Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Answers to Questions

If LL stops trying to control content and washes their hands of this impossible task, they can claim that just like the phone company cannot control what people say, LL cannot control what people create. It's called the "Safe Harbor" provision and it's what prevents Sony from suing every ISP for "permitting" illegal copies of their works and so on.

But as soon as LL manages to limit content, then they lose that protection, and everyone under the sun can sue them for every concievable and inconcievable thing.

LL should go to court, show the safe harbor statute, and suggest TASER file a DCMA takedown like the law and the lab provides for. If LL continues with their current stupid dogmatic jihad, they will be sued many, many more times in the near future. The only way LL can prevent more suits is by a) relying on the same safe harbor provisions other service providers rely upon, and b) not deprive their customers of their legally purchased properties (and access to a service is legally a property if it has a purchase price - and LL calls it "Buying land"

Again LL, your not thinking straight. The moment you show you CAN regulate content inworld, every fanatic will sue you. Better hire more lawyers, M, because you'll need every one of them if you continue stealing your customers' stuff instead of standing up in court, showing you have a pair, and tell the court that LL has done nothing wrong.

Holy Moly! talk about big business in SL I wonder if this is why there is a push for this.

http://www.massively.com/2009/04/21/taser-international-vs-linden-lab-crack-den-crackdown/

500usd per virtual Taser sold? I wonder how much a real one costs.



170.00 on Ebay

The pathetic irony in all this is that it is being done in the name of "giving residents a more predictable SL experience".

Well, at least they are consistent in their inconsistency.

I just looked at the policy and read a bit cautiously..

Is it really correct that islands will have to be either all Adult, or all Mature? No parcel rating?

In other words, any island that has sex-related areas on it together with shops will now have to choose to keep unverified people out of the shops or to remove all the sex areas.

I am now officially utterly sick of the hoops that LL will make residents jump through just because they cannot be bothered to implement selective rendering of parcels.

Yes, I did. That was, I believe, a question of skins for child avatars. Someone got uptight about kids being depicted with actual RL nipples and pubic areas. ZOMG, sexual ageplay!

Not quite the same thing as here.

However, it's very instructive to observe the mindset on the G-Team (and, given the new definitions, at the highest levels of LL).

It is clear we are headed for a world where ANY reference to sex, drugs, or violence will be forbidden. Not just Disneyland, people. SL is going to be TeleTubbies.

And yet, you will still have to verify that you're an adult to parrticipate.

I always knew LL was weird. But this is simply unbelievable. That, headquartered in one of the most open-minded, hedonistic cities on the planet, there's a bunch of people who are so prissily priggish.

I'm sure lots of you have seen the cone-shaped over-sized joint that newbies end up with a lot. The ones that emit smoke. Assuming its full perms, if we just edit the name from "Smoking Joint" to "Hand rolled cigarette", does it suddenly become legal?

Same for mug of beer, change the name to "lemonade" and you are good?

The idea that Linden staff will be able to check up on the thousands of inventory items like these that are floating around is silly, they don't have enough people working there.

I remember one sim, where the whole place had a marijuana theme, all the textures and plants in the region were obviously cannabis based. Something like that, if it was in a PG region, I could see getting caught.

The maturity ratings read: "A Region may be designated PG so long as it does not advertise or make available any content that is suggestive of any (even mildly) sexual or violent themes, or references to social drug or alcohol usage."

Does anyone here think that will prevent naked newbies with attached cocks, a humping animation running, a beer in one hand, an AK-47 in the other, and a joint in their mouth from showing up sometimes?

Your responses help, though they seem directly contradicted by points in the knowledge base articles.

Some followups:

I was sneaking up on the nipple issue here. Seems mooted by your other responses, but my point is that the system body and basic skins have nipples. If female nipples were going to be forbidden in PG sims, then it might be difficult for unverified users to get dressed. I have no clue how this is handled on the teen grid.


Lots of things are famous works of art, and this particular statue is well known for being censored as it is rather large and... detailed. One wonders if a user wearing an David skin and attachments would fall afoul of the policy, but I realize that is probably a corner case.


Hmm - it isn't clear to me what possible use Damage enable could have on a PG sim under this policy, but ok.


Okay - I guess the argument is that The Passion's religious value is sufficiently well understood so as not to be confused with prurient S&M and deathplay. Or is it the explicitly religious and/or theatrical context that makes it okay? I'm trying to figure out exactly where the dividing line is intended to be: it is okay to act out spousal murder (Othello), underage sexuality and teen suicide (Romeo and Juliet) as part of a play, but not if you are role playing? I suspect most of the SL RP community would argue that the only substantial difference between acting in a well known play and participating in an RP is that the latter is mostly unscripted.

Reading between the lines, I assume the actual intent is to keep all explicit sex and violence out of PG, and where it is also public and prurient it should be kept in AO.

Anyway, thanks again, Blondin - you are doing a good job at this rather thankless task. It would be helpful and reassuring if the knowledge base articles were updated to match the policies that you are describing.

Cheers

That was interesting. I read the article. Ultimately, I hope Taser loses this. Here is the finaly synopsis from online discussion

"Case merits

As absurd as it might seem, Taser's case appears to have some merit to it, despite what seems to be a sloppy complaint.

Linden Lab's acquisition of Xstreet SL seems to have opened it up to direct liability, as it seems difficult to argue that it is now merely a mediator of transactions.

Trademarks and design patents, almost certainly have been violated, though the damages to Taser International Inc seem to verge on the insignificant, and the matter could have been cleared up quickly with a DMCA notice."

Not only that, I really do think they mean it when they say "nothing has been decided yet". They just throw out stuff before it has been thought out all the time.

