IM Sharing Disclaimers, are they valid? Is there any way to make one valid?

[Solar Legion]

Dres, the phrase "bleating about privacy" is a reference to those who believe that every little piece of their publicly available offline and online information can never, ever be shared anywhere they have not given prior permission for it to appear. You put information in the public eye, expect it to appear elsewhere.

The recent bleating and blathering concerning web based SL profiles for example: Your profile is public. Linden Lab gets to decide how they handle public information. Even removing your profile from search does not prevent a person right clicking on yo and viewing your profile.

These are the types which profess to abhor drama ..... and yet they cause more than their fair share of it. I have never run into anyone with a disclaimer in their profile around whom drama has spun out of control (no more so than the average user). I have run into the privacy nutters and ya know what? They bleat about privacy because of all the drama they bloody create.

As for sharing IM and general chat logs ..... that section of the ToS is worded and enforced in such a manner that it utterly hampers the general user .... and yes, it bloody well angers me. Heaven forbid I should share a conversation that has been logged which contains material which skirts the inner edge of the ToS!

And since I don't feel like hitting reply a second time .....

 Gadget? There's no such thing as a truly private conversation within Second Life - not unless you use an OTR system. At any given moment, a Linden can view your IM logs on their system. For that matter, anyone passing by your screen or using the same PC as you can view the conversation.

Your ideas would be fine and dandy in a perfect world: We don't live in such a world. The only "respect" that is deserved concerning an IM only goes so far. Usually up until the point a person begins to become verbally abusive to the one they are messaging or when referencing another users (quite possibly a friend or an estate manager).

It is that viiew and attitude, taken to the extreme, that spawns needless and unfair bans stemming from someone Abuse Reporting another user for rightfully passing on a log which contains verbal abuse, plans to grief or simply by the request of an estate manager in an effort to resolve a dispute.

If the two of you cannot tell ..... this is a topic I do not have much give concerning. ToS or not, you IM a person, they have every legal right to log the conversation and pass it on if the need arises. At present, this can only be done (safely) outside of Linden Lab's servers. So far as I am concerned, they have no valid reason for this whatsoever.

The only users I have an issue with concerning the logging and sharing (be it in SL or not) of IM and general chat logs are the ones who like to twist the words of others to fuel their own twised views. These are the sort who will blog endlessly about nothing at all, ranting about conspiracies which do not exist and trashing others without any reason.

If Linden Lab is going to demand that users do not share these logs in SL, then they need to find a legal reason to keep the above types from sharing them outside SL. 

[Vladi Hazelnut]

There are other reasons to disable conversation logging other than clutter. LIke in my case I have an SSD drive. SSD drives have slower write times and also the more you write to them the faster they wear out. They are more suited to reading info than writing info. That being said the life span of any newer SSD drive will most likely out live your computer especially when you take into consideration have fast they become outdated. Regardless of how much you write to it.

As far as clutter is concerned though I guess the size of your drive would play a part in it too. My SSD drive is only 40 gigs and windows takes up almost half that.

I could easily move it to my other drive which is a standard sata drive, which is what I have done in the past, but I figured what the hell its just as easy to shut it off since I never use the info anyway. If I want to copy a conversation I will just copy and paste it into a note card when it happens.

I just don't see the point of having stuff write to either drive if I don't need it to. Just my choice I guess.

as far as the "valid" thing, I don't see how you corrolate valid with legal, it is two seperate things. Just because something is legal, doesn't make it valid or vice versa. Take the copyright stuff for the market place. Some of LL's guidlines actually go against Fair Use copy right laws. However its sl's website so they can make up the rules. Whether they are legal or not doesn't mean you can break the rules. This even happens in law, many states have laws that contradict federal laws. Take for instance medical marijuana. Some states legalize it, but federally it is still against the law since it is a controlled substance. There have been many debates about this. During an interview one of the largest medical marijuana outlets in California refused to state how much business they do and how much he makes off from it because he said even though the state won't mess with it he doesn't want to temp the DEA and them shut him down or arrest him.

[Paul Hexem]

---

Solar Legion wrote:

Dres, the phrase "bleating about privacy" is a reference to those who believe that 

every little piece of their publicly available offline and online information can never, ever be shared anywhere they have not given prior permission for it to appear.

You put information in the public eye, expect it to appear elsewhere.

