I attended the SLBA meeting last week, and frankly, I remain alarmed about this effort, seemingly benign, of a group of people with legal training from various countries to form an organization that seems so rapidly to move from the theory of what lawyers do well in real life -- protect rights -- to what they do badly in real life -- impose themselves as indispensable to conducting business. Everyone in business in SL -- or even anybody with a non-profit or informal project -- needs to be very wary of what these people mean, and what they are doing in Second Life, and keep a close watch so that they do not inhibit our virtual world.
I realize the presence of these people is inevitable, but that doesn't mean we can't whack really hard at it and try to prevent them from interfering with the freedoms of Second Life. Like baby barons drawn to the real estate business by the presence of Anshe Chung on the cover of Business Week, so some of these baby attorneys are drawn to the legal biz by seeing the ground-breaking cases of Mark Bragg (a sim-rustler who is now suing the Lindens to get his account balance back) and Kevin Alderman (suing an avatar for copying his widely-imitated sex bed). These lawyers sense that they can get in and make history, set precedents -- and most of all, collect fees from people draw to virtuality for all sorts of reasons, but prone to nervousness and even outright fear by the prospect of how they may be bilked and even harmed seriously by anonymous avatars. They have an objective need -- indeed, their bottom line may depend on it -- to portray Second Life as a wild and lawless frontier that is only fixed...by hiring them and letting them refashion the space.
Just as in Shakespeare, the first thing we need to do is mute the lawyers -- that is, to modernize the phrase in SL terms. That is, not listen to their at times shrill and even illegitimate screams about making themselves indispensable, or listening to their judgements about what's illegal or not. That's because the law isn't so formulated yet; their expertise given their own status and motivations as anonymous avatars (even if a RL name is nominally given) is suspect; and the context they operate in -- the grey area between real life and simulated life -- may benefit them, but has no demonstrable benefit to the public.
I've been absolutely appalled to see Benjamin Duranske, as readers know, parading around pronouncing Linden Lab as criminal. He triumphantly claims that the problem with gambling and alleged Ponzi schemes in Second Life isn't that there isn't a law about them; it's that the existing law of the State of California isn't *enforced*.
For this, he blames Linden Lab, -- and "not enough publicity" (!) and claims the Lab should shut down the accounts of avatars suspecting of virtual bank fraud. Of course, as evidently more of a IT guy aspring to control other people through code, than an attorney hoping to protect rights, he hardly thinks of the Lab's actual interests, which are NOT to concede involvement or responsibility for fraud allegations by shutting down accounts. Nor does he think of any of our interests as depositors -- a shut-down Second Life is obviously not a place where we can ever hope to withdraw our cash.
The Lindens do shut down accounts of course and put all kinds of checks and fire lines on the Lindex, and when alerted to large sums of money being passed, they often react by suspending an account transactions until they can take a look. This in fact has caused many false firings and frozen accounts of people merely transferring money to their alts or making legitimate payments. But they are not going to say "how high" just because Duranske said "jump".
I really find it infuriating that someone could subscribe to Second Life, hope to make a career out of it some day, and yet wish that the California Gaming Commission or whatever relevant authority must become involved move against Second Life. Surely he must realize that if enough people shout in the media that "law isn't being enforced" and cast LL to blame, it *will indeed* be shut down. This has never been more of a distinct possibility! And that's what is basically with these untethered legal personalities flying around Second Life. They aren't tethered to a client -- and to reality. There is no demonstrable client Duranske is protecting, as no group of bilked investors has hired him, nor any People of the State of California to uphold the law. He doesn't have Linden Lab's interests in mind, and indeed, we can only conclude, which is often the case with attorneys, that his client is himself, his book, his vanity, his press appearances, and his blog hits. That's not something I wish to have as the engine of our world.
I would advise, instead, that those groups of investors or simple depositors who feel they were defrauded should sue the bank that they believe committed the fraud, and not Linden Lab which they imagine they can get at more easily. And go to a real attorney, not one who is not practicing and is saying now that he's writing a work of fiction; now a book on law in virtual worlds (which of course may be a fiction, too lol).
A phone company isn't guilty for wire fraud. A phone company could be asked to cooperate, and LL shows every indication it will cooperate. But one doesn't make it guilty for shutting down accounts. Phone companies are not supposed to shut down accounts; the FBI, *with a warrant* has that authority. That's what people like Duranske constantly brush aside with irritation and arrogance. In real life, lawyers are brought in within a context called "the rule of law" with hopefully democratic government and a system of due process. Companies don't shut down businesses, confiscate property, or arrest people in real life because a lawyer screams in the media; rather *due process* must be afforded and one must work within a legal system. A judge has to issue a warrant. No judge issued a warrant. Until one does, or until in-house counsel suggests that pre-emptive compliance would be prudent, I suppose, LL should do nothing. I do sincerely hope they remain strong and do nothing.
There's no due process involved in having some arrogant prosecutorial wannabee who needs to get a book out of his SL experience "blowing the whistle" and trying people in the media.
When I went to the SLBA meeting -- it is still an informal and open group that allows people concerned about law who aren't credentialed experts (that will likely change) -- I was truly annoyed to see they were meeting in the Capitol Hill building. It's a building whose legitimacy I've already questioned (it isn't any real extension of that democratic institution; it's a vanity project supported by Sun Microsystems for one favourite congressman and their favourite metaversal development company). That shouldn't be the setting for something that in fact claims it doesn't aspire to government. Of course, the lawyers want all those trappings of the august name of Congress and all that marble and wood panelling which is why they gravitate there. Ugh. Duranske went through the fake motions of saying "he couldn't wait to get out of there when they had another place to meet," but that was utterly suspect. You don't call meetings in the Congress of the United States replica unless you love the vision of yourself strutting up and down the marbled floors "creating history". There are a million places to meet in Second Life. This was done deliberately.
