Disclaimer, I am not a lawyer…. And let me also state up front that I am not in favor of all of the grotesque child play activities. I even dislike seeing “children” avatars (dwarfs are obviously different than children - I can tell the difference) inside Second Life. The adult grid is just that, the adult grid. Children and facsimiles of them do not belong in the adult grid. That’s my position.

I have been watching for sometime, with some concern, Linden Labs increasing migration away from their previous laissez-faire attitude toward governance within the Second Life grid. While this obviously annoyed certain individuals, mostly leftist really (who are into that Big Brother as a state mentality) and right wing lunatic fringe. This laissez-faire governance was probably driven by a few basic problems, they would never have enough staff to enforce any real or serious rules they laid down and the rules themselves could become a real morass themselves.

Creating laws within Second Life would be a massive undertaking. The US Federal Code alone is a massive tome of laws, and only a small part of it covers criminal law (in the US most criminal law is covered by State Laws). This also avoided other legal messes and left the masses to themselves. In fact the terms of service is setup mostly to protect themselves. This attitude actually has an advantage to the Second Life citizenry. One could argue that under this policy Linden Labs is just a common carrier.

Being a common carrier in the US is a way of realistically performing commercial work without being criminally responsible for certain acts used for your commercial goods or services. An obvious example here is the phone company. Making a bomb threat using a telephone does not make the phone company criminally liable for the act. They were just the carrier, they do not monitor the call or vet out the activities. And that is the key. They do not monitor or vet the activities.

It is very similar to how the somewhat hated Digital Millennium Copyright Act works in the US. If the carrier did not know about the violation, they cannot be held liable for it. But once they are informed of it, they have to take action.

Linden Labs original policy set themselves up to be purportedly a common carrier - but that had not been upheld by a court yet since Second Life does not quite fit the mold one would expect of a common carrier (yet).

Now, here’s the bad part for Linden Labs - once you start to police your self for “naughty” bits, you start to loose your common carrier shield, if not entirely. If Linden Labs states or implies that they are policing the grid for “naughtiness” and they fail to do so, they are liable. In the US tort law is going to make them a target for lawsuits because they have money. And they only need to have a modicum of guilt to pay out millions. Since they do business in the entire US, a lawyer can shop the entire US for a court district friendly to his point of view and sue there. Being a US corporation, they are at the mercy of the US court system.

This posting from Linden Labs about keeping Second Life safe probably had their corporate counsel climbing the walls. I am perplexed at this strategy they are undertaking. It seems reckless and without much thought to it to the long term consequences - to themselves no less.

This also opens themselves up to legal attack from the other direction - terminated users. Let’s say this user is annoyed about that. They had a few hundred or thousand dollars of “stuff” in SL. They march down to the courthouse and pay $50US or so and make a small claims to LL for say, $2000 in damages. Now LL has to defend that claim. I’m not sure how they are going to defend it. Small claims court is a complete roll of the dice for all sides, and since LL probably has no counter claim to make, the person making the claim has almost nothing to loose. Judges really hate it when one side is acting capricious, illogical, or inconsistent. A litigant is going to be able to prove all of that in court, probably with ease. The lawyers will have a field day. Everyone looses - except the lawyers.

It always seemed the best approach for Linden Labs was just to be the supplier and not the government. Supply the viewer, the servers, and the infrastructure. Let the land owners make the rules/laws. That follows the common carrier model.

Now maybe this age verification thing is some attempt to segregate parts of the grid to marginally protect themselves. On paper maybe this seems to be a good idea. But it is being implemented in an idiotic and ham fisted fashion. If they were smart Linden Labs would just back off from the idea for now and let things cool down. Claim stupidity and call it a day - or ask for alternative ideas. State clearly what their objectives are.

I also wonder how they plan on enforcing these “rules”. A volunteer police department? Sex police? (Okay, don’t give too many people too many ideas…. I think I might have a uniform that might work for that…. but I digress.)

They also open themselves up to another legal trip up for them - privacy violation. If you do it in public, you have no rights to privacy. If you do it in private, you have different rights. Oh yes, yet another legal can of worms for them. Hmm… I own the land in SL, I had a skybox, I took precautions to ensure I was private, yet the sex police (Linden Labs or their assigned agent) spied on me and terminated my account, and defamed me. Again, it defies logic they would go down this route.

Linden Labs would like everyone to think that sex in Second Life is not a major part of the SL economy. They are lying to themselves. The VHS video tape recorder in the 1980’s was a hit because of pornographic videos not because people could watch Snow White at home it was Debbie Does Dallas. The Blue-Ray versus HD DVD groups are more concerned about not what the major movie studios think of the formats, but what the porn industry thinks of each format and which one they prefer.

Lastly, I think the Teen Grid, this reaction - if not overreaction - is all driven by a public relations and possibly an attempt to avoid a real government from stepping in and monkeying around. It is not driven common sense.

I’m not sure where it all ends, hopefully in a good place. Fear not, Linden Labs has paved the road and proven this technology and business model can work. If they screw it up, someone else will pick up the pieces and eat their lunch….

Synopsis: Acting dumb (you know - the previous modus operandi) in the end will pay off more for Linden Labs (and everyone else) than acting paternalistic.

-Veyron