When did age play become illegal?

Unfortunately, the words sound clear-cut, but they aren't. There is no way in SL to declare an avie as a child or an adult... and yes, it is easy to be confused at times between the two.

Until Second Life has height and classes for the age of the avie, it is very likely people could be banned for what they think is an adult avie (engaging in ageplay) but what a Linden thinks is a child.

So, no, I think the policy as it stands is not clear, because it is not clear how you define a child in SL. Does an adult avie wearing a diaper quality? How high does that adult have to be? If it's a female, does she have to have fully formed breasts to qualify as an adult?

Unless Lindens are willing to answer those questions... they're risking trouble enforcing such a policy. They're risking a law suit if they hand out identities to authorities without a warrant using their current standard.

As to your quotes of the ToS above, the current situation in Germany draws that into question. Will Linden Labs continue to not hand out identities, even if an authority simply asks for it (lacking a warrant)? I'm not so sure, based on their level of stated cooperation, and I want someone from LL to clarify that first and foremost.

@rei

Okay, I can see your point regarding "what does a child avatar make". Unfortunately, I don't even think Robin could answer that in black and white terms. It's going to be one of those lawyerly responses, having to do with Linden Lab's reasonable judgement, case by case, etc. This isn't the first time somebody has asked for specificity which is just not possible to provide. The appropriate Linden to address this would be their legal counsel, which used to be Ginsu but I believe he's moved on to something else at the Lab. Once the dust settles I think it would be good for him/her to hammer this subject out in detail, and post something on the blog.

On the ToS privacy policy and Germany, not sure what you mean here. The ToS states that they will volunteer your private information to law enforcement in connection with criminal investigations. Like most ISPs and other online service providers, this is standard procedure. If there is good reason to believe you are using the Second Life platform for ciminal activities, Linden Lab aren't going to wait around for a warrant. By the way, the blog post strongly suggests that they are reaching out to German authorities in connection with the -real world- child porn found in-world by ARD, not the aforementioned adults engaging in polygon sex. All she said about them was that they were banned. The other issue of real images appears unrelated.

It only get difficult when sex or age is added. I age paly as a 30 plus year old man with people all above 18 in a real life enviroment. That is not illegal, no pictures of underage kids or cartoons. Nothing wrong with a 40 year old bloke pretending to be 1 8 year olg girl, and wearing a wig and gymslip.

Nothing wrong with dressing as a baby and getting bottle fed, it is this area, (new to me) of adults pretending to be children, using a cartoon form and then being arrested for it.

If you are an adult, pretending to be a child in real life when you obviously aren't. it is leagl,

if you are an adult usindg a cartoon skin, regardless of the age you pretend to be, it is illegal.

Thanks for the clarification

I'm glad you see my point on the problem of identifying avie's. I just hope Linden Labs realizes that they can quickly get themselves into trouble for not having a system that classes child and adult avies.

All I am saying is, if you want to ban sex acts between a polygon representation of a child and a polygon representation of an adult... the only viable option is to implement avie classes. All other options eventually wind up with a defamation of character suit. I don't think LL wants to roll the dice with an injunction taking the whole grid offline.

The "lawyer speak" will become very clear to them when a lawyer explains "a judge just ordered you to shut down the grid because you outed someone when you shouldn't have". The following lawyer speak like "major class action... hope to appeal... maybe we'll be able to get the grid back online in a month or two" will be harder to understand as everyone at Linden Labs collectively starts to pass out

As I've said in this thread already, that depends on where you live.

In the U.S. it is currently disputed, there are conflicting laws that the Supreme Court will need to re-rule on.

In Germany however, it is probably illegal. Again, I only say probably because I am not an very informed on German law.

Further, the simple act of displaying a different age is illegal, only when sexual acts are added into the mix do the legal spats begin.

Child sex apparently is though.

Well it was specifically a childsex scene....................

Of course. But the question as to if graphical depictions (not involving any real children) are or not is in dispute. The PROTECT act is in conflict with a 2003 Supreme Court ruling which appears to say that the PROTECT act is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court will have to arbitrate this in a future case.

I suggest you re-read this thread as it goes more in-depth as to the issue... and we're starting to run around in circles re-hashing already discussed material.

Well what I'm trying to point out is to save ageplay you need to seperate it from childsex, which is not being done by us or LL.
Not being into either but you will findregardless of any legal mumbo jumbo if it's not defined clearly on what you are fighting for you won't get support from a lot of the community.

No goodbye childsex, get your definition right, prentending to be 13 but not participating in a sexual act isn't wrong by that law.

Agreed. However, I don't think anyone is concerned about ageplay on its own. When you add sex into ageplay is where the debate begins.

It's unfortunate that ageplay sex in the real world (between two adults) is just considered weird, but when acted out in SL is causing such frustration.

I actually didn't use Google, I've been studying German for 4 years now. And if you watch the video you can see they're talking about real child porn.

