Criticism of Second Life

Due to constant development, and as an open environment accessible by almost anyone with access to the Internet,[1] a number of difficult issues have arisen around Second Life. Issues range from the technical (budgeting of server resources) to moral (pornography), legal (legal position of the Linden Dollar, Bragg v. Linden Lab) and, in September 2006, security (customer security).

Technical

Quality assurance

Criticism of quality assurance of Second Life states that Linden Lab focuses too much on bringing new features to the production environment instead of fixing long-standing bugs that, in the worst case, cause financial loss for the users. On April 30, 2007 an open letter, signed by over 700[2] users, was sent to Linden Lab to protest the quality assurance process of the company.[3] Linden Lab has responded to the open letter.[4]

Frame rate

Computer hardware and Internet connections capable of smoothly rendering high quality content in other MMOGs may perform poorly in Second Life, resulting in low frame rates and unresponsive controls on even minimal graphical configurations. The problem is especially prevalent when large numbers of avatars congregate in one area. The problem is largely due to the fact that the world is entirely user created, and the majority of content created by users is made without any sort of basic graphical optimization. As a result, objects with both unnecessarily high polygon counts, and unnecessarily high resolution textures are prevalent. It is not uncommon for users to have to download and use upwards of dozens of times the amount of resources than would actually be required for the equivalent visual result. Certain areas have guidelines for script usage, which helps reduce lag by reducing resources used server-side, but does nothing to alleviate the primary issue above.

Congestion

A single region (65536 m2 of land hosted on a single CPU) is set to accommodate a limited number of Residents (40 on 'mainland' regions, up to 100 on private islands),[5] causing some popular locations such as teleportation points to become inaccessible at times. It is possible for an area of land a Resident has paid for to become inaccessible because another area in the same region has exhausted the avatar limit.

Interface

The control scheme for Second Life combines controls useful for 3D editing with those useful for game play, which can be highly unintuitive for many. This requires various combinations of alt, ctrl, and the mouse for basic manipulation of the camera and in-world objects. Also, everything in the player's possession—textures, animations, objects, clothing, sounds, videos—shares a common directory tree, and can quickly become cluttered if not carefully managed.

Alternative accounts

The policy allowing the easy creation of multiple accounts by the same real person was attributed to degraded system performance, and increased incidence of griefing. The ability for a single real individual to create an unlimited number of accounts for free could have the effect of highly exaggerating the "residence" figures. Blogs and forum posts regularly allege exaggerated membership and performance claims.[6][7]

Content

Sex

In Second Life, users can do almost anything that they can do in their physical lives. There are some who do things they that they would normally do, like talk to people, while others do things that they wouldn't normally do in the physical world.

Some media attention has been given to sexual activity involving avatars with a childlike appearance.[8] The United Kingdom[9][10][11][12] and Germany[13] are among the countries investigating new laws to combat simulated child pornography. The USA has attempted to pass several laws forbidding simulated child pornography, however, each one has been struck down by the US Supreme Court as an infringement on the first amendment right to free speech.[14]

As of May 2007, two such countries, Germany and Belgium, have launched a police investigation into Age of Consent-related offenses in Second Life (including both trading of non-virtual photography and involuntary virtual sexual activity with childlike avatars by means of virtual identity theft).[15][16] Linden Lab responded by issuing a statement that any "depiction of sexual or lewd acts involving minors" was a bannable offence.[17]

In France, a conservative family union, Familles de France, sued Linden Lab in June 2007, alleging that Second Life gave access to minors to sexual content, including bondage, zoophilia and scatophilia, as well as gambling and advertisements for alcohol, drugs or tobacco. Linden Lab pointed out that the virtual world is not meant for children (people under the age of 18) because of the mature content and what happens within second life. However, minors aged between 13-17 can access Second Life, but they will be restricted to what they can see or do based on age.[18] The second life world is split into sections/worlds and each one is given a maturity rating similar to films; General, Moderate and Adult . Minors aged 13–17 can access areas with a General Rating only.[19]

Second Life Main Grid regions are rated either "General", "Moderate", or "Adult" (previously "PG", "Mature", or "Adult").[20] Builds, textures, actions, animations, chat, or businesses that are of an adult nature are regulated by the Second Life Terms of Service[21] to only occur in simulators with a Moderate or Adult rating. General rated sims exist as an alternative for residents who do not wish to reside in areas where adult-oriented activities and businesses are permitted.

