The Metaverse Republic

Ahhhh … *breaths in through her nose deeply* … don’t ya just love the smell of legal ease in the mornin’? Ok, now! Down to work being Ash’s debating nemesis!*-)

Ya known Ash, if I didn’t think you’d hog tie us to lengthly red tape and unnecessary bureaucracy, I could almost see some entertainment value to the idea of say, a furry in a pseudo court of law, pleading his case to a room of spectators. One problem there is, the judges are usually a group of pompous intellects, (no offense intended Ash … you know I LOVE your pompous ass! *winks*) who haven’t taken the time to fully taste all the rewards and follies that naturally occur to people in Secondlife, as they explore what happens when fantasy crashes soundly into reality. But, that doesn’t’ mean we should throw out the baby with the bathwater. I think this is definitely doable, with some concessions to the players and user community.

What if we indeed threw out the old guard rules we have all become so terribly burdened by and only embrace the things that truly work about a democracy - get back to the basics if you will! AND .. what if we made an attempt to reach out and involved the community at the very heart of the issues that might comes to bare - who dun it and why! What if we dared to even make it FUN! *!gasp!* NOW THAT might bring the masses behind you. Yes might seem a bit tomfoolery to a certain extent, but how seriously shoud we take the matter of most disagreements in SL.

I can just see it now … *caressses he chin in thoughtful glees as images dnace through her head and voices erupt from know where ….

“HIS tree is hanging over on MY property and racking up the prims on MY Land!”
A group of 13 player holds up their voting cards, like gymnastic events, deciding the fate of their fellow land owners. A promenient landbaron coudl be voted in as MCer and general all around
“Judge” if you will, but whose only role is to dispense TOS info and facts of the matter to the true judging party, the 13 players with their voting cards.

“He left me for that trollop … right there! *points finger* .. kicked me out, he did! Right on the street and let her take over! Now I can’t even get back on the land to get me stuff! And he’s using our Sexgen bed to poke HER! WahhH!”

maybe this judging party of players votes not just a yes and no at the end, but also votes on the believability of statements made by players, as they present thier arguments.

“Yes Your Honorable MarmelaGramela Doesburg, I give the player, known as Archilles the Dote. a 9.4 for his statement in regards to his claim of invasion of privacy by his neighbor’s wandering invisible cam. How else would the bloke know Archilles was shagging his girl with the GYRATOR Sex Machine if he didn’t virtually break in? Archillles dungeon had no windows for anyone to peer into and i am pretty sure his girl didn’t leave her undies about. *smirks*”

Yes, it could be all in very good fun and still resolve charges of wrongful doing. Maybe this is why the community can’t get motivated to get behind any legal system. Its all taken far too serious, if we go under the assumption that this is not going to solve RL legal dilemmas. Let’s leave the corporate and big deals to contract law and if it goes all wrong then chase down the RL legal options. So far, in my humbled existence in SL as a Sim Development firm *heads up all! Shameless Plug for me company!* UnReal Designs, LLC found on Phoenix Romance island, We’ve not had by two cases of ugliness on contracts, and both of those involved Gorean Sim *rolls eyes* and we ALL know why that is. *whispers behind her hand* They are all such drama kinds and queens! O- M - G!
May the Gods and Goddesses bless their ever lovin’ romantically brutal hearts, they do love to stir the pot. But, after all, they are actors on a stage living our their fantasies.

So, in summary, I am not seriously oppose to some governing body helping us sort through disagreements. Just make it entertaining and fun and honest still in the end by not putting the judgment in the hands of a few, but rather relying on fellow members of the community to decide the fact of thier peers. I know! I know! So Americana, but ya know what? It simply does work. Try it on for size! >>>> Ash? I surrender the floor to you my dearest barrister. *smiles and curtsies*

Tessa,

thank you again for your comment I know how busy that you always are.

As to “haven’t taken time to fully taste all the rewards and follies that naturally occur to people”, what exactly do you mean? As you know, no doubt, judges must perform their function impartially, and do so independently of their own feelings on the matter in question, instead using their intellect and practicality to apply the law to the facts as they are presented, or to find facts from the evidence before them (the latter only if there is no jury, on which, see below). They need to have a thorough understanding both of the law of the specific legal system in question, and also the nature of law in the abstract and legal reasoning to ensure that their decisions are consistent and justifiable. A judge must have an understanding of the community, but also be to some extent detached from it so as to render truly impartial judgments. How does all that fit into “tasting all the rewards and follies of SecondLife”? Can you give an example of how a judge who might have missed a reward or folly or two might render a seriously unjust judgment as a result of that? If not, is the point really relevant?

