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Virtual Land, Real Court, Real Money 155

Posted by Zonk from the virtual-world-real-courts dept.
Wired is reporting on what may be a first: a real world court appearance over a virtual land claim. From the article: "The attorney, Marc Bragg of West Chester, Pennsylvania, says game developer Linden Lab unilaterally shut down his Second Life account, cutting off his access to a substantial portfolio of real estate and currency in the virtual world. He's demanding $8,000 in restitution. Bragg claims Linden Lab froze his account after a land deal went bad. The attorney said he found a legitimate way to purchase land at prices far below market rates, using an online auction on the Second Life website."
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Virtual Land, Real Court, Real Money More

Virtual Land, Real Court, Real Money

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  • but I'll bet a $ if he wasn't his own lawyer, he wouldn't be able to pursue this, as noone (except maybe the honorable Mr. Thompson from FL) would be willing to represent him over such a 'tawdry' thing.
    • Not true, a lawyer will represent your claims, as long as he can ethically do so. The arguement can atleast be made ethically that wrong "COULD" have been done. The lawyer would not deny to take a case of this sort base on ethical grounds atleast. Money would be the major factor, but as long as you are willing to pony up cash upfront, many lawyers will take the case.
      • Not true, a lawyer will represent your claims, as long as he can ethically do so.

        Bwahhahahahahahhahahah!

      • Re:IANAL (Score:5, Informative)

        by hawk ( 1151 ) <hawk@eyry.org> on Thursday May 18, 2006 @01:19PM (#15359422) Journal
        I am a lawyer, but this isn't legal advice.

        In this case, there pretty clearly isn't a contract with offer and acceptance. The offer is made when the land is actually put up for auction *by the seller*.

        The case is a clear enough loser (and a good example of the "fool for a client" principle) that the only way that a lawyer *could* take it would be in a "good faith effort to *change* the law."

        hawk, esq.
        • (and a good example of the "fool for a client" principle)

          That was my very first thought. IANAL, but I have done litigation work for the last 6 years (mostly as a paralegal) and the pro se types on the other side can be such a royal PITA. This would likely be even worse.

  • I'm not a lawyer, but given the VERY real value of these pieces of property he may have a claim. Course he was probably in violation of a EULA or even contract that he agreed to but didn't read, which compromises his standing. The scariest thing to think about would be if these companies could seize accounts that use that new ATM system. They'd have the ability to legally seize real money, kinda like people say Paypal's been doing.

    • Re:No Surprise. (Score:5, Informative)

      by iocat ( 572367 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @11:49AM (#15358467) Homepage Journal
      Well, I actually RTFA and what he did was change the URL for an auction so he was bidding on land no one knew was up for auction. His claim is "hey it worked, so I own that now," but to me it basically seems the same as changing price tags at Home Depot and then being like "well, the price tags come off, so you need to sell me this $1299 BBQ for $199."

      In short, dude doesn't have a case. But he does have a great deal of free publicity.

      • Re:No Surprise. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Jherek Carnelian ( 831679 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @12:22PM (#15358835)
        changing price tags at Home Depot and then being like "well, the price tags come off, so you need to sell me this $1299 BBQ for $199."

        Seems more like taking the the price tags off, then going to the cashier and saying - "I think this should cost $199 - do you agree?" and the cashier agrees, rings it up and lets you leave with the BBQ. Then a week later Home Depot comes by your house and tries to reposses the BBQ.

        It takes two to tango, in this case the seller agreed to the selling price. They have a responsibility to refuse transactions that they don't want to accept. Saying that the sale was automated and thus not subjected to sanity checks ought not be a sufficient defense.

        If you want the benefits of automated sales without the risks, it ought to be up to the seller to implement effective precautions. No e-commerce developer with even half a claim to competence would allow the price of a product to be determined by the contents of the URL submitted to the webserver - unless they wanted to on purpose (c.f. cd-wow, they've got a bunch of different URL's to their site and depending on which one you use, you'll see variations of up to a couple of dollars in their prices).

