I am being sued

I was referring to ownership of the account and access to the service, which are bundled in here with the IP rights. But I agree with you, the section of the TOS is primarily about data.

"Ownership" of "land" in SL is really "use of service through an account" - the former not being tangible and the latter not being owned by the user. If you do not pay your maintenance fees for a sim, or your tier for a piece of mainland, in line with the TOS, then you lose access to that part of the service that relates to "land ownership" and LL does not refund you the original purchase price (however you acquired the "land". So, much like the data, it is not a realizable marketable commodity, even if people happen to trade the rights to use the service (including ongoing liability to pay for the service) for real dollars.

The only way you could prove that the transaction included an item of value is if, as a previous poster pointed out, that this was very explicitly written in some form of contract, and duly notarized. The Court might decide that the transaction had value without this, but I think the plaintiff is going to have a hard time jusifying why that value is $5000, and has in my view, seriously shot herself in the foot with that claim (without knowing the full details of the case).

$5,000 is the statutory limit for small claims court in many jurisdictions. Some people choose small claims court over regular civil court even when their damages may exceed the limit because it's easier than hiring an attorney and running up the legal bills. Others just file for the maximum allowable award with dollar signs in their eyes. Ultimately, it's up to the plaintive to prove his or her actual damages, and anyone who plays small claims court like the lottery assumes the risk that the judge may not react favorably if their true damages aren't anywhere close to what they listed in the court documents.

if the sim was in her name when sold, then her avatar would get the funds. unless you did it, and then gave the funds to YOUR avatar, i don't see how it would be theft.

Although I could not throw out the figures as above, I have a very hard time wrapping my brain cell around the notion that a "SIM", all by itself, is worth any $5k.

Lots of speculation put into play in the various responses...

Sorry, all my land is paid for by someone else, presently (read my signature), I'm not allowed to deed it to anyone else.

Paying for land is something I have considered, but getting my head around the fact that I'm just leasing a segment of a server has so far prevented me from parting with that money, or for that matter get my head around the fact that the money will just disappear into cyberspace, when I'm more confident I can make a clean profit from leasing cyberspace I may indeed buy some, but whatever, there is always someone at the end of the line, putting money into SL that they will never get it back.

who knows..tier fees plus monthly prem membership..including the original cost(purchase price). How long she had it before and if she generated income using that Island and for how long..and how much income was generated...ofcourse all this would have to be backed up with proof.Also if it was a money generating Island..with stores and vendors and products..she could include prices of invested capital for advertisement and loss in wages since the supposed theft?

~Lana Tomba

Oh there is just no way anyone could get away with adding in a suit the amount of money they had to pay in previous teir fees. Those are past fees incured to LL, no one else gets the funds but them. Then again, with some of the people I have met around SL.....I wouldnt be surprised in the least.

Looool - why not throw in the cost of the PC, cable connection, electricity, new car to transport the PC to her house and her student loans used to pay for her 3D Interweb Design course and a year's supply of candy and beer. This case should be referred to a higher Court where the damages are unlimited.

@ Lindal ... you should have tried that when people were dumping land post-VATgate. LOL.

@ Dekka - this thing about virtual life, synthetic this, artificial that, it's not real ... this does seem to be a bit of a guy thing? Am I mistaken here? Sweeping generalisation as it is, I find the guys often won't want to have land they care for and had to pay for, whereas again sweeping generalisation most girls want to make a home.

I could be totally wrong of course, but the overwhelming evidence is, in my experience, that guys often have that "degree of separation" thing going on.

Has my memory gone off? I thought I read in this thread that the sim is mainland, but it's being discussed as an island now. Also, the ex-girlfriend is being discussed as an ex SL girlfriend, but that hasn't been said either. If she was just an RL girlfriend, it would throw a slighly different light on things.

What I find odd is, what is someone doing with a mainland sim available for sale? People don't tend to buy sims and have them just sitting there doing nothing, so my thinking is that it was bought for the purpose of deeding it to the group, or it was bought to do business on, but the business didn't take off. For various reasons I favour the first one. It doesn't seem like a simple case of someone simply selling someone a piece of land.

To my mind, there's more to it than has been stated in this thread. We have a tendancy to believe the person who says they've been wronged, but I'm reluctant to do that, especially since it's not normal for someone to have a spare mainland sim sitting around doing nothing, that they can sell. It's not like having a spare 8k that's doing nothing. You can buy small pieces of land just because they are there, perhaps at a very good price, and they might come in handy, but you buy a whole sim for a specific purpose.

A question that comes to my mind is, was the sim deeded with tier or not - I don't think it's been mentioned, but I may be mistaken. If it was deeded with tier, then the group has the land and the girl is still paying the tier for it, in which case, the girl has some rights if the group won't release the land. It could be that the OP has paid money for the land, and has a claim, but the girl is paying the tier, and also has a claim. She could remove the tier, of course, but she may not know how to do that, or she may be reluctant to write off months of tier fee at $195 a month.

From what's been said, there is no record of money being paid for the land, so if the girl is still paying the tier, and since the land was deeded to the group by her and not transfered to the OP for him to deed it to his own group, then a court could easily come to the conclusion that she she still has rights in the land.

Another question that comes to my mind is, why did the girl deed the land to the OP's group? If it were me, I'd take ownership of it and then deed it myself. I'm not suggesting anything, but it does seem a little odd to me.

That's just my imagination, but there are too many things that haven't been said in this tale, and I'm very reluctant to swallow one side without hearing what the other side has to say. The bottom line is, we just don't know who is in the right.

