At the same time, an ocean and a continent away, a cartoonist is being charged with cyber stalking after making videos mocking the local police department and their unethical ways. Judge Cayce in Kings County, Washington heard arguments on the warrant this week.

Meanwhile, Wang Xiaoning and Shi Tao - two Chinese dissidents - are still prisoners in the People's Republic of China.

Now as I previously wrote on the Herald, Yahoo! China released the identifying details of Wang Xiaoning and Shi Tao to the Beijing security services.  Wang and Shi were not operating under the real names, but as pseudonyms. Then Yahoo! was sued in the United States, brought before the U.S. House of Representatives, and made to beg for forgiveness from Wang and Shi's families.  

This was in 2008.  After the first two stories, I start noticing something.

Facebook doesn't like avatar names. Google Plus doesn't like avatar names. Second Life also looked at linking real names with avatar names.  The Kings County prosecutor, who was selected by the police to prosecute this case, is currently trying to get a warrant served after a motion to quash was filed. But the Crown Prosecutors didn't need to bother, as the youths sentenced just used their real names.  And as an added bonus, China is congratulating the UK on its internet restrictions. 

Suppose - besides providing better accuracy for advertisers - Facebook, Google and the rest are demanding real names to prevent being in Yahoo!'s position in 2008?  If the authorities already know who to come after, there is no need to turn over any information. The person is as exposed as if they were in a city street shouting the same statements, but in the online world their words are recorded forever with an arrow pointing to them.  

This approach reduces the internet service provider's liability.  When the Wang and Shi cases came around, the commentator class said Yahoo! didn't need to turn over the information.  Simply put, if a Chinese security services officer asked an employee located in China for information on dissidents, the employee could turn them away and nothing further would happen to the employee or the company. Because as anybody knows, police officers will simply go away if you tell them no.

Yahoo! was sued when they turned over the identifying information, and had to settle the suit while being called before the U.S. Congress to testify about what happened.  But if Yahoo! had not turned over the identifying information, then beyond a loss of business, Yahoo!'s Chinese employees might have found themselves arrested for anything up to being an accessory to obstructing justice.

Notice that while Yahoo! was sued and called before Congress and told they had failed, the two dissidents are still in jail, three years later. 

By moving from avatar identity and pseudonyms to legal identities, Google and Facebook can step back and let whatever authorities arrest whoever they want because without pseudonyms protecting avatars/players and involving corporate bottom lines. 

What will be truly telling is whether Judge Cayce allows the Kings County cartoonist warrant to go through. Will Google balk at revealing the identifying of the cartoonist McFiddlesticks - and then face liability themselves, or will Google comply and let a person who anonymously aired out the police department's dirty laundry without identifying the department's name be put on trial for a potential felony?

Although I brought all of this up before, when a friend came over to visit I realized something new. Some readers might not know I was an SL whore for a long time, and was even mentioned on the CBS Early Show. At the end of my tenure, I was the hiring manager for a SL strip club called the PinkPussy Cat. 

In looking to see if my friend and former co-worker’s application was still in my files, I noticed the old policy manual and looked into it for nostalgia’s sake. Inside was a policy statement on transgendered avatars which stated that the club didn’t care if you were a man or a woman in RL, just so long as you were consistent in that choice.  Being a woman one day and the man the next inside the club wouldn’t fly. Now wipe the shock off your face, there were men possessing female avatars.  And no, I won’t tell you who.

Possessing – I think I like that term. I possess my avatar, as opposed to run or operate.

When voice came to the Grid, it was a big deal – you could tell that your female stripper was actually a female in RL.  But even before that point, there were clubs who either solely selected female typists or did not ever want to know differently.  

But being a female or male stripper in SL isn’t at all like working at Hooters or being in a movie. Just because a typist is a woman, it doesn’t mean she’s a great SL stripper.  Also just because there is an 18 year old size 4 stripper on your screen, doesn’t mean you have an 18 year old size 4 stripper possessing the avatar.    

If SL strip clubs are really about generating content, disregard the behavior arguments, independent contracting, and other policy implications of the people working onstage. If the SL strip club is only selecting women typists to be female strippers, what you have is blatant employment gender discrimination. 

