Real life Laws

I've been wondering about this for sometime now and I've not really seen any discussion on it. If so, guess I've missed it.

The police and many other authorities are beginning to look at virtual worlds such as Second life and try and get the government to force real world laws into our virtual world. Like they are now people doing role play etc stalking, sexual assualts or whatever will be considered a crime. Tax evation is another thing. I have always said the government will all find ways to make money and i have a feeling Second life and other games like it will be targets unless "we" do something about it.

I honestly don't know alot of whats going on but I'd like to see other peoples views.

Star

I'm a civil libertarian. Though government is necessary, its best when limited as possible.

However, I don't see a distinction between real life and virtual life. I see just one reality. Assuming that the laws of your jurisdiction are legitimate and just, you cannot escape them by claiming that you have escaped to another dimension.

The fact of the matter is, "Lindens" are just a subsitute for real money. They have an exchange value, and thus subject to the same laws as trading in any other sort of currency or commodity.

Intellectual property can be stored digitally. Beause something exists on a hard drive rather than a piece of paper doesn't make it less property or less real. Thus is it governed by the same laws.

A computer game can be used for threats, harassment, and fraud the same way that the telephone can. Same laws apply.

There are only two complicating factors that the internet brings. One is purely psychological. For some reason, people are conditioned to think that things created by use of a computer are not real.

The second has to do with jurisdiction. The internet does defy our convential notions of physical space, and it makes defining the jurisdiction of a particular governing body harder. To me, that is the one significant legal frontier that the internet pushes. Everything else resolves itself when you accept the fact that computers and data are, in fact, real.

Id like to know why the police have so much free time to do all this.

Someone end RL crime while I wasnt looking?


I understand the money related stuff.

And of course anyone who stalks you outside of the game in your RL is committing a RL crime anyhow.

But the behavor stuff? - Sounds more like the cops are bored to me.

Secondlife is a communications medium... if it gets abused, there are existing laws against harassment that *should* apply, persistent crank calling, obscene phone calls, anonymous threats all that sort of stuff.

Confidence games and fraud should require no extra special "secondlife" laws. If someone has been conned, for a sufficient sum to take it to court, they can subpoena linden lab for user data and prosecute.

But these are all things that involve human to human communication and transactions through an electronic medium, which can be difficult to seperate from "Avatar to avatar" interaction.

RL law should keep it's sticky fingers off of avatar-to-avatar stuff unless there's demonstrable evidence that a human has been harmed.

Our grid will be investigated, deeply, not for what *is*, but because it's hot in the media.

- Congressional appearance + talk by that guy who said 'history is over' back in the 90's... cool essay, cool premise, and media-hot back then, but... why?

- "Gays in the military" - an issue that dominated Clinton's first term... why?

- Janet Jackson's nipple caused FCC regulatory response (sorry folks she's nice but as nipples go, it wasn't worth a national crisis)

The only common ground answer I can find to the "Why's" that you asked are:

"Somebody complained loudly and to the right people". If no one complained about any of the incidents/situations then no one would have had a problem and no one would have cared. If every Mother, Father, School Teacher, and Priest saw what happened with Janet Jackson thought it was pretty funny and laughed it off, there would not have been such a big ta-do about it. ...IMO

"investigated deeply" indeed. My mom reported that my dad was so serious and morally offended by the "wardrobe malfunction" that he spent more than eight hours online searching for and reviewing images of the incident, so that he could more accurately access the amount of damage it had done to the family friendly American Institution that is football.

The absurd excuses some people come up with to stare at naughtybits. *sigh*

This seems to have slightly went off the topic

But yer, the police do seemt o have time on their hand and government officials (they do sh*t anyway) also. There will be alot mor restrictions and I wouldn't be suprised if the try and stomp on the whole grid.

I could imagine being taxed for receiving tips or bonus's I can imagine alot of things that just may happen.

Sadly the news has become a joke. Once they did report real stories and were concerned about accuracy. The OJ trial confirmed what many already suspected--that crap outsells real news. Making matters worse was when Rupert Murdoch, a man who turns everything he touches into tabloid, started FoxNews. It was all over as soon as Fox got higher ratings than CNN.

The media understands the Internet no better than the US Congress (series of tubes, indeed). And they have no desire to change that--it's far easier to sensationalize than to educate. Of course, titillating the masses comes with a high price--one paid by those people with half a brain who do understand and are actively involved with the Internet.

Sadly the foreign media is not much better than the American media, as we now clearly see with Germany. However as with MySpace and Facebook, in six months the media will move on to new things to create moral panics over.

Hopefully SL will survive the storm.

Another complication is that some countries make laws that apply to their citizens anywhere. For instance, say, as a silly hypothetical example, Andorra passed a law that all Andorrans had to be in bed by midnight (local time) wherever they were in the world, then if citizens broke that law they could face prosecution on returning to Andorra.

Well taxiation will get their paws in sooner or later somehow, but then again if you are working in RL paying tax on your $50k pa and you find the guy next door and 1/10 of the population are in SL earning $50k pa tax free but still using your governments, roads, healthcare system, schools for his kids etc, how do you feel?

The problem with real life laws pertaining to Second Life is that Second Life is international and Linden Labs, the company selling you Second Life, is based in California with satellite offices here and there, but all in the US. As a company, it's only liable for its own conduct within the laws of the Country/State/County/Township in which it resides. So what is illegal in your neck of the woods may or may not be illegal in the Land of Milk and Honey.

If you are an Andorran and know that in Andorria you are breaking the law by staying up late to play in your Second Life, that's on you, not Linden Labs. You could probably get away with it, but you never know when the Andorrian government is tapping your computer activity because the Andorrian government has passed a law saying it's ok to tap your computer activity anytime in the name of Andorrian National Security. Linden Labs didn't break any law by providing its service 24hrs a day(usually...), you, as an Andorrian, were the one breaking the law.

Why should Linden Labs be concerned with your local laws? It's a service provider, not a moral standardizer.

Would that Linden Labs felt as tho thier primary concern was providing a reliable, stable service rather then jerk it's knee everytime some ratings hungry news agency ran a sensationalized story.

“A rational anarchist believes that concepts such as ’state’ and ’society’ and ‘government’ have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame…as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else. But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world…aware that his effort will be less than perfect yet undismayed by self-knowledge of self-failure. …I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”

-Robert Heinlein
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress


I ascribed to the philosophy quoted above long before I read the book...and now just use the quote to succinctly explain my position on all matters government and political.

Oh...and until I meet a cop who is interested in my well being rather than exerting his 'power' over the people...well...we'll decide what I'll do when it happens...I'll probably just die of a heart attack.