The recent bleating and blathering concerning web based SL profiles for example: Your profile is public. Linden Lab gets to decide how they handle public information. Even removing your profile from search does not prevent a person right clicking on yo and viewing your profile.

These are the types which profess to abhor drama ..... and yet they cause more than their fair share of it. I have

never

run into anyone with a disclaimer in their profile around whom drama has spun out of control (no more so than the average user). I

have

run into the privacy nutters and ya know what? They bleat about privacy

because of all the drama they bloody create.

As for sharing IM and general chat logs ..... that section of the ToS is worded and enforced in such a manner that it utterly hampers the general user .... and yes, it bloody well angers me. Heaven forbid I should share a conversation that has been logged which contains material which skirts the inner edge of the ToS!

And since I don't feel like hitting reply a second time .....

 Gadget? There's no such thing as a truly private conversation within Second Life - not unless you use an OTR system. At any given moment, a Linden can view your IM logs on their system. For that matter, anyone passing by your screen or using the same PC as you can view the conversation.

Your ideas would be fine and dandy in a perfect world: We don't live in such a world. The only "respect" that is deserved concerning an IM only goes so far. Usually up until the point a person begins to become verbally abusive to the one they are messaging or when referencing another users (quite possibly a friend or an estate manager).

It is that viiew and attitude, taken to the extreme, that spawns needless and unfair bans stemming from someone Abuse Reporting another user for

rightfully

passing on a log which contains verbal abuse, plans to grief or simply by the request of an estate manager in an effort to resolve a dispute.

If the two of you cannot tell ..... this is a topic I do not have much give concerning. ToS or not, you IM a person, they have every legal right to log the conversation and pass it on if the need arises. At present, this can only be done (safely) outside of Linden Lab's servers. So far as I am concerned, they have no valid reason for this whatsoever.

The

only

users I have an issue with concerning the logging and sharing (be it in SL or not) of IM and general chat logs are the ones who like to twist the words of others to fuel their own twised views. These are the sort who will blog endlessly about nothing at all, ranting about conspiracies which do not exist and trashing others without any reason.

If Linden Lab is going to demand that users do not share these logs in SL, then they need to find a legal reason to keep the above types from sharing them

outside

SL. 

---

No one's talking about verbally abusing or griefing anyone. Not sure where you read that in any posts. The topic is, "Is it okay to share IM logs if you have a disclamer?". The answer is: No, not in SL. You don't have to like it, that's the rule.

You can't "rightfully" share IM logs in SL, LL has made rules against it. If you do, you're breaking the rules. If the person takes offense, they AR you. It's not an unfair ban. You willfully broke the rules, you get banned. Doesn't matter if it's legal elsewhere, it's against the rules here.

It's black and white, no shades of gray. The rules say no sharing IMs in SL. Break those rules, and face the consequences. "I did it because it's legal outside of SL!" doesn't change the rule.

[Solar Legion]

Regarding Valid and legal ....

One cannot enforce an invalid, legal contract nor can one enforce a valid, illegal contract. It must be both valid and legal to be properly enforced.

In either event, the arguing of semantic is pointless.  

[Solar Legion]

Do you have anything to add which is not already covered or which can add to the topic at hand? Did you bother to read the entire thread for context?

I am well aware what the rather broken stance of Linden Lab is: Restating it in any way, shape or form is pointless and quite frankly, irritating.

Boilerplate responses of that nature do little more than make me wonder if you're the sort to go whining to Linden Lab when someone passes information you've let slip on to an Estate Manager (resulting in a ban from said Estate).

Now then ..... do you have a response that will add to this thread and the topic at hand (which has apparently evolved past the title of the thread) or not?

And yes, I am well and truly irritated now. 

[Dresden Ceriano]

---

Solar Legion wrote:

Dres, the phrase "bleating about privacy" is a reference to those who believe that 

every little piece of their publicly available offline and online information can never, ever be shared anywhere they have not given prior permission for it to appear.

You put information in the public eye, expect it to appear elsewhere.

The recent bleating and blathering concerning web based SL profiles for example: Your profile is public. Linden Lab gets to decide how they handle public information. Even removing your profile from search does not prevent a person right clicking on yo and viewing your profile.

---

As I said, in the context in which you used it, I realize you were not talking about your everyday person that has privacy concerns. But this...