I can understand some of your concerns.. however, there is pretty much no chance that anyone could sue Linden Lab and prevail, for them having involved law enforcement in a particular circumstance where they believed a crime had been committed. First, they're smart enough to recognize when such involvement is warranted. They're not going to throw caution to the wind in such cases. Second, that inconvenient Terms of Service we agreed to when we signed up takes care of that issue. In the highly unlikely event that somebody is wrongly implicated in an actual crime, and they sue Linden Lab, no judge is going to order the entire grid shut down. With all due respect, that's just a silly idea. AOL is fielding hundreds if not thousands of civil lawsuits at any given moment. So is every other large scale online service provider. Services don't get shut down at the whim of one litigant.

That's why I left section b in

Any person who, in a circumstance described in subsection (d), knowingly possesses a visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting, that ......
.....or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be subject to the penalties provided in section 2252A(b)(2), including the penalties provided for cases involving a prior conviction.

I'm not a lawyer or an American, so I couldn't say whether "additional offences" means someone charged with the offence listed in section a can also be charged with that listed in section b, or if it's an offence additional to that listed in section a and anyone can be charged with offence b. However, if they knowingly possess a visual depiction through internet transmission, it's an offence under part b. Walking into an ageplay area, or engaging in ageplay, you would know that you are about to have a visual depiction on your screen. It could be argued either way if that constitues possession. The minute they take a snapshot though, it's definate possession.

I disagree. I could see a class action suit on the behalf of all registered users of Second Life. In it, it would argue that LL violated their privacy clause by overtly acting above and beyond their obligations to cooperate with authorities. That could then continue and possibly affect any SL member, retaining the class action status. At that point, the injunction could be either to prevent LL from taking such further action, or to offline the grid until the case is resolved.

With the number of crazy judges I've seen in America... the chances of them offlining the grid are a roll of the dice. Ask anyone that works at Vonage about that one...

But, we're getting too hypothetical here. I've outlined what questions LL should answer, and my suggestions as to what they should do to improve the system. I await another town hall, or their response, to see what actions they will take to resolve this in a way that is acceptable to both ageplayers, and the community as a whole.

Class actions involve a relatively large number of plaintiffs who share a common claim of tort. One cannot initiate a class action "on behalf of all registered users of Second Life". Each plaintiff must voluntarily participate in the action, and demonstrate through evidentiary process that they suffer a common harm from the action(s) of the defendant. Enforcement of Adult-on-Child polygon sex on the part of Linden Lab is not likely to ever reach this scale, and meet the criteria for class litigation.

I think there are serious issues here, way beyond what we are discussing.

Sl is becoming increasingly international, with people from more and more countries, with more and more different laws.
Which law applies to whom, and under what circumstances will LL give up personal identity information to an eager non-US prosecutor ?

Example : In country X I believe adultery is illegal, as is any communication tending to encourage or depict adultery. Imagine that the X authorities wish to prosecute the owner of an avatar involved in "adultery-play" who they have reason to believe is a country X resident (informed-on by neighbor ?). The prosecutor asks LL for the RL identity so that they can establish residency, and prosecute if their suspicion is correct. What will LL do ?

This is a problem the whole internet-world is beginning to realize it is going to have to grapple with.

My guess is that we each have to obey the laws in the place where we reside. That it is our responsibility to see that we do. That if we don't, LL may hand us over, even if the offense would be ludicrous in the US. eg adultery play, or even a female avatar failing to wear a veil, or driving a virtual car.

This seems the only way, until we have some sort of world-internet-law which is a very long way off.

So in all this chaos of conflicting laws, what should SL select as the very few very special things that they will prevent everybody from doing, whether locally banned or not ?

Presumably just the things it would be illegal to allow on their servers, wherever they are located. If there is a bank of SL servers in country X, maybe no-one using them can do adultery-play ? Or homosexual-play ? Or BDSM play ? Or any sex-play at all ?

With the current US servers, I guess all their users must accept the relevant restrictions of US law AND their own local law.

Every user must expect to be "dobbed-in" for suspected violations of either.

You could argue that SL should find the least restrictive jurisdiction with decent internet links, site its servers there, ban almost nothing, and hand everyone over to their local law on any proper law-enforcement request.

The other alternative would be for LL to keep the servers in the US. Say - "this is governed by US law only". Refuse to give identities to any but a US prosecutor for US offences.

But would that be legal ?

Some people believe this issue will force fragmentation of the internet into isolated segments, to the vast detriment of the world.

People are having a hard time distinguishing between ageplay and child sex including LL and the German press.

Participants in the forums may be confusing the issue, but Linden Lab are not.

Yes, it would be legal. Countries like China would then have the right to block access to the grid as they see fit. U.S. businesses are only bound to international law via international treaties signed by the U.S. government... at which point, they become U.S. law.

In other words, yes, but LL may not want to since counties could then choose to shut them out. They may anyways, countries like Iran simply could object to the content already in SL.