        • Re:No Surprise. (Score:3, Insightful)

          by iocat ( 572367 )
          Yeah, but where you lose the case is where you took the price tag off in the first place. Whether the cashier is a moron on not, if you actively participate in the confusion, you're wrong.

          Linden may be morons for making their auction system easy to exploit, but in the same way companies aren't liable for misprints in ad fliers, and companies can cancel obviously broken sales (like when an airline website accidently sells flights for $.02; the airline can cancel those sales, though usually they don't for PR

          • Well, they WOULD have had the right to cancel the sale, but problem is, they DIDN'T.
            They made the sale, then froze his entire account, sim in question and all other owned stuff too.

            The company could as easily have kept the account running, return the bid money, and undo ownership of the auctioned sim. Heck, they could have KEPT the real money and given him something else inside the virtual world. Or any other large number of things that wouldn't have lead to this.

            The case is against the account freezing (as

        • Re:No Surprise. (Score:5, Informative)

          by sirwired ( 27582 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @01:15PM (#15359383)
          It takes two to tango, in this case the seller agreed to the selling price. They have a responsibility to refuse transactions that they don't want to accept. Saying that the sale was automated and thus not subjected to sanity checks ought not be a sufficient defense.

          Nope. Linden Labs can take the property back, no problem, or at least have the virtual "contract" voided. This is because there was no "meeting of the minds" when the contract was executed. If I, by mistake, offer to pay $1000 for a Billy Joel CD, when really I left out the decimal point and meant to offer $10.00, there is no obligation for me to actually pay that much money for something clearly worth much less.

          They go over this in Business Law 101.

          In this case, Linden Labs didn't mean to have the land up for sale at all, so no contract to buy it can possibly be valid, even if it was possible to trick Linden's computer systems into thinking it was up for sale. Now, if Linden Labs had taken some affirmative step to place the land up for sale, there might be an argument, since the value of the "land" is so difficult to determine.

          If we want to torture the "Home Depot" analogy some more: The guy grabbed $3000 worth of lumber, got a cashier drunk, and then convinced him to ring it all up for $30. That's theft, no matter how you slice it.

          SirWired
          • If I, by mistake, offer to pay $1000 for a Billy Joel CD, when really I left out the decimal point and meant to offer $10.00, there is no obligation for me to actually pay that much money for something clearly worth much less.

            The difference here is that not only did you offer to pay $1000, you DID pay $1000. It's a lot harder to get your money back after the fact than it is to simply refuse to hand it over in the first place.
            • The difference here is that not only did you offer to pay $1000, you DID pay $1000. It's a lot harder to get your money back after the fact than it is to simply refuse to hand it over in the first place.

              I was illustrating the concept of "meeting of the minds". Thst analogy does not exactly map to this situation. Personally, I like my clever drunken Home Depot cashier analogy, which actually maps quite well to this situation.

              SirWired
          • In this case, Linden Labs didn't mean to have the land up for sale at all, so no contract to buy it can possibly be valid, even if it was possible to trick Linden's computer systems into thinking it was up for sale. Now, if Linden Labs had taken some affirmative step to place the land up for sale, there might be an argument, since the value of the "land" is so difficult to determine.

            I Haven't played Second Life, so I hope someone will pop up and correct my question, but the article mentions that the land wa
            • I am not a lawyer so this is just talking out my arse. But I don't think that having the intention to sell something is going to be the same as actually moving to sell soemthing.
              To use an analogy, and probably get bogged down in the details of it: I have a monitor sitting in my garage which I intend to sell, and I forget to close the garage some times. I have not, however, actually put it up for sale. Assuming that someone knew my intention, and saw it sitting in my garage; would they be justified in go

              • Re:No Surprise. (Score:2, Interesting)

                by whoop ( 194 )
                Since they're saying the plots of land have a "for sale" sign posted in game with the lot's ID, it would seem to me to be more like you are having a garage sale. You start writing a sign for the monitor, "For Sale $1" when you are called away by the spouse to kill a spider. You intended to finish writing "$100." And the monitor is sitting in the foyer connecting your garage to the house. You left the door open when you went on the spider job.