---

Solar Legion wrote:

These are the types which profess to abhor drama ..... and yet they cause more than their fair share of it. I have

never

run into anyone with a disclaimer in their profile around whom drama has spun out of control (no more so than the average user). I

have

run into the privacy nutters and ya know what? They bleat about privacy

because of all the drama they bloody create.

---

You're lucky you haven't run into anyone like that because I have and I assure you it's not pretty. On the other hand, I haven't had any personal experience with what you refer to as "privacy nutters"... or maybe I have, but they've just kept that information private... lol.

---

Solar Legion wrote:

Your ideas would be fine and dandy in a perfect world: We don't live in such a world. The only "respect" that is deserved concerning an IM only goes so far. Usually up until the point a person begins to become verbally abusive to the one they are messaging or when referencing another users (quite possibly a friend or an estate manager).

It is that viiew and attitude, taken to the extreme, that spawns needless and unfair bans stemming from someone Abuse Reporting another user for

rightfully

passing on a log which contains verbal abuse, plans to grief or simply by the request of an estate manager in an effort to resolve a dispute.

---

This is where your argument breaks down. The TOS is clear, you can't share that information through SL servers, be it inworld or on their website, period. There is no exclusion clause that would enable someone, anyone, to do it "rightfully". There are other ways to deal with the situation... such as filing an AR with LL directly. Or, if it comes down to it, the estate manager can set up a system outside of SL for the sharing of chat logs; though it's my belief that, in doing so, they'd be opening themselves up to needless drama... but that would be their choice. What they can't do is request someone break TOS by sharing logs with them without the consent of the other party involved.

This...

---

Solar Legion wrote:

The

only

users I have an issue with concerning the logging and sharing (be it in SL or not) of IM and general chat logs are the ones who like to twist the words of others to fuel their own twised views. These are the sort who will blog endlessly about nothing at all, ranting about conspiracies which do not exist and trashing others without any reason.

---

...on the other hand, is allowed and, in fact, there's nothing LL can do to stop it. Twisted, I know, but that's how it is, whether you like it or not.

...Dres

 

 

[Dresden Ceriano]

Your irritability aside, what Gadget wrote was spot on. Neither he nor I can help it if your argument falls apart.

And as regards to whether or not what someone else decides to post "adds" to the thread to your satisfaction is not something you can control. I suggest you look at your own posts and figure out if they really add anything, because that is the only thing you can control.

...Dres

[Solar Legion]

Actually, my argument is rock solid. "Rightful" sharing of logs has zilch to do with the Terms of Service and everything to do with legality and the situation. It's just that simple - in fact, it's just as simple as the boilerplate "You can't do that because it's against the ToS" responses to things like this.

As for what does and does not add to the discussion .... parroting the ToS doesn't add to the discussion, nor does stating what is already known.

This is General Discussion, isn't it? Yes? Well then, responding in such a manner as to be politely saying "you're not allowed to do what is perfectly legal everywhere nor are you right to voice your displeasure over it" is a bit much ..... isn't it? 

[Dresden Ceriano]

I think your irritation has gotten in the way of your comprehension. I never said you can't do it, I said you can't do it on SL servers and not be committing an ARable offense. If you can't understand that, there is nothing I nor anyone else can do for you.

And no one has said you can't voice your displeasure about anything, by all means voice away.

...Dres

[kattatonia Wickentower]

I can't remember the thread, but Someone posted a disclaimer that they used in their profile to nullify other's disclaimers.  I thought if was rather amusing so I copied it and put it in my profile too. It goes like this:

This is a disclaimer to void your ToS disclaimer whether you read it or not. And if you try to void my disclaimer of your disclaimer, then I void your disclaimer voiding my disclaimer voiding your disclaimer. I further make it impossible for your disclaimer of my disclaimer to void your disclaimer able to void my disclaimer.

So there!



[Paul Hexem]

Dres is right.

It doesn't matter how much it upsets you, you can't share IMs on LL's domain. You're trying to make it more complex than that, and it's not.

Lots of laws and rules in the world displease me. Sure, I complain that they annoy me. And that's perfectly acceptable. What I can't do is say that they're nullified because of laws elsewhere. Unless I think it's worth arguing in court, and can make a case... But that really doesn't happen all that often.

To be hoenst, I don't care if it irritates you by saying it. I'll say it again and again, every time someone says something about disclaimers or laws elsewhere... Them's the rules. If you don't like it, don't use SL.

