Slashdot Mirror
Virtual Land, Real Court, Real Money
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."
In short, dude doesn't have a case. But he does have a great deal of free publicity.
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
Compare it to some types of cheque fraud - the system (or teller or what have you, depending on the nature of the scam) is fooled into completing a transaction by the fraudster's manipulation of the normal procedures. Definately illegal, and very similar to this - due a flaw in the automated nature of the auction processing, he was able to complete transactions which should never have been allowed in the normal scheme of things. This wasn't a bumbling rube finding a good deal, this was someone manipulating the system with a clear intent to turn a sizable profit from it.
This basically comes down to a battle between "They should have been more careful" and the fact that he maliciously interfered with their system in an unintended way for personl gain. Given the company will probably be cheerfully loading up on words like "Fraud", "hacking", "Terms of Use" in any arguments they submit, he'll probably get steamrolled pretty quickly since courts like to pounce on words like that.
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.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
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.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
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.
Buying land in a virtual world is like buying land in a third-world country. You just got nationalized, bitch!
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
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.
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 or exchange for any unused time on a subscription, any license or subscription fees, any content or data associated with your Account, or for anything else. "
Based on this, they can do whatever they want. For that matter, according to this clause:
5.5 You will indemnify Linden lab from claims arising from breach of this Agreement by you, from your use of Second Life, from loss of Content due to your actions, or from alleged infringement by you.
At Linden Lab's request, you agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Linden Lab, its shareholders, partners, affiliates, directors, officers, subsidiaries, employees, agents, suppliers, licensees, distributors, Content Providers, and other users of the Service, from all damages, liabilities, claims and expenses, including without limitation attorneys' fees and costs, arising from any breach of this Agreement by you, or from your use of the Service. You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Linden Lab, its shareholders, partners, affiliates, directors, officers, subsidiaries, employees, agents, suppliers, licensees, and distributors, from all damages, liabilities, claims and expenses, including without limitation attorneys' fees and costs, arising from: (a) any action or inaction by you in connection with the deletion, alteration, transfer or other loss of Content, status or other data held in connection with your Account, and (b) any claims by third parties that your activity or Content in the Service infringes upon, violates or misappropriates any of their intellectual property or proprietary rights.
He's not even allowed to sue them according to this clause. Furthermore, check out this clause:
4.2 You agree to use Second Life as provided, without unauthorized software or other means of access or use. You will not make unauthorized works from or conduct unauthorized distribution of the Linden Software.
Linden Lab has designed the Service to be experienced only as offered by Linden Lab at the Websites or partner websites. Linden Lab is not responsible for any aspect of the Service that is accessed or experienced using software or other means that are not provided by Linden Lab. You agree not to create or provide any server emulators or other software or other means that provide access to or use of the Service without the express written authorization of Linden Lab. You acknowledge that you do not have the right to create, publish, distribute, create derivative works from or use any software programs, utilities, applications, emulators or tools derived from or created for the Service, except that you may use the Linden Software to the extent expressly permitted by this Agreement.
That means that Linden Labs can argue that He agrees to use Second Life as provided without "other means of access or use". Furthermore, the terms include a code of conduct that states "4.1 You agree to abide by certain rules of conduct, including the Community Standards and other rules prohibiting illegal and other practices that Linden Lab deems harmful." which looking at clause (v):
"take any actions or upload, post, e-mail or otherwise transmit Content that contains any viruses, Trojan horses, worms, spyware, time bombs, cancelbots or other computer programming routines that are intended to damage, detrimentally interfere with, surreptitiously intercept or expropriate any system, data or personal information;"
Linden Labs can certainly argue that he took actions to transmit Content (a inappropriate url) to deterimentally interfere with the auction system.
I personally don't see how he has a leg to stand on.
> I agree completely. The seller agreed to the price, automated or not.
There is an assumption in the automation that the rules are as they are, not as someone who found a little trick can bend them.
A few years back, people were buying cars for $5 because someone found out the price was inside the HTML for the web page, so they edited the page on their machine to the price they wanted to pay, hit "send", and the servers at the dealership had no clue about anything, and processed the transaction without batting an eye.
Just because it's in a person's interest to padlock their wallet doesn't mean it's legal for you to pickpocket them if they don't. People should be able to leave their money lying around all over the place without fear of people taking it. That's not the real world, but that doesn't make it legal.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
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
Business schools redefine hacking to "stuff that a 7-year-old could do"
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 system. The license says "if you attempt to contravene the system, you will be cut off." He's a lawyer. He knew perfectly well what that agreement meant when he signed up to it.
There is no point at which someone who falls into proscribed punishments they've already agreed to because of an attempt to defraud other customers can be considered "evil." They're protecting their other customers, plain and simple. If he got a slap on the wrist, he'd just try other scams, and they have a responsibility to display to their customers that the customers are being protected.
Over and over and over again the Linden Labs license goes into how none of the stuff they sell - not the Linden Dollars, not the land, nothing - has any real value. Period. It's in the license. It doesn't matter what people decide it's worth, what they'll pay one another for it, none of it. That's not a real economy, no matter how much it acts like one, and no matter how much people want to pretend that means it is one. There's a very specific meaning to real value. If there was real value, they'd have to protect it. Because there isn't real value, they can't sell it directly. There was a long and interesting talk on exactly this at E3 this year; if you'd like to actually understand how the industry works, you should join us.
There is no real value here, and he agreed to a license that says "if you try to steal from us or the other customers, you're shut off, period." Exactly where do you think Linden has crossed the line? Do you actually believe that a lawyer shouldn't be expected to be bound by a license they agreed to when being punished for an obvious scam?
StoneCypher is Full of BS