Click-sign license agreements on SL items

I recently obtained a scripted item which, on starting up, asked me to click-sign a license agreement with the creator's company.

Now, as you can imagine, this bothered me a bit. An avatar can't enter into a legal agreement, so presumably by click-signing it's the RL me which enters the agreement. Which then brings up the question: does that mean that the creator is able to get hold of my first life identity on the grounds that they're entitled to know who they had an agreement with? And if they aren't, isn't the agreement meaningless, since they can't sue the avatar?

I asked on Linden Answers about this here:
/139/c4/105586/1.html

.. and got a reply from Phil himself (yaay! ) which basically said that LL won't disclose any real-world information.. unless it's "complying with legal process". Unfortunately, I don't know if "legal process" would include tracing the person on the other end of a license agreement or not. It also mentioned his hope that content creators would come up with "appropriate forms of identity" for dealing with these agreements. Presumably this means something that isn't a 1st life identifier, but can be directly associated with one if legal action ever becomes necessary.

Is such a thing possible and should I be concerned about it?

Obviously I cannot, a will nto comment on the specific terms and facts of your case, but in general:


A subpoena is legal process and can be issued in a civil suit to obtain identity and membership records from LL.

Chances are if you simply use the product, they would never trace you. If you copy the product, resell it,m and make a $100,000 us, then perhaps someone might hunt you down. Its never really a matter of can they, its a matter of will they. Best advice is treat the license agreement as you would any document that binds you, and don't violate.

It might not be a valid contract, but you could go bankrupt proving the point. And you never know, some judge might decide that there was a meeting of minds between two people via thier avatars.

IMHO, that answer was all handwaving. He should have taken the time to think about the question and probably referred the response to their legal counsel, Ginsu.

As Jake said, a subpoena to LL would hopefully be an effective way to compel them to provide the information.