Examining Virtual Crimes 85
GamePolitics has an article about a research paper issued by the AU government's Institute of Criminology titled "Crime Risks of Three-Dimensional Virtual Environments." The paper discusses the legal questions raised by game worlds and avatars, ranging from regulation of in-game currency to a report of virtual rape.
"A person controlling an avatar that is unexpectedly raped or assaulted might experience the physical reaction of 'freezing,' or the associated shock, distrust and loss of confidence in using [3D virtual environments]. While civil redress for psychological harm is conceivable, the 'disembodied' character of such an incident would invariably bar liability for any crime against the person. However, Australian federal criminal law imposes a maximum penalty of three years imprisonment for using an internet carriage service to 'menace, harass or cause offence' to another user. Further, US and Australian laws ban simulated or actual depictions of child abuse and pornography. Therefore, any representations of child avatars involved in virtual sexual activity, torture or physical abuse are prohibited, regardless of whether the real-world user is an adult or child."
So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Tea Bagging in a FPS could get u 3 years?
I find it dumb, immature, and annoying, but like most times someone says "There ought to be a law", there ought not to be.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In other news properties in the game of monopoly are to be rent controlled.
Infractions shall be a matter for civil court and anyone who actually does manage to build a monopoly shall be subject to unfair trading practices legislation.
Re: (Score:1)
So....... if that's a civil matter is it legitimate to offer payment in Monopoly money?
Perhaps a few questions before you can gain entry to determine if you're an adult with a realistic outlook before the game would start is worth considering.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You'd think the Ozzies, that are usually portrayed as a rough and tough bunch, are being such a bunch of limp wristed mamby pambies when it comes to all this online stuff. Would like to hear what the Ozzies think of their fascist government on this subject.
Re: (Score:1)
Most Ozzies I know (especially the non-native transplants) seem to love their government. I've yet to figure out why.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:So... (Score:4, Informative)
Just typical voter-grabbing techniques (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If I was a politician I'd do the exact opposite, and work to eliminate bad laws and then brag about it: "Good news! The law that would have arrested you for kissing a black person (or vice-versa white person) no longer exists. I killed it." Or: "You can put $100 more in your bank account this year. The War of 1898 tax has finally been repealed." Or: "You no longer need fear being arrested because you grow a natural plant in your backyard. The marijuana prohibition has been lifted, although it will
Re: (Score:2)
Re:So... (Score:5, Interesting)
Australian federal criminal law imposes a maximum penalty of three years imprisonment for using an internet carriage service to 'menace, harass or cause offence' to another user.
We think that ruling cartoon depictions of child pornography illegal is plain stupid, and are against Internet filtering. Our far left Labor government completely ignores the people (ETS, NBN anyone?), and instead tries to protect them against their will or by the will of a small minority. They also put too much weight on the voice of parents who think that the protection of their children supersedes the right of society's freedom, when if they didn't they would loose their precious votes in our extremely tight federal elections. It's in shambles and is completely bs.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
*Sneaks up behind you and stabs you in the back (virtually)*
*Runs away, knowing he will be pursued by the virtual law*
That is all...carry on.
Re: (Score:2)
Get your virtual character 3 virtual years in a virtual jail, which of course you can try to virtually break out of.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
The world resulting from your 'one law' would be brutally violent. The only way you could enforce the 'one law' would be with police--and there would be a lot of pissed off people angry because somebody took their stuff (legally, in a 'one law' world). You'd need taxes to pay the police--but you couldn't enforce the tax collection law (in a 'one law' world). Violence would go unchecked.
BTW: Good luck in fifth grade next year.
Re: (Score:1)
Would fragging an opponent in a FPS deathmatch get you 25 to life as well?
If you get a streak of frags does that make you a serial murderer?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Raped in an MMO? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Second Life. Except both parties have to click on the little ball labelled 'RAPE POSE', so...
Re:Raped in an MMO? (Score:5, Funny)
Now, on this 3D model, please show the doctor which polygons the bad person clicked on.
Re: (Score:1)
In SL:
It used to be possible to trick an avatar to "consent" to being animated. Longer ago... there was this nasty object
called a "skull fucker" that would allow the assailant to simulate a "Skull Fuck" without the victim's consent.
