Interview with Bragg's lawyer

Totally agree, not only about the SL TOS but about other TOS documents you have to "agree" to, like WoW and elsewhere. I'm a layman not a lawyer, but I think many of the standard, routine termsw in these documents are so unconscionable they would be unenforceable if anyone actually took them to court. These things are fanciful wet dreams created by the house lawyers to intimidate the customers.

I want legal precedent to be set because 3D reality platforms are going to become very important in the world IMO, and we need good law to replace really bad, self-serving and outrageous demands by lawyers trained not to be reasonable but to be as unreasonable as possible in the service of those who are paying their fees or salaries.

That's not what I am arguing. I am arguing that if you create a situation where an exploitive greedhead can have the opportunity to profit at your expense if he succeeds and lose little or nothing if he fails, you are shortly going to be overrun by exploitive greedheads brandishing the lottery ticketsw you have given them. Neither LL nor anyone else can afford to give the viciously greedy among us this kind of license.

If you do not believe me, invite Bragg or his ilk to sue you for little or no cost with the proviso that if he wins, no matter how far-fetched his argument, he takes everything you own. I predict the response will be directly proportionate to the dollar value of the assets you own.

It looks like he started the auction sometime on Saturday. It ran 48 hours and he won it sometime on Monday.

I would really like to know what address he sent it to. We all know how quick LL customer service is to jump on things.

So he started the auction before they reasonably could have responded.

So the email was a CYA.

Thanks for the clarification. I think we are in general agreement. I don't want to see Bragg unduly enriched at all. I think a fair outcome would be for Bragg to have been refunded his bid, excluded from the game, and to be refunded the proceeds of the auction of his former properties less an administrative fee.

But even my Solomonic jugement has a flaw which can't be fixed without property rights. It is my understanding that Bragg was a landlord for rental properties (if he wasn't let's suppose he was). The renters had expectations of having their rental "contract" upheld. When LL had auctioned off Bragg's land, those renters were likely booted. Now who has borne the cost of LL's land seizure? So is kicking Bragg out of the game conscionable in this light? I'm not sure. I don't think we'd like the government selling off a real world landlord's properties for his murder conviction, we'd like to see those assets in the hands of someone who could continue their adminsitration.

Now that this has been taken to court by Bragg and LL (note that you can almost always buy your way out of a civil suit if you want) how do you pull the ToS back in line with public policy? As you noted above these contracts are based on the house counsel's desires and not the commonweal. Part of the theory of punitive damages is to induce the defendant (and others in the industry) to change their practices. Unfortunately those damages have to be paid to someone and it can't be the government so they do go to the plaintiff.

Too many questions, not enough answers; sorry.

Bingo!

Maybe i live in a different world but what exactly is the problem bragg has agains LL considering they own the servers, and own the data on the servers,
Where is the problem considering technically LL own everything related to secondlife and we all only pay to access it?
What next, will some D&D player sue his game master because he killed his favourite character??

--edit--
Of course the TOS is one sided, LL bring everything, hardware, bandwidth, software, assets , you just pay to be able to plug into it.

Well LL , to show they were impartial probably should have cut him a check for his USD balance left in his account. Once it was determined he was perma-banned.

The land and stuff, I have to agree with Kyrah - it belongs to LL, they were just renting it to him.

I think I have read most, if not all of this now, even if this is lost in the masses, I feel I do have a unique point of view on this entire thing. I also think I am safe since, well, I am still here.

I guess I was one of the few that knew about this exploit before LL did. Back then I never even thought of reporting it to LL, at least I don't remember doing that. Heck, I even bid on some of the pre-released auctions. I never won any of them, but I knew about it. There are some facts that are being placed out there that aren't exactly correct. Before the auctions would list on auction page, there was NO price listed as the minimum bid. If I remember correctly, the page itself was a little buggy too.

I see this as a case where Briggs found a blank checkbook on the ground. He filled in the amount, cashed it, and now wants his money that he cashed, plus interest.

Not necessarily.

Bragg could have tried on Saturday morning what would happen if he placed a bid.

Having set off the auction then e-mailed LL to warn them what he had done.

When you win an auction the land you have won is set for sale to you at L$0 (interesting question is whether this is a manual or automatic process!)

You then have 7 days in which to buy the land you have won.
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So Bragg's actions on having won come into play - if first thing on Monday he took the land, parcelled it up and set it for sale, then yes the e-mail does sound like a cya.

If however, he waited a day or so before claiming the land, and/or waited for a few days or a week expecting a response from LL before starting to resell the land, then it is a very different matter.

Matthew

Nice!

Though I might spin it more like: "You hired a painter, who finds your checkbook and uses it to pay themselves whatever they felt like making for the job. You intended to pay them anyway, of course... but their unethicalness and your neglect deprived you of the power to choose how much was paid or when."

I just had it pointed out to me that the main page of www.secondlife.com used to say

"Second Life is a 3D online digital world imagined, created and owned by its residents"

It doesn't say that now ....

"Second Life is a 3D online digital world imagined and created by its residents"

Who owns it then?

Linden Lab has a valid argument for depriving him of the land purchased with the "backwards browsing" auctions.

I believe his lawyer's argument is that he was also deprived of the USD cash he had in his account, the existing land he had purchased within the game to support his in-game widget business, his existing in-game land for his land rental business, the linden proceeds of his widget business, and the future earnings of his widget & rental businesses.

If LL had deprived him ONLY of the SIMs he 'won' at auction, I doubt he would have been able to find a lawyer to take his case [on what I assume will be a contigency fee basis]. Who could afford to hire an attorney for hundreds of thousands of dollars when he lost 17k at most?

This case will be important for all residents/customers of virtual worlds because it will answer questions of 'property' rights beyond the specifics of Bragg's shady SIM-buying.

Do we have the right to property in the grid or is this a license for access which can be revoked without recourse at any time?

Isn't he an ambulance chaser or something anyway? Surely he'd know the costs of lawsuits and why so many settle 'out of court' just to get rid of the problem, rather than spend 10x as much defending it and risk losing because of some minor technicality?

Isn't Braggs point.. Hey Mr Linden.. I know I deprived you are potential earnings regarding my exploiting your system to give me finiancial gain.. but you do not have the right to keep all my earnigs.. only that which is related to the 'crime'...

I can't help hearing this saying....' A Lie is but a truth undiscovered.. and when discovered, and the liar states.. 'But that was the ONLY lie'... would you believe them?

I am glad we have the legal system to sort out this one... perhaps my logic is just to simple...