What you suggest is actually what I suggest LL chooses... adopt U.S. law, and not play this subjective "we'll embrace local law when we see fit" policy. That is a very slippery slope, and LL is taking heat right now for choosing it.

Before I say anything I am a mother of 2 and I do not condone child sex. HOWEVER there is many things in SL that is considered to be illegal in many countries including the US that still play out.

Snuff, Sodomy, Forced Sex, Slavery, Fellatio, Bestiality, Adultery, Pornography, Prostitution, Stealing, Con Artists, Scams, some countries you cannot show skin, Women working or running businesses, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexuals, Transgenders, Transsexuals, Heterosexuals, (yes I said Heterosexuals to some its abnormal!), Interracial coupling, different types of Religion, Fat, Skinny, Tall, Short, the color of your eyes and hair and the list can go on and on. All these considered illegal, abnormal, morally not accepted or disgusting to someone or somewhere in the world. With that being said it may very well be to some and may not be to others. It is all allowed here in Second life.

What age is an adult? In every country the age is different. It depends on the culture that you are brought up in. Now in some countries and even some of our own well known "respected" countries were based on marriages of quite older men to the very young (even as young as 12 yrs old could be even younger or even sometimes incestuous!).

Second life has stated you have to be 18 to play. Respect that. HOWEVER I will not tolerate nor stand to give a company more information than what I would be willing to give AOL, YAHOO or any of your other big Internet services and/or gaming companies. Nor should I have to pay for the fault of two consenting mind you adults who were caught doing something that was considered illegal. Two adults out of how many residents there are in the game? Now may I remind you that you are making everyone pay the price (literally pay higher price) than just dealing with 2 offenders you might as well take out everything I stated above, make sure everyone wears the same clothing (uniform like) and KISS your what was successful business goodbye. I guarantee that if you let this happen you will have every single organization from every ends of the earth coming at you with demands. Do not forget that you will have to completely re-design second life to match every ones likes and dislikes.

You have a TOS agreement and I can agree to basic accounts being charged a small fee to help weed out under agers. However to make it mandatory for more personal information to be given out to a company over the Internet, to pay more fees than we already have to, or to invade more on the privacy is and will not be tolerated by the majority. My giving you my credit card and regular information is proof enough in my book. If a child was to steal information from their parents in order to play then set something up on your billing information such as Billed by Linden Lab Adult Community something simple yet telling parents if they come across the billing statement it is more to it than just a game. For those without credit cards I am sure you can think of something that is along those lines or even have voice recording verification or signature required.

Let's face it your not going to 100% weed out all under agers NO MATTER what you do. Your not going to 100% please everyone either. Just saying don't make everyone who is here now pay the price of what was 2 others mistakes or your going to have more on your hands to deal with than you realize. Let it be up to the residents who make this what it is today and have them when they see something or someone being offensive or performing illegal acts to right click and report an offender and you look into the matter and take action.

BTW 2 other things... 1 is you cannot take out child Av's because then you would have to take out animal type Av's as well and other different types of Av's that disagree to someones likes or beliefs. Just because they play a child AV doesn't mean they condone child sex. They could be living their second childhood or they are in fact a dwarf/midget/little person/height challenged in real life. (See no matter what I said here I am certainly going to offend a small person even if I was trying to find the right word to use).

To the GLBT community the statement I stated before was no reflection, insult or purposely made the GLBT community to look bad in ones eyes. It was simply stating no matter who you are what you do someone is going to find something about someone that is abnormal, illegal, or whichever.

Linden Lab... see your not going to please everyone. Just don't upset the majority!

Perhaps you presume to speak for the majority?

Perhaps it would be nice if there was a way for LL to send a group vote to everyone in SL to really see where the majority is.

It would be interesting. All we really have are forum polls/posts and blog comments. Assuming forum and blog readers were a representative cross-section of the community as a whole, we could get an idea from tallying up all the pro comments and con comments. That would be impractical, and based on an unsubstantiated assumption. On the issue of verification, even though it's not something that's up for vote (it's going to happen, period) I really would like to see an accurate pulse of the community. There tends to be a lot of noise in the forums on any given "controversial issue of the day".. but does it really reflect the overall sentiment of the community? I highly doubt it.

Id have to agree - Ive discussed this issue with my non forums going / non Blog readind friends

Some general trends Ive noticed -

Among Women:
Verification - good , people under 18 shouldnt be here
Ageplay ban - good , people shouldnt be doing that here.
Searchbot - I dont want anyone but LL keeping track of my stuff
Voice - Ill only talk to my closest freinds, or not at all. (this includes women who are DJ's interestingly)


Among Men:
Verification - good, people under 18 shouldnt be here
Ageplay - People should be able to do what they want as long as the players are over 18.
Searchbot - Cool !
Voice - Cool ! (except for the men I know who are playing female avs.)


Totally unscientific sampling- But enough to make me think Zaphod is right in that people who dont read the forums arent accurately represented by people who do.