The transcript of the meeting is up on the SLBA website and I'll get to the link soon, but I can't emphasize enough how much this entity bears watching -- and hedging back. Two hugely suspect things went on in this meeting -- a bid to get going an international standard contract and a bid to make even more extreme the already leftist ACLU agenda by claiming that the ACLU -- or some "SLCU that will eventually evolve in SL -- should take on the job of not only creating "international civil rights" (they already exist) but enforcing them over frontiers and defend people from their governments multinational institutions or corporations.
Both of these starry-eyed bids aren't likely to get far, but it is important to whack at them. For one, there already is a very robust system of international law and international *human* rights which actually works quite well.
I often discover in SL as in RL that lawyers like Duranske and Little Gray have no grasp of what human rights are, and how they really are distinguished from civil rights at the national and international levels. Civil rights are granted by sovereign states to their citizens. There are standards for these in instruments like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Those aren't a substitute for a country having civil rights and protecting them at home, where they are protected best. International groups can help and show solidarity and strategize but they can't do it for other people; ultimately, they have to work toward making their own countries work.
As much as there are some people, generally tiny sectarians, who want global government and want to impose it on people they don't like (religious believers, capitalists, etc.), most people want local and national -- not global government to be in charge because it is more accountable when they can participate more locally. When Little Gray made the strange claim that the ACLU should "defend people around the world from their governments," it sounded as if he wasn't invoking the kind of work that Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch does, which indeed defends people whose rights are violated in international terms from opppressive governments. He imagined the ACLU as actually extending its jurisdiction and its amicus curae briefs into other court systems.
But the RL ACLU, as much as it has international programs, for example, to protect someone kidnapped by federal authorities, and as much as it has to increasingly operate in an international environment, doesn't attempt to interfere in another country to such an extent that it doesn't recognize its sovereignty, its courts of law, and in fact, its perfectly good local ACLU-like bodies in many countries that are perfectly fine running defense work without bossy Americans, thank you very much.
The worst thing about Little Gray's meandering and contradictory presentation is that at times he was talking about an ACLU he *might* get started *if* it is approved, and at times he veered off to talk about the "SLCU" which is his fanciful project putting the ideals of say, Noam Chomsky into practice (argh). In fact, his main activity now is trying to get Noam Chomsky into Second Life to speak. He doesn't act on behalf of the ACLU formally, but has the permission of one local California chapter to "explore".
Look, 32 non-profit organizations opened up their representations in Second Life this week on an island donated by Anshe Chung and helped by TechSoup. Organizations don't need to do a real lot of drawn out "exploration" to make what amounts to a 3-D web page. I hope the real ACLU -- that is, the accountable, elected and responsible ACLU -- overrides Little Gray's extremism and puts in their own national and local chapters, without cooking up an "SLCU". The statements he makes don't represent the organization; nor should they be allowed to go on being its "face". The ACLU has enough problems with being maligned in American society as too far to the left. Being the force that celebrates Chomsky in Second Life will only cement that in ways that are not good for the ACLU's far more important agenda of working on urgent issues like Bush's wiretapping project or the mistreatment of asylum-seekers. Knowing the real-life people in the ACLU over the years, I can't imagine they would like to sign up for this extreme a movement that involves uploading brains in the singularity, or installing global government with international standardized contracts. The ACLU works on *America*. That's why it's called the AMERICAN Civil Liberties Union. And trust me, it has enough to do there without forcing global governance and contracts on other people. At least, I hope it does; I can't understand why the southern Californian ACLU chapter has let this kook go on in SL as long as he has.
I spent a number of interventions at the SLBA meeting trying to insist that the SLBA not hold itself up to be a governance body, or a standard-setting body of any kind in SL. This "shaping SL law" stuff that some of Duranske's literature talks about is really something that needs a huge push-back. No one elected these people, and no one should be paralyzed and staring into their mouths as they speak merely due to their meat-world credentials.
Look, people. Are we here to make a Better World and a different and more free and collaborative space or are we???
Here's a cross post of my post to the Herald, which has decided to take a pro-lawyer position, giving a huge amplified sound stage to two of SL's wannabee governors.
Um, yes, nothing like an article on trust from an anonymous avatar, what? Jessica Holyoke, former escort and aspiring Herald reporter waiting to see if she passed the bar in RL, talks about "someone" who said that before lawyers came along, we have had perfectly fine contracts like rental leases and notecarded agreements for doing business in Second Life.
That "someone" was me, although she coyly didn't credit me, but I'm sure I'm not the only one to point out the obvious. Yes, Jessica, long before you got to Second Life with your vast legal knowledge *cough* residents were making contracts: and they do not need you and your class of parasitic lawyers to function in the SL economy. My God, this is a horror.
You fail to recount what you and your little legal beagle friends tried to pull at this SLBA meeting, which the record shows.
The first thing lawyers do is try to make themselves indispensable, when in fact they are not needed. "Oh," they said. "We need standardized international contracts...for things like renting." Not!
No. We. Don't. Piss off. If there are a handful of island thieves, that's not going to be helped by contracts anyway. People who "buy" islands second-hand from other residents need to understand the enormous risk involved and not undertake that risk if they do not trust the avatar involved, and sue them through real-life actions if they are bilked, not become part of what so hobbles Second Life that it becomes a sequestered handmaiden to RL ambitions.
