A few months back I posted a link to a gold farming study by Myke Sanders, a fellow Dallas IGDA board member. Well, Myke just forwarded me his new article on the use of virtual worlds for money laundering. A full PDF is available here.
When I had envisioned use of a virtual world for money laundering, I had always anticipated use of a front business in, say, Second Life such that 'dirty' money is used to buy Linden Dollars that are used to buy virtual goods, and then the front business cashes out the Linden Dollars for 'clean' money. Use of things like prepaid debit cards could even facilitate the laundering of dirty cash.
Myke has a background in credit card processing, however, and came up with an entirely different mechanism based on where the transactions couldn't be traced. While it could also use prepaid cards, it could also be used to generate cash from stolen cards.
As an interesting sidenote, Myke and I were discussing this very topic, and he suggested that the same methodology described in this paper could be used to put gold farmers out of business based on the number of chargebacks they would receive. Of course, that would be highly illegal.
In terms of solutions, I'm not sure his suggested idea of tracking transactions in virtual goods is practical, and even if it were, I don't know that it would be applied to item drops later picked up by other players. More importantly, as Myke pointed out to me, what if an organized crime group created their own MMORPG which they used for laundering, and simply didn't track transactions for that reason.
It's certainly an interesting issue to think through, and I'm not sure there's a readily available answer. I've seen other papers propose all sorts of solutions to the more traditional laundering I've mentioned in the past, but this newer methodology Myke describes is much harder to deal with.
Showing posts with label Criminal Law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Criminal Law. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Friday, August 15, 2008
Law of the Game on Joystiq: Let the punishment fit the crime
On this week's Law of the Game on Joystiq, I discuss criminal legal theory as it relates to the tragic Thai cabbie killing.
Read on!
Read on!
Thursday, May 31, 2007
3 Games and You've Got 25 to Life
Making game sales a felony is the latest idea out of a New York legislature so bent on wasting time that they've authored dozens of anti-video game bills in the last month. The Constitutional issues have been brought up in other reports, but New York GameStop employees (among others) should really be paying attention. Why?
New York has a "3 Strikes" rule, which was upheld in 2005.
While the law does give some leeway for the sentencing court, it theoretically allows a judge to put someone away for life for selling a copy of, say, Gears of War to a 16 year old who looks 18. Yes, selling a game could come with a life sentence under the new law.
As I have stated before, this is just poor governance. However, to go as far as to make it a felony borders on lunacy. It would only further contribute to prison overcrowding, among other things. Moreover, providing alcohol or tobacco to a minor is generally a misdemeanor and a fine in most states, and there is no penalty for selling a copy of Saw or Hostel to a minor. In any event, the game developer and game retailer attorneys will likely be busy in New York in the coming months considering the determination the New York legislature is showing on this non-issue.
[Update: A reader apprised me of a very recent federal district court decision that may, for the time being, put the New York 3 Strikes rule on hold. However, that doesn't mean this hypothetical is any less relevant. (And after all, it is merely a hypothetical as the game regulation bill hasn't yet passed.)
1. The part of the law the district court has issue with could be removed from or modified in the law rather easily by the legislature or an activist judiciary. This would make all twice convicted felony offenders "persistent felony offenders" and eligible for the heightened third strike penalty (rather than allowing the judicial discretion).
2. The district court could be overturned on appeal.
3. The New York legislature could simply pass a new 3 strikes rule modeled on California's rule, which has already been upheld by the US Supreme Court.
So, while the issue may be (hypothetically) muted for the time being, it is by no means dead.]
New York has a "3 Strikes" rule, which was upheld in 2005.
While the law does give some leeway for the sentencing court, it theoretically allows a judge to put someone away for life for selling a copy of, say, Gears of War to a 16 year old who looks 18. Yes, selling a game could come with a life sentence under the new law.
As I have stated before, this is just poor governance. However, to go as far as to make it a felony borders on lunacy. It would only further contribute to prison overcrowding, among other things. Moreover, providing alcohol or tobacco to a minor is generally a misdemeanor and a fine in most states, and there is no penalty for selling a copy of Saw or Hostel to a minor. In any event, the game developer and game retailer attorneys will likely be busy in New York in the coming months considering the determination the New York legislature is showing on this non-issue.
[Update: A reader apprised me of a very recent federal district court decision that may, for the time being, put the New York 3 Strikes rule on hold. However, that doesn't mean this hypothetical is any less relevant. (And after all, it is merely a hypothetical as the game regulation bill hasn't yet passed.)
1. The part of the law the district court has issue with could be removed from or modified in the law rather easily by the legislature or an activist judiciary. This would make all twice convicted felony offenders "persistent felony offenders" and eligible for the heightened third strike penalty (rather than allowing the judicial discretion).
2. The district court could be overturned on appeal.
3. The New York legislature could simply pass a new 3 strikes rule modeled on California's rule, which has already been upheld by the US Supreme Court.
So, while the issue may be (hypothetically) muted for the time being, it is by no means dead.]
