I have a question for you all.

Currently, I have several players on my Mud using it as a forum to talk to each other regarding the sale of drugs -- how much to sell to each other, costs, different types.

Currently, we have no rules regarding illegal activity, but we are in the middle of creating rules to discourage this behavior. With all of the different mediums available today, surely there is no need to have talk of how much weed/coke/acid to sell and for how much to your friends.


Has anyone else had this problem, and what type of policy did you enact to counter it?

Thanks,

M

I don't have much experience, but I'd suggest simply silencing anyone who wishes to discuss things like this. It could lead to problems for your MUD, and potentially even you personally.

If they really MUST do this, they should do it through another medium, if you mind them doing it.

Anyway, hope everything works out for you.

just kill them, or beat them half to death with a dull spoon

Courts are slowly placing more responsibility upon ISPs and newsgroups for the content within. It would certainly be wise at this point to inform your drug dealing mudders that such discussions will not be tolerated. Violations of your warnings should be dealt with accordingly.

Now, are you actually likely to get in trouble because of the conversations? Probably not. However, in these sorts of instances it is certainly best to choose the safe path, which is to disallow such conversations on your mud.

It is truely a sad day when MUDs become a medium for illegal activities. I believe this is a serious issue and Admins have a moral and legal obligation to act on it.

If an "conspiracy" to commit a crime takes place on a MUD and an Admin knows about the conspiracy, the Admin reluctently becomes a party to the crime. Which isn't a bad thing, but could be if the Admin does nothing to prevent the crime from happening.

Some people may argue, logs, snoops and cameras are a violation of a persons right to privacy - point them to the Constitution again. A person's right to privacy pertains to their protection from the Government. Secondly, a MUD is not considered a "safe haven" from ears that listen.

It would be in the best intrest of a MUD and their Admin to report this crime to the Local Police Department and the player's IP.

This is an issue I would like to explore more, if there are others out there, and I know you are there, who are skilled in cyber-law weigh in on this topic. I'm considering doing a piece on it and would like to pen something for the masses.

-C...

A. Definition of “conspiracy”: The common-law crime of conspiracy is defined as an agreement between two or more persons to do either an unlawful act or a lawful act by unlawful means. At common law, the prosecution must show the following:

1. Agreement: An agreement between two or more persons;

2. Objective: To carry out an act which is either unlawful or which is lawful but to be accomplished by unlawful means; and

3. Mens rea: A culpable intent on the part of the defendant.

Therefore, simply allowing a discussion to take place does not make the IMP a conspirator. A prosecutor would not be able to establish an mens rea requirement upon the IMP as they never agreed to partake in any conspiracy. Moreover, merely discussing the prices of drugs is not a conspiracy, as there is no agreement to engage in a future illegal activity.

Privacy rights are also protected from interference from other people. Though not on point, the Omnibus Crime Control & Safe Streets Act is clearly an example of the Federal Legislature enacting a statute preventing private citizens from violating other's privacy rights vis-a-vis wiretapping.

I would have to agree that this is a definite issue that needs adressing. Using a MUD as a medium for drug tafficking is rather..lame. The players should probably be reprimanded and/or told to leave the MUD and take their discussion(s) with them.
~Grey@SoA

I wouldn't be so certain about this, though. AFAIK, the governing law is , which defines immunity for the provider of a communication medium (ISP or in this case MUD imp, admin or host). However, this law also specifically mentions that criminal law is not impacted by this immunity.

IMHO, if it could be demonstrated that an admin had knowledge of criminal activities and failed to act upon it, the admin could be in trouble. Altough the very limited jurisprudence has so far kept upholding immunity even in criminal cases, the minority opinion of (by the Supreme Court of Florida, 4 to 3 ruling IIRC) merits closer scrutiny.

As Mason said, better be safe than sorry, and ban these guys after a single warning.

I did some research on this subject a while ago:



HTH

18 U.S.C. Sec. 4. - Misprision of felony

Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

Elements of the crime:

  The subject:

     1.  has knowledge of the commission of a felony,
     2.  conceals or does not report the crime, to the proper
             authorities.

Alistair brings up some good points in the document he links too. The main problem is, this area is new and case law changes on a daily basis. I do believe, without sounding like an alarmist, Admins can be held partially responsible for actions on their MUDs.