No one asked for standardized contracts from a group of largely American loud-mouthed lawyers. They truly are not needed. Those that do need them go...*gasp*...to real life where they find plenty of them, and sign them there, and btw, arrange their payments and services there, too.
I don't have any lease language in my rental leases such as that indicated as a scare story by Jessica (she cited a contract she had seen where the owner said that he took no responsibility for people not knowing the subsequent updated copies of his contract), but it seems to me that in a virtual world where the parties to the contract are as fickle and even duplicitous as the contract-maker, an insistence that people have to find the updated contracts might be prudent and not at all based in the evilness Jessica implies.
After all, what means is there to exercise due diligence? It's not as if there is an inworld or even third-party site for publishing legal notices in that pro forma way that lawyers do in papers that people ignore anyway. It's not physically possible in a situation with lots of customers with numerous rental boxes to go and make a change to thousands of boxes instantly (unless of course, you use one of those companies like Hippos with networked database, but then you have to trust that company to hand over all your proprietary data, give them your entire sales list, avatar key lists, etc. etc. -- and I don't trust the companies in SL to do that).
So you may put a notice on site in a FAQS, or in a group, but that wipes out every 30 days, or isn't noticed. In real life, you could count on people to have the common sense, if they were renting an apartment, to go to the rentals office at the center of a building and get the contract and sign it. They couldn't open the door without it, they'd be forced to go and sign a document and get a newly updated lease in order to get their key. In SL, they don't think to do that, and fly around aimlessly and cluelessly and refuse to read anything even when you spoonfeed it, and they can just rez a cube and break into a house and pay a self-service box.
In SL, the consequences of breaking a contract that one doesn't like are simple; you refund, you fly away, the losses aren't great, nothing like RL. To be sure, people begin to invest larger and larger amounts of money, and then they wish to surround themselves with lawyers. Ugh.
God *damn* the Herald for artificially pumping up these lawyer creatures from RL by fawning over them in the Herald. It's been really sickening to watch, and there's been none of that famously imbalanced counterpointing whatsoever.
I hold Uri responsible for pumping up Benjamin Duranske, and Pixeleen responsible for pumping up Jessica Holyoke. What, they want lawyers to take over Second Life??? Are they fucking out of their minds??? Again, Jessica should be *virtually slapped* for suggesting that the numerous contracts that people have successfully made and kept and enhanced for YEARS in Second Life are somehow 'suspect' because the "SLBA" (an unrecognized and illegitimate body of its own) wasn't here to "endorse" or "approve" them.
Picking out the clunkers among the many *successful* contracts that people have made, and even used a notary service inworld to authenticate, is truly unfair to the community of businesses in Second Life that got along perfectly fine -- and frankly *will continue to get along perfectly fine* without fucking attorneys in their hair. I hope people will stand up and resist this awful development with all their might.
Resist, resist, resist. Second Life is different; it is better; if you are so nervous -- or retarded -- in taking risks, then stay in first life, or get first life contracts for your SL affairs. Don't inflict unnecessary, costly, and prohibitive contracts on the world globally to satisfy your little fears.
Next thing you know, Ashcroft will be along telling everyone they have to create a magisterial system with him in charge, and put up their land as collateral, or they can't get justice and enforcement of contracts.
>Whether a feeling of being challenged exists with the older residents when newer residents get involved. The early adopters were able to build this world and now people are coming in droves to take advantage of their efforts and now the established residents position is being threatened.
Sigh. This is an age-old tune, but at root, it's bullshit, and I, with my theory of the FIC, have always pointed out its bullshit -- the FIC is a good example of how oldbies can incorporate newbies into their elite ranks without distinguishing age whatsoever, or reject oldbies despite their age.
The world of Second Life is very diverse. Some old people decidedly got an advantage, but not everyone in their class. Some brand-new people, especially those who sucked up to older people (like Jessica sucks up to Pixeleen), get an advantage too, far greater than their cohorts. There's no automatic privilege confirmed by oldness; it's more about connection to the core of content producers and Linden hotline.
There's nothing about "feeling threatened" in pointing out the obvious: a virtual world with a thriving economy *doesn't need half-baked law students and underemployed lawyers* to set it right. It doesn't even need intelligent and thoughtful lawyers to force a contracts system *within* it. This is pretty basic stuff. Those who have deals that are sufficiently large and complex use RL contracts in RL, where they abound. Those who have smaller, less complex deals -- and sometimes these are quite innovative -- don't need a lawyer or contract to function.
The dislike and distrust of lawyers inherent in many people is one I've never shared. In fact, I've come to understand it better in Second Life. I've worked with lawyers all my life. It's never bothered me that they have law firms, collect ridiculously high fees, and seem to be arrogant and insistent on their own role. I just took that as par for the course, as lawyers often can be very helpful and instrumental in achieving things.
Yet, more and more they seem to be required for so many of life's functions like birth and death that before were occupied by other kinds of human roles that were simply less costly and more accountable. And I simply refuse to allow them to invade Second Life. I hope others will join me in this resistance.
I'm not willing to turn Second Life over to the lawyers. Hell, no. For their selfishness and greed in extracting their own profits and interests, I blame Mark Bragg and Kevin Alderman for opening up the Pandora's box of lawyers in Second Life. All it did was put blood in the water for the sharks, who sense they have a new and lucrative area now to ply their trade.
I hope other people, whether in business or non-profits in Second Life, even if they loathe me or the style in which I've written this, think deeply about what they will lose, and what's at stake if they allow lawyers to "make themselves indispensable," especially in a setting where there is no democratic government or rule of law!
