New Law Would Make Violating A TOS A Criminal Act

[Genn Moderator]

Hi Everyone! Please keep your posts and comments on topic. Thanks!

[Void Singer]

yes and no... the hope seems to be to get it passed as a "feel good law", but underneath it are people who know in advance that it can be abused and hope they get to.

and yeah... it's insidious what some of these laws end up accomplishing... just last week I went to buy a compass (geometric, not magnetic) as mine seemed to have wandered off.... only to find that all that was offered any more was some blunt tipped inaccurate POS, that is supposed to keep kids from stabbing each other with it (never mind the obvious fact that it requires a sharpened pencil to work).

I used a pair of pliers and a lighter to drive a heated needle into it. =P

[Sy Beck]

---

Void Singer wrote:

yes and no... the hope seems to be to get it passed as a "feel good law", but underneath it are people who know in advance that it can be abused and hope they get to.

---

 

This is law already though isn't it and the argument is for it to be amended/repealed because of its potential for over zealous enforcement and perceived labelling of people as criminals?

 

@thread

That being said, how come LL have never used it or passed cases on to the DoJ to pursue persistent griefers within SL.  Griefing is vandalism with financial and/or personal injury thrown in as well as harassment?  Or do they fear the revenge of the hacker community as a whole?  Which would mean that there are people who operate at one level on the internet with what seems impunity.

As I said in an earlier post, is it possible for victims of griefers in SL to refer their cases to the DoJ if LL is not taking appropriate legal action for breaches of their own ToS?  

Any lawyers in tonight?

[Perrie Juran]

---

Void Singer wrote:

yes and no... the hope seems to be to get it passed as a "feel good law", but underneath it are people who know in advance that it can be abused and hope they get to.

and yeah... it's insidious what some of these laws end up accomplishing... just last week I went to buy a compass (geometric, not magnetic) as mine seemed to have wandered off.... only to find that all that was offered any more was some blunt tipped inaccurate POS, that is supposed to keep kids from stabbing each other with it (never mind the obvious fact that it requires a sharpened pencil to work).

I used a pair of pliers and a lighter to drive a heated needle into it. =P

---

I'm waiting for them to outlaw shoe laces because some body could, gasp, trip and fall on an untied lace.

And while I can appreciate a teacher not wanting to constantly have to tie a kid's shoes for them I seem to remember that learning how to tie your own laces was a rite of passage when we were little.

[Perrie Juran]

---

Sy Beck wrote:

---

Void Singer wrote:

yes and no... the hope seems to be to get it passed as a "feel good law", but underneath it are people who know in advance that it can be abused and hope they get to.

---

 

This is law already though isn't it and the argument is for it to be amended/repealed because of its potential for over zealous enforcement and perceived labelling of people as criminals?

 

@thread

That being said, how come LL have never used it or passed cases on to the DoJ to pursue persistent griefers within SL.  Griefing is vandalism with financial and/or personal injury thrown in as well as harassment?  Or do they fear the revenge of the hacker community as a whole?  Which would mean that there are people who operate at one level on the internet with what seems impunity.

As I said in an earlier post, is it possible for victims of griefers in SL to refer their cases to the DoJ if LL is not taking appropriate legal action for breaches of their own ToS?  

Any lawyers in tonight?

---

I do know that if you are a creator, you could file Civil action for damages against a copy botter under the DCMA.  I should think you could persue action against a griefer also but the burden of proving damages would fall upon you.  Might be kind of expensive to do.

Nothing stops you from filing a civil suit.  It's winning it that is the challenge.

[Perrie Juran]

 

---

Sy Beck wrote:

I suppose a flippant example would be if that you had signed to a dating/friend site and posted beautiful pics of yourself, which weren't you and generally given false details and then somebody falls for it.

---

I'm 18 y.o girl, have a buff body, 36C..........................

[Sy Beck]

Well vandalism and harassment are criminal acts I presume even in the US and it doesn't matter whether I want damages or not.  They have a committed a crime that I only need to refer to the authorites to have them processed by the law.  LL could provide the evidence as it would all be electronically recorded including IP addresses and the DoJ has the powers and the influence to track down those offenders however many proxies they may use; as evidenced recently by a well known proxy site handing over information of a hacker/user to the authorities.

Sledgehammers to crack nuts though I suppose in the end.

