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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."
""I'm entirely happy with her having that content prohibited; no one is harmed by that material *not* being shown, which means its right and proper for her privacy and dignity to be respected.
It's unforunate this idea isn't part of law, which means she has to resort to the DCMA to get the ethically correct decision made and enforced.""
You DO realize Second Life is a game, and we're now talking about changing LAWS because of disputes arising from GAMES which have consequences such as JAIL TIME, correct?
If ANYONE has been irresponsable here, it's the company which created and profits from second life and the users of that game. The company has been irresponsable for allowing its customers to get so involved in their game, which they provide, that they can not detach, and the users have become irresponsable for allowing their lives to revolve around a game. Trust me on this one; I was RAISED by a SNES and NES because my parents were too cheap and shitty to teach me things like social skills and now that I have social skills and a real life, I consider those more important than any digital personsa I may have.
I mean, seriously, the world CAN'T have gone THIS far down the tubes, to the point we're using laws to protect the "dignity and privacy" of digital characters within a game. For fucks sakes, if you've gone that far into a game, you need to shred your disks, delete your characters, unsubscribe your account then sledghamer, douse in gasoline and burn your computer.
After doing that, you need to wash the caked sweat and dead skin which has formed infectious rashes all over your body, off of your body, then eat some steak and salad and go get some sunshine. Find a job, lose or gain some weight (where applicable), then dress nice and go find yourself some friends or date. The first one is always the hardest and after that they come easier.
And if you have an itch for a game, go play something [b]with an ending[/b].
This is something that SL users have been bitching about for a while - That their stuff shouldn't be screenshotted for the sole reason that it's their intellectual property, even if it's not being claimed to be otherwise. An example is SomethingAwful's Second Life Safari, where one such SL user went ape shit over the posting of "intellectual property" (read: Screen shot).
No. If your shit can be seen simply by logging into SL (which is free to roam around in), it can be posted anywhere. It's like clipping a Slashdotter's post and popping it on a site as a quote.
Now, I couldn't actually figure out what TFA was talking about, whether it was the SL staff involved, or SL users, but all the same, if it's the SL staff, people have no right to complain; It's their servers, and if they don't want you doing something, they have every right in the world to take you off, especially if you're one of those "free" users. People don't seem to realize that freedom of speech is restricted to political views and religion, and are rescinded while in private property. Censorship is wholly allowed in private.
Such a horrible "game" with a terribly whiny community, and this Anshe Chung person has had more press coverage than should be allowed.
Screw the rules, I have green hair!
I don't know anything about Second Live but I have found the WIKI article about her http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anshe_Chung and after reading I think she might have deserved it.
Too bad we can't spawn massive dicks in real live. This would come in useful when our officials make an ass out of us on TV.
Everyone who buys Wild Hunt will receive 16 specially prepared DLCs absolutely for free, regardless of platform.
We all take for granted that the tools used to create a work aren't included as part of a copyrightable work. And when we use bits and pieces of existing works to create a new and original work, that is called fair use.
And when someone uses the DMCA take-down as a means to suppress others, especially in a creative or speech effort, there is certainly a cause for suit against the initiator.
I say that all people involved in the creation of the "attack scene" need to file suit against the people responsible for the initial abusive DMCA take-down.
One thing that's interesting about this is that the very strong DRM in SL (at least inside the game context... it's not particularly effective outside the game) gives people an expectation of being able to absolutely control the distribution of stuff they make, because SL lets them control the distribution of stuff they make to an extreme degree (and, yet, a lot of people still argue they don't have enough control). The idea that a 512x512 pixel image (which is what a dress in SL is, basically) should get this kind of protection is typical of the game. SL clothing designers will argue with a straight face that it's a violation of their artistic expression for you to be able to let out or cut off the sleeves on a shirt you bought!
The thing is, if the people who are pushing for ever-stronger DRM get their way, this is the kind of future we're heading for, over the long term. As soon as they come up with a mechanism that would make your shirt disintegrate if you tried to change the tailoring, you're going to have people arguing that it's their right to control how you wear your clothes. Disintegrating DVDs are just the tip of the iceberg... and the changes won't come in big obvious jumps, just a gradual erosion of our rights as IP laws and DRM become stronger and stronger.