Linden Lab has created an Adult rated "mainland" continent named Zindra in response to its other "mainland" continents being mostly General.[20]

Griefing and denial of service attacks

See also: Griefer

Second Life has been attacked several times by groups of Residents abusing the creation tools to create objects that harass other users or damage the system. This includes Grey Goo objects which infinitely reproduce, eventually overwhelming the servers;[22] orbiters which throw an avatar so far upwards they cannot get back down in a reasonable timeframe without teleporting; cages which surround avatars, preventing them from moving, and similar tools. Although combat between users is sanctioned in certain areas of the world, these objects have been used to cause disruption in all areas. Attacks on the grid itself, such as Grey Goo, are strictly forbidden anywhere on the grid. It is possible to perpetrate DoS (Denial of Service) attacks on other users simply by scripting objects that spew screen filling characters from anywhere on the grid to another avatar's user ID, thereby disabling a clear view to the virtual world, but such attacks are now blocked with the use of the "mute" tool. It is also possible to exploit bugs in the client and server software, which can be used to kick users, crash servers, and revert content; however, such exploits are rare and quickly fixed by Linden Lab.

Unauthorized copying of content

Second Life features a built-in digital rights management system that controls the movement of textures, sounds, scripts, and models with the Second Life servers at Linden Lab. At some point, though, this data must be sent to a user's computer to be displayed or played—an issue fundamental to any system attempting to apply restrictions to digital information.

In November 2006 controversy arose over a tool called CopyBot, developed as part of libsecondlife and was intended to allow users to legitimately back up their Second Life data. For a brief period, an unmodified CopyBot allowed any user to replicate SL items or avatars (although not scripts, which run only on the servers at Linden Lab). Later changes to the SecondLife protocols prevented unmodified copies of CopyBot from working. Nevertheless, the basic issue of users being able to duplicate content that is sent to them remains.

Residents who copy content belonging to other users face being banned from Second Life, but Linden Lab has so far never sued any of these users for copyright infringement; since the resident creators (and not Linden Lab) retain ownership of the rights, it is not clear whether Linden Lab would legally be able to do so. Linden Lab does, however, comply with DMCA takedown notices served to them against resident content; serving a DMCA Takedown Notice is the normal procedure recommended by Linden Lab for having copyrighted content illegally resold on Second Life.

Any user who uploads, publishes or submits any content keeps the intellectual property rights of that content, however both Linden Lab and other users gain their own rights from your content. Linden Lab receives a content license from anything a user uploads to the server. Section 7.3 of the Second Life Terms of Service states; "you hereby automatically grant Linden Lab a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sub-license able, and transferable licence to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the content solely for the purpose of providing and promoting the service". A user who uploads their content to a public area also gives a content licence to other users as well, which allows other users to replicate and record for use in Machinima (as outlined in section 7.4, Snapshot and Machinima Policy).[23]

Regardless of what rights and licences are given, Linden Lab takes no responsibility for the outcome of any dispute between users or the server regarding content. Section 10.2 states; "you release Linden Lab (and its officers, directors, shareholders, agents, subsidiaries, and employees) from claims, demands, losses, liabilities and damages (actual and consequential) of every kind nature, known and unknown, arising out of or in any way connected with any dispute you have or claim to have with one or more users, including whether or not Linden Lab becomes involved in any resolution or attempted resolution of the dispute". Section 10.3 repeats a similar passage but regarding the responsibility of Linden Lab during any data or technical fault.[23]

International issues

Legality

Second Life users are expected to obey the laws of their own local countries with regard to their actions in the virtual world; however, a problem can arise in countries which have tough laws regarding material downloaded from the Internet, such as pornography. It is possible, for example, for a US user - even in a non-adult area - to approach German users and create an object displaying an obscene uploaded image which is illegal under German law but legal under US law. Although the US user has broken the Second Life terms of services as a result, and faces suspension or banning from Second Life, the German user has broken a real-life sex offense law by downloading the image and faces a far worse penalty. Even if the user is eventually deemed to not be responsible for this download because it was unsolicited, they will still have been investigated for a sex offense. However, no actual prosecutions have resulted from actions of this type so far.

Taxation

In September 2007 Linden Lab announced that, in accordance to sales tax regulations of the European Union (EU), they are required to charge value added tax (VAT) to EU residents on all money transactions involving the company. However, Linden Lab waives VAT to users who have a VAT registration ID.[24] The introduction of VAT caused controversy with EU users, mostly among content creators who protested that the addition of VAT caused a disadvantage in comparison to competitors living outside the EU.

