Any Land Owners interested in a class action suit?

You're right. I trimmed it to keep it from being horribly long, like most legal documents. Of course regional law may override this document in whole or in part, but generally a legal team will write an agreement like this in terms that allow as strict an interpretation as possible regardless of jurisdiction.

I believe that part of the judgment was that the TOS was unreasonable because it's a "contract of adhesion". In other words, you can't negotiate it, it's a simple "take it or leave it" deal. Moreover, if you have built up a substantial investment, in money and work, in SL, then if you won't accept the contract you can't even get in-world to recover your investment; and a lot of your investment can't be recovered because there's no alternative to Second Life (or there certainly wasn't at that time).

In those circumstances I know it's said that judges will step in and check the "fairness" of contract terms because of the unfairness involved in the negotiation. It's similar to the laws which say that a landlord is limited in how he can change the terms of a rental while you're already living in the house, because you can't fairly negotiate in a situation where you would be left without a home if the contract was refused.

As a simillar example, it is common for retailers here in the UK, when stating their return and refund policy, to include the words "This does not affect your statutory rights" at the bottom for the same reasons. It's a civil offence in the UK to attempt to conceal from a customer their rights - retailers and service providers are not required to tell customers their statutory rights, but they cannot give the impression that a given right does not exist (such as the right to sue, as everyone has the right to be heard in court). In the specific case of retailers, as an example, the Retail Sales Act outlines the customers rights regarding refund or replacement, and it would be illegal for a retailer to try to imply that those rights were less than they actually are.

Playing devil's advocate here, LL would probably (not unreasonably) argue that we have all accepted the contract the moment we open our SL accounts, long before we make any investment. As such, the investment is made voluntarily, with full knowledge of the contract. It would be impossible to build up any investment in SL without first accepting the contract.

That's true, but the problems tend to occur when it changes. Chilly, for example, was affected by the gambling ban. There was nothing in the TOS when Chilly joined to suggest that gambling could be banned in the future.

That's true also; although you'd have a hard time arguing the point on that in a court, since the change in TOS was caused by a change in US Federal law on internet gambling. Perhaps Chilly should sue the federal government instead(?)

It is true that ToS changed after Chilly's gambling business was producing profits, and the business had to close, but he still had the land and all of his possessions - he didn't lose anything by the ToS changes. He could have taken profits that he'd made, sold his islands, and called it a day, and his SL experience would have been profitable. So changes to the ToS cost him nothing.

It seems to me that, even after all this time, he's still smarting over his business having to close down, and he wants to get even - AND he wants other people to cough up real money to help him get even.

Exactly. He had a great run but the cash cow ran dry. LL can not be held liable for the changing laws and their response to it to cover themselves.

YOU CRACK ME UP! (AND CLUELESS)

YOU CRACK ME UP TOO! (ALSO CLUELESS)

For those of you who didn't read the earlier threads from the time, Chilly had a pretty big operation and employed a lot of people,

Hosted a lot of events, etc.

Also I believe gave space for some to live? (cant remember this for sure)

And I believe had recently expanded not too much before the ban came down.

Definitely it didn't sound like Chilly had made gobs of money to cover all these expenses anyway.

Well being what appears to be his in world girlfriend, maybe you can enlighten us?

I know you prolly lost out on the cash cow too.

I know if I had owned a big casino id have been really upset if it all came crashing down, no matter whose fault it was.

Sue LL? , no.

But upset yeah.


I think I'd also be disappointed id lost 70% of what I thought was my island resale value overnight.

Don't think I'd sue but wow that would have stunk.

Part of SL has always been if you buy land you can usually get that money back (unless you buy high) ... So some disbelief would enter in there, Id think.


Still suing LL for lowering their prices .. seems like a longshot.

Suing anyone for a couple thousand dollars is rough. I've done that, won, and still never got a dime.

Lowering prices can be lain at the feet of LL. But being mad at LL over the gambling ban makes no sense. They did what they had to do to cover themselves, even inviting the feds to look around and tell them what could be problamatic.


Gambling was good money for a lot of people. Affording four islands and having employees tells me it was making a pretty penny for him too. Sure, I would be bummed that my main income in SL was no longer possible, but ranting at LL about it when it was a legal issue was wrong placed.




Edit to change "gambling was huge money for a lot of people to "good money". Very very few make huge money in SL.

