Will the US gov get involved in SL

This is a business in the United States.

The US government has 100% sway over what can be done here.


Even if it was on offshore servers, as long as you are a US citizen you have to report foreign earnings and pay your taxes.

US law extends to other places, too. There was a guy in recent years who went to Mexico with an underage girl because apparently the laws are less strict there. Well, guess what. You can't leave the country and break any US law you want and get away with it; when you come back you are just as busted as if you did it here.

you really need a new name - LOL

Anyhow this quote is funny

a California cop running a SL casino

Look at the economy stats - there's only about 600 people in SL that make US$1000/month or more and only about 1000 (total) that make more than US$500/month. This is well below the US poverty line.

SL is still far more work than it's worth for The Man to start chasing residents.

That and with the gambling issue not only does gambling on the internet need to be legal where the actual operation is set up, BUT ALSO it must be legal at your place of residence. So even if LL moved over seas somewhere to let gambling continue in SL (yea right, lol) it would still be illegal for any US citizen to use the service to gamble with and so the US govt. would still come after LL by denying payment to it (cut off MasterCard and PayPal transfers) or simply block the SL IP addresses. I really don’t see LL going in that direction, especially because they want all these big American corporations to come and stay here. Moving off shore would probably be a bad move, heh.

This is interesting they identify how many make what based on "Unique users"

However they dont say how many "Unique" users there are in total - Only list how many accounts.

LOL

are the hiding something?

In addition to what's been pointed out, I would suggest you take another look at the TOS, especially section 3.2 and 3.3:

http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php

In short, content creators only own the copyrights. LL owns the actual data. That makes LL decidedly NOT an ISP and liable for all the content in Second Life and the website.

As for your claim that SL is just a 3D web--while a lot of people will agree with you, it's not clear that's what it is legally. And bear in mind that the law and reality don't always mesh. (A tomato is a fruit according to every definition of the word in the English Language, except that a tomato has been defined as a vegetable for the purposes of U.S. Trade and Agricultural laws.)

While I can't speak to all US laws, I do know something about licensing broadcast streams. The law clearly refers to "websites," and "webcasting," defining those in a way that requires a web browser to access these things. Thus, technically speaking, SL does not fall under the requirement for a statutory license (you still have to pay royalties to ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC though--that language is too broad to exclude SL). That said, you do have to ask if you want to be the first test case of that in court when the RIAA and CRB try to enforce the statutory licenses on you as an SL broadcaster. In short, SL is a gray area under these laws.

And it's a gray area under other laws as well. That's why it's on the table in so many committees in Congress. LL inviting the FBI in at this stage of the game is a smart move in my book precisely because it keeps the decision out of the hands of the courts, which are unpredictable, and in the hands of Congress, which can be lobbied.

But until either a court or the Congress defines what SL is, it is not clear which laws (and I'm guessing that it's actually MOST laws) in force on the WWW are in force on SL. Personally, I think Congress needs to pay more attention in class and learn up front that the World Wide Web is NOT the same thing as the Internet--it never was, and it never will be. Writing laws for the Internet instead of the Web would go a long way toward clearing up a LOT of things.

Kam

hehe that was partially my point as well

More pertinent to the conversation (though I do love your example, Desmond) is this recent tidbit:

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3620731

Apparently the US goverment will charge corporations formed in other countries as well! Moving off-shore didn't work for Pirate Radio stations before the internet--I'm guessing the same principles apply here.

Kam

Granted, each user is, in theory, bound by the laws in the place where he or she resides. There is a catch, however.

THEY HAVE TO CATCH YOU.

Go talk to any numbers runner, any bookie parlor, any pimp or hooker, or any drug dealer in the US, and let them tell you how effective the law is when neither party to a private transaction wants the law to know about it.. Read up on Prohibition sometime, if you don't believe them. Talk to any local politician driving a better car than his public salary permits.

So how many speeding tickets have you had,and how many times did you actually drive over the speed limit? Are there any deductions on your tax return you cannot document? How many things have you ordered on the Internet and "forgotten" to include the sales tax in your jurisdiction? How many textures do you suppose reside in SL that are copyrighted by someone, somewhere who is not selling or licensing or applying those textures in SL?

Are you getting my drift? If you try to enforce an unenforceable law, you and your damn law both only begin to look foolish. If the money involved is not big enough, or the zealots concerned with it not vigilant and vindictive enough, and you are a prosecuting attorney with rapes, murders, big-time fraud and nailing your crummy brother-in-law who beat up your kid sister to worry about, you are not really going to worry about tracking down some guy in your town whose av is sitting at a poker table in SL making US$1 to $US20 bets on a server sitting in Macao (where gambling is not only legal but the fundamental force in the local economy and they will not, not, not respond to your subpoenas).

Most of all, if you are dealing with a victimless "crime" - which gambling in SL is, along with much else - you really have to ask yourself if there is an overriding social reason why you have to rush in and fine or jail some inoffensive taxpayer for the good of civilization. Usually the answer is no.