Besides the legal aspect of observing the crime, I believe there is a moral obligation to society. If an Admin knows a crime is being committed or about to be committed, he should report it to the proper authorities.  It is easy to look the other way and let nothing happen to the people, it is harder to make the actual report. As a good friend of mine said, on this topic, “Would you turn away and do nothing if a crime was happening in front of you?”

-C…

Thank you everyone for your help!

I appreciate the input, and the parties in question have been dealt with in what I feel is a responsible manner -- they've been removed, and site banned so they can not log in again. This has made several players angry because they do not know the facts of WHY they were removed, and we now have the wonderful position of reading reviews on this site from one of the players in question, slamming the mud.

But thank you for the help and advice, I really appreciate it a lot!


-M
.

I wonder, considering there are allot of people on a MUD of all different ages. Now, let's assume a normal 19 year old male MUDder. Perfectly good player and all, nothing illegal. He meets a girl on the MUD, who claims she is 17. I think everyone here agrees a 17 and a 19 year old together is perfectly acceptable.

Okay, so things go on and nature and hormones do their work on these two. Both are hopelessly in love with eachother untill one day the police arrests the 19 year old guy for attempted child molesting. Why? His girlfriend turned out to be 13, not 17 at all. Her parents caught her talking to the 19 year old and sent the police at him, not knowing their daughter told him she was 17.

Could the 19 year old be prosecuted? The parents are pressings charges at him for attempted child molest of their daughter, which is perfectly legal considering they are her legal guardians. What legal responsibility does the MUD have in this case? Remember the girl told EVERYONE she was 17. What would be the consequences of all this?

Here's an unpopular way of looking at this: why were you snooping these players anyway? If they were conversing in tells about something that they may or may NOT actually do in real life, what does it tell the players of your mud that you prosecuted them about their conversation?

I'd be very hesitant to play a mud where players are snooped in such a fashion, and then nuked without explanation.

Dub.

While you certainly looked up the proper statute, you have not looked at it closely enough. An examination of the annotated code would have shown your "elements" to be a misapplication of the law. You should fully examine the law before making assumptions based upon a reading.

"An essential element of the offense of misprision of felony is concealment, and mere failure to report a felony is not sufficient to constitute a violation under this section." U. S. v. Johnson, C.A.5 (Tex.) 1977, 546 F.2d 1225.

"Mere failure to report a felony is not sufficient to sustain conviction for misprision of felony; violation of this section additionally requires some positive act designed to conceal from authorities fact that felony has been committed." U.S. v. Davila, C.A.5 (Tex.) 1983, 698 F.2d 715, rehearing denied 703 F.2d 557.

Therefore, "conceal" is not merely inaction but requires some action (actus rea) upon the defendant. Your statement that "or does not report the crime" is an element of 18 U.S.C. §4 is entirely incorrect.

If the 19 and 13 year olds had sex he would be guilty of statutory rape as it is a strict liability crime and therefore there is no intent requirement needed to prosecute.  This is a well settled point of law.  Courts have even held 20 year olds with down syndrome with the "mental age" of 13 to be quilty of statutory rape when they engaged in sex with a minor.  Sounds harsh?  Bitch at your legislature, not me.

If the 19 and 13 year old had only had chatted in the room and developed affectionate feelings for each other it would be inappropriate to file attempted child molestation charges.  Simply falling in love with a 13 year old girl, no matter how objectionable it may be to some, is not a crime.

Please see my above post regarding the elements of concealment.

Actually, no, the jurisprudence is really scarce on 47 USC 230 - to my knowledge, there have been no more than 4 (perhaps 5) rulings on this issue so far.

This, however, means that any court ruling on immunity case will quite likely examine all the existing rulings - and if criminal law is involved, the dissenting opinion in Jane Doe v. AOL might actually prevail in the next court.
More so since, IMO, it does actually make more sense than the majority opinion in that context.

I think Maarken did the most sensible thing in this context. To deal with the aftermath, I'd do the following:
If #### happens on the MUD, more specifically if there are any newsboard posts, I'd simply post a note after a player critic that the players were removed due to abuse, which will not be discussed with other players. Then, a few days later, without actually mentionning this situation, post an update of the rules and policies. No other explanation given, or else you'll have arguments until the end of time, or rather, until the MUD's empty.