I understand that Duranske is banned from your blog and can't respond to anything you might say about him.
That's pretty damn low if true.
As for the SLBA, last time I looked you were a member. And so the questions beg themselves: who are you to be a member of the SLBA? Where are your credentials? What inside stories are you holding back and why? What is your objective in putting down the club you are a member of?
Posted by: Laetizia Coronet | 08/18/2007 at 06:42 PM
He's banned not because I "don't like what he says". He's banned because he accused me of libel -- falsely. That's violation of Rule No. 2 -- do not incite harm to me in RL or SL. It's that simple. You can't debate people who accuse you of criminal offenses falsely. You mute/ban them. They can rant on their own blogs.
Where's the outrage about false accusations of libel as a chill on the free media?!
I'm banned from his blog -- but not for any rule, or law, just on a whim. Where's your outrage and protest about *that*?
The SLBA doesn't vet members. It said it is for lawyers, paralgals, and legal scholars. It doesn't define that last category. Someone who is an avid student of law as I have been for years could easily qualify. So I joined, mainly to keep an eye on what they do and protest if they go in a direction of attempting to take over the economy, business, governance -- the society of SL.
They are not merely a fraternity of RL lawyers who happen to be in SL, doing RL stuff that they confine mainly to RL. Some of them have avid asperations to impose global governance, SL governance, international legal standards that they define, etc.
Of course I'm going to "put down" an organization that has Duranske as president and Holyoke as VP -- that alone tells me that it is hijacked for a personal agenda and the ambitions of those two. I had a long talk with the president-elect about my concerns, and he seemed intelligent and thoughtful enough, but also heavily inclined to insinuate mediation instead of holding to standards, and of course, had none of the concerns I have about Duranske and Holyoke.
Keeping the government out of the private sphere is full-time work in real-life. And it won't happen by itself in SL, either. The way it can begin to erode is when lawyers take it upon themelves to urge regulation, precisely to give themselves work.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | 08/18/2007 at 07:40 PM
The thing is that, whilst I have no particular respect for lawyers and do not wish for further legislation within SL, Ginko was indeed a massive con-job of the sort that is illegal in almost all jurisdictions regardless of the medium. So you managed to get people to invest in your opaque "high-yield investment scheme" in a virtual world rather than through a web page, or through billboards or putting letters through doors? The medium doesn't matter.
LL have put themselves deliberately in a position now where they are claiming responsibility for policing this - they have rejected common carrier status. I wish they hadn't, but they have. They have willingly taken on responsibility for enforcement, and yes, on that basis, if they are going to ban one sort of illegal financial activity e.g. gambling, they should also ban other forms.
Posted by: Ordinal Malaprop | 08/18/2007 at 07:52 PM
"I'm not willing to turn Second Life over to the lawyers."
If you hadn't noticed, SecondLife is not *yours* to "turn over" to anybody. If people want to offer a service, and others want to accept that service, it is not for you to "resist, resist, resist". You write repeatedly (indeed, incessantly) about others being unaccountable, but to whom are you accountable in your endless drives to oppose things to which you take an irrational personal disliking?
"their expertise given their own status and motivations as anonymous avatars (even if a RL name is nominally given) is suspect"
If a name is given, how are these people "anonymous"? Do you *want* them to be anonymous, just to have another reason to claim to distrust them? And what motive would you consider non-suspect, and how would such a motive demonstrate itself amongst lawyers?
Posted by: Ashcroft Burnham | 08/18/2007 at 08:19 PM
Of course SL is mine to turn over, and of course I won't turn it over to lawyers. And I'm sure others who own land feel the same way. Indeed it is ours, and we feel a stake to it.
It's often the populists bent on taking power that scream the most in fake outrage at the idea that someone else is claiming power -- and who is most unaccountable suddenly demanding accountability from others.
I'm not putting forth governance schemes featuring myself in charge now, am I? I'm not making anything called the Metaverse Republic; I'm not running something called the SLBA saying it will "shape law". Those things are called on to be accountable, and claimed illegitimate, precisely because they are bidding for power.
I run a rentals company, and I'm accountable to my customers under my notecarded lease. They can refund if they're really unhappy with whatever solution is offered to their problems.
Other than that, any specific accountability that Ashcroft is falsely bleating about (in a vain bid to turn away the demand from himself) isn't grounded.
It's hardly an irrational personal dislike to dislike people and concepts bent on taking my land away from me in various schemes for governance, or who wish to call for restraints and globalized standards on us all in SL that are unnecessary and even destructive.
If I want to offer a service, than why does a lawyer need to be involved -- indeed!
Names aren't given; and if they are, they are meaningless as there is no demonstrable markers of RL credibility -- say, a law firm that has a reputation and recognition.
I don't see that lawyers are likely to have a non-suspect motive in entering SL, frankly. They are going to pursue and defend their interests, and it's important to point out that there's an inherent conflict with others with stake in the world itself.
In the name of being "right," Duranske wouldn't mind having Second Life shuttered -- to have LL "discliplined" and forced to close their business because it was a platform for a Ponzi scheme. How can any of us be for that?!
Ginko in fact isn't a con job, Ordinal, simply because the instructions and the terminals always said forthrightly that you might not get your money back or there could be delays in withdrawals. And they were right. It went along without hardly any hitches for the longest time.
If there are rules on the Internet, like the UIGA, or the bans on child porn, the Lindens have to comply. The rules against Ponzis aren't so much rules for the Internet as they are for banking and investment in general, and that may be the distinction, I don't know.