If you feel the need to share IM's, open up a chat with the person in another website or in one of the instant messengers or use email. At that point, it's fine, there's nothing anyone can do about it, and you can feel as rightful as you want.

[Kyoka Setsuko]

---

Solar Legion wrote:

Like it or not, most of the US is comprised of single party consent states. Only one person in a conversation needs to give their consent to legally allow them to "record" and do whatever they please with the conversation (within reason).

To sum this up? Are the disclaimers legal? Why yes, yes they are. Do they circumvent the ToS? No - no they do not. Can someone log you and then share the log over other web sites/message systems? Yes - yes they can.

ToS or not, you IM a person, they have every legal right to log the conversation and pass it on if the need arises. At present, this can only be done (safely) outside of Linden Lab's servers. So far as I am concerned, they have no valid reason for this whatsoever.



Actually, my argument is rock solid. "Rightful" sharing of logs has zilch to do with the Terms of Service and 

everything

to do with legality and the situation. It's just that simple - in fact, it's just as simple as the boilerplate "You can't do that because it's against the ToS" responses to things like this.

---

Solar Legion, I wonder upon which legal laurels you rest your argument that "disclaimers are legal" and that they "do not circumvent the ToS". Are you a lawyer, or perhaps a legal expert in the area of Software License Agreements? Upon which legal precedents do you rest your broad generalizations? I see none provided to substantiate your claims.

Let me begin with the basics.

 

As part of the current ToS, the "Community Standards" are included.

 

Within these "Community Standards", we find the statement as follows:

 

The Community Standards sets out six behaviors, the 'Big Six', that will result in suspension or, with repeated violations, expulsion from the Second Life Community.

 

And under the Disclosure section we find the following statement:

 

Remotely monitoring conversations in Second Life, posting conversation logs, or sharing conversation logs without the participants' consent are all prohibited.

 

First we need to understand a little bit about the ToS. The ToS is known as a software license agreement, and is a form of contract which forms between the "licensor" (Linden Lab) and the purchaser of the right to use the software. These licenses can define the ways under which the copy of software may be used. Many of these forms are contained in digital form, presented as a click-through where the user must "accept" the agreement.

The basics of contract formation are relatively simple. We can look to the typical offer and acceptance analysis. Agreement consists of an offer by an indication of one party to another of their willingness to form the contract based on certain terms. Once the offer has been accepted by the other party, the contract comes into existence.

 

In many cases, however, it is neither profitable nor efficient to engage in a period of negotiations prior to contract formation. Thus many companies, especially in the case of software license agreements, will use contracts of adhesion. Contracts of adhesion are presented on a "take it or leave it" basis, wherein the offeror does not give the offeree a chance to negotiate the terms of the contract.

 

I would refer you to ProCD v. Zeidenberg 86 F .3d 1447 (7th Cir. 1996), wherein a software license was ruled enforceable as it was necessary for the customer to assent to the terms of the agreement by clicking the "I Agree" button in order to install the software. You will find that use of SL requires the same thing, therefore ProCD is an applicable precedent. It does not matter, in the eyes of the law, that SL was not physically purchased (or even necessarily purchased at all).

 

However, to simply state, as Solar Legion has, that a term of the ToS is "boiler plate" or that LL has "no valid reason whatsoever" to prevent people from posting or sharing logs proves nothing, in the eyes of the law. None of these claims counteract the simple facts, as stated above and simplified here:

 

1. LL extended you an offer for contract formation, in the form of a software license agreement (known as the ToS).

2. By clicking "I Accept" to that software license agreement (the ToS), you formed a contract with LL, the terms of which you are bound to (under ProCD).

The essential formation of the contract occurs because LL offers to give you access to their service (Second Life), under their terms (those of the ToS), and you consent to it. If you disagree with the terms offered, you can simply not use Second Life. It's as simple as that.

 

Now, where do these Disclaimers come in?

 

Certain people post on their profiles, or in auto-response messages that they log IMs and will use, post, or share them as they see fit, and that by speaking to them, you consent to this use.

 

This is extremely problematic for a number of reasons, although there is one primary one that I will get to.

 

But first some minor issues.