Litigation

Bragg v. Linden Lab

Main article: Bragg v. Linden Lab

In 2006, attorney Marc Bragg sued Linden Lab, claiming that it had illegally deprived him of access to his account[25] after he discovered a loophole in the online land auction system which allowed regions to be purchased at prices below reserve. Although most users and commentators believed that Bragg would have no chance of winning, a number of legal developments occurred as a result of the case, including a court ruling that parts of the Second Life Terms of Service were unenforceable, due to being an unconscionable contract of adhesion.[26] The case eventually ended with Bragg's virtual land and account being restored to him in a confidential out-of-court settlement.[27] As such, a settlement created no precedent and thus left users with confusion as to what legal rights they truly had with respect to their virtual land, items, and account. Many of Bragg's legal arguments rested on the claim—advertised on Linden Lab web site—that virtual land within Second Life could be "owned" by the purchasing user, which was removed shortly after the settlement,[28] leading to speculation that this was part of the reason for the settlement.[29]

Evans et al. v. Linden Lab

In 2010, a group of banned SL users filed suit against Linden Lab and CEO Philip Rosedale, in the same Pennsylvania Federal District Court that the Bragg case was adjudicated in, with the same judge, to deal with further land seizures and account suspensions by the Lab against various customers.[30] Due to the Terms of Service agreement changes since the Bragg case, defendants attorneys successfully argued to move the suit to federal court in California, where the case lingered for several years. The judge did rule that there was a basis to turn the litigation into a class action, and that there were two classes under which claimants could file claims. The primary class was those who suffered economic damages to their livelihoods, through loss of their business revenues in SL. The secondary class was those who suffered property losses from loss of land, money on hand, and virtual goods in avatar inventories.[31] In May 2013, attorney for defendants negotiated a settlement agreement with one of the lead attorneys that, in plain language, agreed to refund region setup fees for private island owners, pay land owners 2 Linden Dollars per square meter of virtual land, refund all L$ and USD amounts in the plaintiffs accounts at the time of suspension, and allow the plaintiffs the option of either receiving $15US as compensation for loss of accounts and inventory virtual goods OR restoration of their accounts in order to sell their goods on the SL Marketplace.[32] The settlement agreement went to final hearing in March 2014, with an objection from claimant Mike Lorrey as to the vagueness of certain terms in the settlement as to which fees exactly would be refunded. With the resolution of that objection,[33] claimants who had filed claims prior to March 28, 2014 began to receive settlement money a few months later.

Other

Customer Security

On September 8, 2006, Linden Lab released a news bulletin that revealed their Second Life database had been compromised and customer information, including encrypted passwords and users' real names, had likely been accessed.[34][35] However it was later revealed that the hacker had in fact been focused on trying to cheat the in-world money system[36] and their access to personal information was believed incidental, although a full alert was still raised for safety's sake.

Internal regulation

Linden Lab have made it a strong policy that they will not act to investigate or enforce any contracts or agreements made purely between users of Second Life, although they will co-operate with real-life courts or law enforcement in doing so. This has led to occurrences of low-level fraud within Second Life, in which users swindle other users out of money (via Linden dollars which are later traded for real money). Linden Lab will not act on such fraud, and the amounts of money involved are usually small enough (less than US$100) that it is unlikely the victim will wish to spend the money and effort involved in real-life legal proceedings.

False DMCA takedown notices

There have also been issues with the use of false DMCA takedown notices.[37] Once a DMCA takedown notice is served, reversing it requires an individual to expose his personal information to the filer (filing a notice does not require this); for the penalty of perjury to be enacted, a lawsuit is required (anything less, the false DMCA claimer can just claim it from a different account every week causing legitimate business unlimited losses). In addition, the technical process of removal and re-instatement of content on Second Life is subject to failure which can result in content becoming unusable to its owner. This does not effectively prevent content theft; a thief who is subject to a DMCA takedown notice will not challenge it, but will simply create a new account and re-upload the content, often releasing it with all permissions available to maximize propagation out of spite.

Most users in the world as paying, private individuals are, likewise, effectively unprotected. Common forms of fraud taking place in-world include bogus investment and pyramid schemes, fake or hacked vendors, and failure to honor land rental agreements. Some residents have claimed that there is also a high incidence of sales of content to users unaware of its value (for example, weapons which would require the buyer to own a private island, as firing them in any other area would violate the terms of service; or avatars which appear to represent advanced roles (such as police or government officials) but which, in reality, are nothing more than party costumes due to the inability to support those roles in a world with free social behaviour).

A group of virtual landowners online have filed a class action lawsuit against the company, claiming the company broke the law when it rescinded their ownership rights. The plaintiffs say a change in the terms of service forced them to either accept new terms that rescinded their virtual property ownership rights, or else be locked out of the site.[38]

Terms of Service changes

Linden Lab typically offer no compensation when a change to the platform or Terms of Service is made, even when it has a serious negative effect on users. For example, when gambling was banned on Second Life in July 2007, users who had invested money and time in casinos lost their investment.