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Second Life Rape: Much Ado About Nothing
Law of the Game is typically about intellectual property and business law type matters, expanding at most into the civil arena. However, due to the incomprehensible number of news stories about Second Life rape, the blog will be taking a short detour into the world of quasi-criminal law.
The common denominator between these articles is their approach to the analysis of so-called "Virtual Rape." (Although some draw lines between virtual sexual harassment, stalking, and rape through so-called "voodoo dolls," all are dealing with the same over-arching concept.) I think many of them have missed the point. So, rather than start with what occurs in Second Life, let's start with what occurs in First Life, i.e. the real world.
There are really two kinds of rape: Traditional forced intercourse and Statutory rape. Both could theoretically occur in a virtual world, so each should be looked at individually.
Statutory Rape
Statutory Rape is "a sexual act that is considered rape by the law regardless of whether it was coercive or consensual." In most jurisdictions, this would be like a 30 year old having sex with a 13 year old. The law protects the child because consent is not necessarily valid and because there is a moral stance against the action.
Can this occur in Second Life? Well, it can. Teens are supposed to be segregated to the teen grid, but either an adult posing as a teen or vice versa could theoretically be on the wrong grid. If said impostor has cybersex with someone of a radically different age, it could in fact be statutory rape.
Or is it? No sex is actually occurring. While the pedophile in question may be slapped with all sorts of indecency charges, I have yet to see any prosecution in the US for statutory rape based entirely on cybersex, and if such a prosecution had occurred, I'm sure certain websites would have posted it by now.
Traditional Forced Intercourse
Traditional rape is generally defined as forced intercourse without consent. Under the voodoo doll scenario posted on Virtually Blind, a rape is possible, in that forced intercourse occurs. So, people in Second Life can get raped.
Or can they? Typically, a player has to install or activate some element of code to enable the rape. By this simple action, are they not consenting? And if they are volunteering, then the act is not rape. Even if the code is maliciously installed, like a virus, Second Life rape and real life rape have one major difference: In Second Life, you can always pull the plug. Turn off your computer. Disconnect from the server. Walk away from the monitor. There are many, many points of egress that a real rape victim is not afforded.
Conclusion
In short, Second Life rape isn't really rape at all. It's not a nice thing to do (assuming it's the effect of a virus and not voluntary as opposed to people who buy into it), but it's certainly not a crime. However, that is not to say that some real crimes may not come from stalking that originates in Second Life, or leaks of personal information, but until it crosses the boundary to have a real, tangible criminal effect in the real world, like stalking or identity theft or burglary, it's not anything more than a pseudo-crime. As such, I would hope the police find something better to do than investigate rape in Second Life, such as investigate rapes and murders in real life.
The common denominator between these articles is their approach to the analysis of so-called "Virtual Rape." (Although some draw lines between virtual sexual harassment, stalking, and rape through so-called "voodoo dolls," all are dealing with the same over-arching concept.) I think many of them have missed the point. So, rather than start with what occurs in Second Life, let's start with what occurs in First Life, i.e. the real world.
There are really two kinds of rape: Traditional forced intercourse and Statutory rape. Both could theoretically occur in a virtual world, so each should be looked at individually.
Statutory Rape
Statutory Rape is "a sexual act that is considered rape by the law regardless of whether it was coercive or consensual." In most jurisdictions, this would be like a 30 year old having sex with a 13 year old. The law protects the child because consent is not necessarily valid and because there is a moral stance against the action.
Can this occur in Second Life? Well, it can. Teens are supposed to be segregated to the teen grid, but either an adult posing as a teen or vice versa could theoretically be on the wrong grid. If said impostor has cybersex with someone of a radically different age, it could in fact be statutory rape.
Or is it? No sex is actually occurring. While the pedophile in question may be slapped with all sorts of indecency charges, I have yet to see any prosecution in the US for statutory rape based entirely on cybersex, and if such a prosecution had occurred, I'm sure certain websites would have posted it by now.
Traditional Forced Intercourse
Traditional rape is generally defined as forced intercourse without consent. Under the voodoo doll scenario posted on Virtually Blind, a rape is possible, in that forced intercourse occurs. So, people in Second Life can get raped.
Or can they? Typically, a player has to install or activate some element of code to enable the rape. By this simple action, are they not consenting? And if they are volunteering, then the act is not rape. Even if the code is maliciously installed, like a virus, Second Life rape and real life rape have one major difference: In Second Life, you can always pull the plug. Turn off your computer. Disconnect from the server. Walk away from the monitor. There are many, many points of egress that a real rape victim is not afforded.
Conclusion
In short, Second Life rape isn't really rape at all. It's not a nice thing to do (assuming it's the effect of a virus and not voluntary as opposed to people who buy into it), but it's certainly not a crime. However, that is not to say that some real crimes may not come from stalking that originates in Second Life, or leaks of personal information, but until it crosses the boundary to have a real, tangible criminal effect in the real world, like stalking or identity theft or burglary, it's not anything more than a pseudo-crime. As such, I would hope the police find something better to do than investigate rape in Second Life, such as investigate rapes and murders in real life.
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