Contracts, A Possible Short-term Solution

Here's a quick and dirty way you might use to make contracts in SL.

1. The two parties write up their terms and agree to them.

2. Each party (A and B let's say) creates a new notecard and copies the terms of the contract into it.

3. A and B "sign" their own notecard by writing their name in it. They now each have a notecard with the terms of the contract and their own name in it.

4. A and B set their notecards no-modify and leave them copyable and transferrable. This way the contents are readable but not changeable, and the notecard-contracts can be moved around and copied.

5. A and B exchange notecards (keeping a copy for themselves). They now each have their own notecard-contract and a notecard-contract "signed" by the other party which they can read but not change.

This works because each party to the contract has a notecard-contract, "signed" by the other party as a sign of agreement, which will show the other party's name as the creator when properties are viewed (for proof of authenticity) and which could only be altered by the original owner (who of course can't get to it to change it).

Naturally this doesn't address the intention of A or B to keep the terms of the contract. Also, I would suggest that the exchange of notecard-contracts be made through a trusted third party.

Thoughts?

Although your scheme may solve the issue of non-repudiation (which I admit I did not verify, but it is clever) without enforcement, contracts are not worth the paper (or notecard) that they are written on. What makes contracts valuable is that they allow the parties to compel each other to perform (e.g. through a third party judiciary) or face some cost (payment, jail, stoning) if they don't.

About the best you could do without enforcement is shame the contract violator or perhaps cause their reputation to be diminished - which in SL terms means asking the community to act as judge, jury, and executioner who may not a) care b) agree or c) appreciate being given the task.

You're absolutely right, Malachi. However, I don't expect to see an actual hardcoded enforcement system given the variety of possible contracts.

What this scheme does provide is the means to prove that party A is untrustworthy (in the event they don't fulfill their contracted obligation). I think you're right that the community at large may not care but I think other contracters certainly would care so we might be able to exclude those who fit your scenarios A and C from our discussion.

The primary problem I see is that while you can prove someone agreed to terms in some cases it might be difficult to prove they didn't fulfill them. This might require enlargement of the role of the hypothetical third party who mediated the exchange in my example. This is the one true flaw I see in this scheme.

An escrow service or scripted kiosk could accomplish the desired net result.

**Escrow service**
-Must be an independant thirdparty and trusted.
-Each side gives item/cash/whatever to thirdparty.
-Both sides must agree that said task/service/item/whatever has been completed/accomplished/executed/whatever to enable the Thirdparty to give to each side the item/cash/whatever to the appropriate side.
-If either side disagrees, items/cash/whatever go back to original owner.
-Setup milestones so payment/exchange/whatever can be done incrimentally to protect both parties.
-Thirdparty receives small service fee regardless of outcome, thus will never be tied one way or another and will hopefully remain independant.

**Escrow Kiosk**
Same as above, but automated and no risk of the Thirdparty from doing anything improper.


Just my quick scribbles.....whatever..

hehe

-sean

A post made earlier today....

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