If the avatar is only a content driven animation, it doesn’t matter who possesses the avatar.  All you need to do for the job is to shop at the right places, know how to interact with people, and type and write with reasonable skill. You don’t have to *be* a woman to know how to possess a female stripper avatar, and a man isn’t suddenly gay because he read a story written by another guy. 

Really, if you are looking at SL as a behavior medium, I can still argue that no men allowed policies are   discrimination due to gender expression which does not fundamentally affect the good or service.  Of course, no government agency, or attorney for that matter, would go after one of these clubs to enforce non-discrimination laws because of all the issues that pop up in prosecuting virtual world providers.  But this doesn’t make discrimination right.  

A fun example my Mom once told me about concerned a male ex-Marine who had a feminine enough voice that he was able to work as a phone sex operator catering to men who wanted women.  Again, its the skills for the job, not the equipment, that matters. 

For example, if someone wanted to sound more like a monster/demon, for $750L per 30 days, you can buy a subscription that includes such preset voice alterations as Demon, Nightmare or Thunder.  The categories are Feminine, Masculine, Techie, Scary, and Tiny.  

You can preview the voices on Viewer 2.1 by going under the Me tab, my voice and checking out the voice morphs.  The morphs can be heard on any voice enabled viewer.  In checking out the voice modifications, I noticed a lack of control that you would find in other voice morphing programs but a fidelity in pronunciation, d’s sound like d’s for example.  

So the big questions are; will people increase in their voice usage with the voice morphing or will people still shy away from voice?  and will people be willing to pay $750L per month in order to be Scary or Tiny?  

World of Warcraft is a subscription model, similar to SL’s premium membership.  People sign up for automatic billing and tend to forget its there.  Allods has an item shop but the game developers provided players with opportunities to avoid using it, which players tend to do, even when it makes no economic sense.

One of the items you can get is a bigger deposit box for banking the weapons, armor and other items you accumulate in the game.  This box costs approximately $10 US.  You can pay the $10 or you can perform a Wandering Alchemist quest.  The Wandering Alchemist quest is; a player must find the Wandering Alchemist, a non player character or NPC, in order to obtain a potion.  The potion has 14 constituent parts.  Each time the alchemist is found, one part, at random, will be given to the player.  The Alchemist can be found in ten different locations.  Each time the Alchemist is found, only one player may interact with the Alchemist.  After a player talks to the Alchemist, the Alchemist disappears for four minutes to reappear at one of the ten locations at random.  After receiving the 14 parts, the player must find the Alchemist again and give him the parts to make the potion.  Then you must take the potion to another NPC in order to get the deposit box.  Or you can pay $10 US. 

The interesting part is that based on the chat, and people looking to form parties to make the quest shorter, players choose the quest frequently, even though at a minimum, with no other players interfering, being able to travel to the correct location where he appears next, and the parts being given in the correct number and order, this quest will take at least an hour.  Which means players are willing to give up well over an hour of their time either running around or waiting in order to avoid paying $10.  In the meantime, the game is still running and the company needs to keep the servers going. 

Without money coming in somehow, servers do not run.  And if a player is willing to put up with the Wandering Alchemist, game developers need to come up with new ways for payment in order for games to run. 

First the good news.  By agreeing to the Terms of Service, users are giving a license to other users to take pictures and videos of publicly accessible places.  In the past, it could be argued that the snapshots of hair, buildings and tree were all copyright protected in such a way that a picture infringed on all of those items and you needed the permission of each creator to have a properly licensed snapshot or video.  So now a resident can freely take a picture of a street or building, sort of.

Of course, that does mean that the Tiny issue of a few months back, where instead of using illustrations for a book, the author used photographs of someone else’s avatar designs as the illustrations would be licensed by the creator simply by uploading the content to a public space.  According to the Snapshot and Machima policy, in order to take either, you need to check the land status in order to see if its permitted.  If its not, you need special permission from the landowner.  Additionally, in order to take machima, you need the permission of the avatars involved unless its a crowd or fleeting scene.  This apparently does not affect the Copyright fair use doctrine.  

