Thieves Vote For Blu-ray In DVD Standards Battle

Second Life On Mission To Purge All The Fun

from the moving-on dept

Fri, Jul 27th 2007 5:48am — Joseph Weisenthal

Earlier this year, it was revealed that the FBI was watching the in-game Second Life casinos to see if they ran afoul of anti-gambling laws. In-game gambling is a tricky issue, since it brings up a litany of unresolved legal issues associated with virtual worlds. It looks like Second Life didn't want to take any chances, as it has summarily banned all gambling in the virtual world. Considering the harsh treatment of those affiliated with the industry, it's not surprising that Second Life would look to cover its hide. This news comes just days after Second Life announced that it would crack down on in-game sexual activity that it deemed to be "broadly offensive". In other words, so much for Second Life being a place to escape form the real world and virtually indulge all of your vices. All that's going to be left are half-baked corporate publicity stunts; too bad nobody goes there for that.

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Filed Under: gambling, virtual worlds
Companies: second life

38 Comments

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James, 27 Jul 2007 @ 6:09am

Amazing...
...with all of the other sorts of crime that exist we waste our tax dollars hunting down people who want to gamble on some games. Rediculous.

Murder? Property and identify theft? Idiots who send spam? Are all of these crimes solved, and they have nothing else to focus on? (Rhetorical, yes, I know)
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Cheers, 27 Jul 2007 @ 6:14am

Good
Good, maybe blog writers will stop writing about it then! I'm really getting sick of Second Life stories. Really, it's not interesting.
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Sanguine Dream, 27 Jul 2007 @ 6:28am

Bout time...
Second Life has run its cycle it seems. The only thing keeping it alive are those half-baked corporate publicity stunts, politicians trying to get some online street cred, and the blogsphere. Just let Second Life fade from the spotlight and become an underground spot for the few loyalists that are still there, aleast until the owners/operators pull the plug.
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SecondLife Sal, 27 Jul 2007 @ 6:38am

It's just a game.
It's just a computer game. Of course it's going to be subject to most real world laws.
We will always have some kind of virtual word to try however, long after Second Life pulls the plug. from role playing games and organizations like the Society for Creative anachronism, to VRML programming, and now Second Life. Lots and lots of people like a place to escape real life for a while.

Get used to it.
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Peter Hickman, 27 Jul 2007 @ 6:47am

How far might this go?
Last night I was playing Civilisation and launched a guided missile at a city, along with attacking shipping and raising farms.

Seriously if gambling or having sex in a game warrants the FBI investigating then shouldn't I be expecting a knock on the door in the near future. Oh yes I also play do this on-line multi player.
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Kilroy, 27 Jul 2007 @ 6:53am

Virtual Training....maybe
Interesting article off of Wired that details how compainies are thinking of combining Second Life and Nintendo's Wiimote to create virtual training.

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/news/2007/07/wiimote

It could be the first useful thing to come out of Second Life...
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2007 @ 6:57am

Re: Bout time...
Actually... the only things keeping it alive werent the half baked publicity stunts. The only things keeping it alive were the sex and gambling.
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Crosbie Fitch (profile), 27 Jul 2007 @ 6:58am

Proprietary = Restricted
The only way you're going to be able to enjoy a totally unregulated virtual environment is to decentralise it.

A lesson already learnt with Napster.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/article_display.php?category=14
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Overcast, 27 Jul 2007 @ 7:09am

..with all of the other sorts of crime that exist we waste our tax dollars hunting down people who want to gamble on some games. Rediculous.

Yes - couldn't have been said better.

This is our tax dollars at work - making sure the very few places to gamble are either State Lotteries or Big Corporate Casinos.

But - I choose not to partake in either of those - not that I'm much of a gambler at all, but I have in SL a few times, I've never been to a casino, and haven't played a lottery ticket in years. But even in SL, it wasn't for RL cash, just for fun.
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Overcast, 27 Jul 2007 @ 7:12am

Oh and if you want more info on the Police State our government is gleefully ushering in - check out www.infowars.com - or Google 'Alex Jones'.

It's nuts..