[Innula Zenovka]

---

Sy Beck wrote:

That being said, how come LL have never used it or passed cases on to the DoJ to pursue persistent griefers within SL.  Griefing is vandalism with financial and/or personal injury thrown in as well as harassment?  Or do they fear the revenge of the hacker community as a whole?  Which would mean that there are people who operate at one level on the internet with what seems impunity.

As I said in an earlier post, is it possible for victims of griefers in SL to refer their cases to the DoJ if LL is not taking appropriate legal action for breaches of their own ToS?  

Any lawyers in tonight?

---

 

Possibly someone at LL -- or maybe the DoJ, even -- takes the view that de minimis non curat lex, and the difficulties inherent in making a jury sure that the defendant was, in fact, the person responsible for crashing a sandbox with self-replicating physical tubgirl particle emitters and that it wasn't someone else with access to his or her computer, isn't worth the candle, particularly if the defendant is in a different jurisdiction and will have to be extradited from Australia or wherever.

[Perrie Juran]

---

Sy Beck wrote:

Well vandalism and harassment are criminal acts I presume even in the US and it doesn't matter whether I want damages or not.  They have a committed a crime that I only need to refer to the authorites to have them processed by the law.  LL could provide the evidence as it would all be electronically recorded including IP addresses and the DoJ has the powers and the influence to track down those offenders however many proxies they may use; as evidenced recently by a well known proxy site handing over information of a hacker/user to the authorities.

Sledgehammers to crack nuts though I suppose in the end.

---

I have met a few nuts that I would have liked to take a sledgehammer to but thankfully for them the law constrained me.

[Ian Undercroft]

 

So, for example, operating traffic bots in SL in breach of the ToS now becomes a criminal offence in the US? I wonder what criminal sentence that would attract!

ToS are private contracts. Day in, day out private contracts are breached by thousands of people for both good and bad reasons. Those breaches will range from those so minor as to be de minimis to those which are fundamental to the contract. In many instances, the contract will be so poorly or vaguely worded that you may as well toss a coin when trying to determine whether there has been a breach. And yet all breaches of ToS will now be a criminal offence in the US? That strikes me as bonkers. If there is some specific matter which it is desired to legislate against, it should be spelled out in the criminal legislation and not left to the individual whim of those private individuals responsible for drafting particular ToS.  

[Perrie Juran]

---

Ian Undercroft wrote:

 

So, for example, operating traffic bots in SL in breach of the ToS now becomes a criminal offence in the US? I wonder what criminal sentence that would attract!

ToS are private contracts. Day in, day out private contracts are breached by thousands of people for both good and bad reasons. Those breaches will range from those so minor as to be

de minimis

to those which are fundamental to the contract. In many instances, the contract will be so poorly or vaguely worded that you may as well toss a coin when trying to determine whether there has been a breach. And yet all breaches of ToS will now be a criminal offence in the US? That strikes me as bonkers. If there is some specific matter which it is desired to legislate against, it should be spelled out in the criminal legislation and not left to the individual whim of those private individuals responsible for drafting particular ToS.  

---

exactly.  consider this in one of the supporting documents:

As a practical matter, the key question has become whether conduct “exceeds

authorized access” merely because it violates a written restriction on computer access

such as the Terms of Use of a website. The Justice Department has taken the position

that it does. This interpretation has the effect of prohibiting an extraordinary amount of

routine computer usage. It is common for computers and computer services to be

governed by Terms of Use or Terms of Service that are written extraordinarily broadly.

Companies write those conditions broadly in part to avoid civil liability if a user of the

computer engages in wrongdoing. If Terms of Use are written to cover everything

slightly bad about using a computer, the thinking goes, then the company can’t be sued for wrongful conduct by an individual user. Those terms are not designed to carry the

weight of criminal liability. As a result, the Justice Department’s view that such written

Terms should define criminal liability – thus delegating the scope of criminal law online

to the drafting of Terms by computer owners  (my emphasis) – triggers a remarkable set of consequences."

http://cdn.volokh.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Testimony-of-Orin-S-Kerr.pdf

 

Just think of all the questions about the TOS and CS we see posted here from people seeking clarification and how we at least to my recollection never see a response from Linden Lab.

So what this law does is leave interpretation of intentionally vague TOS's up to the Department of Justice and placing the burden of proof upon the defendant.  This is a huge violation of jurisprudence.  The defendant now has to argue that what they did was NOT a violation of the TOS.