There are still WAY more options for wanna-be greifers in SL than any other platform on the market. Many more have been nerfed. And a huge number of accounts and even entire groups have been banned over the years.
In WoW I get a kick out of the "after-school-special" kids who
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Without reading TFA, the usual citation for virtual rape is a case from years and years ago on a text-based game called LambdaMOO. A particularly asinine user wrote a puppet that was, yes, used to rape people. Exactly how and why people manage to associate with MU* characters so strongly that they can actually be emotionally harmed by this sort of thing is beyond me, and I've spent years on them!
Let's stop calling them crimes (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree - and it's an insult to people who have experience such horrific crimes.
A virtual crime is a crime that happens in a virtual envirnoment - e.g., fraud. Things like harrassment can also constitute crimes, but the crime is still harrassment, and not "rape". This is nothing new - did people refer to dodgy phone callers as "virtual rapists"?
A depiction of a crime is not a virtual crime. By that logic, films show "virtual murders", and when they media report on crimes, they should also be guilty of commi
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
And fraud is still fraud, regardless of using a virtual environment, telephone, mailed letter or used car salesman.
Virtual crimes do not really exist. That is the meaning of virtual. The idea that you can get tried and convicted of crimes that do not really exist is horrific.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
What game engine supports rape? World of Sex Crimes? Everrape?
It all depends on how the rape procedes really. If you want your faith in humanity thoroughly but gently violated there's WoW. If you want your star wars related hopes and dreams mercilessly skullfucked there's SWG.
Or if you want to just skip the gameplay and get straight to plain old fashioned sexual raping, you can sample half the programs coming from Japan.
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
My first experience of Second Life involved my avatar being dryhumped by some 'naked perv' avatar on noob island. The person even had modeled a penis for their avatar oh and a bowler hat. It was very odd. Sad really.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you think you'll ever get over the trauma? :D
Re: (Score:2)
Well, I for one am rather disturbed by bowler hats.
How would that work in court? (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you show me on this doll where he said that he was touching your avatar?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, since a virtual crime can only be punished with a virtual punishment in a virtual court...
But hey, who says that a virtual world has to have the same laws as the real one.
After all, other rules are often the whole POINT of that virtual world!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How would that work in court? (Score:5, Insightful)
No I can't, that would be virtual molestation.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The article describes a 1993 incident where a female player was "raped" in a text-based multiplayer game, where
the harm involved 'a real-time non-consensual textual description of the rape' through 'the display of graphic and offensive sentences'
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Any virtual environment or even chat systems support virtual rape by way of emotes
No, no they don't. There's a reason why you can be sued for sexual harassment at work for saying something obscene but you can't be sued for rape for something you say. Words can be hurtful, but they can't be rape.
Re: (Score:2)
> There's a reason why you can be sued for sexual harassment at work for
> saying something obscene...
It's your employer who can be sued.
Re: (Score:1)
If that counts as virtual "rape", then the article is guilty of a crime too, as by citing it, it also depicts the crime "virtually".
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Halo.
Re: (Score:2)
What, teabagging doesn't occur?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What game engine supports rape? World of Sex Crimes? Everrape?
Evony, judging by the ads.
Re: (Score:2)
Hell, never mind rape, what about murder? Apparently murder is encouraged in many of these 3D games, and yet goes almost completely unpunished! We need some virtual law and order.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What You Say! (Score:1)
Yeah, but... (Score:2)
Legal Questions of Virtual Activity? (Score:2, Insightful)
So I guess GTA (from original on up) should cause you to have to do time for grand theft of an automobile, drug dealing and cop killing? Absolute balderdash.
Re:Legal Questions of Virtual Activity? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not to say the laws aren't ridiculous, just that your example isn't an argument against it.
Re: (Score:1)
alright
Seriously? (Score:3, Interesting)
Really? Every time I think we have rock bottom with the sheer scope of fucking mentally challenged concepts in government, they continue to amaze me with how much deeper than can go.
Reminds me of Eddie Murphy in the Golden Child when he flips a coin down into the darkness. "Hey! They're ain't no ground here".
It's fucking virtual with real world consequences.