 

The "single party consent states" you speak of allow for certain communications to be recorded, so long as the person recording is one of the parties involved in the communication. However, even if you did live in the United States, in a State with these "single party consent" laws, they are not as open and free as you may be lead to believe. First off, as an example, if Caller A was in one of these single party consent states, and they called someone where there was a stricter law that did not allow single-party consent (such as California), they cannot freely record under their own law.

 

You may refer to the precedent of Kearney v. Salmon Smith Barney, where a company from Georgia routinely recorded business phonecalls with clients from California. In that case, the Supreme Court of California held that the failure to apply California's law would "impair California’s interest in protecting the degree of privacy afforded to California residents by California law more severely than the application of California law would impair any interests of the State of Georgia.". I can only suggest that it becomes even more complicated when another country (a large number of residents are from outside of the United States) is involved. In other words, it isn't going to be so easy as to say "I live in a single-party consent state, therefore I can record anything I want and it is legal". This is naive and simply wrong.

Turning to the validity of such disclaimers for a moment. Typically, under the United States law, for example, private communication will be covered by statute. First, we must determine whether a conversation is private or not. A private communication will be one generally where the people engaged in the conversation can reasonably expect their conversation to remain private. A phone call is one such example (so your argument about "Anyone can walk by your screen and see what you wrote!" is invalid, because anyone could happen to overhear what you say on the telephone, but under the eyes of most Courts of Law, it will still be considered private). I believe a reasonable court, based on the varying precedents that exist, would find that there is more than a reasonable expectation for privacy in an IM conversation on SL, and that the sharing or posting of it would contravene this.

 

The second step to this process is determining whether or not there has been consent. Often, notice will be considered sufficient for a court to find consent. For example, when you call a company for tech support and they tell you the call will be recorded. Most courts will hold that you have given implied consent by speaking after having heard the notice.

Herein lies the problem. If the "Disclaimer" which requires you to implicitly consent to their sharing or posting of the communication lies in their profile, either on the main page, or worse yet, buried in their Picks, it would have to be asked whether or not the other person even read that person's profile. Unlike a telephone conversation, where the consent is aired over the line, or a contract where a term would be laid before you prior to signing, if the disclaimer is in their profile, it will be a sticky matter for a court to decide whether or not that disclaimer counts as "notice" or not. My guess is that the person with the disclaimer will have to first of all prove that 1) The disclaimer counts as reasonable "notice", that it was displayed in such a fashion that it was mandatory for all others to view it prior to communication with that user (such as an auto-response that always appears prior to IMing that user). 2) The person who supposedly consented actually did so, by actually seeing the notice and still continuing to engage in conversation, thereby implicitly consenting (analogous to the phone conversation example).

But wait... There still lies one more serious issue. In fact, this is the big issue that I mentioned before.

 

All that dicussion I just went through about single party consent states and disclaimers/notice/consent is utterly inapplicable. Why? It's simple.

 

Because of the precedent set by ProCD.

 

This is essentially what happens:

 

1. Both Person A (Alex) and Person B (Bob) sign a contract with Person C (Carrot Corp.)

2. One of the terms of this contract was that Alex and Bob will not eat any carrots, or feed anyone else any carrots.

3. Alex then finds Bob, and says to him "You consent to me feeding you carrots".

4. Alex then feeds Bob carrots.

 

The problems are numerous with this reasoning.

 

1) The initial contract was formed between A & C. A can only negotiate terms of that contract with C prior to contract formation (prior to clicking "I Agree"), or afterward if forming a new contract.

2) You cannot alter a contract between two party members without both of those parties present.

3) Neither Bob nor Alex can obviate their original responsibility to Carrot Corp, especially not by means of an agreement with each other.

 

First of all, you cannot alter the terms of a contract, or obviate responsibility of them by creating new terms with a third party (for Alex, the original contract is with Carrot Corp, so the third party is Bob. For Bob, the contract is with Carrot Corp, so the third party is Alex). If this was the case, any contract I didn't like, I could just turn to my friend (or any third party) and ask them to change the terms with me. This is completely illogical.

Second, you cannot alter the terms of a contract, or obviate responsibility unilaterally. Otherwise, I could just sign any contract I liked, and then get out of it by showing up in court and saying "Yeah, I decided I didn't like the contract, so I decided to change the terms by myself".

 

No, both of these cases are clear breaches of the contract. At which point, the other party could sue for damages.

