Dear <Enter Blogger’s Name>,
Ok so after our recent conversation/a conversation which I had with somebody else who I didn’t realise had a blogger friend, it has recently come to my attention that you have posted the chatlog of said conversation on your blog.
I think you will find this violates Linden Lab’s Terms of Service, and I will be telling all my friends about you, filing Abuse Reports, contacting Lindens directly, dropping in on Linden Lab HQ on my superstar jet and screaming until I’m blue in the face and you take the chatlog down.
I have no intention of my lack of ability to think before I type to be made public, and have no desire to admit that I ballsed up, so instead I’m going to take it out on you. Because you published the chat log, and therefore you are in the wrong.
I also lack the basic reading comprehension to understand that the SL ToS says that the posting of chatlogs is only forbidden on Linden Lab run sites. I’ll scream and kick and write lists of thousands of cryptically colour coded avatar names until you take the chat log down!!!!!!!!!!11ONE
If you refuse to comply within 24 hours, I will be contacting my legal representation (eLawyers’R'us) to have you sued for slander and other icky-sounding things.
Yours,
<Enter your name here.. assuming you can manage that>
Harley Walsh on August 6, 2009
I srsly lol’d
*tucks away for future lolage* x3
Prokofy Neva on August 6, 2009
I’m glad you put up this little spoof, and I think it’s worth reiterating the same points, seriously:
It does not violate the Linden Lab terms of service because they have no power to legislate and govern outside their servers. When someone copies and pastes a chatlog from Second Life’s servers to other servers, that may make you unhappy, but you can’t complain about it to Linden Lab because they have no jurisdiction.
I don’t know what country people are trying to cobble up a “cease and desist” letter from, but they’re muddled even in trying to do it in the UK, where there may be stricter laws
That’s because there is no court case anywhere on the planet that has established that chat in virtual worlds or on MMORGs is like a telephone conversation. And even if countries without a precedent system, it still matters what the global temperature is; and it surely matters in EU and Asian countries. If you can point to a real live court case with a judicial decision or even a settlement showing that somebody successfully prosecuted damages or libel or slander or manslaughter related to a chat log, by all means, bring it forward.
It is not a violation even of harsher British libel laws to make public a public conversation. What you would have to determine in the UK, or any country, or any separate U.S. state, is whether it violates laws on telephone conversations between two parties — and here, it would require a judge, not a kid on an Internet forum, to determine that interactions in SL are equivalent to a phone conversation.
In the U.S., if you are a public figure making a public statement on a public matter in a public space, you have little recourse to invoke libel laws. If you are General Westmoreland disliking what was said in Time magazine, you may try, and succeed at least in getting a settlement, but you had better be General Westmoreland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westmoreland_v._CBS). Even if you are a private person, you’d have to show a number of things of relevance even in a British court, and certainly in the U.S., you wouldn’t have a case as judges’ rulings in this precedent system show that public figures who have not suffered loss of livlihood cannot invoke protection of the law; nor can they attempt to suppress robust debate in a democratic society by invoking “libel”; nor can they prevail over the “truth defense,” i.e. that if they are portrayed in a poor light because they said something bad, that the truth is, that’s the case.
Lindens will do absolutely nothing about such claims of libel because they cannot act outside their servers, nor would you want corporations to have such powers! Abuse report away, but unless the violation is inworld or on their forums, you have no case with Linden Lab.
Lizzie Lexington on August 6, 2009
LOL
Dale Innis on August 6, 2009
Lols! Pretend Internet Layers ftw!
Dale Innis on August 6, 2009
… or lawyers, even. *sigh*
Ganymedes Costagravas on August 6, 2009
I love it when you talk like this =D
Bailey Longcloth on August 6, 2009
*snorts*
You made me spill my coffee
Thanks for the giggles Prad.
Tary Allen on August 6, 2009
eLawyers’R’us
lmao, I love this one
Alessia Kranfel on August 9, 2009
Ha ha aha haha!!!
Guen on August 10, 2009
Oh that was a hilarious post!
Thanks for brightening my afternoon, Prad!
Isadora Fiddlesticks on August 13, 2009
That was really smart ass funny! Thanks!
Ellis on October 28, 2009
It is not humorous to display a dead animal in response to this issue. It is inhumane. We call ourselves humans who supposedly have the capacity to display that human element, yet we often present as barbaric idiots.
Signed,
Lover of all forms of life…