In other words, I'm not sure that even if you claim common carrier status, that you have "safe harbour" from the reaches of the UIGA. I just don't know. No doubt there are differing legal opinions on this.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | 08/18/2007 at 11:08 PM
When this current problem first arose I was one of the strongest critics of Ginko. Now I am seriously considering writing up what they did as a solution to a severe banking crisis. However, there are of course things different. For one, no sane real person would accept 11 cents on the dollar in a force conversion bond, even if the investor claimed "someday" (perhaps years away) the bonds could be redeemed for face value. Then there is outrage from the IMF, World Bank, and a nation's federal government which would undoubtedly occur. Finally you have the "illegal period" where investors were being paid with the money from new investors, who were not informed of the problem until after cash was deposited. (The new notecard was programed to dispense only after a balance request, and would not respond if no account existed.) Obviously I am probably missing some points, and of course all of the investors were hardly saints either, (basically many of the big guys were depositing right before midnight and then taking all cash out after interest was paid out). Then there is the ongoing question of what on earth this Ginko was even invested in.
Eh, in short I disagree with Prok, and friend all the lawyers I come across.
Posted by: Economic Mip | 08/18/2007 at 11:31 PM
Economic Mip, I think you raise some good points, and I'm interested that you saw this as an opportunity to study something new, namely, how one could prevent a banking crisis of the type that routinely occurs in the developing world, of which SL is no exception.
The question of the "illegality period' to me is very much wrapped up on the forced run fueled by Duranske, however. I'm not at all persuaded that for 3 years, or for 3 years, 7 days, 2 minutes or whatever the length is, that it is illegal for the entire period, or only illegal for 2 minutes or for 7 days.
Yes, people washed out of Ginko very quickly the minute they got the interest, I noticed that. People exploited it basically. I don't know what you do about something like that except during those 3 years, he might have instituted a cap on withdrawal amounts or times.
I disagree that depositors were not informed. Anybody depositing as soon as there was the gambling ban and a run on the bank could know that their deposits likely went to pay out withdrawals.
The question is -- what percentage? And what remained of the investment principle, if anything?
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | 08/18/2007 at 11:39 PM
Just wanted to say: Second Life is owned by Linden Lab and is therefore theirs to 'turn over' to anyone they so choose.
Users may complain but in the end Linden Lab has the final say on the matter - not the Users of Second Life.
Posted by: Solar Legion | 08/19/2007 at 12:43 AM
For those who are interested in what was said at the SLBA meeting, you can find the transcript here: http://www.slba.info/2007-08-12_Transcript.htm
Posted by: Solomon Cortes | 08/19/2007 at 06:14 AM
Be it all as it may, you don't ban people and then write about them. Not where I'm from, not in any civilized country.
Posted by: Laetizia Coronet | 08/19/2007 at 06:46 AM
Thanks for the link, Solomon, I hadn't gotten around to finding it. Seeing the transcript reminds me of many other points that would really require another lengthy exegesis for which comments are too cramped. For example, one can see that nominally and formally, Duranske and Holyoke go on the record claiming they aren't for standardizing contracts. But soon, LastDitch Writer and Julyn Lilliehook step right in to say that, oh, they'll just be "practical" and open up libraries and clinics. There, they'll advise people on "what's wrong" with their landlord contracts. And that lets us know that what they really envision is trying to enforce a standard, anyway.
There's a simple way to solve many "contracts with something wrong": refund and go to another landlord. There are gadzillion to pick from SL. A typical dispute was one raised by Plot Tracer and another socialist HiggledyPiggledy Snoates (who joined the protest in socialist solidarity). He logged on after not being around for awhile, even after having rented for months, and suddenly took exception to having $4 Lindens automatically debited from his account for group fees. He was outraged not at the debit, which he admitted was small, but at "not being notified".
And here, I was quite harsh, perhaps needlessly so, but it's always the case that each week, at least one person bitches about these fees, and usually on the grounds "they weren't noticed". In fact, notices go in the group every 30 days (because the notice system disappears them) explaining the fee, which had to be added on last year when the group tools changed and dwell -- which used to put a *credit* in everybody's pocket they never complained about lol.
Each rental box getting its lease updated with the new fee info; notices are put in the group; and each new tenant gets a card with basic rental info that tells them this is now a feature of their rent. I should note that these socialists long enjoyed $300 for 250 prims -- an unheard of bargain in SL. But...it's never enough. They could easily just solve the problem by leaving the group to duck the charges on Tuesdays, and rejoin; once you set prims, you don't *have* to stay. However, I pointed out that if you request the extra features like banning, you need to be in the group and can't expect to have that invitation reissued each Wednesday lol. In fact, it's a grand sort of socialism that the cost of the ads is distributed equally, precisely to offer free search ads to stores, and to avoid having to raise rents higher than they need to be -- as the fee fluctuates from $2-5 (the group is reimbursed if it goes over $4).
The ranting and raging that goes on over stuff like this is absurd. One could legally insist after their visit to "helpful clinics" that not only should there be an updated contract, all old tenants should get some special individualized notice. Why? Because they don't pay attention to the notices popping up in their face, and with group tools broken, they may miss the pop-up and forget to periodically check the archives. In any event, I personally can't spend the administrative time -- if I wish to keep prices low! -- to go notify each person individually. Slowly, each box is being updated and it's nearly complete. Occasionally one is missed.
I go into such detail here because it's a very good example of how RL standards of notification and contracts aren't feasible or even desirable in SL. If someone is outraged at some little thing, they can press REFUND and move on -- and good luck finding THAT cheap of a rental again! The market really has to take care of this; there really is such a thing as too much regulation and too much lawyering killing not only business, but the ability to offer people low-cost rentals. I simply won't stand for it.
