Interview with Bragg's lawyer

To be more representative of the Bragg case, you should find a mansion where the owner has contacted a sales representative about the intention to sell, but which has not actually had the For Sale sign placed yet.

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I never considered "owning" land in Second Life anything other than what it is in reality -- purchasing space on the hard drive of a web server. You don't actually own the harddrive or any other physical part of the server used to send data to the net. The purchase of land is the setup fee, the tier is the monthly fee for bandwidth. This is not a new concept, just a different application of it.

If the property owners mark it for sale at $1 you might have a case, if however you mark thier property as for sale at $1 you could wind up in jail.

That was in that Movie - and kinda disturbing.

You need sex now.

What Alicia said.

How come there is pie when I go to sleep? Can i haz pi, plz?

Unless I am mistaken.. LL do not 'sell' dedicated or bespoke servers, they 'rent' them, which they then manage on your behalf, that come complete with useable software so you can run a SL Sim.... they are like any form of web host, you are buying a VPS (the usage of a virtual server) that holds SL's sole owned code. Your initial cost is to pay for the labour to setup this VPS and load their code onto it, along with permissions for you to control certain elements (reseller, access to restart, sub dividing (parcels)) etc etc. Tier, like everyone elses, pays for the backup systems, maintenance and insurance for hardware replacement.

Premium accounts pay for the ability to buy this service direct from LL, and to gain better access to help and support.

LL charge a % on transactions to offset their costs to control the paperwork and transaction costs. They also charge you a minor sum to upload certain elements such as textures and animations etc to cover for storage costs on the HD.

The basic business model, is no different to virtually any other web host, except they supply bespoke software to run a VR platform... as opposed to allowing you the ability to host a website.. which if you consider what SL is in essence.. even that would be untrue to a degree... you can create your own content and create a VR website.

Getting back on topic.. on the basis described above... the T&C of any webhost's disclaimer states that they are NOT responsible for any content you provide, nor any liability for any losses if the system fails.... should they decide to call it a day, they pull the plug, you stop paying, end of story.

someone screws over a random av for all their money and ll says 'tough shit'. someone finds a way to put the screws to ll, then we see action.
i hope bragg takes them to the cleaners.
long live governor bragg.

How about a poll.

If you had found the loophole what would you have done?

But then again prob a waste of time. We all know the way the vote would go anyway.

It won't be hang Bragg because he found it and I didn't, even though I think that would be the closest to the truth.

What's the saying? Possession is 9/10ths of the law?

I knew from my first 512sqm parcel that while the collection of bits that represent it may belong to me, being able to access those bits depended on things I did not own which could vanish through operator error, bankruptcy, failure to pay fees on my part or any of several dozen other possible reasons.

Like Shylock... I paid for that pound of flesh, but may not take it because I do not own the blood.

Ok, so I know that people don't like to Read The F(ine) Article, but some decent questions were raised.

Like many here, I too thought land "ownership" was a metaphor or fiction. However, the Bragg complaint shows repeated assertions by Philip, in many venues, that it is indeed a sale of land. These statements act as representations of the product by the seller and are subject to fair trade expectations. For example, if a car company says in their TV and print ads "This C5 will get you laid", and the car salesman and dealership owner put the same in writing and you don't get laid, you might consider it a fraudulent representation and it might be such. Even if most people *know* a car doesn't get you laid, they were selling it to you explicitly on that basis.

There are also parts of the complaint that show that LL not only let their machine accept the purchase of the island for $300, but they sent him congratulations and asked for and accepted payment from Bragg. Had LL not taken that step, their claim of Bragg's fraud would have been more understandable. But that doesn't give Bragg a pass: contracts are supposed to be a "meeting of the minds" of the buyer and seller, and if a realtor accidentally sells you a $100k house for $10k there are remedies to fix that accident which don't involve your immediate eviction because of the seller's mistake.

If you wish to think of this case in terms of an ISP who cancels your pre-paid account, I think you would expect a pro-ratred refund, but LL neither returned Bragg's $300 as they said they would, nor compensated him for all the rest of the property they locked him out of, and they sold off his properties and kept all of the proceeds for LL. The complaint calls this "unfair enrichment of LL" you might call it double dipping: that is, selling the same island twice.

The complaint also points out that even if Bragg's island purchase were fraudulent, the "punishment" was out of scale with the "crime". They use the analogy of a person shoplifting an item from a store granting the store the right to take anything the shoplifter ever purchased properly from the store. This analogy is a little broken in that it assumes the hypothetic shoplifter is guilty of shoplifting; it isn't yet clear that Bragg's actions are considered fraudulent.

