He's actually suing LL?!?

I put my take on the scam on my website, in a sidebar:
http://solitaire2.bravehost.com/sl-site/menu.html.

The guy's doing what lawyers sometimes do - which is to use certain situations to establish new law and precedent. His motives are both pecuniary and professional. The fact that an "exploit" was involved doesn't necessarily render the case frivolous - in fluid circumstances like these, the court itself could determine what an exploit is, and whether it has relevance to the other issues. Exploits in real estate law are well-documented and there is plenty of relevant case-law. In "virtual real-estate"? Uh-uh. And that's what this is all about.

btw - anyone who thinks that devices and principles such as contracts are "set in stone", cannot be challenged, etc., really doesn't understand how the law works. The law might be based on "infallable" resources such as the Bible, the Koran, the Analects, etc., but it doesn't operate in the same way as those absolutist, ideological tracts.

You may think there's no merit to the case, but the court may end up using a different calculus than you do - because the relevant issues in law may be entirely different than the ones you percieve.

Also, now that I consider it more, I am not so sure its all that wacky of a lawsuit really. I mean yes he was exploiting a bug, and LL has the right to close the bug up. However if they are not letting him have the land he won at acution because of the bug, then they should likely return his lindens. Closing his account seems extreme when the situation could have perhaps been resolved differently.

I am obviously uncertain of all the circunstances, but it seems he may have paid his money and simply been banned.

Of course the ongoing silly banter about his abilities, education, and professional ethics is the rabid blathering of society induced group think about lawyers, and does nothing to improve my estimation of the general intelligence of the the population.

I do not know why the first recourse of this forum, when it comes to attorneys, is to attack thier abilty, intelligence and education. I certainly do think that half the people on this forum are incompentent at thier chosen professions merely because they say things that are wrong, silly or reflective of a less than stell trip through the educational system.

If you think the law suit is meritless, fine. But don't go dumping personall attacks on someone you don't know, whose professional qualifications and abilities you have no expereience of, and who has done nothing to you in the way of a personal attack.

I'm not too concerned about the land purchase issues here, because they seem pretty clear.

What concerns me is that this person was terminated (and that actually means "executed", in a virtual world sense) without due process.

LL need to make up their minds: Is SL a virtual world, or just a money-earning game?

- If it is *NOT* a virtual world, then fine, LL are the providers of this simple online game and they have a EULA and can instantly terminate the gaming without recourse to "justice". It's probably acceptable in an environment of zero social responsibility, if still nasty.

- But if it *IS* a virtual world that they're creating, and hence characters build their lives within this world and develop characters and friends and history, then it needs in-world due process, and no out-of-world banning that effectively results in unrestricted tyrrany and unilateral avatar "executions".

You can't really have it both ways, not if you're consistent and responsible.

I have a feeling any analogy to real-estate will be discarded early in the case. Instead this will rely on case law for electronic assets on third party servers which actually isn't completely new ground.

Or how about straightforward breach of contract? When an online auction completes, it is treated as a binding contract. If one party weasels out, then the contract has been breached and the other party is completely entitled to sue for damages.

Oh come on, Jake. This idiot committed fraud and now he's playing the victim. He's also lying his ass off in that press release. He won those auctions for under $10 usd each. He hardly lost "thousands of dollars" and since the auctions were fraudulent it's highly doubtful that LL even charged his card. He's talking about the windfall profit he would have made reselling the land he got through what amounts to theft. There's no case here and this guy is an unscrupulous con artist who should be disbarred (if he's even really a lawyer).

How about straightforward fraud? That's what I would consider using a digital exploit to make someone sign a contract that they would otherwise have no intention on signing.

If it is determined by the courts that LL breached their contract with him, he's absolutely entitled to every dime of what he would have made reselling the land. With a couple of sims worth of land, that's easily a loss of thousands of dollars.

And, the auctions are only "allegedly fraudulent" at this point.