I have to say, I cannot agree with your suggestion about random people simply voting for judgments: as I wrote above, a judge needs to be skilled: such an arrangement as you describe, where there is no skill requirement for judges at all, is wholly incompatible with the rule of law. Why do you think that that “embraces what works” about democracy? There are no examples of a system such as you describe, so you cannot say that “it works”, since it is not in use anywhere. It is an untested idea.

It must be remembered that democracy and the rule of law come as a two part set, neither more important than the other. One cannot displace or stand instead of the other: both are required for a system that has adequate checks and balances and does not lead to abuses of power. A system where random people vote on questions of *law* is a system that invites mob rule, not the rule of law.

That is not to say that there is no place for juries in the Metaverse Republic: providing that we can find some way to make it workable (and I very much hope that we do), we are very likely to have an option for trial by judge and jury in our court system, which takes the workable element of what you suggest, but removes the problematic parts.

After all, if you were, for example, accused of a serious crime in real life, or had a highly valuable claim about a detailed contract against somebody that you sincerely believed was a good claim and that the other party was out to defraud you of your money, would you want your case to be decided *and presided over* by thirteen randomly selected people who may not have the first idea of law or court procedures, or by a professional judge who applies law that you can look up in advance not just of the hearing, but in advance of making the contract or doing anything else?

I will repeat here something that I wrote to another poster on this forum demonstrating just how impossible it is to simplify legal proceedings; it is a series of questions about how court procedure should work. Can you seriously imagine these questions being answered consistently (and consistently fairly) if all judicial decisions were made by people chosen entirely at random? The questions are: (1) what, if any, duty do parties to litigation have to disclose to the other parties information adverse to their own case; (2) what is the correct way of determining whether a case should be adjourned where one party wants it adjourned, and the other party is accusing the first of just trying to delay matters; (3) what is the means by which a party should set out its case against the other party, and in what, if any, circumstances, should that be allowed to be amended; (4) what are the circumstances in which an appeal should be allowed - should an appeal be as of right, effectively, an automatic further stage in all proceedings, or should there be a requirement of permission of the appeal tribunal, and, if so, what exactly should that requirement be; (5) what should be done about a party who refuses to respond to an accusation; (6) in what order should evidence be called; (7) what are the limits of acceptable cross-examination; (8) to what extent are parties under an obligation to put other parties on notice about the evidence and/or arguments that they intend to call and make; (9) what, if any, time limits should there be for each step of the proceedings; and (10) what sanctions should there be for those failing to comply with procedural rules?

As I have written elsewhere, the Metaverse Republic is not here to provide a source of entertainment directly, but it *is* designed to enable people better to enjoy and develop their existing means of entertainment (and serious commerce, and serious education, and the myriad other things that SecondLife and other virtual worlds can do), and it does that best by being a serious, professional, well-designed system with carefully developed rules diligently applied by professional, skilled people. As somebody who spends most of her time in SecondLife working hard and being diligent and professional in order to make money and further other people’s entertainment and commerce, I would hope that you will understand where we are coming from

Ahhh .. once again my eyes glazed over a bit, dear Ash, but managed to read through to enough to understand your position.

First, no matter how lofty you goals and education and community standing, our life experiences play a seriously important role in our perceptions of good and evil, if you will. A scant 2 years ago, if someone had told me I’d be wishing for a collar about my neck in RL, I’d have laughed in their faces and called them daft. Yet, here I am today, seeking just that. And i seriously doubt a year ago, Sir Ash, you’d have imagined that you’d enjoy dumpster diving, be it in SL or RL. Now, don’t tell me you don’t look at dumpsters in RL a little differently? *hehehe*

SL has this sometimes wonderful and sometimes disastrous influence on us all. We are able to experience things in fun and jest that’s we’d never have the courage to do otherwise. And sometimes those experiences carry over to RL, cause we simply can’t let go of their pull or it just simply becomes a matter of habit. How many of you have seen a picture of a product in a magazine or on TV and subconsciously found your fingers reaching for the mouse to right click on it for rotate and view it from another angle, or get the maker name? ;p This SecondLife is a powerful thing to live through and with. Now, who of us can say that this has not changed our perspectives on things in RL? I, for one, am not so righteous and filled with myself. I and much more tolerant of difference in people than I was before and I’ve soften in personality as a result. the repercussion of this? All good. My relationships are better, I am calmer in my every day activities and I am certainly a better business owner and boss as a result.