"Virtual Riot"

In January 2007, a "virtual riot" erupted between members of the French National Front (FN) who had established a virtual HQ on Second Life, and anti-racism activists, including Second Life Left Unity, a socialist and anti-capitalist user-group.[39][40][41][42] Since then, several small Internet-based organizations have claimed some responsibility for instigating the riots.[43]

OpenSpaces

Linden Lab, for a long period, offered OpenSpace regions to users: regions which were purchased in packs of four, with all four running on a single CPU core, intended to be placed next to an existing region to create the effect of larger size. The fee for 4 OpenSpaces was identical to that for a single private region. However, in March 2008, this rule was modified to permit OpenSpaces to be bought individually and placed elsewhere, as well as increasing the prim load each one could handle. OpenSpaces were made available for a US$415 downpayment plus a US$75 monthly fee.

In October 2008 Linden Lab announced that the OpenSpaces being used for this purpose were being misused; there was in fact no technical throttle limiting their usage. Linden Lab raised the monthly fee per OpenSpace to US$125, the same cost as half a region; added an avatar limit of 20; and renamed it to Homestead.

A week after the initial announcement Linden Lab stated its intention to add technical limits. A revised Openspace product, with far fewer prims, a no-residency rule, and costing the same monthly amount, was announced.

In May 2009, Linden Lab announced they were "grandfathering" OpenSpace sims (now rebranded as "Homesteads"), after a protracted protest movement[44] caused a major amount of negative publicity and funded potential litigation.[45][46][47]

Marketing

Linden Lab has been accused of manipulation of user count statistics to make the world seem more popular than it is. This includes counting multiple avatars created by the same real person as separate accounts, never removing accounts from the database no matter how long they have been idle, counting accounts which are created for free and which never pay any money into the game equally with those that do, and implementing in-world systems which encourage the creation of bogus extra accounts (for example, "traffic bots" which simply remain stationary in a store, causing the system to rank the store as popular because there are people there).[48][49]

Separate grids

Previously, there were two age-differentiated grids (one for teens 13-17, one for adults 18 or over). When a teen turned 18, he/she was transferred from the Teen Grid to the Main Grid. Linden Lab had received controversy for the lack of integration between teens and adults. The teen grid and the adult grid actually were technically parts of one grid called Agni, due to Second Life's tradition of naming grids after Hindu gods. However, teen residents could not access the adult regions, and adult residents could not access the teen regions. Underage users, who were under 18 in real life, were not allowed onto the main grid, and being an underage user there was an offense that could be abuse reported.

On 19 January 2009 Linden Lab, Philip Linden related (in an interview with Metanomics) an intent to merge the two grids into one. This immediately attracted uproar on SL's private forums, largely from residents who feared they would be required to use the unpopular age verification system, and would be permanently under threat of a false sex-related allegation or lawsuit by a teenager or his/her parents.

The Main and Teen Grids were merged, with the Teen Grid being partially split up by age. Residents aged 13–17 are allowed to access General Rated areas only.[19] The Teen Grid continues to exist in its original location on the Agni, but is now accessible by all residents.[50]