It will be like getting struck by lightning. You won't go up and sit on your roof with a lightning rod held high over your head in both hands, but trust me, you won't need to hide in the darkest part of your cellar in a big cocoon of thick rubber mats either.

um

Your missing the fact that theres a electronic paper trail?

The reason Credit Card theft before the internet was so often caught - there was a very clear paper trail.

When cash changes hands sure - Its hard to keep track of crimes. Thats what you describe.

However I suspect most SL casino owners havent made any effort to hide their RL identity from Linden Labs. Who will happily hand it over to investigators in the name of cooperation.

Indeed, and I'd include the paper trail to the poster's own account. I'm honestly surprised Strife hasn't jumped on this one as it might be construed as advocating illegal activity.

Kam

There is one reason why this CAN happen. It will get some politicians face on the TV screen and on the front pages. Those of you from New York think, "Chuck Schumer". The question of whether it is prudent, beneficial, or of any value to society is immaterial.

hmmm the government in SL, scary..considering my tax dollars are payin for them to investigate whatever the deem acceptable in a virtual setting(except pedophiles, i would do backflips if they can get those creeps outta here).

imho, there are way to many grey areas. unless a casino is cashing out in a big big way( and to me 1500us doesnt count as the owners prolly use that to pay thier tier), i see no reason why they should be here. unless there is a persistant element of federal law breaking in SL, then by all means investigate your butts off. but dont waste my tax dollars cause some one saw a need and filled it.

lawlirl.

Oh, I am not advocating anyone gambling on-line, whether in SL or anywhere else - whether the feds decide it is legal or not. Any on-line game is too easy to rig, and the rigging too hard to catch if you're the mark - er - customer.

I am arguing any such law will prove unenforceable, and pointing out that many laws already on the books are also largely unenforceable, and millions of citizens ignore them virtually every day. That's a very different thing. If you think I can be prosecuted for saying numerous victimless crimes are never caught by the authorities, I will enjoy seeing you try to demonstrate your assertion. It is simply a plain, observable fact of life.

Umm..... That part I bolded in your text doesn't sound like the U.S. government at all to me. They are quite fond of overarching and meaningless measures that fit some overblown sense of morality, particularly when they think there is potential for said measures to generate popularity or revenue.

Maybe LL should move to Dubai, with Halliburton.

I must admit I'm no expert on tracking computerized transactions around the globe, but it is hard for me to see what paper trail you are talking about. If the casino operator, the casino and the casino customers are all on US soil, maybe so. But I am looking toward the day that is coming when people will own and maintain the servers they hook onto the SL grid to hold their islands or whatnot. Assuming the feds ever do decide to go after SL gambling (which seems a very big assumption to me), all the casinos will then reappear on servers outside the US in countries where casinos are legal and the server contents unreachable by US subpoenas. Operators of such servers will no doubt keep innocent, US-legal traffic going on their servers or server farms to provide legal cover. US citizens may or may not be able to operate those casinos, but citizens of other countries could and they will also be out of reach of US authorities. That leaves the customers. So Bigtime Charlie from Anytown USA goes gambling in SL. Assuming he actually wins, how exactly do the feds go about proving that ever happened, when they can't get at the casino records?

There's a lot of problems around SL casinos - lag, land issues, the basic dumbness of playing easily riggable games, etc. But it seems to me the threat of prosecution is not realistically going to be one of them.

That doesn't count revenue that is collected out-world, though, such as the land rental paid to Anshe Chung and other land rental companies that collect via PayPal rather than taking L$ in-world. So it somewhat understates the number of people who are making money through SL and/or the amount they are making.

It also doesn't count the money that people are beginning to get to create builds for corporations; companies like Millions of Us and Electric Sheep. But payment for professional services is a model that the IRS is already accustomed to dealing with.

Um - your over reacting , Kamael was only mentioning Strife. (the moderator who will probably be locking this thread.)

The paper trail im reffering to would be US citizens whose RL payment info is on file in Linden Labs servers. Who Linden Labs will hand right over to the Feds if they need it. It will include any classified ads bought as well as SL land owned by such person describing gambling. Also the payment history will provide payouts and paymnets received, while process history will give US dollars obtained and sent to paypal, which also has the Persons Bank account number.

To follow your example it would be like a bookie making his calls from his home phone , and recording them. Then taking his paymnets at home and making his payouts from home. When he was done after he wrote every last trasnaction down and videotaped everything he mails it to the Police for safe keeping in case hes robbed.

Will things be different when people can host their own servers? Perhaps. DO I think Linden Labs will change their cooperative stance with authorities - NOPE.

/327/03/175691/1.html

Its starting and even SL see's it coming...

With the announcement of the policy change and the other threads on this topic, this one is looking rather redundant.

This forum isn't for general discussion; there are many Resident Sites where this discussion is appropriate — Resident Answers is for Resident-to-Resident help. I'll close this thread...