Well then I want to prosecute those douchebag lawmakers. They virtually "blew my mind" on the Internet. Where's my commercial saying I got a 1 million dollars?
So PK is now a crime?? (Score:1)
WTF, if you're an online player, and haven't at some point been gang-banged by a bunch of Uruks, you haven't been around. Get a grip.
OMG (Score:1)
You've got to be kidding me, right? Some idiot somewhere in the legal system really needs to get a grip on reality.
Jurisdiction (Score:2)
So maybe reprehensible in .au and .us, but what if the victim is there but the perp is in some other country where the legislator thinks rape is not so bad in First Life and/or doesn't even have Internet ?
Sue the game company, of course.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
International court in The Hague? ;)
Re: (Score:2)
I was worried about that too.
"Using an internet carriage service to 'menace, harass or cause offence' to another user" pretty much defines life on slashdot.
Quick, what countries do not have Extradition treaties with Australia?
shame (Score:1, Insightful)
i am ashamed to be an Ozzie soon they will legislate thought crime.......
Inaccuracy in summary (Score:1, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
US law does not ban simulated child pornography. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcroft_v._Free_Speech_Coalition [wikipedia.org]
Yes it does - "PROTECT Act" (2003):
The PROTECT Act includes prohibitions against illustrations depicting child pornography, including computer-generated illustrations, also known as virtual child pornography.[1][2][4] Provisions against virtual child pornography in the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 had been ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2002. However, the provisions of the Protect Act are distinct, since they establish the requirement of showing obscenity as defined by the Miller Test, which was not an element of the 1996 law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_Act_of_2003 [wikipedia.org]
3d virtual worlds? (Score:2)
So I guess all of this behavior is perfectly fine in 2d virtual worlds, or textual virtual worlds.
Bring back the telnet!? (Score:2)
SMAUG Stalkers are the worst you can get!
Good we can customize appearance ...
Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (Score:2)
Uh, not quite. See Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234 (2002) [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Uh, not quite. See Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234 (2002) [wikipedia.org].
Yes, quite. See "PROTECT Act" (2003): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_Act_of_2003 [wikipedia.org] The short version is obscenity can, as always, be prosecuted, and the PROTECT Act remedied the missing element in CPPA, which was the law struck down in Ashcroft, thus once again allowing the prosecution of virtual child pornography found to be obscene.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That's what I meant by "not quite." The law they passed afterward contains the "lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value" phrase oft found in obscenity laws, which makes it almost impossible to prosecute someone.
Can't deal with real crime? (Score:2)
Why does only rape matter ? (Score:2)
What about murder or theft ?
What if I'm playing an online game and someone attacks and kills my character ? Is that against the law too ? Does it matter that death is not permanent in this particular virtual world ? What if death is a normal part of this particular virtual world (WoW PVP servers for instance)
What if I have a virtual house in (say) Second Life and someone enters without asking or enters through the window ? Is that virtual break and enter ? What if they steal my stuff ? I have then suf
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What about murder or theft?
Well, virtual currency is considered equal to real currency [slashdot.org] in South Korea, and a man was arrested [slashdot.org] for virtual robbery in Britain. A Dutch Court [slashdot.org] punished a couple of teenage thieves as well. If I dug deeper I'm sure I could find more stories.
On a WoW server, a group of mates and myself played highwaymen. One of us would be a scantily clad Dranei, and the others would be hidden near by. Stand and deliver! d:
Re: (Score:2)
I'm guessing they chose to cite rape and child ponography because they are emotional issues that people generally hold strong opinions about in the real world.
With current technology, it is unlikely (but not impossible) that you would find yourself in a situation where you would be as emotionally invested in your avatar where an attack would be personally damaging on an emotional level. As technology improves and people associate more closely with their online representation, it increases the likelyhood tha
Re: (Score:2)
I imagine you are absolutely correct about people having strong emotional reactions to rape and child pornography. In fact, much more so than murder, the mere mention of the other two crimes can cause an emotional reaction, whereas for most people, the murder needs to be of somebody they know to have the same level of emotional reaction.
On the other hand, within some games, death is a normal part of the game. In FPS style games, murder is the entire point. In this sense, our expectations are different in
Virtual time for a virtual crime. (Score:2)