If this case was totally absurd, then LL says to the court "this guy is an assclown whose suit has no merit at all" and the court would say "you're right, here's a summary judgment, we don't even have to discuss the assclown's suit". The court hasn't given a summary judgment so at least some jurists think that there is a valid dispute here.

If the assumption is that Bragg was wrong for underbidding on a not yet publicized (yet still public) auction, then LL's reaction was wrong on so many levels, including not following their own ToS.

Oh, and pie. (and what is "that Movie" which was "kinda disturbing"? I've drawn a blank; thanks)

It would probably be wise for LL to use different rhetoric to describe land ownership in SL, and that's the only semi-valid point in the Bragg case, but what the "ownership" amounts to is so bloody obvious due to the nature of the platform, fee structure, and terms of service, that it's still a rather absurd argument. I've mentioned before that the case reminds me a lot of the recent "pants suit" in DC, where a guy sued his local dry cleaners for $54 million, on the basis that the store had a "satisfaction gauranteed" sign, and this guy wasn't going to be satisfied unless he got $54 million dollars in exchange for his lost pair of pants. Both suits are based on taking marketing rhetoric to absurdist levels of literalism, and not because (in my opinion) either plaintiff actually believed the literal interpretation, but simply as a cheap ploy born of greed and hubris.

The judge in the pants suit ruled in part, ""A reasonable consumer would not interpret 'Satisfaction Guaranteed' to mean that a merchant is required to satisfy a customer's unreasonable demands or to accede to demands that the merchant has reasonable grounds to dispute."

I think the same logic applies to Bragg's argument.

Bragg is the bank robber who is suing the bank becuase they closed his account after he robbed them, right?

hehe, yep. That's an apt analogy.

No. He's the guy who paid for land through LL's auction house, didn't receive it, and lost everything he had purchased from LL when they banned him after he complained.

Glad to clear that up for you.

Sounds like you are Bragg's mother. "No not my boy. Hes a good boy"

Just Sayin ..

Sounds like you have something personally against him....

Just Sayin'.

BTW, did you RTFA? Or the court documents from Bragg's blog? I think you should. Otherwise, you're really not qualified to have an opinion on the subject....

You mean just like you have something personal against LL? Just sayin'

His claim is posted, but LL's counter claim is not. Just a bunch of stuff about backwards browsing but nothing concerning what Bragg actually did when he "abused" this. What did he do?

Since when did being informed become necesary for having an opinion? If that were the case, Most Governments, Media Outlets and Internet Forums would cease to exist. I haven't followed this case closely, but I really can't take a side in this. Both parties were caught in the cookie jar,...In My Opinion.

Heh. Ancient history, dude. I have no bad feelings on that score at all.

What I *do* find personally offensive is people who express opinions without making the effort to get informed. While on many occasions I disagree with your conclusions, I wouldn't generally accuse you of that.

Who are you to tell me me what I can have an opinion on, Ice Cleaner Boy?

In my opinion starting and manipulating unsanctioned auctions on property you dont own so that you win them at far below the going rate is theft. Sorry if that bothers you. Thats life.

Or did he not read the part of the TOS that says we lose all our stuff if we defraud LL either?

Is that what bragg did!? Naughty naughty boy. Got what he deserved then, if that's the case.

Fair enough. I hope this case hurries up and gets to court, and that bloggers or other press provide us with in depth coverage of the proceedings. It definitely promises to be entertaining.

Did Bragg start autions on sims he didnt own? - yes.
Did Bragg start auctions on sims he wasnt authorized to? - yes.
Did Bragg bid on those Sims? -yes
Did he win them at a rate far below a typical auction becuase of these things? -yes

DID he use these methods to aquire SL land at a price he wasnt entitled to? yes.


When SL found out he was exploiting the system - they seized his account. Which includes all his other land too.

OOPS - sorry you lost.


Moral of the story -

If your going to start auctions on stuff you dont own so you can profit,

Make sure you have a lot less to lose.




The whole "But SL security was lax all he did was guess at URLS" is a bunch of .. SLcrap.

Sorry if you leave your house unlocked and I auction off your TV, Stereo and computer - Bid on the stuff myself and win when the time runs out.

Take your stuff home, and leave the money which is far less that your stuff was worth.

Id get arrested.