I guess - I'll be jailed for this later. But I'd rather die free than live a slave.
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Super Duper, 27 Jul 2007 @ 7:20am

SL
Actually, there's professors at ivy league institutions meeting and teaching classes on virtual islands...
There's support groups that meet...
Ppl who are disabled in real life are able to fly around and interact in 2nd life...
and there's millions of (real) dollars being made and moved by gamers

FTR.
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NoName, 27 Jul 2007 @ 7:41am

Re: Amazing...
...with all of the other sorts of crime that exist we waste our tax dollars hunting down people who want to gamble on some games.Rediculous.
If you really want to control people you need to control what they think. Thus, the detection and punishment of "thought crimes" are very important to people who want to control others.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2007 @ 7:45am

Re: How far might this go?
Last night I was playing Civilisation and launched a guided missile at a city, along with attacking shipping and raising farms.
That's OK, those kinds of things are to be encouraged. Sex and gambling aren't.
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sean, 27 Jul 2007 @ 8:02am

Re: Re: Amazing...
Hail the ideology of Ingsoc.
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Giovannid, 27 Jul 2007 @ 8:12am

D&D
So does that mean that D&D players around the world are at risk of having the FBI watch them to make sure none of the same things that happen in Second Life happen in their dungeons? I mean if you think about it, its pretty much the same thing. I just don't think there ever was a case of some D&D player complaining to the cops about getting his rogues property stolen...
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Wolfger, 27 Jul 2007 @ 8:16am

Re: Good
Cheers: Sick of Second Life stories? The solution is amazingly simple. STOP READING THEM! That solves everything.
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Wolfger, 27 Jul 2007 @ 8:20am

Re: Bout time...
Isn't "online street cred" a contradiction in terms? Not many online geeks have street cred. I think you meant "geek cred".
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Wolfger, 27 Jul 2007 @ 8:23am

Re: Re: How far might this go?
Right. Don't you know, Peter, that violence and bloodshed are positive family-values traits, and sex, gambling, drugs, or anything else people actually enjoy are all evil?
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Norman619, 27 Jul 2007 @ 9:23am

Re: Re: Re: How far might this go?
Next saying the lord's name in vein will be illegal. MY GOD!!!! ;-P
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Lord, 27 Jul 2007 @ 10:21am

My Name in Vain
veins are in your body, vanes on are on windmills and jet engines and VAIN is what you take lords name in...
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Kilroy, 27 Jul 2007 @ 10:58am

The point is...
They are cracking down on gambling because online gambling is illegal in the US. Since Second Life's currency can be exchanged for real money, gambling in Second Life is therefore gambling with real money, therefore illegal.They are simply complying with the law.

As for cracking down on the overly offensive sex in-game, they are trying to:

1) not become a virtual breeding ground that supports and promotes real world illegal activity (ie sex with children and sex with animals) even if all parties are actually consenting adults.

2) protect the integrity of their product by enacting some sort of code of ethics making them more appealing to a larger number of people.

To those of you who would say that they ought to ban fighting, murder, etc...for the same reasons and therefore their decisions (and my arguments) are flawed, please take into consideration sex and murder are not the same. Most people have sex and it is much easier to continually degrade into deviancy through exposure than it is for people to cross the moral boundry for murder through exposure.

Just because you can legally do something in a virtual world doesn't mean the owners of that world want you doing it.
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Pair o' Dimes, 27 Jul 2007 @ 11:15am

Just because the owners of that world don't want you doing it, doesn't mean it should be illegal...or something...
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Tsu Dho Nimh, 27 Jul 2007 @ 1:41pm

Re: The point is...
1) not become a virtual breeding ground that supports and promotes real world illegal activity (ie sex with children and sex with animals) even if all parties are actually consenting adults.
By that theory then, shouldn't all forms of virtual violence and racism be banned also so that it doesn't become a virtual breeding ground for violent racists?
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2007 @ 1:48pm

Re: The point is...
"To those of you who would say that they ought to ban fighting, murder, etc...for the same reasons and therefore their decisions (and my arguments) are flawed, please take into consideration sex and murder are not the same."
YOU obviously just don't want to ban the things that get YOU off and satisfy your BLOODLUST.
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Kilroy, 27 Jul 2007 @ 3:55pm

Re: Re: The point is...
"YOU obviously just don't want to ban the things that get YOU off and satisfy your BLOODLUST."