Now some bad news, and the biggest one to be swept under the rug. Starting with section 3.1 of the new ToS,  You may not transfer or assign your Account and its contractual rights, licenses and obligations, to any third party without the prior written consent of Linden Lab.  Before you could transfer your account as part of your will.   And looking at the new, "the Linden dollar is a virtual token" section, Except as expressly permitted by this Agreement or otherwise expressly permitted by Linden Lab, the Linden Dollar License may not be sublicensed, encumbered, conveyed or made subject to any right of survivorship or other disposition by operation of law or otherwise, and you agree that any attempted disposition in violation of these Terms of Service is null and void. 

The same sort of language is under the "virtual space is a license" section. It sounds as if Linden Lab is trying to change some of the previous interpretations of the ToS by saying you can’t convey an account and its associated licenses with a will, unless you get prior written from Linden Lab.  Considering that copyright extends for 70 years beyond the death of the creator, the ToS seems to require estate planning for the virtual world to go through their legal department. 

All of the adjunct policies, with Age Play, Gambling, Banking, and the Community standards named twice, are now expressly part of the ToS.   Infringement actions are now able to be sanctioned so that infringers may lose all of their content from the service, not just the infringing ones.  

And most importantly, if you are delinquent in paying Linden Lab, none of the above license rights, snapshots and machima, virtual land transfers or accepting Linden dollars is allowed.  

So when a person says that you can educate yourself regarding the law by reading it, you have a tendancy to agree.  Its simply words, either on the screen or on a page.  Anyone who can speak the language can understand that, right?  Apparently, absolutely not.  And this is ignoring the fact that someone who looked up something on the internet is of course just as competent at reading and interpreting law as someone who went to school for three years, had to pass a bar examination and maintain their education with classes every year.

Here is an example; something pointed out by my friend the other day. Some guy has this idea that if you get a traffic ticket, say in Tuscon, Az., that you should go into court and ask questions.  Ask if you have are presumed innocent.  Ask if you are presumed innocent of every element of the offense.  Ask if you are presumed innocent of being at the place the incident happened.  Which, according to this person, means that if the defendant is presumed innocent of being at the location where the incident took place, therefore the court has no jurisdiction to take the case, and therefore, the case must be dropped. 

That’s a clear cut case of internet lawyering.  Someone reads something, things they have a handle on things, when they absolutely don’t and try to argue some backassward thing based off of the misunderstanding.  Because the court has jurisdiction over the case because that court would be the place to hear traffic violations alleged by the police in the location where it is alleged to have occured.  In order to prove that the defendant is guilty, the attorney or officer has to prove to the court that he met all the elements of the offense, including being there.  If this internet lawyer was arguing venue, then venue is proper because that was the place the incident was alleged to have occurred.  And that my friends is stupid internet lawyering in real life. 

I see it everywhere, especially with intellectual property, the backbone of what we do on Second Life.  People probably still believe that only a percentage of use determines fair use.  (Two paragraphs, ok, three paragraphs, DAMAGES).   Fair use depends on different factors, weighed by a court in order to determine its effectiveness as a defense in an infringement suit.  Does that mean that use isn’t fair until a court decides it is?  Hell, no.  Otherwise you couldn’t review movies, tv shows or music and Seth Green wouldn’t be as succesful as he is.  

Or the whole "its fictional currency, it isn’t real, so I can steal it nyah nyah" when countries are going, "I’m pretty sure I can tax that in one way (receipt of any income) or another (barter credit)."   What do I mean by receipt of income?  Some tax professionals say Matt Murphy catching and keeping Barry Bond’s 756th home run ball means he just received $500,000 worth of income, on which he would owe income tax. 

When it comes to Lindens, I always say its not income until I cash out from the Lindex, because I don’t have an absolute right to them.  The Lab could lose them at anytime.  However, the barter credit and the any receipt of income are arguments against my position.

Which is another thing the bothers me about internet lawyers.  I have seen in a number of threads where they pull the "oh you can’t determine that, only a court can determine that, except for when I make the determination, then I’m right and you’re wrong."   Actually, no.  You don’t need a court to determine every little detail of life. 

So fellow…grocery baggers, while fighting internet lawyers on forums might seem like wrestling with pigs, sometimes you happen to come up against them in court. 

So why the hell am I bringing it up here?  Because of what some other SL commentators have mentioned and this article over at Slate, regarding a couple that neglected their baby in favor of the one they had on Prius Online.