If you “judges” and “juries” are not true members of the society we call SecondLife then how can they judge us for events they known nothing of, that they’ve not tasted fully? We need people who know the ups and downs of SL. Who fully integrated the magic of SL into their lives and come out the other end, not peopel who have held back, for fear they might be consumed or stand back as an observer watching us all make fools of ourselves. That is the role of a commentary, not a judge. I judge has to have walked down at least some of the paths we all have to understand all of the perspectives and give a fair analysis of the situation.

This is why I am so in fair of a kinda of jury method of judgment. Let the Judge be the educator of law dynamics and the jury be the judges of moral and ethical issues, be that done in a somber ruling like a RL jury does, or a point system to make it a bit more fun and entertaining for everyone. Woudl i trust 13 random inidivduals with the fate of my RL business concerns that happen to reside through a virtual environment? Lordy no. I’d only trust my RL attorney with such things and a RL court of law. Nothing in here is going to hold water there on such matters, so why waste my time and energy and money on such things in here? If its that serious an issue I’ll take it to court in RL.

Would I trust 13 random individuals nt he Sl community to settle my SL play life issues, like ownership of shared pixel times or land rights issues? Sure! Who better to understand than my fellow SLer?

Tessa,

you don’t seem to address any of the rule of law issues, which were the most important parts of my reply. How would the Ten Questions be answered under the sort of system that you suggest, for instance? How would common law precedent work?

More fundamentally, I disagree that the Metaverse Republic is about settling “play life” issues. As discussed numerous times elsewhere, the SecondLife economy involves substantial commercial transactions, which, although their ultimate aim is often (but not always: serious services can be conducted through SecondLife, such as education, consultancy, etc.) somebody’s entertainment, are in themselves very serious. As also discussed elsewhere, the whole point of the Metaverse Republic is that it is often not practical to litigate all disputes over such issues in off-world courts, and legal rules of existing jurisdictions in any event very often simply do not cover the issues that need to be covered in virtual worlds (virtual land disputes being the chief example). The Metaverse Republic will be dealing with serious, not trivial issues, and, for that reason, needs a judicial system every bit as serious and every bit as professional off-world jurisdictions.

As to the point about community integration, by what standard, precisely, would you judge such integration? After all, a randomly selected panel of people are not guaranteed to be integrated at all: it could be filled with newbies. A judge who has been working in the Metaverse Republic for some time, on the other hand, would likely have acquired a considerable understanding of virtual world dynamics by so doing.

Can you give any specific examples of where experience of some specific aspect of SecondLife culture would have a significant adverse impact on the fairness of any given judgment? Bear in mind also the important point that any principle of substantive law developed through the common law will be subject to any legislation passed by a democratic parliament, so there is an important and powerful check against any problems that might be caused by judges acting otherwise than in accordance with the wishes or best interests of the community. What is your response, incidentally, to the point about impartiality and detachment?

Correction: “Can you give any specific examples of where experience of some specific aspect of SecondLife culture would have a significant adverse impact on the fairness of any given judgment?”

should have been

“Can you give any specific examples of where *a lack of* experience of some specific aspect of SecondLife culture would have a significant adverse impact on the fairness of any given judgment?”

The point here is that anything that had RL ramifications needs to be dealt with by RL forces that are recognized by RL law and authorities. Nothing done inworld will impact the court’s decisions in RL, so I fail to understand why anyone would want to waste their time and resources on mitigating a case through a faux legal system that would have no barring on RL issues at hand? Mediating is a very viable path to pursue, but that’s pretty much covered by the SL Mediators Group, yes?

Now, if Metaverse Republic, or another of the other legal bodies that have tried to be born in our virtual worlds here, were to be recognized as a legal body by all the world’s legal systems, AND everyone could agree on laws that they differed in, AND agree to allow decisions from the virtual legal system to impact and have a standing in RL courts, THEN you might have something, but the chances of that happening at slim to none - too many differences to overcome there, I fear.

Tessa,

the point of the Metaverse Republic is not to adjudicate on other jurisdictions’ laws, and deliver judgments that are enforced through off-world courts, but to adjudicate on a metaverse-specific system of law, and use a metaverse-specific means of enforcement that does not depend to any extent on using off-world courts or legal processes. We aim to be an entire legal system, not merely an alternative dispute resolution service. In other words, we are the thing that alternative dispute resolution is an alternative to.