Lol, that must be it. I stand by my post.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2007 @ 5:07pm

Re: Re: Re: The point is...
"Lol, that must be it. I stand by my post."
And I mine. It seems that we understand each other then.
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Lucretious, 27 Jul 2007 @ 7:38pm

Second Life went from being a cool idea with an underground art vibe to a mainstream joke practically overnight. Reminds me quite a bit of the same route that MySpace.com went. No one with a hip bone in their body (no pun intended) would be caught dead using it now.
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BTR1701, 30 Jul 2007 @ 9:58am

Re: Alex Jones
> check out www.infowars.com - or Google
> 'Alex Jones'. It's nuts..

It may be nuts but so is Alex Jones. The man is a certifiable paranoid loon. Half the things he says are flat-out false. The other half are so distorted, they might as well be.
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BTR1701, 30 Jul 2007 @ 10:00am

Re: The point is...
> They are cracking down on gambling
> because online gambling is illegal
> in the US.

Really? I wonder if those guys out in Vegas and in Atlantic City know that...
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Vicki, 31 Jul 2007 @ 6:53am

Second Life
Funny how they ban something so stupid. How many casinos do they have in the US, to many to even think about counting. You would think they would be more concerned with other activity going on in SL that is not legal anywhere in the world, but oh no they don't care. I put in several abuse reports because of threats and they did not one thing. What kind of threats, well let me tell you. The threats I recieved was because I am Jewish, the one threat I got was that this person was going to get all the Nazi groups in SL after me. Did LL do anything about that threat? No! Maybe if I was the FBI watching them they would, or if I had some control over the money they make.
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GoblinJuice, 31 Jul 2007 @ 7:02am

Re: D&D
Anyone into D&D had better be under police surveillance.

Those people give me the creeps. =o
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Uncle Bob, 31 Jul 2007 @ 7:09am

Online gambling
The only reason the US is banning online gambling is because they haven't [yet] found a way to get their cut of the money.
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anonymous, 31 Jul 2007 @ 12:26pm

I work for IBM global technology, and this is just silly.
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huh, 31 Jul 2007 @ 12:29pm

Re: Re: Alex Jones (Score -5: off-topic!!)
what does this have to do with the topic? Although I do agree with you, looks like u on the wrong page
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oh here it is, 31 Jul 2007 @ 12:30pm

Re:
Dude. LOL Alex Jones is a retard. He doesn't have half his facts straight EVER and he caters to the literally blind and naive.
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Tiesto, 26 Feb 2008 @ 12:28am

Illegal Activity
Well if you can stop gambling(casinos) insides SL and also ATM machines paying out interest because they are considered illegal then how come I am still seeing alot of prostitution going on inside SL. Last time I looked Prostitution is illegal also inside the United States. But I do not see Linden Labs cutting out that part.
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Sweetpea, 24 Apr 2008 @ 11:22pm

I wish every day that Alex Jones was full of crap but as your dollar sinks to the value of the Linden and Knock & Talk comes to a neighborhood near you, you will start to look like a loon holding the constitution while some guy is tazering you.

Beside that, I am sick and %$#@ tired of second life, and i run a successful business in there, with nice customers and a low key product. but like right now, i cant get in. They changed ceo's and that means what? squat

Second life would be fine if you could use it, which even the dang creators cant do these days, they crash all the time too. I started playing world of warcraft because to get off crack sometimes you need heroin, and i was irate, where are all the crashes, the 2 fps?????????????????

Kurzweil and Kapoor and all those happy go lucky idiots can kiss my digital @ss, its over.

these constant viewer updates, the every damn day something is wrong like you damn skirt isnt showing so your @ss is hanging out or your hair/shoes/skirt is lodged up your tailpipe--- all of it-- sleeps with the fishes!!!!!!!!!

hopefully yall are right about Alex and you wont all end up sedated and chipped like dogs
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PRMan, 20 Oct 2008 @ 3:21pm

A potential solution?
"Funny how they ban something so stupid. How many casinos do they have in the US, to many to even think about counting. You would think they would be more concerned with other activity going on in SL that is not legal anywhere in the world, but oh no they don't care. I put in several abuse reports because of threats and they did not one thing. What kind of threats, well let me tell you. The threats I recieved was because I am Jewish, the one threat I got was that this person was going to get all the Nazi groups in SL after me. Did LL do anything about that threat? No! Maybe if I was the FBI watching them they would, or if I had some control over the money they make."

Lure them into a game of Strip Poker?

I kid, but it is almost that ridiculous.
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