1.6 and US Code Title 18, Section 2257

*grabs a shotgun and blows a hole thru the law book at point blank useing bird shot*

there yall happy

Thank you Fuzzy! I'm glad this post was locked for a while and I near forgot about the discussion, provided enough time for at least a few people to post who read the hyper linked law and understood it has very little to do with copyright. Only slight admendment to what Fuzzy said would be, ...your "own" pornos AND _ones you have licensed_...

It's a simple thing to comply with, if you're providing adult content and getting compensated ($, L$, dwell) you just need to post contact information for the person who holds the paperwork for that content. Name, address, sometimes an email address or phone number of the custodian of records. If you are unable to do that, then you're obviously breaking copyright, but that's only a secondary mistake.

During the 1.6 preview one player asked a Linden what would happen when players start streaming copyrighted material on their land without permission from the copyright holders. We were all told by the Linden Liason to file an abuse report about it. Don't know what would the next step be, but that's what we were told to do.

You're unfortunately completely wrong. The US courts have been completely inconsistent in matters of internet and jurisdiction. Unfortunately, there have been many judgements where the courts have ruled that the server location determines jurisdiction, and there have been many other judgements which use the audience location as the jurisdictional dictator. At the moment, the courts are completely unclear about the matter. I hope that the SCOTUS will definitively weigh in on the matter, but I don't forsee that happening for a while.

No it won't be addressed. It may have escaped your notice, but Second Life is not First Life.

Or to put it another way, Earth lawyers stay behind on Earth please.

New worlds have new rules, and after suffering at the hands of priests and moralists and lawyers and other assorted coercive universalists, we're trying to get away from all that old world historical nonsense.

Bruno sorry this is where you go totaly wrong. I dont know of you remember a few weeks back the issues about legalities and the Linden $.

The Linden has no inherent value. Only 3rd party websites give it that value when it is traded and only when it is traded.
But still in all actuality your not trading lindens you are trading a service.
The service being you give a consumer linden $ within a game world for a RL dollar price as you cannot take Lindens out and spend them or exchange them at a RL bank so they are not a RL currency.
Thus Lindens cannot be taxed or adjudicated otherwise.
Sorry, but your wrong in this perception.

Shadow.

Except that were all players in a real world, and under they law SL is not its own world, and things like real world laws and such can have an impact on our lives as SL players. Alas we cannot hide from legal issues simply by saying its a virtual world.

As I understand it the core of the conflcit is this (and please correct me If I am wrong on any point, this is discussion, not legal advice)

The states in which we live in have a vested interest in preventing things like child poronography. Some of these laws, like section 2257 exist in part as a way to protect makers of adult material. Now to what extend the internet constitutes interstate commerce is an area in legal flux. Arguably all busisness is done at the location of the seller, and thus is deamed in state business, even if it goes out of state. this is the the basic theory that underlies states that charge sales tax on internet transactions.

Following this logic, the adult material would not be put in the stream on interstate commerce and title 2257 would not apply.

However. The internet is a telecommunications medium, and is a vehicle by which both national and international commerce are conducted. this puts it squarely in the stream of interstate commerce and thus subject to federal regulation. (But arguably then, not subject to state sales tax). thus 2257 does apply.

The thing is, congress has never fully taken a position as to how the usa relates legally to the internet. A body of laws and regulations exist interpreting specific actions on the internet, as well as individual caselaw. But there has been no definitve opinion or legislation as of this time.

This dialouge is going on in our society and as internet users, we should be very aware of it, and of having our voices heard amongts the din. The FCC has beocme more conservative recently and that does not bode well for any of us. None of us can afford to simply say lawyers are bad and they shouldn't come here. You want us here, so that when the other lawyers come to pull the plug, someone who understands the community is able and ready to fight back.

I respectfully disagree Shadow. I believe that regardless of rhetoric, if it is tested in court, it would not take much of an arguement to make the connection (leap?) between earning L$ and exchanging for US$ -- thus making it a commodity that the copyright holder has a right to claim a chunk of. I could be wrong but I know more than one attorney who I believe could successfully argue the the true value of the L$. Certainly in a copyright infringement matter.

i recall reading this part earlier and got to wondering since i've been told some RL media people will be in SL soon: if the takedown request were to be issued (and iirc some "legal" BitTorrent sites got shut down recently by the courts), would LL have to shut the grid down? a section of it? only their portion - leaving the research grids like the UC Davis sims up and running?

even if i don't care about the piracy, how it impacts the whole of SL is of interest to me.

i know this post may be old but are all u ppl here like seriously who gives a shit if its agianst the law the dman illegals break the law every day whats wrong with a lil piracy

Where some see a problem, I see a great biz opportunity!

Why worry about the law when every citizen has a 'camera' at the click of a menu?

Lets see.. 'camera', check, 'sets and locations' check, editor (my rl job) 'check'... actors and actresses... yup check!

Howzabout it? who wants to make some porn?

Siggy.

Except its not, under any definition of the word "induce" I can find.