MY space sued for 31 mill is LL next?

OMG lol how freaking stupid! This is right up there with the "I got fat b/c I ate to much Mcd's and now you must PAY!!!" MUAHAHAHA!

This is TOTALLY the parents fault for computer neglegance. If you don't want your kids to get hurt by online predators...DON'T LET THEM USE SITES LIKE THAT. It's such common sense. Stupid people, I tell ya.

indeed the ultimate responsibility lies with the parents but these things happen we may scream at the top of our lungs "its the parents responsibility" BUT the fact remains that there are lawyers out there that WILL take cases like this and do all they can to make a case against the web sight.
so If LL thinks this cant happen to them they are sadly mistaken


also I may add the courts have basically absolved parents of responsibility in other types of cases.
case in point.
A child is placed in the main basket area of a grocery store shopping cart by the parent instead of the seat area that will prevent the child from falling out.
mother turns her back to cart and child stands up and leans over the side of cart. child falls out of cart and gets hurt.

this is clearly the parents fault but courts award money in cases like this all the time Because the incident happened in the grocery store.
I know this because i have worked in the grocery industry for over 20 years and the parents do sue and they do win.

this is not the same thing but the courts do look to big industry to be the watch dog not the parents.

Big deal.

First, I didn't see anything in this article or the two others I looked up that says the 19 year old was pretending to be 14. Maybe he was pretending to be 17 or 18, but not 14.

Second, I didn't see anything about violent rape or a beating or any other severely traumatic (IMO) event. The worst that happened seemed to be statutory rape of a 14 year old by a 19 year old.

Third, myspace (and the internet) should not be used as a dating service for teenagers. She misused it and had her feelings hurt and lost a little trust in her fellow man. Again, big deal, she learned a lesson that she could just as easily learned from chatting up a stranger at the mall.

Fourth, given the level of parental instruction and oversight that her parents have demonstrated, this is probably going to be only the first of many tough mistakes she's going to make before she matures.

The guy should be prosecuted since what he did is against the law. The penalties are probably going to be way too harsh for the crime, IMO, but he should have known better.


Maybe. Certainly it will if the population gets large enough.

But, so what? LL should be concerned from a legal standpoint that they are protected, they are a business, after all. But I have no problem with their actions from a moral or ethical standpoint and a lawsuit against them in a similar situation would be just as groundless (and stupid) as this one against myspace.

so there is nothing to be concerned about with the unrestricted access second life has, and that being the basis of a law suit against them?

Do you mean am I personally concerned about it?

Or do you mean should LL's lawyers be concerned and should business owners in SL be concerned because their businesses may fail because of a similar ridiculous lawsuit against LL?

The answer to the former is that I am totally unconcerned about it.

I won't answer the latter because some asshat is bound to accuse me of impersonating an attorney (again).

i dunno how law work in usa but... considering only LL is owning all the possible proofs, they can easily destroy or alterate them, change someone's avatar name, password, anything

when the proofs collected by the person suing arent leading to nothing anymore, how do you sue?

True story time...

when i was 18 i was at a club, a regular night event their where i met this girl (who eventually dated for 6months)

roughly 6months later - i was talking to her parents and her mom goes 'what do you plan to do for her 16th?'

'16th? she said she was 17?' (still underage for uk clubs but legal for.... anyways)

i then proceded to appoligise to the parents - tell them the facts (the basics) and tell them that this is the end of my relationship with their daughter, the father was so upset and angry and wanted to hit me but didnt (thankfully), the mother was also upset but thanked me for being thruthful, showed me the door and never went back since, i have seen teh parents and daughter about over the last few years (the parents fequent a club i go to, and i have talked to them since) but ive never spoken to the daughter

im so glad thats teh way it turned out - if they decided to take me to court i would have faced possible jail sentences, have to tell all employers of a criminal history (denying me possible jobs in certain places), be placed on the sex offenders list and be called a pedo, of all the parts its the last bit that sickens me the most. under uk law im a pedo and a rapist - for being in a relationship with a '17'yrold? she could of ended my life in an instant - her parents could of too - goddamn it i broke the law for not asking for ID in an over 18's club and even when i did ask her age she lied - so its my fault?