The vast majority of the new management team are transplants; they brought with them those priggish notions.

Unfortunately, they have yet to get the memo about the location, but they most certainly have succumbed to the SF brain rot climate.

The problem for Linden Labs is they now own XStreet SL, and benefit financially from the sales of those virtual tasers (the sales commissions). That makes them a party to the transaction. The safe harbor rules in the DCMA dont apply any more

Its the same situation as a real life store selling fake Gucci handbags. Even if they are on consignment, if the store gets a cut of the sale, they are in trouble.

So they're saying that a show like "House" should be X-rated because House is hooked on Hydrocodone?

Yes I do agree with you i was just asking Yes you should have been involved in this because at the end of the day it will affect your bottom line also. Irrespective of personal views on Land traders we are all in the same boat

Maybe even TaliBanLand.

Not to get into a political idealogy discussion, but we see it here in RL . Oftentimes, the people who proudly call themselves Liberals are the same ones who advocate Nanny Statism, more government intrusion into private life, forced redistribution of wealth, and a greater dependance on THEM for everyday needs. It never made sense to me.

Evidently most people can differentiate TV from RL. Now if they could only do the same about SL.

Oh, I dunno. Both are mostly about fucking the neighbors, although not in quite the same way.

Very much the same. Censorship is censorship.

I've been wading through the recent traffic on some of the relevant forums, but I haven't found any explanation from the Lab about why this stuff about "illicit drug use" has suddenly appeared in the definition of "Adult". What's up with that? Is there some reason for it? Is there any chance it will just silently vanish again, since it's so clearly a silly idea?

Obvious problems include defining "illicit" (illicit where? alcohol is illegal in some places, marijuana is legal in others), deciding whether or not a piece of SL content is actually depicting drug use (is that thing she's smoking tobacco, marijuana, or meerkat dung?), the huge addition that this would make to the fraction of the current mainland that's Adult and that would therefore have to move (every Reggae club, every even slightly realistic grunge urban area, every hippy commune, every tribute to Woodstock), and the slipperiness of the slope that we're now going down (what next? depictions of gambling, even if no actual RL or SL currency is involved? expressions of disrespect for authority? "defamation of religion"? criticism of the Dear Leader?).

I'm hoping this was just a trial balloon or ill-thought-out last-minute addition, especially given that only the first definition of "Adult" on the new definition page mentions drugs, while the second, just after it, doesn't. But it would be nice to have *some* explanation from the Lab of just what those words are doing there, and why...

Good point. I'd imagine all the idealists who would bristle under this plan as much as we are have probably been sent packing. They probably have Phil locked up in an office somewhere drugged and stupified and trot him out to make propaganda speeches, while Mitch runs the show. Just like in the Star Trek Nazi episode.*

*Patterns of Force.

For those playing at home who want to look it up and figure out WTF Brenda is talking about.

OK, I do have a question that I'd like clarified, please. I don't know if it's been asked before and not answered* because I haven't read the entire thread (I am trying to keep what little is left of my sanity in tact for some odd reason)

A partner and I are in the process of building a private region, and on that sim, in a skybox, we would like to have an area of a more adult nature. This space would not be advertised in any way, and would be for the sole use of our residents and close friends. A place to go, hang out and...whatever.

What rating would that fall under???

*I say not answered, because I am very aware more questions aren't being answered than are. This "should" be a simple one, but I what I've read has been of a very conflicting nature. *coughs*

Thank you.

OK we have placed a wiki on the url below for people to contribute and store pages on regarding all these adult changes call it a historical repository lol

http://www.slapt.me/wiki/

I still need anyone willing to help administer it and maybe help some of the new folks contribute and that includes me as i am now in learning mode lol

It is housed on our own servers and will be part of an on going project. It will continue to remain there indefinitely and we would like to think it may develop as an independent archive as time progresses.

If you can help out on this project please email me or PM me here and we will sort out admin rights etc.

Create your account at the top of the wiki main page and thank you in advance for all and any help in building it into an independent archive.

I personally am THRILLED with the prospect of Ursula. Many of you know me as a non-bot land seller in SL, and the more I read in this post, the more I roll my eyes. No matter what LL says, Ursula and any other (A) continents HAVE to remain small if LL is to keep its agenda intact. You see, LL is trying to get out from under its image as a Pixelated-Sex-Palaces-for-Every-Pervert-with-an-Internet-Connection, so they've decided to toss all the overt sex stuff into a single continent, so that they can merge the teen grid, yet appear to be trying to keep the youngest residents out of it. Then they can lure mainstream businesses, the real people who desire stability and disnification into SL again, to achieve their long term goal of becoming a major communicaitons platform for business and education.

However, anyone who has ever seen Dateline will understand that most perves seeking teens for sex don't go to pedophile chat rooms. They go to mainstream stuff where teens hang out. If SL starts drawing teens, the pedos will follow them here, and all it takes is one inworld sting that hits the news ad all SL's carefully planned (A) continent safety and sanitization gets flushed. Maybe then LL will finally give up their dream of being this big business platform and concentrate on being what they are, a Pixelated-Sex-Palace-for-Every-Pervert-with-an-Internet-Connection.

What is wrong with that?

It isn't censorship to stop someone from intentionally scamming / damaging their neighbors.

That's the difference.

Even Libertarians support the rule of law to abate the use of force or fraud by the Citizens or Government against other Citizens.

Adfarmers / land extortionists were using force AND fraud against their neighbors. LL did the right thing in applying their version of "law" to abate it.

I like the way you think!

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy!!!!!!!!

Har. At least with one, you get kissed before and after.