Criminal law applies in cyberspace too, you know.

Yes, I know.  However, the Admin in question acted as judge, jury, and executioner.  As another poster has shown...the Admin is not necessarily in danger because of a conversation that took place privately on his game.  Whether or not this is a criminal problem is very much open to interpretation, and could have been completely avoided by the Admin not using an unethical technique like snooping.  Thus my mention of CYA.

I can only guess that this is about this issue, but if so...one of the players removed was a long time player, and the discussion (so called illegal activity) happened in tells.  

I very much disagree with your advice to nuke the player with no explanation to players.  One of the muds I play, Aardwolf, has had great success with publicly giving reasons for all players who are nuked.  It gives the community a sense of their responsibility and their rights.  I know that most of you Admin type folks think that the people playing your games only have the right to log off...but I think it would be good for you to remember that the players are the ones who "flesh out" the game.  Otherwise we'd all be playing on our consoles with no human interaction.  Nuking long time players with no explanation is going to (rightly) **** other players off.  Why invest tons of time in your game if they could be removed without warning tomorrow?

Dub.

I didn't realize we were going to debate semantics of the law. If we want to get really technical:

"A mere failure or refusal to disclose the serious offense without some positive act of concealment does not make one guilty of this offense. Making a false entry in an account book for the purpose of concealing a theft committed by another is an example of a positive act of concealment."

I submit to your arguement that failure to report is not an element of the crime.

So what is the advise you would give to Maarken? Should she not be concerned with the fact that teenagers are consulting on her MUD on how to distribute illegal narcotics to one another, or how to slip a "mickey" in a female's drink?

Although there have been many discussions on the ethics of snooping in the past, mostly on mudconnector, the more moderate opinion was that as long as a player expects to be snooped at any time, then they can choose or not choose to play there, and ethics is followed. I am not opening up a debate on this issue, as this is the legal forum, not ethics.

Also, the administrative community does not 'mostly' believe that the only rights players have is to their 'close' button, there have been arguments on this as well, and there is a large difference on opinion. A Player's Bill of Rights has been proposed on numerous occasions. But that is another issue as well.

I make it a very obvious fact that I snoop anyone who plays my game on a random or semi-random basis, mostly because I compliment/criticize their RP on the ooc channel to point out good/bad things to other players, and make it obvious I got this information from snooping. If I had seen this type of conversation occurring, I would have done exactly as suggested... warned and then banned if the activity did not stop. If these players were indeed warned, then the reviewer on Gateway did an excellent job of skating around what he did not wish to be known. The best suggestion I can give is to post that the player was planning illegal ( make it clear that it was in real life ) activities on the mud and was banned for it. You do not have to elaborate unless the contraversy continues.

Of course, I am sure most of your players now know the reason since at least one or two have probably read this board and told the rest, but if not, then you could point out the reason at a later time if it becomes necessary.

Darrik Vequir

We can look at it this way. The Admins were snooping because of prior problems from these players. According to the rules of Maarken's MUD (notice - no shameless plugs) a player may be snooped or logged when it has been determined they are abusing a bug, harrassing other players or involved in quest cheating.  

In the case of the player who was removed, it was a log that watched their abuse of a bug that caught him making the illegal solicitation and statements.

I don't like to hang around people involved in criminal activity in RL, why would I want to do it in my MUD life, especially when they bring RL to my fantasy world?

The law is very technical. Semantics are a very important element of any discussion of the law. Any attorney can tell you that an "and" means a big difference than an "or."

Example #1:
element 1. blah blah blah; and
element 2. blah blah blah

Example #2:
element 1. blah blah blah; or
element 2. blah blah blah

In the first example a person would have to be guilty of element 1 AND element 2. In the second example the person would only have to meet element 1 OR element 2. They would not have to do both.

While this may seem off topic, it is to emphasize a point. Often, statutes have "terms of art" or language which requires legal training to understand. Therefore, we often have posts on these legal forums which misinterpret or miscommunicate what the the law states. It is important to realize that when you pass off your opinion as fact you are doing a disservice to those who may rely upon your statements.