since then ive only been in relationship with 2 girls, (each of them was a driver so thankfully i didnt have to go 'got any ID?') and im put off 'pulling' at all in pubs and clubs (and sl - thats why i refuse to get involved or cyber) - makes me a wet sponge around my mates but i cant go through that again

you can never be sure of anything without proof - this can happen anywhere - male or female - on the internet or in rl - one persons lie can become the end of another persons life - linden labs proof of age is useless, i have a few freinds in sl that are ment for teen grid but are better peeps than most of the 'adults' - why havent i reported them? they havent done jack wrong, dont greif/attack and are good producers of stuff in sl

There are teens/kids in the adult grid, dont start running around going 'got any ID?' but do be careful with who you meet/have (sl or rl) relations with.

in the eyes of the law even when its not your fault its your fault.

-------------------------------------------------
this is posted under an alt as it was a painful memory and dont want to have to face this in sl - those that know who this alt belongs to please dont reveal or bring this up - its is ment as a warning - i wont go mental if it is brought up but i will ask for it to be dropped

I wasn't there, I don't know exactly what happened. Putting aside all lawsuits and claims of who is responsible and who isn't.... It is not my place to say whether this person was harmed or not. But it's yours? You were there? You can decide the difference between a girl who got her feelings hurt and a legitamite claim of date rape and decide just how traumatizing it was or wasn't?

I didn't say that myspace is or is not an "adult" place.

In fact, I have never been to myspace.

I said that an entity running an adult place can be reasonably expected to have reasonable barriers to entry by minors. And they are expected to. Bars, for example, are not allowed to serve alcohol to minors; stores aren't allowed to sell cigarettes to minors. They are expected to have reasonable requirements for determining if a patron or customer is a minor or not. They would be held negligant if they didn't.

In cyberspace, it is a somewhat different proposition. It isn't easy to prove the age of individuals accessing adult places on the net. Nonetheless, places are expected to have some strategy for preventing the entry of minors. And as more places like SL come into being, where people are engaging with masses of people in adult interactions, and as technology progresses, these expectations will grow, rather than decrease.

Consequently, it would be wise for SL to expand upon their methods for preventing entry of minors into adult places, not reduce them.

The argument that it is parents' responsibility is largely irrelevant here. What parents do or don't do doesn't speak to the responsibility of those providing adult entertainment to take sufficient steps to avoid supplying this entertainment to minors, or their liability if they are found negligent in this respect.

coco

just completely stupid altogether.... they are suing myspace because they want money, and theyll probably get it becaus someone will figure Myspace can afford it and it will help the poor hurt girl wether myspace is at fault or not.

But they met on myspace, nothing else happened besides that. he did not tell her he was 14, he told her he was a high school senior on the football team and lied about 1 year in age. They talked on the phone to set up the meeting and went out on a date.... they ddint even set that up on Mysapce. Next the money grubbing parents are going to sue the phone company.... because he used the phone to talk to her.

I agree the lawsuit is ridiculous. It's the parents needing someone to blame and managing to convince themselves that the money is really some kind of justice.

But it does show how easily the same kind of thing can happen here to LL. One lawyer shouting that LL took no measures to track real ages of it's players is all it would take.

My view:

LL needs to be careful.

Why is it that everything is always a large company's fault and not the individual? It must be just for the money. Why so much too!!!
So if they met at a park or a restaurant, would they sue the restaurant too? How is all of that money going to help anyways? Is that REALLY going to help their daughter get though this? Did MySpace cause this in the first place? Or did they meet there? I really want to know if she did find out his age before this assault happened? If she did find out his age eventually, then come on!!


Lawyers are evil. Even if the courts okay lawsuits like this, its still not right. Any time a parent forgets their responibilitie fo their child and their child gets hurt, its their fault. Just because they may be at a public place doesn't mean now that its the places fault. If they got hurt at home are they going to sue themselves now?? Lawyers ruin this country and consumers are the ones that eventually pay the bills.