                Someone comes along, sees the sign (not exactly in the garage)
                • Since they're saying the plots of land have a "for sale" sign posted in game with the lot's ID, it would seem to me to be more like you are having a garage sale. You start writing a sign for the monitor, "For Sale $1" when you are called away by the spouse to kill a spider. You intended to finish writing "$100." And the monitor is sitting in the foyer connecting your garage to the house. You left the door open when you went on the spider job.

                  Someone comes along, sees the sign (not exactly in the garage), le

                • Re:No Surprise. (Score:3, Interesting)

                  by Sylver Dragon ( 445237 )
                  I think sirwired hit it for the analogy. The normal procedure was bypassed to complete the sale. Though, the counter argument to this would be that the guy in the article did, in a manner of speaking, use the normal procedure (This is where the analogy starts to break down). So the question becomes, is it valid to utilitze an automated system to buy something, before the seller intends for that system to be used? Since there was not a public posting of the sale, I think it would be a safe assumption tha
          • The guy grabbed $3000 worth of lumber, got a cashier drunk, and then convinced him to ring it all up for $30. That's theft, no matter how you slice it.

            Oh... So that is why Home Depot smells like whiskey! You'd think they have rules against drinking on the job especially with all the power tools involved.
          • Nope. Linden Labs can take the property back, no problem, or at least have the virtual "contract" voided. This is because there was no "meeting of the minds" when the contract was executed. If I, by mistake, offer to pay $1000 for a Billy Joel CD, when really I left out the decimal point and meant to offer $10.00, there is no obligation for me to actually pay that much money for something clearly worth much less.

            They go over this in Business Law 101.

            This is a dangerous and misleading reduction of the truth.
            • However, what you're suggesting amounts to carte blance for buyer's remorse, and that's just not the case. You can't just up and decide "oh, well, I didn't really mean what I told you I meant in writing, and handed over the receipt for."

              Um, no. That is NOT what I said. I said that the sale could be invalidated when the offered price was CLEARLY in error. I said NOTHING about offers where the existence of the error was not clear. Certainly, offering $15 or $20 for a CD, where you "meant" to offer $10 wou
              • Oh, and before you bring it up, the repudiation of the contract does not necessarily mean that the party making the error is off the hook entirely. They may still have to pay damages casued by the other party (or parties) relying on the error. How much (if any) in damages are awarded depends on the unique circumstances of the case.

                SirWired
              • Um, no. That is NOT what I said. I said that the sale could be invalidated when the offered price was CLEARLY in error.

                If you take the time to read what you said [slashdot.org], you'll discover that in fact you made no such restraint on who could claim an invalidated sale, allcaps notwithstanding.

                I said NOTHING about offers where the existence of the error was not clear.

                You said nothing about the clarity of the error at all. If you're going to protest that someone is rebutting something you didn't say, at least have the
                • in fact you made no such restraint

                  s/restraint/constraint/1. Sorry.
                • First off, Whew! That is a long reply! (Not meant as an insult, just a note of respect for the amount of effort you put into it.) I think we do in fact agree on most points.

                  Firstly, sorry I used all caps frequently in my post. I am a lazy typist and just use the shift key when I probably should be slapping italics or underline tags around a word or two. I don't use all caps when it is longer than a word or two since that is indeed hard to read. (In this post, I will use plain italics for a direct quot
        • Seems more like taking the the price tags off, then going to the cashier and saying - "I think this should cost $199 - do you agree?" and the cashier agrees, rings it up and lets you leave with the BBQ. Then a week later Home Depot comes by your house and tries to reposses the BBQ.