I certainly understand people's willingness to want to help people understand these complex topics. And directing people to the appropriate statutes or cases is definitely a good start. However, unless one understands how to brief a case or knows what to look for when analyzing a case or statute, it might be best to refrain from offering an opinion about what the case or statute means. Every attorney looks beyond the language of statutes to see how courts have interpreted those statutes. And sometimes even judges disagree about what a statute actually means. (If you want a headache, research the legislative history of a statute).

That being said. What is my advice? Discourage and disallow such discussions. Remove frequent violators. At the very least, you would be able to show a "good faith" effort to preventing any illegal activity upon your MUD.

Some new potentially dangerous scenarios and solutions:

Player1 gossips 'DoOd, I am like so drunk!'
--> Announce: Player1 has been sitebanned until such time as he can prove that he is legally of age.

Player2 gossips 'Man, I need a smoke.  BBL'
--> Announce: Player2 has been sitebanned until such time as he can prove that he is legally of age to smoke.

Player3 gossips 'Haha, when I was in college I got high every night!'
--> Announce: Player3 has been deleted and sitebanned for admitting to past criminal behavior.

Player4 gossips 'Groan...my head is killing me.  I spent the weekend partying with my girlfriend.  We got drunk and ended up as a sweaty mess of limbs.'
--> Announce: Player 4 has been sitebanned until he can prove that he and his girlfriend are both of appropriate age, and that he is of a proper age to drink alcohol.

Yup, it was a private conversation. It was also taking place on a private MUD. This means, in very simple terms, that the owner or admins actually are indeed judge, jury and executioner.

Let's not get back to the debate of snooping ethics. Suffice to say, snoop is an administrative tool that may be percieved as nasty, but is often a necessary evil.
What is certainly unethical is advertising a MUD as non-snooping and doing it nonetheless. I didn't bother to read Maarken's privacy policy, but if he stated how and when he'd use snoop, and used it in conformance with this policy, there's absolutely nothing unethical about it.

That's certainly a very strong point of Aardwolf. My opinion is based on personal experience. I certainly don't claim to be the unique authority on such issues.

First off, I'm no "admin type" by any means.
Second, no, I don't see players as mere "livestock" to populate the game.  But an online community is a delicate balance: there are no universal recipes. The one which I saw working best in the past is to simply state the reason for the ban (abuse) - airing dirty laundry between the staff and former players is firstly bad for the kind of community  I have experience with, and more importantly, is unfair to the banned players who cannot respond on the same medium.

Rightly? Why? Because they're long time players? Meaning they have a "right" to special treatment? If long-term players are treated any differently than newbies, I can see that rightly ****ing people off.

If memory doesn't fail me, the majority advised banning after one warning.

Would be fun to see a player get deleted and sitebanned because they ended up in a hopeless PK fight.

"Euthenasia is illegal."

ROFL

Because we're not talking about a clear violation of policy.  We're talking about players saying something that bugged the Admin.  So yeah, I think respect and loyalty for past contribution should weigh into the judgement call of whether to nuke the player or not.  There's a big difference between a complete newbie walking onto your mud and saying something somewhat objectionable, and a long time player that has contributed to the game saying something objectionable.  As I said before, a lot of the longterm success of muds is determined by the actions of its players, and to ignore their contribution is insulting.

Don't try to muddy the water with a "there has to be one rule for everyone" bit.  There was no rule in this case.  It was a judgement call.

Dub.

Well, first off, we don't know all the sides to the story, so my statements are quite logically in the theoretical realm.

Second, I'm not muddying the waters or anything. Perhaps you should try and not see any single post here as a global player vs. imm conflict or conspiracy.

First point, Your 'theoretical examples' that could spawn off this action are all FAR different than the case stated here.  You don't assume people who say they have been drinking are underage, you assume they are overage. For that matter, random comments such as those could be 1) a lie to sound cool ( Yes, this happens ) and 2) stating these things over a communications base can not be gathered as a legal risk to the administrator. This is extremely different than organizing a system to distribute/sell/(make?) drugs, as the administrators ARE possibly at risk legally if these plans succeed ( or don't, I guess, if they are caught ).  

Secondly, as far as the nuke goes, I believe it was pointed out that they were warned before being nuked?  If they were not, then I would understand your point that long-time players should be given a warning... but so should newbies, as they are new to the mud and the administrator.  If they were warned, then I do not believe long-term players should be given any more breaks.

Thanks for your time,

Darrik Vequir