..did these griefers make all those things fly at her? Did they break the game in some way, or is it part of the standard model?
No, it's not ironic at all. Even if your posts are moderated down to -3, slashdot users can still read what you have to say. Your post is not deleted. You are free to say what you like on slashdot, and others are free to mod you up or down. Total freedom.
This is a lot better than most forums, where posts get deleted if they don't agree with a moderator's sensibilities. Even if slashdot DID delete your posts, there's nothing wrong with that - because slashdot is a privately-owned forum. You still have your freedom to say what you want, but slashdot is under no obligation to publish it. Slashdot is not preventing you from saying the same thing in a letter to your local newspaper - or to say it while walking down the street.
However, you seem to be arguing for legal restrictions on what can be published - and using the threat of law to remove such speech from people's own private or public forums. Now that is a restriction on freedom of the press. Being modded down on slashdot is not.
... and then they built the supercollider.
She's also harmful to Second Life's culture. At one time, I "rented" land in a nice little forest with a bunch of other folk. She eventually came in, bought up most of the land, established some wild west thing, and made it very unpleasant to be there. At the same time, she did her best to get the rest of us to leave. I think the community would be better off without her. She ruins everything she touches.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Speaking from a community management point of view, griefers (people who send flying penises into places to disrupt the activity) want attention. Knowing that the flying penises you sent to harass someone is being posted all over the internet? Holy crap, that's the griefer supreme jackpot. (That surely makes up for all the years that mommy didn't love you.)
So, I suspect that one of the real motivations here is to show that harassing Anshe Chung does not automatically equal free exposure on popular blogs and internet news sites, and to keep unflattering images off the net. The DMCA just happens to be a convenient and easy-to-use tool to accomplish these ends. In the end, it is possible that the takedown notices aren't anything truly malicious, just someone trying to make sure that they aren't harassed continuously on a game they happen to enjoy.
That said, I agree that it's a bit ugly the possibility of asserting IP rights just to get rid of something you don't like. In this case I'm not ready to get bent all out of shape, despite being a huge proponent of free speech, because there's a reasonable explanation. The ideal situation would be that online harassment such as what was experienced in the photos/videos would be illegal. Yet, I think we're still a long way off from having anything resembling enlightened laws when dealing with online spaces like this.
My thoughts,
Brian "Psychochild" Green
MMO developer's blog
There are some constraints you need to be aware of concerning the second life building tools. The main one that is relevant in this case is that when using flexprims, as was witnessed here by the umm.. flexing of the members.. only one end can appear to be solidly attached to any other prim. I say appear to be, because any prim attached to the flexible end will stay in it's inert position while the flexprim does it's own little dance in the wind. This would result, in this case, in the base of the member wagging about, while the testicles would remain solidly in place. You can use your imagination to see how this would not quite have the desired effect :).
We have enough youth, how about a fountain of SMART?
I was present back when Anshe pulled some nasty underhandedness with some a group of "furries" and removed all their content from an area they rented from her for disagreeing with her. This sparked a full on second life riot in the said area.
Hillarity ensued."
You know Anshe wouldn't get this treatment is she wasn't such a stuck up shark who abuses her position. No one has a problem with her being a business woman. The real problem is her attitude and her bad business practices.
I'd highly recommend that people simply stop renting from her, because the true cost (her attitude and DMCA crap like this) is really not worth it.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
No kidding. I mean really who cares? That and from what I understand she lives in GERMANY, not the US. Isn't invoking the DMCA, a US law as a German citizen a little, well, useless? Or is it because the Second Life servers are in the US?
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
Thanks.
I think the funniest thing is that no one--Slashdot, CNET, BoingBoing, Reuters, etc--no one but Warren Ellis has mentioned that it originally came from SA. Steve Hutcheon emailed me but he recused himself from writing a story.