          1. You tampered with the product by removing the price tag. Legally and morally, it doesn't matter if you affixed another piece of sticky tape to the box or not.
          2. The cashier is probably not authorized to negotiate sales prices
          • IANAL, but while I suspect in #1 the 'buyer' is almost certainly in the wrong here.
            I don't think #2 hurts the 'buyer' at all. It's not up to the buyer to determine who has what authority to set prices. The Cashier is clearly an employee of the company and the customer can reasonably assume the price charged by the casier is o.k. with the company.
            Now if the price is clearly ridiculous, say a $5000 plasma tv for $29.95, then shure one might argue the customer should recognize that an error h
        • They should've just fixed the security hole. Its quite simple really; if the minimum for land auctions is $1000, then the validator should require the value to be over $1000 for auctions of type(land).
        • It takes two to tango, in this case the seller agreed to the selling price. They have a responsibility to refuse transactions that they don't want to accept. Saying that the sale was automated and thus not subjected to sanity checks ought not be a sufficient defense.

          Ah, but it is, especially in this case. IANAL (but I've a fair slab of legal training), but I can tell you that, at least in most of the Commonwealth (and so I'd assume the USA too), machines cannot actually consent to anything themselves, it c

    • Re:No Surprise. (Score:3, Informative)

      by ZombieWomble ( 893157 )
      It's more than just violating the EULA - he 'hacked' (yes, I know it's not exactly the right word, but you just know it'd be used if it ever came to court) the system to enable him to circumvent controls (minimum bids, probably some degree of supervision from someone at the company) to get property which, if the system was working correctly, he would have paid many times more for.

      Compare it to some types of cheque fraud - the system (or teller or what have you, depending on the nature of the scam) is fool

      • Re:No Surprise. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by gEvil (beta) ( 945888 )
        Watch what happens next--Linden Labs will slap a countersuit at him alleging a DMCA violation. Sad thing is, their case will have a whole lot more merit than his does.
        • He didn't circumvent a copy-control, there's no DMCA violation.

          They could try to get him on unauthorized use a computer system, but the precedent there would be bad.

          Do you really want to go to jail because you guessed a URL? I know I often have tried to get around sites with bad navigation by crafting the URL, I don't consider that hacking.
          • They could try to get him on unauthorized use a computer system, but the precedent there would be bad.

            Do you really want to go to jail because you guessed a URL? I know I often have tried to get around sites with bad navigation by crafting the URL, I don't consider that hacking.

            How often does your crafting of a URL cost a company monies on the order of maybe ten thousand dollars? (guesstimate based off how much he "withdrew" from his account after they closed it)

            Very different situations - lots of th

            • Interestingly enough, the only way he can be indirectly 'withdrawing' from his Second Life account is if he had set something up to do so before his accoun was frozen. So it seems me that he realized before he even started that this outcome was likely, and planned for it. That's really not going to look good for him in court...
          • He didn't circumvent a copy-control, there's no DMCA violation.

            IIRC, the wording of the DMCA refers to access control devices, which could conceivably cover a URL.
      • How is this any different than people who are able to purchase items off Ebay for much lower than the market rate because the seller misspelled the item being sold (e.g. "dimond ring")?

        • Re:No Surprise. (Score:1, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Because the misspelled eBay lot was still intentionally posted at the given starting price/reserve, so the auction was live. The SL land auctions were not live yet, so their prices had not been set to their normal starting price of $1000.

          What's especially stupid is this guy is suing for the amount the land would have been worth if it had gone live, instead of the $8 or whatever he actually paid for it.
        • cause a misspell is the auctioneers mistake, Linden did everything right (except maybe proper security), Bragg altered the auction to get those prices

          it would be like cracking into the account and chaging the spelling after you bid
    • Course he was probably in violation of a EULA or even contract that he agreed to but didn't read, which compromises his standing.

      From my understanding, most EULA disagreements that have made it into court have been deemed invalid by the courts. Of course it depends on which court you get your case into...