[RudolphUkka]

I had to

*

check the

*

calendar to see if I had accidentally stepped through a

*

timewarp, and it was

*

April 1st. This law would make it a

*

crime to tweet/txt/email your

*

wife that you were

*

working late at the

*

office when you were having a

*

glass of

*

wine with the new girl in

*

Accounts. It's a

*

non-starter. Let someone try and

*

sue me in

*

South Afrika for telling my

*

floozie in Texas I am

*

AFK when I am

*

someone else.

***

Rudi

***

[Ann Otoole]

Because ratting out your friends and family is considered a bad thing?

 

NOTE: The above is humor and has no connection to reality. Like me.

 

Reality: If LL wanted to file charges on "griefers" and banned "retreads" there is a statute they could file charges under. Unauthorized Network Access. http://www.internetlibrary.com/statuteitem.cfm?Num=12

[Perrie Juran]

---

RudolphUkka wrote:

I had to

*

check the

*

calendar to see if I had accidentally stepped through a

*

timewarp, and it was

*

April 1st. This law would make it a

*

crime to tweet/txt/email your

*

wife that you were

*

working late at the

*

office when you were having a

*

glass of

*

wine with the new girl in

*

Accounts. It's a

*

non-starter. Let someone try and

*

sue me in

*

South Afrika for telling my

*

floozie in Texas I am

*

AFK when I am

*

someone else.

***

Rudi

***

---

However if you should

*

decide to visit the

*

United States, you could

*

find yourself

*

arrested when you

*

stepped off the

*

plane.

***

Perrie

***

[Montana Corleone]

The law will of course get watered down even if it makes it through, but there is a problem with politicians globally and that is they are not very scientific or technical, and thus never understand the issues at stake. They use the Google on the Internets only just. The sad thing, as people have pointed out, is that generally there is already legislation covering all this, just maybe not properly enforced or with sufficient penalties. But this will give them an excuse to slip in more nasty legislation under the table, and it's probably that we should be looking at.

At the end of the day, they can't compete against a global system, one that was designed (by them) to be not compromised in any one way. To enforce it elsewhere, they can only fall back on the economic threat, but that is receding as China takes over and the EU grows even bigger. And there are plenty of other interesting places to visit in the world. :smileywink:

Basically there is a lot of economic panic about the coming reality, and they are trying last gasp measures to save US big business and their flawed model of capitalism.

[RudolphUkka]

---

Perrie Juran wrote

However if you should

*

decide to visit the

*

United States, you could

*

find yourself

*

arrested when you

*

stepped off the

*

plane.

***

Perrie

***

---

I have

*

been there and

*

done that. The

*

US Immigration Service doesn't need a good

*

reason to stop you entering the

*

country. They tried to once until I

*

pointed out that I was a short

*

white

*

South Afrikaan, not the

*

basketball player sized black

*

Barbadian of the same name that they were

*

accusing me of being. I am not

*

planning on returning to the

*

USA any time soon either. I can get

*

mugged or killed just as

*

easy on the street in Joburg.

***

Rudi

***

 

[RudolphUkka]

---

Montana Corleone wrote: the EU bankruptcy debt grows even bigger.

---

*

FIFY

***

Rudi

***

[RudolphUkka]

---

Genn Moderator wrote:

Hi Everyone! Please keep your posts and comments on topic. Thanks!

---

Did someone

*

edit or delete a

*

post while I wasn't

*

looking? I can see

*

all in this

*

thread that isn't

*

related to

*

lunatic political posturing regarding nonsensical

*

legislation. The comments have been

*

spot on!

***

Rudi

***

[Chelsea Malibu]

I just love our easy going and open administrartion . And I thought things where bad before we elected Obama.  I guess they must have a lot of time on their hands.

[Perrie Juran]

yes someone did post comments about an unrelated issue.

[Void Singer]

---

Sy Beck wrote:

This is law already though isn't it and the argument is for it to be amended/repealed because of its potential for over zealous enforcement and perceived labelling of people as criminals? [...]

---

 noooooo, at least not the way they want it to be read... they are seeking a de facto expansion of the meaning of the current law (by the addition of language that allows it), to say that it applies to "all these other things too", rather than the current limited meaning and intent that the judge used to toss out the conviction.

[Sy Beck]

Ahh gotcha, thanks Void.

[Mayalily]

---

Perrie Juran wrote:

"The U.S. Department of Justice is defending computer hacking laws that make it a crime to use a fake name on Facebook or lie about your weight in an online dating profile at a site like Match.com.

In a statement obtained by CNET that's scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, the Justice Department argues that it must be able to prosecute violations of Web sites' often-ignored, always-unintelligible "terms of service" policies.

