Looks like Bragg got his stuff back

Although their rather absurd TOS gave them the right to do exactly that. I agree with those who say the TOS definitely took some hits here, and for that I'm glad. Had they been allowed to hide behind the TOS as written, they WOULD have been able to keep the money AND the property he bought with it.

The way I read the blog, they agreed to a confidential out of court settlement. It does not say that Bragg got all his money back or his land. It just says he got his account back with the accompanying rights and responsibilities. And that the terms of the settlement are confidential (as they all are).

Isn't Bragg an attorney? I thought I read that he was. No attorney fees for representing yourself. Just costs.

But yeah, LL got slapped with a few rulings regarding their TOS in the bargain. But that doesn't mean they are going to have to change anything now does it....

Pretty simple to add his name to ban lists. It was named in the blog.

As Dave so clearly pointed out above, there were "shouldn't have dones" on both sides.

However, there are some in this thread that are calling for the public vilification of Bragg. I don't know the guy, have had no interactions with him yet don't feel privileged to make my self judge, jury, and shunner in the matter.

If the matter of dispute was blindingly obvious, it wouldn't have ever seen a courtroom. So it isn't clear who was in the wrong and to what degree. I certainly wouldn't try to intrude on anyone's freedom of association, put please don't try poisoning people against him. I don't think that is right.

Well Taylor, they already DID change the TOS. Now I'm not an attorney, but I think that's what's called "prima facie" evidence that yes, they're going to have to.

Well is he banned now that he got his money back?

I didn't know his avatar name had been published.

He admitted to manipulating those auctions - so he was "guilty" it depends on what people are looking to villify him for.

His AV name was listed in the blog.

oooooohh well then maybe LL wants him a lil bit villified.

Why not, everyone else on these forums assumes that is their role, why are you so special?

Where does it say his assets were restored? The blog simply says his account was restored, it says nothing about assets. Obviously the lands which were confiscated from him were not restored because those were sold off a long time ago. I doubt LL gave him new property to replace what he lost before, but ultimately I have no idea what happened as far as land assets, because the blog simply doesn't say.

I hope they gave him his money back in the form of Ginko bonds.

lol Jez! eeeeevil

i agree. after readin so many posts here i have to wonder why the animosity. niether party won nor lost.and no, i'm not siding with bragg. what he did was crappy to the fifth power. Dave put it best:

hopefully, LL will at least revamp the one sided, we win you lose ToS and make it a bit fairer for all. to call for a scarlet letter campaign on someone who would barely effect your lives, second or real, is childish.

!!!!!!!!!

Even though he's back, my guess is he won't be for long.

1) If that was me, the first thing I'd do is dump that account and get a new one - much less bother.

2) His profile lists "new pachinko game upstairs" ... so LL might get him on that and ban him for gambling.

Broccoli

So in summary;

1. Bragg had nothing
2. Bragg does immoral/illegal act and gets something
3. LL wave ToS and take Bragg's something and some more
4. "Bragg" (important point) takes LL to court for immoral/illegal act
5. LL give Bragg back everything and presumably a bit more

Empirical conclusion? Bragg won and then some.

Bragg did not represent himself. While we can only speculate on what the terms of the settlement agreement were, given:

(i) LL's defeat in its motion to force the lawsuit into arbitration under its TOS which resulted in its arbitration clause be ruled as null and void;

(ii) LL's defeat in its motion to keep Phil from having to take the witness stand;

(iii) The potential public relations damage from Phil and LL being exposed for deceptively marketing SL and the even more damaging potential legal liability if the courts found that LL had committed fraud by promoting heavily in its advertisements that you can own land and virtual creations in SL;

(iv) The non-coverage by its business insurers for the punitive damages sought by Bragg in his lawsuit; and

(v) The possibility that a crushing loss in court could put LL out of business

it would not be unreasonable to believe that LL ended up paying for all of Bragg's attorneys fees which were in excess of $100,000 on top of their attorneys fees which were probably comparable or higher. I would say that LL was the biggest loser in this case. Regardless of what people might think of Bragg, the undeniable truth of the matter is that the real winners of this case are us, the players, now that the first US court ruling regarding an MMOG TOS agreement provision was decided in our favor.

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the so-called Bragg case I have to confess I am a tad disappointed.

The reason why was that I was hoping for some type of legal ruling on the issue of ownership of virtual land, which now quite clearly will not emerge from this case.

On that basis I think all land owners are potential losers from this case as we do not have any legal definition of freehold/leasehold/rental land, and as we all know Linden Labs TOS and media statements are ambiguous or conflicting on this point.

And that may have been one of the reasons they settled.

No, we are not the winners in this case.

We are the losers.

Unless you are the type who is now scuttling about looking for an exploit you can use to get land for a fraction of its intended cost, or that gives you some other advantage for yourself other players don't get.

So start hunting down those exploits now, if you're that type. Don't report them to LL - USE them to enrich yourself. Then sue when you're caught.

Then you'll be a winner, too! The rest of us - who follow the rules and don't enrich ourselves through exploits - will be the losers.

Just like we all pay for shoplifting.

coco

How do you know all this.

for example how do you know his attorney fees were in excess of 100.000$ ?

QFT

Excuse me, but I think you may have missed the point of Dagmar's post. He wasn't saying that we all win because one of us got away with something. He is saying we all win because LL's draconian punishments, namely blanket confiscation without a reasonable recourse, were called into question. This section of the TOS was subsequently modified somewhat; it is safe to assume this was the reason for it.

I find no big suprises here. I actually would have been surprised had the case gone to trial. Most civil cases settle and both sides had too much to lose had it gone to trial.

Had it gone to trial, I believe Bragg would have lost, and rightfully so. LL would have lost in a sense also due to negative publicity and a possible difficult to deal with legal precedent over their TOS.

Confidential settlements are not that unusual and I am not surprised we have one here.

this is pure speculation on my part, but I would venture to GUESS that LL kept the proceeds from theland that Bragg wrongfully gamed from the system. I would further guess that Bragg was refunded whatever money was in his account plus some sort of agreed upon price for whatever pre existing land he had prior to the exploit. In a case of this type, usually both sides pay their own atorneys fees and costs if the case settles before trial.

Who won? Neither side. They both lost.

Sooz

It's in his initial set of responses to LL's interrogatories, specifically to interrogatory 5.

http://lawy-ers.com/int1tobragg.pdf

Other than that and the fact that many states, including California and Pennsylvania, prohibit insurance against liability for punitive damages that arise out of the insured’s own misconduct (which is an element of both fraud and breach-of-contract) I am not sure what you are questioning.

I think most folks here already know about LL's losing the motions and are aware of the "own land" promotions that LL promotes in its advertising and Phil promotes in the press (but if you want to see some examples of those they are in the responses to the interrogatories as well).

And yes, Coco completely missed the point of the last part of my previous post.