      Here is the wiki article on EULA Enforcability [wikipedia.org]

      The forceability of an EULA depends on several factors, one of them being the court that the case is heard in. Most courts that have addressed the validity of t

  • So let me get this straight.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18, 2006 @11:37AM (#15358333)
    The guy exploits a bug, gets his account shut out, and is expecting money?

    "Without merit" indeed.

  • He is pretty screwed (Score:2, Insightful)

    by danikar ( 896514 )
    2 things, there is probably somthing saying if you use an exploit you will get your account deleted and also just the sheer fact that he used such a underhanded way to cheat the online auction system... He deserves his account deleted.
  • So, my wife just heard about second life last night... and wants to get online playing it. I have started researching it a bit today. Second life is very different than the MMORPGs I have played in the past. Second life encourages you to buy land and buy money, with real currancy. Interestingly enough, they also seem to respect your IP rights, for items you bring into the game. I think that the fact that you can convert real money into virtual assets will put this guy in the winner's circle... assuming
    • That ignores the real issues.

      The issue at hand is whether crafting a URL is "hacking" or if the subsequent results of typing a hand crafted URL that the creator didn't intend you to type can form the basis of a binding contract or not.

      (BTW- Second life isn't a MMORPG, it's a 3D development platform in the form of an interactive social world)
      • That is part of the issue, but they closed his account, which probably had more in it, than the land. That "virtual property" has actual, real-world worth. I think they should remove the land from his account, an refund his money. But, I am not so sure about out right banning him.
        • That is one of the bad parts about content creation on SL.

          You own the IP rights to everything you create, but LL disclaims any responsibility to preserving your access to it. If their inventory server goes belly up and all the backups are eaten by moths, the TOS says LL isn't liable for anything.

          There has been some talk of a system where you could make local backup copies of in world objects, but that's hard to work with the internal DRM that all objects in-world have.
          • At a guess their TOS and/or EULA claims about not being responsible for continued access are going to last in court about as long as a snowball in hell. Because it can be directly shown that the in game assets have a real world value, and they are acting as a broker for such assets, they are probably about to be introduced to all of the laws pertaining to being an asset broker. This is one of the reasons MMOG's are trying really hard to prevent virtual items from becomming property, it would essentially t
        • As has been previously noted his actions probably are against an EULA that he agreed to which certainly has the action to delete his account listed as a possible cosequence.

          Course having never read their EULA I could be wrong.

    • Re:Second life allows you to purchase land with ca (Score:4, Informative)

      by Aladrin ( 926209 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @12:23PM (#15358854)
      Sure, they DO respect your IP rights. But you have to abide by the terms of service. He exploited the system and violated those terms. He won't win this one. Same as if he cheated a real auction.

      BTW, this is off-topic, but if you wife is even a little squeemish on the porn front, she's going to want to join the teen server. It's porn/bdsm heaven out there in the rest of the world. (I didn't join the teen server, but I hear they are pretty serious about keeping it clean.)

      I was also very interested in creating items in game, but just like real life, having a storefront is location, location, location and getting your items in front of people that will buy them isn't all that easy.

      In short: Don't invest much money until you are SURE you have a handle on the whole business.
      • Adults are not permitted on the Teen Grid in Second Life (other than Linden Lab employees, of course).

        SL has about the same porn/not-porn ratio as the rest of the intarwebs, I would estimate. Just watch out: us furries are taking the damn place over. ;)
        • Wow, my mistake. I definitely got bad advice there, then.

          So I change my advice to: If your wife has problems with the porn ads that appear when you go to shady sites, don't go to Second Life at all.

          I haven't found any way to be reasonably sure the neighborhood you are about to enter will be porn-free. On the web, you can at least avoid sites that have questionable content (free illegal stuff, just sign up for our newsletter, etc!) and only have to worry about misspelled domain names.

          If she's not squeemis

  • Wow (Score:3, Funny)

    by RegalBegal ( 742288 ) <regalbegal@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Thursday May 18, 2006 @11:45AM (#15358422) Homepage
    I'm so glad. So very glad my life doesn't amount to caring about virtual land. It's so nice out today.

