Second Life Mogul Challenges Press Freedom

An anonymous reader tipped us to a post on ZDNet about some disturbing freedom of the press issues in Second Life. Content mogul Anshe Chung is filing DMCA complaints with organizations that post screenshots of her content, citing an infringement of copyright. From the article: "The issue has surfaced after the avatar Anshe Chung (real name Ailin Graef) was attacked by animated flying penises during a virtual interview with CNET news, conducted in their Second Life bureau last month. A video of the attack surfaced on YouTube, and was then taken town after Anshe Chung Studios filed a DMCA complaint. The Sydney Morning Herald and the blog BoingBoing have also received similar notices."

Comments

Re: You mean foolish

[dreddnott]

It was her decision to write about her sexual activity in an outrageously and exclusively public place called the Internet in the first place. I daresay that when she fell to the temptation of greed, getting her licentious book published, that her fate was already sealed and nothing would have stopped her family from knowing. If she was over 18 and not living at home, I don't see how her family knowing would've been a real problem. If either of those conditions were false, she shouldn't have written a public blog about her sexual activity.

Her life was absolutely and totally "devestated" because she was a slut and an attention whore.

I don't really have a problem with the paper as they seem to have only reported the facts.
If I was in her situation I would probably have deleted my blog when threatened by the newspaper.

Re: You mean foolish

[Generic Player]

"Do you really need - should you actually have! - the right to find out my most intimate secrets, which harm absolutely no one else, and publish them in public?"

If you were acting out those secrets in public, then yes I do have that right, and yes I should. Of course, this is a red herring, as there's no secrets involved here The most hated company that pretends to be a person in the entire "game" got flying penised, there's no secrets involved, just hilarity.

Re:Ethically valid

[gnuber]

She was _on_stage_ with CNet and an audience at a press conference/interview. There's no reasonable grounds for her to expect any sort of privacy in this context.

True, but the perpetrators violated her reasonable expectation not to be attacked by flying penises in that context. I think this case is just silly, but the issue does come up with regard to more serious crimes. If a criminal films the rape of his victims, should newscasts be allowed to show it? Should pornographers be allowed to compile DVDs of such videos and sell them? If US soldiers strip and humiliate Iraqi detainees and take pictures/videos, should those be disseminated? Should they be edited to hide the genitals or maybe the faces?

I'm not arguing either way here, just noting similar (but obviously much more extreme) examples.