One can also see Solomon somewhat valiantly trying to return people from their anticipation of all the profits they can wrest from SL residents going around in "entitlement" and "feeling bilked by landlords" mode, and focus on charities. But...many of these charities will already have pro bono help in RL. There isn't some special thing they need in SL.
A great deal of time was spent on "verifying". And of course here, too, we need to be watchful as what's likely to happen is that as these lawyers find its just very hard to individually call up and verify everyone, they'll want whatever age verification the Lindens put in to do more. We should resist this globalizing of individual lobbyists' needs, again, in the name of preserving the world's freedom. People already have enough criticisms of verification (more than I do, in fact) without having this system also have to create an icon that says not only is a person age verified; they are "verified that the given avatar is who they say they are in RL and that RL person has an address and phone number on file".
I simply find the whole SLBA project one that is troublesome and worrisome on so many levels. I'd much rather see a consumer rights body form that takes up very specific internal SL issues like island fraud, shoddy prefabs/building contracts, television sets that don't work. There's plenty to do if one only focuses on practical things like that. It's boring an unglamorous work, however, and high-priced fancy lawyers don't find it intellectually compelling.
Solar Legion, SL is not Linden Lab's entirely. They sell their server space. To be sure, it's more like a rental, but if they begin wildly and arbitrarily confiscating it, they have no business. Their business rests on the claim that they sell land and also let people keep intellectual property. The job here is not to relativize and be reductive about Linden Lab's technical ownership of software and servers, but to keep pushing for more equity and participatory democracy in the grid.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | 08/19/2007 at 07:07 AM
Prokofy, you don't seem to understand the distinction between "mine" and "ours" :-) And you also don't seem to understand the difference between being a customer of a business and owning it.
And I'm intrigued at the idea that people who suggest, for example, local governance tools to other people have to be "accountable" (presumably to you) for just forming a group and promoting things, but that people who demand that other people be stopped from whatever it is they are pursuing (often by endless spiteful rantings in 'blogs) don't need to be accountable to anybody.
Posted by: Ashcroft Burnham | 08/19/2007 at 07:25 AM
Prokofy, the Lab is a Private company and Second Life IS software, not a country. The Lab has final say on all matters pertaining to its product, not us. All one has to do to understand this is to look at their policies and the way they handle and enforce them (when they enforce them).
I'll bet they laugh each and every time any of the users attempts to equate Second Life to a country.
Posted by: Solar Legion | 08/19/2007 at 09:34 AM
Prokofy said "Keeping the government out of the private sphere is full-time work in real-life. And it won't happen by itself in SL, either. The way it can begin to erode is when lawyers take it upon themelves to urge regulation, precisely to give themselves work."
I agree with the first two sentences, but not the last. There is plenty of evidence in RL that industries can avoid government regulation by demonstrating that they are able to police themselves. Consider, as one example, movie ratings provided privately by the MPAA. People have plenty of complaints about how it functions, but it is a non-governmental organization that tries to keep the government out of movie rating and censorship by doing the same thing more intelligently (because the people making the call are in the movie industry, and therefore presumably more informed)and more in the interests of the people being regulated (because they are regulating themselves).
So while we may not be happy to see the lawyers, and these ones we are seeing may not be the right ones (I withhold judgment until I have better information), I don't think it is right to see them as the advance guard of government interference. They are more likely to be a line of defense.
If they do it right, anyway.
Posted by: Robert Bloomfield | 08/19/2007 at 09:54 AM
The title "The First Thing, Let's Mute All the Lawyers" says it all. It applies to SL and RL.
Lawyers = evil
no lawyers = good (well there may one or two in the bunch but over all they cause more harm than good)
Case closed, oops that's lawyer talk, let just say I'm right and if you disagree with me I'll sue your pants off.
Posted by: Reg Baxter | 08/19/2007 at 04:23 PM
Robert/Beyers: I agree. The better that we regulate ourselves, the less incentive that there is for external agencies to intervene. Anarchy, or amateurish regulation, is far more likely to cause intervention from governmental ignorami than effective self-regulation to a professional standard.
Posted by: Ashcroft Burnham | 08/19/2007 at 05:39 PM
Ashcroft is not a valid interlocutor. His method of argumentation always hinges on the concept of "turning the tables on". If there is someone *else* with clean hands on this argument who isn't trying to take power and devise schemes to endlessly elevate themselves as magistrates, by all means, tell me the argumentation for how a blogger, who is an open book, is to become "more accountable". It's pretty ridiculous on the face of it.
What busy-bodies who make various groups have to understand is that OTHER groups will push back and there will indeed be strife and conflict. The first time we made Metaverse Justice Watch, the forums screamed, and our group was griefed and harassed and bullied for months and months -- and paralyzed from action. The first time anybody makes any group of significance to "keep a watch," it will always split into 2 or even 3 under the pressure of different leaders disagreeing.
These are all natural processes, and factions are the lifeblood of democracy. Then people who make these bodies simply have to expect that they can't walk all over everybody else. I sure don't when I make little discussion groups like "Mainlanders" and have a meeting with at most 30 avatars. Unlike these other bodies, I don't devise vast plans to influence and take over SL and "tell them what to do". I just keep a blog and write in it.