  • The real story (Score:5, Informative)

    by GigsVT ( 208848 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @11:53AM (#15358502) Journal
    Here's how it worked.

    You could find land in-world that was marked for auction but hadn't gone up for auction yet. It had the auction ID on the parcel info.

    You could then go to the auction web site and change the GET variable in an auction URL to point to the not-yet-existing auction, which would come up with a minimum bid of $0, rather than the normal $1000.

    His case hinges on one you hand typed this crafted URL, it says "Be the first to bid in this auction, bid at least $1"... he claims that this formed a binding offer of sale.

    The "exploit" was trivial, but it was obviously not the intent of Linden Lab to sell the land for a minimum bid of $0.

    • With a normal MMORPG like World of Warcraft, there's really no issue with the game company taking things away from you if you accessed something you shouldn't. After all, they explicitly disclaim any real value of any items, and fight to stop any sale of them. You just pay a monthly fee to play the game. Thus there's very little legal standing to say that something you had was worth anything. It's all just game data, no real value.

      However here the company has specificly worked to create real value behind it
    • I'm subscribed to Second Life, and I see this whole issue as being very simple. I tend to have balanced views on most things, and this is no exception.

      Bragg clearly perpetrated a simple scam. He knows that Linden Labs never intended to sell $1000 sims for $1, so he obtained the land inappropriately. There can be no denying this. How US law might view this is completely irrelevant to whether it was actually right or wrong, because ethically it was 100% wrong.

      But Linden Labs have created a world where cus
      • Perhaps in a perfect world Linden could subtract the possessions and property that he obtained through this bug and still allow him to withdraw his legitimate holdings.

        But he knew what he was doing, and he knew he was taking a risk. Anyone who plays any online game knows that account termination is always on the table as an ultimate form of punishment. He accepted the risk and went ahead anyway. If he had legit holdings, he could have liquidated them before starting this scam.
      • And what Internatial agreements has this Virtual Country Signed. that prevent it from executing its virtual people. ... :)
      • I tend to have balanced views on most things, and this is no exception.

        Being 'balanced' in saying something banal like "both sides were at fault" doesn't make your assertion correct.

        If I create a virtual world and I give you permission use it, and - if you want to - to resell items created in it for real money and make it clear I can take it all away if I feel like it at any time, that's my right and I've done nothing wrong. If you don't like it, take your business elsewhere and should not use the software.
      • But Linden Labs have created a world where customers (not LL) own their personal content, and by implication they have independent lives and livelihoods and businesses etc etc. To cut off Bragg from his possessions, his virtual life, his livelihood and businesses was not only inappropriate, it was totally underhand and almost evil. They unilaterally executed this virtual person (I'm serious), without due process in-world nor any opportunity for defense.

        Nonsense. This guy made an attempt to contravene the s
      • "Executing" a virtual character might sound emotional and all, but it happens every day in all games. E.g., join a CounterStrike game and you'll see more people "executed" per minute than in any dystopian SF setting. Or seeing the UT statistics, it had more kills in a week than the whole WW2, and I dare say it probably topped the whole Star Wars, including destruction of Alderaan by the Death Star over its life span.

        So what? I'll go and say someone would have to be utterly clueless -- in fact Jack Thompson
  • Bragg copied the URL for a legitimate auction, then swapped in the ID number for land not yet up for sale publicly, so there would be no minimum bid and few, if any, competing bidders.

    Cute, and clever, but he knew he was taking a risk and should be prepare to deal with the consequences of putting real money down on a dodgy trick.

  • Settle it in-game! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rob T Firefly ( 844560 ) on Thursday May 18, 2006 @12:12PM (#15358725) Homepage Journal
    I don't know much about Second Life (still trying to figure out the first one) but if it's already a video game, Linden should be able to put together a little PVP system that lets anyone with a dispute like this take it into the Thunderdome. Two avatars enter, one avatar gets deleted.
    • They do have PVP, sort of. There are certain areas of the world where you can die.