My life has been worthwhile

I could see them suing for other reasons, ones that might be more appropriate, such as maybe Customer support costing a user thousands of dollars worth of damages due to either negligence or major uncorrected error. (With LL either can and will happen.) Or even failure on LL's part to uphold their own ToS.. there are plenty of reasons.

But for lowering the prices? Well, this is America, you don't have to win in order to sue.

Er.. Might want to check your math there..


Though I do really appreciate people who do things to help others, the class action call for LL dropping prices really doesn't make sense. If Chilly has lost money already because of that (which I'm not convinced will happen to anybody who's not just in land for short term) I really hope (s)he doesn't throw money away by trying to sue LL for dropping their prices.

hahahahaha

You know, everyone and their brother and their brother's dog seems to think that Chilly is wanting to sue for LL lowering their island prices, and is having a good laugh about this. How many of you actually read what Chilly wrote? Here, let's take a look at it again:



LL's behavior over the years. NOT about the lowering of island pricing.



Land as latest fiasco is mentioned, more or less in the capacity of "straw that broke the camel's back". But that is NOT LISTED AS THE REASON FOR LOOKING AT A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT.

If you're going to be all high-and-mighty arrogance about the laughability of someone's position and their reasons, you'd do well to look at what they actually wrote.

Because if you don't, you end up looking like a much bigger ass than you claim the OP was.

And right now, I'm looking at a bunch of really huge asses hanging out in this thread.

Chilly wrote:
"The idea is to raise funds to get a real and good lawyer to look at Linden Lab's behavior over the years and see if there truly is some case against them."

So he doesn't have anything to sue LL about, but he wants sue LL anyway - hence, let's see if we can find something to sue them over. Why? Could it be because he is miffed at how it turned out for him personally? You know, I think it could.

Also in the post, he wanted people to chip in US$100 or so to hire a lawyer, because, in his own words, "I may need it". *HE* may need it???

And you wonder why people laugh at it?

Chilly chose to stay here of his own free will. Chilly chose to keep paying LL money. He was free to stop at any time over the years but he didn't. So yes, to me his wanting to sue is entirely laughable. If I was on the jury, I would not ony vote against him, I would recommend that he pay LL's legal fees.

No. I just think they should be doing it for the right reason, not attributing to him things they THINK he said or suggested. That kind of holier-than-though self-righteousness I find broadly offensive (TM).

By all means ridicule for the right reasons.

Don't make an ass out of yourself for poking fun at someone for something they didn't actually say.

Once again: (do I need to say 'read my lips'?)

People are ragging on him for wanting to sue over LL lowering their island prices.

That's NOT what Chilly said.

Inability to read and comprehend what the OP wrote, and making him a source of ridicule for something he didn't say, makes those tossing the ridicule a bigger ass than they are saying the OP is.

I think that wearing a common sense hat is suitable here.

I see someone whose successful business was scuppered by the ban on gambling, AND a few months later the value of his land was lowered significantly. Very soon after the latter, he wants to form a group of people to find out if there is anything that LL can be sued for (he even suggested that ad farmers might join). He doesn't know of anything that LL can be sued for but he wants to sue them anyway.

Wearing my common sense hat (the one that says that 2+2 is most probably equal to 4, though not definitely equal to 4), I conclude that he is miffed because of his own personal SL experiences, and wants to hit back. But he can't afford to do it himself, so he wants other people to pay for it. I'm sorry, but I find the whole thing to be sour grapes and laughable.

Anyone who invests in SL land as a tangible asset with a real underlying value is making a serious (and obvious) mistake. It's just a served asset, and the real cost of providing it will go down as server farm costs continue to fall (which is highly likely). If LL can make more profit by passing on these reduced costs to their customers, then expect it to happen. And if LL opens up the grid to 3rd party servers (as they've said they plan to do), it's a no-brainer that land costs will plummet.

IMHO, the "purchase" price of land should be low anyway, with the majority of the cost being tier or rent. The "purchase" price should reflect the real costs associated with transferring ownership.

It's too bad that so many people in SL are willing to pay such high prices for private island land, because it allows island owners to take that fee and then boot people off with no reason, pocketing significant sums, and with little or no recourse from the "purchaser". If the fee structure were rational, island owners would have no profit incentive to do this. Unfortunately, the market for LL private island land is irrational, leading to abuses.

In the long run, LL land barons will find out (some, the hard way) that the only real value of SL land will be the value they add to the land by their builds, their policies, and their integrity. Because the cost of the bare asset will go down, count on it.