Robert, *police themselves* -- but not have YOU or LAWYERS police us. Try to understand the difference. You keep harping, in every argument, about "self-regulation being the key to avoiding outside regulation", then you put forth as your recipe ILLEGITIMATE bodies like SLBB, SLEC, SLBA as the "regulators" that we're to endure to avoid outside interference. Well, hell, no. None of them have any buy-in in any significant way from the people in business in SL. *I* don't have to be in them; but there'd have to be a significant number of people with a significant stake to be legitimate and recognized -- and *there is not*. Mostly, these bodies are ignored.
For me, the model for self-policing can be seen in things like journalists' associations. Rather than have the state devise some huge book of a press law, reporters themselves can make professional societies in which they set out the good practices. They can train newer reporters in how to avoid violating libel laws or how to report on government sources or whatever -- so that it becomes a matter or professional ethics, and not imposed by the state.
These lawyers are NOT AT ALL any advance guard of defense, Robert. You couldn't be more wrong! Benjamin Duranske, far from trying to conceive of ways for the Ginko's situation to arrive at some workable plan that might have involved a group of investors bailing out the deposits and buying the debt -- which is what essentially some people are trying to do anyway, but in the face of "being tried by the media" -- he simply cried "foul" and said the feds must come bursting in the door and shut everything down and find LL at fault. That's outrageous.
I don't see a single lawyer working to DEFEND AVATARS or even real-life business. I look at them looking to EXPAND THEIR BRIEF and find more ways to expand their own operations from RL or pick up things they think "need doing" in SL, freelancing around, for example, and trying to shut down what they view as a Ponzi scheme, though they have no money in it, and no class of depositors asked them to do this. That's what I find really offensive.
LL is right to do nothing and should go on doing nothing. Second Life really has to be protected from being obliterated by real life, and the way that can be done ironically is to take such cases into real life where there are competent lawyers and courts that either find there's a case -- or don't.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | 08/19/2007 at 05:51 PM
GRRRR Lawyers! I hear they are universally evil. Let's hate on them.
Posted by: Baba | 08/19/2007 at 06:54 PM
Prokofy, I notice that you entirely ignored the point about confusing "mine" and "ours" - I take it, then, that you tacitly accept that you have conflated the two, and that all of your arguments are based on the false premise that SecondLife is singularly yours? That you start from such a false premise is certainly consistent with the tone of much of what you write.
And now you're claiming that I'm not a "valid interlocutor" because I have some interest in the matter being discussed? Are you suggesting that only people whom you consider neutral ought respond to posts on your 'blogs, not those about whom you write your posts? That is just as absurd as the practice that once prevailed, hundreds of years ago, in criminal courts in which the defendant was not allowed to give evidence in his own defence because it was thought he or she would be biased.
As to groups splitting up, the Metaverse Republic (anybody interested in joining, see http://www.metaverserepublic.org - officially denounced by Prokofy Neva, so it must be worthwhile) has been going since April, and nobody has formed any splinter groups yet :-)
Another thing that you don't acknowledge is that lawyers are not out there, trying to come in: we are already in. We are as much part of SecondLife as you are: we own land, we purchase Lindens and spend them in world - some of us even make hatstands ;-). If you think that there is a "we" that includes you but doesn't include lawyers, then you are thinking that there is some special inner circle of SecondLifers in whose exclusive interests that SecondLife ought be run and designed, and that everybody who dares even to suggest that things should be done differently should be subject to your endless spiteful tirades and unspecified "resistance" and "pushing back". Now, an inner circle of people with a special degree of influence in SecondLife is a concept that I vaguely remember having read about before somewhere...
Is what you really dislike about lawyers the fact that they are primarily experts in reasoned argument, and can spot bad or missing reasoning of the sort that is indispensable to your writings at fifty paces?
Posted by: Ashcroft Burnham | 08/19/2007 at 07:48 PM
Ashcroft, you aren't a valid interlocutor. And there's nothing to say to a merely provocative point like "mine and yours". I'm not the one with a mine/yours problem trying to take power in SL and get people's land as collateral: YOU are.
You're not valid because you don't really seek a good-faith discourse. Your only goal in every exchange is to try to play "gotcha" and "turn tables". It's not interesting. It covers up your own crimes.
Neualtenberg is a good example of a split-up. And the Metaverse Republic splitting of from Neufreistadt after its failures to get majority seats and forcibly install its justice regime is also a good example of a split-off. And there will be more, wherever Ashcroft goes.
Lawyers aren't a part of Second Life. If there are a handful who bought land, what of it? The majority of people in SLBA are newcomers with RL practices (unlike yourself, who is untethered to such a real life reality check). They are looking to exploit the platform, not contribute to the world.
Indeed I'm entitled to and in fact have a duty to resist and push back against small elites that try to take power and also put others out of business, declaring them sub-standard, not complying with norms, or even criminal.
I don't have any bad argumentation; I pose a very reasonable and right challenge to any elite group trying to wave around RL credentials to horn in. Your career in SL, and the considerable resistance you've met not only by me, but people once your colleagues, is good evidence of that.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | 08/19/2007 at 08:48 PM
Mr. Neva has visions of grander in his own very small mind.
Second Life belongs to Linden Labs. Therefore it truly is theirs only to turn over or... just to end.
Think about that. Then where would Mr. Neva try to be a big fish in a little pond? There maybe?
Posted by: Wynter Loon | 08/20/2007 at 02:39 AM
This juxtaposition is very amusing:
"And there's nothing to say to a merely provocative point like 'mine and yours'. I'm not the one with a mine/yours problem trying to take power in SL and get people's land as collateral: YOU are."
and
"Your only goal in every exchange is to try to play 'gotcha' and 'turn tables'. It's not interesting. It covers up your own crimes."