About the 'ownership' discussion:
It seems to me that SL land is a commodity that has real value, whether or not it exists in the real world, and whether or not LL can simply take it away. It can be sold for real money, and it can be sold for virtual money that can be exchanged for real money. So it does have real value and, imo, a court would see it that way. It doesn't matter whether or not a person actually 'owns' it, as long as s/he has the absolute right to sell it for money. That's my 2c on the legal aspect.

My guess would be that as, anyone taking this to court probably has logs and the evidence to back it up since it does cost her money for a lawyer as well. I doubt this is an empty threat, but has some evidence to support her claims and to get the support of a lawyer.

Probably wise not to have your members deed land to you to begin with, and what for, I checked your profile so it really makes no sense why you would have land deeded being a DJ. Might want to return the sim and not have your SL life brought to your real life. It could get very ugly.

Whew. Thank you, Dr. Phil. I was beginning to think I was a naive little chip afloat on a sea of economic fog.

LOL. It's only my view, and it may be quite wrong, but it just seems like common sense to me that SL land has RL value, and ought to be treated as such by a court, provided that it is explained so that the court understands it.

This talk of whether anybody owns something is silly.

If you "own land" in SL, you do own something. You own rights to use a service. You have to pay a maintenance fee on those rights or you lose them. But you *do own something*, and that is what will be at issue in the court. It's something that has value and is tradable.

Anyone who claims that an SL landowner "owns nothing" is making a specious argument that won't ever hold up in court.

However, anyone who claims that an SL landowner "owns nothing that couldn't vaporize in a flash" is correct. The value depends on the continuing existance of a company and its services. The same is true of stocks!

Regarding oral contracts: Yes, they're legally binding. They're also generally worth the paper they're written on, because if the terms of the agreement are in dispute, it's simply a matter of "he says / she says".

My thoughts Dagger would be if you purchased the land from the person (lady) and can show records of the purchase then you have nothing to worry about. If on the other hand if the land was scammed away from her in a illegal manner then you might want to try and reconciliate your position with her and offer the land back ,be a standup guy and admit to her it was taken wrongly and possibly she will not drag you into something you might not want to get involved in , ie : internet wire fraud could possibly involve attorities taking your hard drive for review and putting you through alot for something it seems could be settled in game if possible. I would carefully think my position over in this matter before I ventured much further into this and i agree 100% with others about seeking legal counsel.

....and the definitive way of doing that is with the SL ToS, which has been specifically written to be interpreted by a Court.

Land in SL has got many of the characteristics of something you can own and something you can trade, and appears to have a completely open market operating on similar principles to real real estate. I agree with you that common sense would be that SL land has RL value, but common sense does not make it true. Unfortunately (in this case), a Court does not work on common sense, but instead (normally) works on the basis of what can be proved, and it can be proved from the ToS that SL land is never "owned" by anyone other than LL.

I understand this is counter-intuitive. I doubt many people invite friends to thier SL home and say "welcome to my virtual space that I have been granted access to via an internet based account that I do not own, where I have the permissions to make transient alterations to its appearance including virtual objects that appear to be in that space, all of which can be removed, deleted or made inaccessible by a third party that I have no control over."

Lets look at it another way.

I pay for a gas company to supply gas to myself, do I own that gas? no I'm paying for the service of providing the gas. My girlfriends been living with me for 6 months, we break up, I've calculated how much gas she's used cooking food for herself, so I take her to court to reclaim the £200 of gas usage, really what do you think the Judge would say to me?

oh and how about, the Lindens saying ok we're closing your account, we don't want you here, we'll give you your money back if you give us our land back? Stupid right?

How can a verbal contract be worth the paper it's written on? It's a VERBAL CONTRACT.

Let's look at it this way. Follow the money. End of story!

I differ with you on what I think is your conclusion, because it *can* be proved that the land has real monetary value for the land's 'owner' (for want of a better word).

It's like leasing something for an up-front chunk of money, together with a periodic fee, and with the stipulation in the agreement that the lease can be sold to anyone else and the seller keeps the money. It can be proved that the lease has real monetary value to the leaser, and it can be proved that SL land has real monetary value *specifically* and only to the buyer. That's something that can be proved in any court of law. The property in this case is the right to do things with the land AND to sell it and keep the money. That's what the leaser has by agreement with LL, only one person has it.

Imo, SL land 'ownership' will stand up as 'property' that has real value in a court of law.

Good thinking Cristalle, but the OP said that there is no way to follow it - it was cash. That said, if there's no path to follow, the money didn't exist as far as the court is concerned (unless it's agreed by both sides), so is that the end of the story, or do they look at possession? If they look at possession, they have to look at how it came to be possessed by the current possessor, and I think that might be what it's all about.

I wish we'd been told the story, especially by both sides, instead of a few selected bits that can't be taken as the whole thing. There are too many odd things about it for my liking.

Well the OP was told not to post any more details, but I agree...maybe after the suit is over we can get more details. My, arent we cruious critters lol

court date is feb 8th on the night of feb 8th i will give full details as to what brought me to this point and what the judge has determined the outcome should be in this case

I think this is a very good (and sensible) description and is representative of a lot of land transactions, but not all. And I think it could be used to demonstrate that SL land has value, in some circumstances. But the process is not documented or regulated (i.e. the cash part). Land can also be traded for L$, which are essentially valueless (that could of course be debated.... and has many times I bet ). Despite this, I still find your description quite convincing. The difficulty (assuming the Court believes the plaintiff) will then be assessing the value - should it be L$6 per sq m, a flat $5000 US dollars as filed for, L$0 per sq m (as in the cheapest land in the land search), etc, etc.....

Best of luck to whoever is in the right on this case - it will be interesting to see the outcome!

I'll second that

I do contend that L$ is worth real money, of course - I buy US$ with it almost every day.