Will the US gov get involved in SL

So who thinks the IRS/FBI/ect from the US GOV will try to get their greedy hands into sl

I expect the ASPCA to be the first group to bust in, in defense of Furries. Keep watching "Animal Cops" for urther details.

I believe its only a matter of time before the US government starts its strongarm tactics on its citizens here in SL look what it does around the world so why should here be any different for it?

Just my opinion tho and notwithstanding the fact that most of the players here now are not from the USA

Gambling is an issue, I personally think its pretty cut and dry there.

The FBI will say, "nope its not allowed" and LL will do its best to shut it down. I don't see any repercussions against LL as they have more than co-operated with them to this point, but if the FBI satys no more gamling, and it persists, then there may be legal issues.

Other than that, if you make money in SL you have to pay your taxes. The IRS (or in my case, the CRA) will investigate that on a per person basis, LL has no involvment in that, exept for providing information.

Given what happened/is happening in other places on the Internet, here is my "top 3" of things I am waiting to come sooner or later:

1) Enforcement of sales tax
2) Ban on unlicensed gambling
3) Some kind of restriction to ensure that only adults have access to mature content

Furthermore, I'm very curious how certain governments, who don't believe that their citizens should have free access to information, will handle this. Given recent user distribution statistics, SL may still be too insignificant yet for them to take action. But this may change very fast.

PS: I'm not in favour of any of that, but I still feel that's the way things will be going.

Let them get involved -- they won't be able to do squat.

#1: Definitely an issue for those who run businesses, and cash out Lindens, although Sales tax is a concept that varies from State to State, Federal Income Tax is probably a reality eventually.
#2: Again federal tax implications come to bear, along with the Gambling is a Vice crowd here
These two points I am ambivalent toward actually, they won't affect mee too much personally, but the overall effect the have on the freedom of SL may be significant

Your third point I agree with..Children should absolutely not have access to Adult content

Oh, I think you would be surprised, Dekker. LL may be able to tell us there's nothing they can ever do about anything, and it's not their job, etc., but the government won't just read the TOS, say "oh yeah," and go away.

coco

I would hope LL would reloacte if that was going to happen. If I want to abide by US laws, I'll move there

Though saying that, Two-Face Tony and his cronies are doing their best to make that a moot point anyway...

When in Rome.......

My guess is that the first intervention we'll see in SL is a decision by either Congress or the CRB that broadcasting into SL requires 1) a statutory license and 2) licenses with ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. I'm expecting that one by the end of Q.3, actually.

Kam

if they do, i'll be selling up and leaving.

It would not supprise me one bit if the FBI are not allready well into SL by now .

Lets face it , Any platform that allows you to move cash around will be looked into .

Input ( x amount ) to joblow Hax account ... Transfer to MrMahmoudAhmadinejad Hax account ... or vise versa ..... To easy to move money around .

HLS and no dout the CIA have allready tapped into the cash transfer system is my bet .

Any income tax system will allso be aware of transactions within SL i would think

I THINK I read that they would fine linden? Is that what they can do?

rofl

Or shouting " OMGZZ THE LAG HERE SUKZA "

Nope. Just fed up of trying to keep up with my own country's laws without having every single step watched by anothers.

Yeah i know LL have to obey US law anyway ... but i still dont want to be "nanny-ed" at every turn either.

If you can suggest a place where the laws would be any more agreeable let me know

Actually, I think the Lindens might actually be thinking ahead on this one - for once. Notice they are trending toward open source code and people eventually owning their own servers that link to the SL grid to run their islands or whatnot.

So, down the road, LL sits in San Francisco, subject to all the Mother-Knows-Best regulation Washington and Sacramento can devise [pauses for involuntary, convulsive shudder at the thought, slowly calms down], and their server farm resides in Austin, TX [second, only slightly less convulsive shudder]. BUT soon come servers in England and Macao and Liechtenstein and Luxembourg and assorted Caribbean and Pacific Islands and Thailand and other places where for a price anything goes. I mean ANYTHING.

Globalism, FTW!!!

Anything may go IN those places, but you are usually still bound by the laws of the country YOU live in.

I was always wondering, can't we just say to these nice institutions that we do not want/need their input?

I know it sound childish but i am always surprised that government organizations always kind of feel like they are imposing themselves in a fascistic manner to the citizens. I mean, we didn't ask their input, we all just want to live in our blissful SL anarchy.

Is there no way that they just leave us alone?

SL is just simply a new way to browse web, its a 3D WWW.
LL being the ISP and the viewer being the browser.

The same law apply as they do to ISP's

I.E. the ISP is not responible for content, the owner of the content is....

Just like you could go out right now and buy a domain name and set up an online gambling site in the usa, you the owner of the site would be the one breaking the law and facing legal issues, not your ISP

The same laws apply on SL they provide the 'blank slate' the 'webpages' you buy is land and if you put on your 'webpage' something that is not legal in the usa, you the owner of the land are liable for your actions.

I really dont know why people think that just cuz its inside a 'game' that no laws apply.

they do apply, there is no diffrence between SL and WWW except that SL is Web 3d

Actually, this in incorrect. LL works like a "host" kind of like godaddy.com, they do not work like an ISP, like AOL, for example.

Hosts are responsible for the content which is found on their servers. If you go to GoDaddy.com and set up a gambling web site on their server, they will shut it down and send you a nice email explaining that it is illegal and that they can be held liable. I know this because an old roommate of mine (the idiot) set up one of those porno web sites using pictures from other web sites, which is a copyright infringement situation. He tried to lure people in with the pictures to get them to click on his banner ads. About a week after his site went live, the host shut it down and sent him an email saying that they have been informed that his site was using copyrighted material, which is illegal, and they said they could be held liable if they continued to allow it to persist on their server.

In summary, SL is NOT an ISP. You dial into ISPs (or use their cable modem) to access the web. A host, on the other hand, has server farms and hosts the actual web sites. They can be held liable for what is on their servers.

There is a big difference between an ISP and a host, and LL works like a 3d web based host, not an ISP.

Remember, you still dial in (or use a cable modem, etc) to an ISP to then access the SL servers. Your ISP which you dial in with (AOL or whatever) can not be held liable for what is going on on a host's server, but the hosts can (if they know about it and allow it to persist.) and so can those who set up the illegal services on those host's servers.

I do agree that laws still apply in online worlds though. That ones a no brainer.

That would be great...OMG would that be great lol but the politicans want their money...and they see our money as theirs like we reall owe them any thing LOL

but greed is a very powerful thing once they have it...its not likely to go away

Think this is related to governments getting involved policing the internet on many levels.

For all the hype- SL is still just part of the internet.

i just make stuff up anyway, it sounded good at least

SL as much as a dirvesion from real life, still exists in real life and real laws apply...


i found it funny last nite i met a n00bie a month old, in his profile he says

"I am here a month, im a newbie so be nice"
"I am a law enforcement officer in california"

and under his classified ad tabs he has his very own casino with camping chairs slots and blackjack advertised to the world


.......i mean come on, even a cop in the same state at the server is running illegal gambling sites on SL.......

People really think it is 'your world your imagination'

all i could do is laugh at that one