As ever, you are the most guilty of that of which you falsely accuse others. Indeed, your only response whenever you are criticised is to ignore the criticism, and instead make irrelevant malicious allegations against your critics.
"Lawyers aren't a part of Second Life. If there are a handful who bought land, what of it?"
What does it take to be "a part of SecondLife" if not being somebody who uses the software, owns land, attends events and buys and/or sells things? Does being "part of SecondLife" mean, for you, somebody who not only does that sort of thing but is also the sort of person of whom you personally approve?
The point about "mine" and "yours" was not, as the poster above recognises accurately, a fatuous exploitation of a genuine error, but a substantive point that goes to the heart of your flawed thinking: you appear to believe that you ought to have a greater say in what happens in SecondLife than people, such as lawyers, of whom you disapprove. Stating, "I'm not willing to turn Second Life over to the lawyers", especially when you later add, "Of course SL is mine to turn over", makes it clear that you think that SecondLife is in your hands in a way that it is not in the hands of those who use it just as much as you do who also happen to be lawyers, and that you (or, even if you had pluralised, you and people of whom you approve) have more right to say what happens to it or in it than lawyers do. The reality is that SecondLife is no more yours to turn over to lawyers than it is lawyers' to turn over to you.
And what makes you think that I don't have a real practice? I'm typing this in a spare moment in chambers right now, before I go off to do some real work. Do you have a real job?
Posted by: Ashcroft Burhham | 08/20/2007 at 06:36 AM
The heart of the Second Life experience is land and content. People who don't own land or make content shouldn't be making decisions about what happens to that land or that content; only the owners and stakeholders should. They can make decisions about whatever they do in SL; obviously LL makes overarching decisions. But residents cannot be allowed to intervene and start making policies -- or much less taking away -- that which is owned and operated and created by residents. Hands off!
That means wannabe regulators; busybodies who want to edit and curb and confine content; people who wish to mute and delete events or items on land; people who wish to criminalize those who aren't criminalized by the TOS and Linden policy. Hands off!
Users of land and content; consumers; visitors; eternally newbie hobos -- they can all rant and rave as much as they like, but the fact is, they shouldn't be determining what happens to my land or somebody else's creation. It's ours. Not yours. Lack of grasp of these basics is what always proves Ashcroft's ideas so flawed and untenable.
It's not about someone having "more power" or "less". It's about "nothing about us without us". it's not about "agreeing" or not. It's about those who own land or designs *having a say* in what happens and not letting *others who do not own or design* take that away from them, or manipulate it without their consent -- say, with demanding that they adopt some "standardized contract". It's just that simple. No need to complexify it.
I am not willing to turn over Second Life to others. Not on your life. That Second Life which I own, together with other owners; and that means people with land and designs.
Does that mean some kind of privileged uber class, the kind I always rail against?
Of course not. It just means *owners*. People who own stuff. People who cannot allow other people who don't own that stuff to start ruling over it -- to begin to interfere and rule.
It's that sort of basic lack of grasping of common sense meaning of ownership, and the ability to dispose of it and not have others dispose of it, that makes Ashcroft so untethered.
So did Ashcroft move out of mom's basement and finally get some summer clerking position?
I not only have a job; I have several lol.
Indeed Second Life is in my hands. It sure as hell is. Just as it is in the hands of other owners. Oh, to be sure, we are renters, and we can be removed "for any reason or no reason" and all the rest. But the Lindens generally don't behave badly like that -- never as badly as anything a rogue resident can cook up, like Ashcroft.
It's only in the fevered and skewed mind of Ashcroft that a simple, proper, and legitimate wish to manage one's own property, in concert with others of the same status, without interference with others who do not own it, can be transmogrified into some kind of bid to block others' opinion or their activities in SL. SL is free. They can do what they want. But they have to get off my lawn.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | 08/20/2007 at 06:44 AM
"Users of land and content; consumers; visitors [...] -- they can all rant and rave as much as they like, but the fact is, they shouldn't be determining what happens to my land or somebody else's creation."
Not exactly. There has to be a balance between the rights of the creators and owners and the rights of users and consumers. And that is not YOUR right to take away from us users and consumers.
So THAT is what you call socialism? Consumers having rights? In that case, maybe I am a socialist after all.
Posted by: Lem Skall | 08/20/2007 at 08:15 AM
Lem, sometimes I think people leave their common sense at the door in SL.
Non-land owners and non-content creators do not have the right to interfere in the property rights of land-owners and content-creators.
There's no such thing as a "balance" that involves curbing these people's rights.
In RL, there isn't a standard contract forced on businesses; they use a variety of them. In real life, people can't come in and interfere with your business in the way you imagine.
Ownership doesn't take away from the non-owning. The non-owner can control land or content by...buying land or making something and putting permissions on it.
In real life, there might be something called "the common weal" that is served by limiting the rights of factory owners to pollute the environment as they make a product, so that health is not harmed. Or to curb unscrupulous landlords through housing courts.
But that's because there is legitimate government and checks and balances.
SL, being a synthetic world, can't start claiming a commonweal when there is nothing that can administer it -- and when LL will not administer it.
So whether you like it or not, the reality is that owners cannot be interfered with. After all, they can't harm health, or take away life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness. Those things are all achieved on...property. Or sandboxes if somebody wants to maintain them for somebody else out of the goodness of their heart (as I do).
What are consumer rights? There's nothing to enforce them in a simplistic world like SL except the marketplace, and the power of the purse. Consumers can boycott, agitate, name, and shame...and take their dollars elsewhere.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | 08/20/2007 at 09:03 AM