The law must allow "prosecutions based upon a violation of terms of service or similar contractual agreement with an employer or provider," Richard Downing, the Justice Department's deputy computer crime chief, will tell the U.S. Congress tomorrow."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57324779-281/doj-lying-on-match.com-needs-to-be-a-crime/

The serious implication of all this is the potential destruction of anonymity on the Internet and how it can become a tool the government could use to silence or prosecute dissenting voices.  A service provider such as Facebook or Second Life should and does have the right to enforce their TOS as a matter of Civil Law, but to make it a criminal act could potentially make millions of people criminals who could arbitrarily be targeted for prosecution.

_____________________________________________________

There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in it that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted-and you create a nation of lawbreakers-and then you cash in on guilt.

 

-Holden Caulfield,

The Grapes of Wrath

 

---

A crime to lie about your weight?  How silly.  LOL 

As far as stopping deliberate premeditated murder on some websites, such as Facebook, I think it's a good idea.

The last case I heard about the mother of the neighbor's teenage daughter deliberating cyberbullied her to the point of the girl's suicide.  It was deliberate and all the mother of the neighbor's daughter got for cyberbullying the girl to the point of her death was a $5,000 dollar fine.  I felt she should have been jailed for deliberate premeditated murder.  The young girl is dead. 

As far as weight, I don't think anyone will really take that seriously.  It just sounds so absurd to me for some reason.

[Perrie Juran]

---

Mayalily wrote:

---

Perrie Juran wrote:

"The U.S. Department of Justice is defending computer hacking laws that make it a crime to use a fake name on Facebook or lie about your weight in an online dating profile at a site like Match.com.

In a statement obtained by CNET that's scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, the Justice Department argues that it must be able to prosecute violations of Web sites' often-ignored, always-unintelligible "terms of service" policies.

The law must allow "prosecutions based upon a violation of terms of service or similar contractual agreement with an employer or provider," Richard Downing, the Justice Department's deputy computer crime chief, will tell the U.S. Congress tomorrow."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57324779-281/doj-lying-on-match.com-needs-to-be-a-crime/

The serious implication of all this is the potential destruction of anonymity on the Internet and how it can become a tool the government could use to silence or prosecute dissenting voices.  A service provider such as Facebook or Second Life should and does have the right to enforce their TOS as a matter of Civil Law, but to make it a criminal act could potentially make millions of people criminals who could arbitrarily be targeted for prosecution.

_____________________________________________________

There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in it that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted-and you create a nation of lawbreakers-and then you cash in on guilt.

 

-Holden Caulfield,

The Grapes of Wrath

 

---

A crime to lie about your weight?  How silly.  LOL 

As far as stopping deliberate premeditated murder on some websites, such as Facebook, I think it's a good idea.

The last case I heard about the mother of the neighbor's teenage daughter deliberating cyberbullied her to the point of the girl's suicide.  It was deliberate and all the mother of the neighbor's daughter got for cyberbullying the girl to the point of her death was a $5,000 dollar fine.  I felt she should have been jailed for deliberate premeditated murder.  The young girl is dead. 

---

Problem is it probably wouldn't have stopped it.  The mother was intent on harassing the girl.  So at best it may have laid an additional charge on her.

 

---

Mayalily wrote:

A crime to lie about your weight?  How silly.  LOL

As far as weight, I don't think anyone will really take that seriously.  It just sounds so absurd to me for some reason.

---

How about if you are a prosecutor or other LEO convinced a person has committed Crime A but you can't find the proof?  Because in reality the person hasn't committed the crime.  But you are still convinced they were the one who did it.  So in your investigation you discover this little lie. They jump on those opportunities.

You don't  think similar things  haven't  happened?  They have, can & do.  And it is not up to the criminal law Judge as a rule to decide the constitutionality of a law, only to enforce it.  The constitutionality is for the Appeals Courts to decide.  Have you ever heard of a Judge saying he disagreed with a law but his job was to carry it out?  Again, it has and can happen.  No matter how ridiculous the law may sound.

[Sy Beck]

---

Perrie Juran wrote:

.  And it is not up to the criminal law Judge as a rule to decide the constitutionality of a law, only to enforce it.  The constitutionality is for the Appeals Courts to decide.  

---

 

No, it is up to jury to decide whether a person is guilty or not based on the reasonableness of evidence presented to them before a judge can enforce the law.  Therefore, you are supposing that the American public would consider that as actual evidence to find someone guilty...?