He's actually suing LL?!?

Woebegone! lol

No, Jillian... he "learned of a way".... remember?

What an idiot. Actually, I can't tell if the lawyer is more of an idiot or this SL member is, but my money is still on LL.

The lawyer *IS* the SL player! Now what do you think?

LOLOLOLOLOLOL

I remember a story....

Playing "Hangman" in RL isn't such a good idea...

-----------


FW: Subject: Our wonderful legal system

A Charlotte, North Carolina man, having purchased a case of rare, very expensive cigars, insured them against (get this) fire! Within a month, having smoked his entire stockpile of fabulous cigars, and having yet to make a single premium payment on the policy, the man filed a claim against the insurance company.

In his claim, the man stated that he had lost the cigars "in a series of small fires." The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason that the man had consumed the cigars in a normal fashion. The man sued -- and won! In delivering his ruling, the judge stated that since the man held a policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that the cigars would be insured against fire, without defining what it considered to be unacceptable fire, it was obligated to compensate the insured for his loss.

Rather than endure a lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company grudgingly accepted the judge’s ruling and paid the man $15,000 for the rare cigars he lost in the fires. After the man cashed his check, however, the insurance company had him arrested on 24 counts of arson. With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used as evidence against him, the man was convicted of intentionally burning the rare cigars and sentenced to 24 consecutive one-year terms.

So don’t piss off your insurance company!

Didn't see anyone ask this, maybe I missed it, but.... Why dont they have the trial in SL?

Ok, so it might take a few minutes for the judges robes to rez, then the lag starts as the scripted gavel comes down...

In theory yes, though I've heard of it applied to any case of bypassing software protection too.

How is it hacking to type in a URL? I type in URLs all the time. If I type in forums.secondlife.com, instead of going to the front page of secondlife.com and following all the links to the forums, are you all saying that's hacking?

How long before snopes adds an entry over this bizarre series of events and marks it as TRUE?

It can be. For instance, with many websystems you can spoof certain forms by cleverly changing URLs, allowing you to access information or even submit data in a way that was not intended. There have been cases where people have been able to really mess with people's databases in malicious ways through methods like this. When this allows you access to priviledged information or allows you to "purchase" items that aren't actually for sale yet, it's theft in my book.

It's also bad web programming on LL's part for sure.

Hehe they made some fancy shmancy courtroom in SL somewhere, I only remember because someone said they'd take me to 'SL Court' after I told them to fuck off... I scratched my head and asked, "Why? do you want to hear me tell them to fuck off too?"

otoh, I have also seen several web based puzzles where you are expected to manually type in urls after searching through the soource code of the page for a hidden clue.

From the PR Newswire FAQ:



So, this guy basically paid to put his story out, from his own office. Whatever. Its like self-publishing when no publishing house will take your crappy book you've been shopping around.

I'd love to get the docket number, just so I could track it through the court system. Anybody know a clerk over there?

What a jackass.

This is fundamentally no different from how Linden Lab, Microsoft, WAL-MART, Toyota, etc. put their stories out, from their own offices. It's one of the main ways to make news--the press gets most of its stories and story ideas from newswires and PR services.

Is a press release issued by an individual less legitmate than a press release issued by a business or institution? If so, then is a virtual product created by a single SL resident less legitimate than a virtual product created by a recognized business or institution? Is music published by an unsigned artist only legitimate once the artist is published?

From newswires? Yes.

From PR services? Yes.

From PR Wire? No.

You're much, MUCH more likely to get a reporter to respond if you contact them directly and put that press release in their hot little hand/in box/fax machine. Simply putting it on PR Wire and hoping that someone will pick it up? Not so much.

So, can we say that this is little different than Enron and their cohorts exploiting a loophole in California's energy deregulation plan, defrauding the state out of billions and then complaining when they get caught? I guess the only reason Enron's lawyers didn't sue California is because they had..um...other, larger problems

LL can terminate any account for any reason they choose. He admits to using a loophole to get one over on LL and got caught and subsequently his account was terminated. I would do the same thing if I was LL. We don't need people like that in our community. Good riddance.

Well the good news is that if any of us would like to file a frivolous lawsuit that has absolutely no merit, now we know a lawyer who would definitely take the case!

Billy wrote, " LL can terminate any account for any reason they choose. ".

This is fundamentally wrong , where a person may have thousands of dollars tied up in the game. So I own the Sex club, and have thousands of dollars invested in land and pos balls etc, and so LL thinks I break some minor rule and can take it all from me any time they like? Really, it is like saying the government can take your house and all your belongings for getting a traffic ticket, and furthermore, you do not even get to go to court to contest it, they just take everything, with no opportunity for you to contest it?

I don't care what the rules say, it is basically wrong and unfair. Yes, LL wrote the rules to be a one sided dictatorship, but, that does not make the rules enforceable if they steal rl money from you for minor or petty reasons, and with no opportunity for rebuttal?

I am happy to see this case go to court, and see this unfair rule challenged. I can understand if LL wanted to return the money he paid for the land, and then take bakc the land, that does not seem unjust. Takign both the land, and his money, and any RL money and land he had that not anything to do with this infraction, without a trial, violates every democratic principal that I know of. I hope the courts review it and see it as I do, a threat to all our liberties, if all the rl money we invest here can be taken from us for ANY reason, we have no rights and no security for our investments.

Lovepeace Languish

The only reason it is there, is because of cases like this. I doubt they would use it for banning someone for a minor thing, heck, even a major thing. You'd have to do something very major to get banned, I don't know why people are thinking they'll get banned out of the blue for no reason at all.

Wow seven pages and one useful post. Thank you Katykiwi. I am not sure the facts of this case can sustain the consumer protections argument, due to what might be unclean hands (he was after all exploiting a bug-at best, i thin, LL has a right to close up the system how they want). Still this is a case of first impression, and a lot of issues may well be decided.

As you correctly point out, the court's determination as to whenther it has jusridiction over the matter and can even apply the consumer protection laws will have far reaching consequences.

Also for me, what intrigues me is the choice of law clause in the TOS. I wonder if LL will force this back into California. The courts in San Francisco may be more eager to take a broad reach than those in other places.

This story sounds fishy to me. I think most insurance policies against fire are void when the policy holder causes the fire (aka arson.)

But your point is well taken. Wacky things come out of the court systems sometimes.

I really hope Linden Lab files a countersuit for theft using a software exploit.