 

What people don't seem to understand is that the contract is not between A (Alex) and B (Bob). The original contract's terms are the ToS, which was the software license agreement offered by Carrot Corp, signed by users (A and B both, each forming individual contracts) when they first clicked that "I Agree" button. The ToS is good law under ProCD. The ONLY people capable of changing the terms of that agreement are the user and LL, and that would require the drafting of a new contract to be upheld in court, most likely.

So, to put a disclaimer in your profile is useless, because it is not up to person B to consent or not consent... they are not capable of giving consent- implicit or otherwise. They are already bound by the ToS (as are you) when you both began using SL, and you cannot obviate that responsibility, no matter what you say or do.

 

I believe this is the position that any other legal expert will offer you. No court will be willing to lightly cast aside the ToS, or it would bring into question the reputation of all software license agreements... and it would cause a lot of uproar for businesses, I suspect (since these license agreements are useful in numerous ways, such as providing them protection where copyright law does not normally extend).

 

So, before you make these inane generalizations about single party consent states, or the legality of disclaimers, please know that the terms of the contract you have with LL (the ToS) takes legal precdent which would be upheld in court over any other agreements you make with users, and that anything you do which breaches the ToS is a breach of contract, over which you could be sued, and LL would likely win in damages. LL is not required to give any reasons for the terms of the ToS, they only needed to have set terms which are reasonable... the court will only knock off terms from the contract if they are so egregious that they unconscionable, or there is an "absence of meaningful choice on the part of one party due to one-sided contract provisions, together with terms which are so oppressive that no reasonable person would make them and no fair and honest person would accept them." (Fanning v. Fritz's Pontiac-Cadillac-Buick Inc.).

 

The ToS' expectation that private conversations remain private is not "so oppressive". Therefore, they would be upheld in court.

[Ceka Cianci]

mine says that if you IM me it gives me the rights to all your RL stuffs

[Void Singer]

I keep considering adding one that says:

"I reserve the right to ban you on sight for using disclaimers to try to contravene TOS without the intelligence to know that they are neither effective nor necessary, and fully intend to IM you with a berating message so that if you do such as foolish thing as, for instance, share that IM, I can file an abuse report and LL can remove another moron from the grid"

.... whaddya think, too long?

[Dresden Ceriano]

Rather than a disclaimer, if I would even consider engaging in a conversation with some disclaimer kook, I might just reply by saying, "Okay, I consent, but in turn you, must consent to my logging of our IMs and using them as I see fit... up to and including rewriting them to make you seem like a homicidal lunatic who constantly refers to me as 'Fairest Brunhilde, Queen of the Nether Regions' for no reason at all." That would be satisfying.

@Kyoka: Welcome to the forum and thank you for your well thought out and very nicely executed post. Even if I didn't agree with you (which I do), I would look forward to your continued participation in these forums. The ability to argue a point logically instead of irrationally lashing out at people is something we could definitely use more of here. For that, I thank you.

...Dres

[Void Singer]

---

Dresden Ceriano wrote:

[...] 'Fairest Brunhilde, Queen of 

the 

my

Nether Regions' [...]

---

FIFY (what?! it's funnier that way...)

[Perrie Juran]

awesome.  contract law 101.  beautiful.

[Dresden Ceriano]

Damn you, Void, for improving on my concept without my expressed consent. I'll see you in court.

...Dres

[Arkady Arkright]

Thank you Kyoka for that clear and unambiguous explanation.

[Void Singer]

I fully intend to hide behind fair use and parody =D

[Kyoka Setsuko]

Glad if I could help to paint a clearer picture, and thanks for the welcome Dres.

Of course, as an addendum, my previous post merely outlines what I believe the law suggests, based on binding precedents.

There is also the reality of the situation.

Realistically speaking, LL (nor any other company) will typically engage in a law suit unless there is money to be gained. Law suits are expensive and lengthy processes.

That means, while they are able to take action (suspension/wiping of your account) without fear of a legal battle, so long as they act within the ToS, LL will be highly unlikely to pursue YOU legally for violating ToS, unless: 1) the harm you have committed by breaching the ToS is somehow substantial or egregious, 2) the breach of the ToS has somehow cost them significant financial losses which they wish to recouperate.

Also, realistically speaking, even if they did pursue it legally, most legal battles do not make it to court. Which means it would probably be settled out of court.