And *that's* what the courts need to determine. Did this person use a digital exploit to compel the counterparty to enter into a contract they otherwise would not have? If "typing in a URL" is considered an exploit, then LL is at least contributorily negligent in that regard...

Allegedly my ass. This idiot flat out admitted on these very forums that he tricked the system by manipulating URL's to start auctions before they were ready, bypassing the standard minimum bid. That's fraud. I'm surprised the lawyers in the crowd are defending him since he's such a classic example of the stereotypical ethically challenged opportunist hack.

Juro wrote: "So, you consider a 5-finger discount on several thousand dollars breaking a 'minor' rule?

I wonder - if someone broke a 'minor' rule that allowed them to take ownership of your club and all your inworld assets - would you feel the same?"

This is a case of someone apparently using an exploit to own in effect "government land" and then sell it for a profit. As much as that government is embarassed by the simple exploit in the URL's, the fact is, they can revese it, and return his money and take back the land. I have some carriages that have vanished and presumeable coudl be on somenones land right now, that may not have auto return active. So this would qualify as theft of my property. Now, if I filed a complaing and told LL that my property had been stolen, and they go find it on someone's land, and then ban the land owner for theft, and take all his land and money for that, without giving him a trial, or the ability to explain he did not put it there or even know it was there, would I want that? No. I only care about my property being returned, and that is all LL should be interested in, correcting the problem. Lets say that property owner owned 20 sims, and this would be a huge Real life loss of 10's of thousands of dollars punishment without even so much as a trial. If the rules allow that, then that is wrong. The US government courts should become involved if LL rules allowed them steal money from anyone in this manner, whoever they choose, or for whaever reasons they believe are true. It is simply in my mind illegal to have a private company be able to fine private individuals thousands of dollars for alegedly violating the one sided rules they wrote, with no trial or recouse for the person they believe commited an offence. It is just unfair, undemocratic, and I feel the courts will find it illegal.

Two wrongs do not make a right. The person may have been wrong to try and gain property unfairly, but LL was EQUALLY wrong to take all his other property and money unfairly as well, when they could simply have taken the land in question, returned his money from those transactions, fixed the exploit.

Lovepeace Languish

Exploiting a system and then complaining you were caught deserves a one-way ticket to bansville, period.

I guess if people would meditate more on the basics of the TOS and it's repercussions, they would think twice before signing up.

Who ever said life was fair???

This is LL's game, invented and fully owned by LL. They can and will terminate any account at their sole discretion and will. YOU and the rest of us signed up for SL under those conditions. Don't like it? Then go play THERE, WoW, TSO or some other game. Whoops... every other game has that rule too.

How about just giving up online games altogether if you don't like the rule. Nobody is forcing you to play SL under these conditions. Don't sign up, then whine and bitch because you don't like the terms that YOU agreed to.

Of course, and there are plenty of valid websites where it's perfectly fine to plug in URLs like that. Various kinds of simple search queries shouldn't be a problem for instance. It's when the result cracking into data that is clearly intended to be private OR as in this case allowing you to buy something that clearly is priced wrong and is not ready for auction.

So, the user is just supposed to guess when it's okay to type in a URL and when it isn't? If typing in a string for a simple search is okay, then why not a search for land you've seen marked as "for sale" on the map when you're unable to find it in the sales list?

And how is something priced wrong when it's up for auction? Isn't the point of an auction that the *bidders* set the price?

You have somehow mistaken SL for a democracy. LL is a GAME owned by LL who can wack anyone they wish for any reason. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean you can make up your own rules. Don't like it, don't play.

Side note... if this was such a good deal, I am assuming he bought the land for $1 USD, then where are these "thousands" of dollars he was supposed to have spent???

I believe it's the "thousands" of dollars he made selling the land off as quickly as possible, or would have made - not sure which

I'm not sure if it was "thousands" of USD or $L...

If it is dollers he would have made, where are the damages then?

In his head

lol... good place to keep em too, nothing else up there, pleanty of room for storage.