Now the baby was born premature and the parents might not have known how to deal with it.  But guess what, the parents were still at fault.  The parents were neglectful of their child.  They deserve whatever punishment comes their way for letting their baby die from not being fed so that they can escape into whatever virtual world that they found.

But of course, there comes the other side, saying video games or the Internets are not addicting.  And there is reasonable argument whether or not the Internet is addicting.  However, things *on* the Internet can be addicting even if *the INTERNET* is not addicting, like oh say naughty gambling or dirty pornography. 

Now here comes the online games, which in many instances can be….*drum roll*…..*extra drum roll*……MORE COWBELL……addicting.   And sometimes that is done by design.  One of my big peeves about World of Warcraft is that it obscures your computer clock and it has no internal game clock.  So you can be playing for hours, getting that rush of leveling or completing quests and suddenly its the next morning. 

Which leads us back to Second Life and the supposedly addicting game that the Lindens made.  After all, nothing is more addicting than sitting in a big grassy field looking moderately attractive while you lag while putting out boxes.  Because essentially, that’s what the Lindens made.   Sure, there are games in SL that involve staying on and leveling, Dark Life comes to mind, but the Lindens didn’t create it.  Is that SL’s fault?

Now there is a voice in my head that is yelling at me; "Of course, SL is addicting you dumb slut, what about all these Goreans and BDSM’er deathstylers you glorify in your obscene writings?  What about the woman who stopped taking her medication because of her evil gorean relationship?   What about articles that you have written dealing with the woman who became morbidly obese and then dying because she didn’t take care of herself in RL and immersed herself in SL?  Which of course I never read because this rag will be destroyed soon enough and never see the longevity of something like the Avastar." 

The thing is SL is like the Internet, and if you are addicted to SL then really you are addicted to some aspect of the Internet and any treatment should be focused on the underlying roots.  Pornography and gambling are obvious…no wait, there can’t be any porn or gambling on SL…nope, not now, not ever.

But that relationship obsession, the need to just be on and explore because nothing else is going on in your life, that isn’t a fault of the platform, its the fault of the person.  And some of those things need to be controlled by the User and not some nanny state, or company. 

Hamlet raised the question of what can we, as residents of SL or other virtual worlds, do for the person.  I didn’t read the results but the thing to consider is that sometimes, you can’t do something for someone when you are separated by space.  Sometimes tragedies happen.  You might notice people spending more time on than they should, but that’s a really subjective statement.  What is "more than they should?" 

I believe that the best thing a resident can do is watch out, offer help and referrals when they can but realize that they might not make their feelings or situation known.

Second Life is like the Internet in many respects; its on the computer, no one knows that you are a fairy tale blind mouse and there is a heavy text and graphical basis for our interactions.  And it looks like a video game; you can fly, you can be in space, you can be underwater without SCUBA gear,  and you can have sex with strange creatures that shouldn't be reproducing with humans.  But combine the video game looks with the Internet aspects and suddenly people take it as an excuse for being a dick or bitch. 

"Oh, I stole all your spacebucks?  Too bad its a game!" 

"Oh I said I would be your boyfriend and I'm having fake sex with aliens?  Its in my game rules." 

"I want to spend time with you, sure, right after  I am done spending time in Zindra gambling your spacebucks away." 

These are typical things that are said to me.  Especially by my dick ex-boyfriend Steve*. Jerk.

Now granted, there are aspects of SL that are games, role playing sims and actual video games like Dark Life.  And on role playing sims, you are expected to play a character.  But on those sims, if you 'role play a dick or bitch,' then you are treated like a dick or bitch AND they understand that you are playing a character.  People present know the difference between In-Character or Out Of Character. 

On the rest of the grid, if you are a dick or bitch, then expect to be treated like a dick or bitch because you are being a dick or a bitch.  Residents sometimes just use SL as a communications tool, a heavy resource using, laggy, picking up a phone would be quicker, communication tool.  And don't try to cop out by saying "its only a game! bawwwwww."  Man or Woman up and say "too fucking bad, bawwwww."  Just because you are on the Internet doesn't give you an excuse to be a dick or a bitch.  People are dicks and bitches in Real Life too, like my dick ex-boyfriend Darryl*.  Jerk. 