Finally, we should always remember that the breach is between Person A and LL. If you are Person B, and Person A has shared or posted logs which you are partially the author of, insofar as I know, there is no breach between you and LL (I do not believe the ToS promises residents that it will absolutely prevent all users from sharing or posting your information, it merely states that LL has the capacity to take action, so LL has not breached ToS).

Therefore, the breach is between Person A and LL, with LL having no absolute obligation for which you could get involved. And, once again, there exists absolutely no contract between person A and person B. I don't know where people have gotten that notion, but no such contract exists (there is no shared contract between all members, only a contract between each member and LL which governs us), meaning legally you do not have the grounds to engage in a legal claim against them for breach of ToS. You can only go after them, as has happened, for breaking actual laws, such as Copyright Law (ie: the sex bed case). For you to initiate a claim against someone regarding a contract (which a violation of the ToS would be a breach of), you must be a party to that contract. And you are not a party to the contract which was breached... so you cannot pursue it legally.

I suppose, you could be brought in as a third-party into the action if it were theoretically a legal battle. Anyway, I have never heard of any actual battles getting to court or being pursued over sharing of IMs.

As others have stated, yes, it happens- people share and log IMs. And yes, they usually seem to get away with it.

That being said, it always struck me as a particular brand of idiocy to put such a disclaimer in your profile.

What you are essentially doing is publicly advertising in your profile "Hey LL! I am going to violate the ToS!" If ever there was a good reason for them to take action against you, you are simply inviting them to do so. So, word to the wise, if you actually do intend to violate ToS (which I wouldn't advise or condone, obviously), don't announce to the world, and LL, that you are doing so. It just is not clever. :smileyhappy:

[West Habercom]

I do find it funny when I read a disclaimer. I know they don't hold water... but I do end up asking...  "if you have that disclaimer stating that by Imming you, I acknowledge that you can share, etc., then what happenes if I have a disclaimer that states that I give notice that any and all messages, in chat or IM MAY NOT be shared with any individual other than a representative of Linden Lab, regardles of who initiated the conversation. etc"....

 

Who trumps who.  That's why I believe disclaimers saying that per the ToS as long as they give notice, it is allowed is nothing more than a joke and people just pushing others to the limit.

 

FYI - about 3 months ago a buddy of mine had such a disclaimer... he shared... the person ar'd them... he was suspended for a few days. ... just sayin'

[Void Singer]

the problem amounts to people not knowing what a disclaimer is, or what it can do. at it's simplest it's a warning to make clear that you do not claim responsibility for something that may be implied, but is not required by law. it does NOT and CANNOT release that party from any required legal obligations. TOS is NOT a disclaimer, it is the terms of a contract for use of a private service.

The reason that particular clause clause protects LL beyond the complaint of user A against user B, is because in cases where the action is carried out through the use of LL's services, they might be held accountable in part for propagating it. Such a case would usually fail if LL chose to contest it, but that's a legal battle, and that costs money. By disallowing it contractually, and providing penalties for violating that term, they show that they are taking reasonable efforts towards preventing it, and therefore most judges would find them not to be even partially accountable with no effort or costs to LL.

mind those are general principles, specific circumstances may warrant a closer look at whether LL is actually fulfilling their end of the bargain, but it at least raises the bar and cuts out most if not all of the legal clutter and reduces their costs.

[Dev Scorpio]

Nice overall discussion, and after browsing over most of it, more or less in a search for what is not ON topic, but well related to the topic, but yet to be seriously answered, I would like to ask in relation to the topic at hand and hopefully get a clear, logical and legally explained so to speak, response as what has already been given basically concerning IM or Instant Message conversation within SL. 

 

So I ask, what about Local Chat conversations? Are those considered the same as IM conversations, considering that Local Chat is basically the same as Public chat, or just as though you were sitting at a cafe or something and someone decided to come up and record what was being talked about, Does that also mean it is against the ToS to share logs of local chat, more so to the point of pupose of informing others of someone's actions or rude behavior or insults, ect? 

[Void Singer]

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Dev Scorpio wrote:

[...] Does that also mean it is against the ToS to share logs of local chat, more so to the point of pupose of informing others of someone's actions or rude behavior or insults, ect? 

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Yes, TOS makes no distinction between the type of conversation, only that you may not share logs of it without consent ("within LL's services" is assumed)