Wikipedia entry about IRBs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_Review_Board

One concern is that a university IRB might not fully appreciate the sensitive issues that might be discussed in SL, and the fact that use of voice recording could indeed violate the privacy of individuals.