      Part of the problem, though, is that you can create your own objects. So you can build missiles that never miss, and the like, for little to no cost.

      I happen to know someone who created an object that warped to a random location in the zone it was deployed in, sprayed a hundred 'grenades' in every direction, and warped to another point in the zone, and did the same, over and over again, about once a second. Everyone in the
    • And to be completely fair, he shouldn't complain if the Linden contender happens to nobble some of the net packets to increase damage inflicted by 1000% during the fight.

  • Its not hacking (Score:2, Interesting)

    by spazoidspam ( 708589 ) *
    How is this hacking? He merely changed the URL, which is somthing I do every day because I come accross broken links and stuff.

    An equivalent real world scenario is that an action house was setting up for an auction in an unmarked building. A person heard that they were setting up for an auction and went there to see if he could get in on the action early. The auctioneer is an idiot, and starts the auction even tho only 1 person is in the room and sells stuff to him for stupid low prices.

    This guy wa

    • Re:Its not hacking (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Doug-W ( 165055 )
      I think a better example using your ATM motif would be what if you took your ATM card and changed the mag-strip to give it a new account number and due to an oversight in the system it allowed you to take money out anyway. Should you be able to sue the bank when they freeze your account? Or should you be going to jail for fraud?
    • It doesn't matter. The guy isn't suing for whatever the service fee he was charged for during the period his account was frozen (although even that would be lame)... he is sueing for the "value" of completly fictional "real estate" and "property".

      It would be like if I sued you for the value of property in Monopoly if you destroyed my Monopoly board. MAYBE I could sue you for the value I paid for the board game at Toys-R-Us. But I cannot sue you for the fictional value of the pretend real-estate and property

    • Re:Its not hacking (Score:2, Informative)

      by meccaneko ( 844665 )
      You and I both don't consider it as hacking, but then there are all the other people out there who do...

      Reuters Accused Of Hacking For Typing In URL [slashdot.org]
      Business schools redefine hacking to "stuff that a 7-year-old could do" [harvard.edu]
  • Buying land in a virtual world is like buying land in a third-world country. You just got nationalized, bitch!
  • According to their terms and conditions:
    "2.6 Linden Lab may suspend or terminate your account at any time, without refund or obligation to you.

    Linden Lab has the right at any time for any reason or no reason to suspend or terminate your Account, terminate this Agreement, and/or refuse any and all current or future use of the Service without notice or liability to you. In the event that Linden Lab suspends or terminates your Account or this Agreement, you understand and agree that you shall receive no refund
    • It is like those EULA's what some company lawyer writes down is worth jackshit. If the judge in this case decides that Linden Labs has a case to answer they can take their agreement and shove it where the sun don't shine.

      Not that I think there is a case but that is because he committed fraud.

      At least in europe all those agreements got a line that effectively says, this agreement is binding unless the law says otherwise. It is basically what they hope they can get away with until someone has the balls to t

      • It is like those EULA's what some company lawyer writes down is worth jackshit. If the judge in this case decides that Linden Labs has a case to answer they can take their agreement and shove it where the sun don't shine.

        This isn't TV. Judges can't just decide to overturn licenses. There has to be a specific, defensible legal reason to overturn the license, and if there isn't, the licensor can just take it to be appealed. If a judge has a history of overturned rulings, they get censured, and eventually l
    • I personally don't see how he has a leg to stand on

      Without going into the argument about the enforcibility of EULA's in general, this one specifically probably isn't going to last long. Whether the makes of Second Life like it or not they have essentially created a banking situation. All of the in-game items have a real world value, by design. The laws in the US regulate pretty heavily what a bank or financial institution can and can't do. One thing they are not allowed to do is just close an account
  • In which the husband gets custody of the mutant half-gerbils and the wife gets possession of all the unworldly assets.

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