If you are going to do it, do it with respect and dignity and not hide behind "its only a game." 

*names changed to protect the Herald from DMCA wielding losers who couldn't litigate their way out of an open phone booth.

One reason why I am not too worried about people outing my identity is that I have a fairly common real life name.   Pretending my real life name is "Stacey Fox,"  if you Google it, you will find many other people who share my name, some sharing my real life location, some sharing my real life profession.  In fact, Googling that name will not easily reveal my real life identity, you have to dig through many results, and many hypothetical Stacey Foxes, in order to get to the real me.  

On the other hand, there is only one Jessica Holyoke when it comes to editorializing about the virtual worlds we take part in.  There is only one Jessica Holyoke who mentions how the Second Life in-world economy is doing.  

So when people talk about 'fake avatars' on Avatars United, there comes that issue of who is actually fake.

Granted there can be only one 'Jessica Holyoke' on SL.  But on the new social media, not only can there be a Jessica Holyoke on AU, but there can be a Jessica Holyoke on any world, a Jessica Holyoke on Twitter and so on.  Some people are advocating that famous avatar names should be limited to the original users of the name.  But excluding avatars that use their name as part of their business, like Aimee Weber, why should that be the case with avatar names? 

While there might be confusion, its not a confusion that would come from identifying goods or services.  That is protected under trademark law.  And even then, that is only to protect your business interests.  So if an Anshe Chung offers land for sale n OS grid and they are not the Anshe Chung we all know and love, then there might be a trademark issue.  But as a general rule, there should not be a limit on peoples' use of avatar names.   It would be like saying that in all the world, there could be only one Stacey Fox.

With all of the intellectual property stories going through the Herald lately, a quick reference guide is provided to our readers to understand what is going on.  

COPYRIGHT: This is the art major.  Copyright provides protection for works of art and literature, anything that is an expression of an idea.  It provides a limited time monopoly for creators of certain works, such as music, both performed and sheet, books, magazines and programs.  Currently, the lifetime of the author plus 70 years or 95 years if the work is owned by a corporation.  Linden Lab respects your copyrights, even though you give them a license to copy your work throughout the Grid in order for people to be able to see your works.  For the most part, copyrights do not apply to useful objects.  In the U.S., ship hulls are an exception to this rule.   You cannot copyright the idea itself, only how it is expressed.   These are registered with the Copyright office in the U.S. and is the cheapest right to secure.

TRADEMARK:  This is the business major.  This provides identification of goods and services.  It only lasts so long as the mark is used in commerce.  At some point, Glisten will be available again for toothpaste for example.  This includes the name, such as Nike, and specific symbols, such as the swoosh.   It also includes the closely related TRADE DRESS which is the packaging is part of identifying the source of the goods or services in commerce, such as the Coca-Cola bottle.  These are registered with the Trademark office and they start with the filing fees alone, no attorney, at $275 per class of good.

PATENT:  This is the science major.  This is for a thing or process that creates a useful and new end result.  The monopoly is for less years than a copyright, 20 years in the U.S., but it is also extended to more inventions due to the doctrine of equivalents.  Linden Lab does not respect your patent rights and if you use your patented method in SL then you give every other resident the right to use your patent in SL.  You need to hire a patent agent or a patent attorney, someone who has passed the patent bar, in order to help you file the patent and submit it to the patent examiners in the Patent office.  

So using our motorcycle example from a previous example, the motorcycle itself would be protected by trademark, so long as that design identifies the source of the goods, namely Harley Davidson.  Unless the motorcycle contained some new process or invention, it would not be protected by a patent.  If someone took a picture of the motorcycle, then that picture is protected by copyright.  If someone made their model of the motorcycle off of the picture, then that would be a derivative work of the picture and infringing.  If someone made their model off of the motorcycle, then no copyright would be infringed.  If people thought the virtual model was from Harley Davidson itself, then there would be trademark infringement.  If the bike had a special patent, there can be no patent violation because they would not perform the same functions or operate the same ways.  

Got it?

Do not substitute this guide for your own attorney.  If you have a specific question, please seek out an attorney as rules change in different jurisdictions.