References

  1. ↑ "Second Life System Requirements". Linden Lab. Retrieved 2006-11-25.
  2. ↑ "Open Letters News, 5/1/2007". Retrieved 2007-06-15.
  3. ↑ "Project Open Letter". Retrieved 2007-06-08.
  4. ↑ "Response to the Open Letter". Retrieved 2007-06-08.
  5. ↑
  6. ↑ "I’ll See Your Million… and Raise You a Million « Official Second Life Blog". Blog.secondlife.com. Retrieved 2008-10-27.
  7. ↑ "Linden's Second Life numbers and the press's desire to believe". Corante. Retrieved 2007-06-18.
  8. ↑ Terdiman, Daniel (April 12, 2006). "Phony kids, virtual sex". Retrieved 2006-11-18.
  9. ↑ John Leydon (2006-12-13). "Home Office to clean up Sadville?". The Register. Retrieved 2013-02-15.
  10. ↑ "BBC NEWS | Politics | Ban urged on child abuse images". News.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2008-10-27.
  11. ↑ "New proposals will make all obscene images of children illegal". Ministry of Justice. Justice.gov.uk. Retrieved 2008-10-27.
  12. ↑ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/28/government_outlaws_pictures/
  13. ↑ Kate Connolly in Berlin (2007-05-08). "Germany investigates Second Life child pornography | Technology | guardian.co.uk". London: guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 2008-10-27.
  14. ↑ "CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News".
  15. ↑ "BBC NEWS | Technology | Second Life 'child abuse' claim". News.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2008-10-27.
  16. ↑ "Reader Roundtable: "Virtual Rape" Claim Brings Belgian Police to Second Life | Virtually Blind | Virtual Law | Benjamin Duranske". Virtuallyblind.com. Retrieved 2008-10-27.
  17. ↑ "Accusations Regarding Child Pornography in Second Life « Official Second Life Blog". Blog.secondlife.com. Retrieved 2008-10-27.
  18. ↑ "Linden Lab Official:Teens in Second Life". Linden Labs. Retrieved 2013-02-15.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 "Terms of Service - Linden Lab".
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 "Maturity ratings". Second Life Knowledge base. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  21. ↑ Linden Lab. "Second Life Terms of Service". Archived from the original on 2007-02-14. Retrieved 2006-11-18.
  22. ↑ "'Worm' attacks Second Life world". BBC News. 2006-11-20. Retrieved 2007-01-23.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 "Second Life Terms of Service". Linden Lab. 2006-11-20. Retrieved 2007-01-23.
  24. ↑ "Linden Lab Official:Value Added Tax (VAT) Frequently Asked Questions". Second Life Wiki. Linden Lab. 29 November 2012. Retrieved 3 September 2014.
  25. ↑ "Second Life Land Deal Goes Sour". Wired.com. 2006-05-18. Retrieved 2008-10-27.
  26. ↑ "Gamasutra - Judge Rules Against Second Life Terms Of Service". Gamasutra.com. Retrieved 2008-10-27.
  27. ↑ "Bragg v. Linden Lab - Confidential Settlement Reached; 'Marc Woebegone' Back in Second Life | Virtually Blind | Virtual Law | Benjamin Duranske". Virtuallyblind.com. Retrieved 2008-10-27.
  28. ↑ "Second Life, a world imagined, created, and owned by its residents no more. | VintFalken.com". Vintfalken.com. Retrieved 2008-10-27.
  29. ↑ "TechnoLlama: Bragg v Linden Labs". Technollama.blogspot.com. October 19, 2007. Retrieved 2008-10-27.
  30. ↑ "Echoes of Bragg: Evans et al vs. Linden Lab". Living in the Modem World.
  31. ↑ "Google Scholar".
  32. ↑ "Refunds For Banned Second Life Players!! SHOCK!!! - The Alphaville Herald".
  33. ↑ "United States District Court".
  34. ↑ Linden, Robin (September 8, 2006). "Urgent Security Announcement". Retrieved 2006-11-18.
  35. ↑ Linden Lab (September 8, 2006). "Second Life Security Bulletin". Archived from the original on October 25, 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-18.
  36. ↑ Linden, Ian (September 22, 2006). "Security breach update". Retrieved 2006-11-18.
  37. ↑ "~*Fresh Baked Goods*~: Sweet Justice...?". Slfreshbakedgoods.blogspot.com. September 10, 2008. Retrieved 2008-10-27.
  38. ↑ "Class Action Lawsuit Targets Second Life". news.cnet.com. 3 May 2010. Retrieved 4 May 2010.
  39. ↑ Au, James Wagner (15 January 2007). "Fighting the Front". New World Notes. Retrieved 2007-02-14.
  40. ↑ Zonk (17 January 2007). "Political Strife Erupts in Second Life". Slashdot. Retrieved 2007-02-14.
  41. ↑ Hutcheon, Stephen (25 January 2007). "Virtual race war unsettles Second Life". Stuff.co.nz. Archived from the original on February 27, 2007. Retrieved 2007-02-14.
  42. ↑ Burkeman, Oliver (January 20, 2007). "Exploding pigs and volleys of gunfire as Le Pen opens HQ in virtual world". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 2007-02-14.
  43. ↑ Ghaz (February 16, 2007). "How to start a riot in second life". forumite.com. Retrieved 2007-02-16.
  44. ↑ "Open Spaces Protest Closes Nautilus Sim! | The Alphaville Herald". Foo.secondlifeherald.com. Retrieved 2014-07-09.
  45. ↑
  46. ↑
  47. ↑ "Land - Second Life". Blogs.secondlife.com. Retrieved 2014-07-09.
  48. ↑ Frank Rose (2007-07-24). "How Madison Avenue Is Wasting Millions on a Deserted Second Life". Wired.com. Retrieved 2009-03-08.
  49. ↑ Rolph, Shaun. "The phony economics of Second Life." The Register. February 20, 2007. Retrieved on March 30, 2009.
  50. ↑ "Maturity ratings - Second Life". Community.secondlife.com. Retrieved 2014-07-09.

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