At least this isn't as bad as the lawyer trying to sue fast food because their kids eat there of the time and didn't know that was bad. LOL. Almost as bad as saying its the grocery stores fault for selling candy without any warning that its bad.

Huh...

as if, a 14 year old meets a 19 year old in SL, they meet in real life, and the 19 year old abuses the 14 year old sexually.

14 year old sexually abused youth files suit against LL because they failed to protect her from 19 year old dude.

umm... no.

there's a disclaimer that you agree to when you join the SL service. which might change without prior notice, LL has its back covered against stupid people.


hopefully.

*goes off to ponder about cream filling in oreos and rubber bands again*

agree with max.

and "any press is good press", no?

No... here's an example...

Fact is this will be thrown out. Myspace includes a warning not to give out personal data..it was the information she gave out that caused the assault, not myspace.

So, in retrospect... or something...

Yeah, they can sue.

But its not a warranty for actually winning the case

In the mean time, i think people that make outrageus demands can be their own category for Darwin Awards

I agree with everything you say 101%, love your ideas, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Seriously though-

I'm not even going to get into the statutory rape argument (a broken and misapplied law if there ever was one), and i'm also one of the aformentioned people who thinks that the parents are trying to profit from their daughter's suffering.

What can i say? When you can sue a place for spilling coffee on yourself, you can sue for anything, and not look like a total dipsh*t for doing it. Idiots, safety in numbers = do the math.

**edit

And as for the SL angle, i'm gonna go out on a limb here and say this policy needs to be changed. Yesterday. Possibly faster.

MySpace seems to be tightening its policy a bit (although they say it's unrelated to the lawsuit) but the way they are doing things doesn't seem to indicate that they have thought of a miracle way to know who is underage and who is not...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5101942.stm



Wendel

This is definitely a "My parenting skills are woefully inadequate, so let's sue someone else" lawsuit, however... the same can and will happen to Linden Lab. You can sue anyone for anything. I also predict, for MySpace, a settlement, sealed, with no admission of guilt, to avoid legal fees.

Attorneys are frickin' expensive. That said, good ones are worth every nickel.

Regards,

-Flip

Ok folks, fasten your seatbelts and set your stopwatches for the countdown to when LL gets hit with a 'MySpace'-type lawsuit (or worse). If, and how, LL & SL survive and in what form it comes out the other side remains to be seen.

Predicting that LL will get sued as it gets larger and larger is like predicting the sun will come up. It is part of the cost of doing business, and a disgusting part of American culture. The fact that a scum-bag ambulance chaser from my metropolitan area is already suing them - because he hacked an exploited a loophole in the code - is also disgusting.

Regards,

-Flip

Flipper, you're sadly right as far as that goes. However LL's 'all-new' unverified sign-up procedure is such an easy target for ambulance-chasers, LL might as well have hung up a sign on the home page announcing 'Sue me now for megabucks'. That said, having read the threads on the topic vis-a-vis your typical ambulance-chaser's chances of actually winning I'm reminded of the old showbiz saw 'Any news is good news'.

And the publicity storm resulting from a lawsuit resulting from minors accessing 'mature' content could be priceless *if* LL has the skill to navigate it. I'm thinking in terms of Malcolm McLaren-style publicity stunts here. Think in terms of the inadvertent hype and book sales Salman Rushdie garnered for 'The Satanic Verses' as a result of the fatwa. Some people would kill for hype like that! A badly-constructed lawsuit against LL could be the free publicity LL needs to propel Second Life from an interesting-but-obscure MMO into the top rank. It's gonna be a wild ride, so fasten your seatbelts!

Very well stated, Alazarin. Nonsense lawsuits are in competition with our president for the reason I'm most ashamed to be an American citizen. That doesn't mean I'm not patriotic; I just distinguish between positions and the person who happens to be holding the position at a given time.

Regards,

-Flip

Did you learn nothing from the Dixie Chicks?