As I have already explained, there are a very great many disputes in SecondLife that, because of (1) the vastly deflated nature of the SecondLife economy (at least 1/250th of the value of the equivalent transactions off-world), (2) the comparatively *inflated* costs of off-world litigation in relation to virtual worlds because of (a) the international nature of many disputes; and (b) the need to join Linden Lab as a party in most cases to discover the identity of the people in question (which, under the new ToS, must be done in San Fransisco no matter where in the world that the parties are), a very high proportion of disputes in SecondLife cannot *practically* be litigated in off-world courts: it is simply not worth the truly enormous expense. That does not mean that the disputes are trivial, though: your mistake, I think, is to assume that all disputes are either so trivial as to be nothing more than a game, or, alternatively, so immensely valuable that they justify the vast cost of off-world litigation. The reality is that there is a huge middle layer of intermediate disputes that, whilst serious, are not so valuable as to make off-world litigation financially viable, and so merit an in-world only solution. That also applies to matters that are simply not covered by the laws of off-world jurisdictions, such as, for example, virtual land nuisance.

Provided that our in-world enforcement mechanism, banishment from what we hope will be a large and growing slice of SecondLife’s land, has a real deterrent effect, then the Metaverse Republic’s legal system will be genuinely worthwhile for resolving that middle layer of disputes.

Furthermore, there may be many cases in which it is advantageous for a person to pursue litigation *both* in the Metaverse Republic *and* in off-world courts: after all, what has a person to lose by having two chances of succeeding, especially given that litigation in the MR will be greatly cheaper and quicker than in off-world courts?

Well i guess then I’d need to know the situations metaverse is wanting to take on and what their proposed solutions might be and the fees that one might expect to run into “litigating” though an SL legal system such as this. I totally disagree though with one ruling party and leaving out your average use jury. This could have simple eligibility rules to overcome your objections n your previous statements, such is they must be a resident over one year old, must reside in the plaintiff’s country so that regional RL laws coudl be taken into account, and not have a history of bad boy/girl behavior.

Tessa,

exactly what we end up dealing with mostly will be determined, ultimately, by market forces: we cannot at this stage predict exactly where the lines will be drawn as to when it will be productive to litigate in our courts, and that may in any event change over time. We have an idea of the sorts of things that we might deal with, of course, such as disputes about, for example, services provided to consumers or other businesses, financial services, intellectual property/originality, disputes between landlords and tenants about rent, evictions, covenants, disputes between neighbouring landowners about nuisance, blight, resource usage, perhaps some disputes about alleged harassment. The more commercial of those disputes would be of a variety of values, but probably not the very, very upper end (many thousands of US$), unless such litigation is taken in conjunction with litigation in off-world courts.

Then there is the whole local level, discussed in the original article, which might involve disputes about the organisation of a local community, or (otherwise intractable) disputes between members of such a community about, for example, whether, according to their own rules, a certain member should be expelled from that community, or whether person A or person B is the person entitled to take decision X, whether their local election was valid according to their own local rules, and so forth: all of the disputes, in other words, which, without possibility of effective, impartial resolution, make it extremely difficult to organise sophisticated local communities with highly shared responsibilities.

I am not clear on what you mean by, “one ruling party and leaving out your average use jury”. I have already expressed above the view that, if it is practical, we may very well indeed use juries in the Metaverse Republic, and I also explained the reasons (the rule of law points) why the system has to be a system of judge and jury, not jury alone, in which the jury make decisions of fact and the judge makes decisions of law (importantly always subject to legislation passed by the democratic parliament).

It is not clear why you choose the particular eligibility criteria that you do: what is special about a year, for example? I did ask you above to illustrate with a precise example how inexperience of a particular aspect of SL culture might make a particular judgment demonstrably less fair: if you cannot do that, then that would suggest that your point about integration is weaker than you make out, would it not? After all, in first-life courts, judges are used to assimilating a great deal of new information about all kinds of subcultures and working environments in order to decide a case, and can do so quite effectively. The employment field, for example, often requires tribunals to get to grips with what is often a highly complicated workplace culture just for for the specific case: nobody suggests that members of such tribunals should only ever be able to sit if they have worked for that particular company, or in that particular industry, for a year!

As to residing in the plaintiff’s country, that again misses the point of the Metaverse Republic: the real-life nationality of the participants is irrelevant. The Metaverse Republic is not here to adjudicate upon and enforce other jurisdictions’ laws, but to adjudicate upon and enforce exclusively its own laws, either developed through its own common law, or passed as legislation by its own democratically elected parliament. We will leave it to the national courts to adjudicate upon and enforce national laws. As stated in the original article, a great advantage of the Metaverse Republic is that people can litigate without revealing real-life details about themselves, including their nationality.

As to “a history of bad boy/girl behavior”, how, exactly, do you propose that that be judged and investigated, both in principle and in practice?

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