He's actually suing LL?!?

Those are the damages.

Let's say I sign a purchase agreement to sell you a piece of property for $10,000. I then discover an oil deposit on the land, and breach my contract with you. If I then sell the land to somebody else for $500,000, you are entitled to the difference between what I would have received for the land ($10,000) and what I did receive for the land as a result of breaching the contract ($500,000). That's first-year contract law.

Let's assume for a minute that the law-breaking that this exploiter performed did not invalidate his lawsuit. Let's further assume that Linden Lab is liable for that contract.

Wouldn't the previously signed contract - the T.O.S. - still supercede?

See... the thing that you are conveniently leaving out is that LL DID NOT agree to sell him the land for $1 USD. There are no damages, the alleged "contract" is fraudulent to begin with.

If Joe Jackass Schmoe commits fraud and as a result of that fraud says he owns your house for $1 USD is he somehow entitled to damages, i.e. the difference between the value of your house if he sold it and the $1 USD he paid for it? Hell no!

Again, the thing that you also forget to mention is that LL can kick your ass out at any time, for any reason and you agreed to these terms when you signed up to play SL in the first place. Buh Bye.

That's a good question. If the clauses about L$ being worthless and LL having the ability to arbitrarily ban users and claim their assets are ruled invalid, then no it wouldn't. As it is, AFAIK a TOS hasn't been tested in court, so the whole thing could be ruled invalid.

At any rate, the TOS at the time the user signed up would be the one to be argued in court, since one other fundamental of contract law is that one party cannot unilateraly modify a contract without giving something of value to the other party (called consideration).

Unless stated in the original TOS - that it can be modified at any time.

Generally that's the same way most subscription services work - from credit cards to cable bills. If you don't want to agree to the new TOS, it's simple - you don't agree to it when it asks, and you don't log in.

Even if all this is true, there is still no justification to say the guy graduated law school from a correspondence course (he did not-btw). It also does not justify labelling him an ambulance chaser, nor does it suggest he is unethical or incompentent as an attorney. His case is a worst poor, not frivolous, based on the facts presented, but does not necessarily rise to the level of a misrepresentation-fraud is a very specific thing-exploiting a loop hole, even if it subsequently closed is not fraud.

If LL did not charge his card, I do not imagine this suit would be brought, but thats just an opinion, I do not know what all the circumstances are, and neither, i suspect do most of the people here.

I think you've completely misunderstood the point of my example and set up a straw man argument to try to minimize its validity.

First of all, the question is whether the contract is valid. LL hosts virtual land auctions through which people can purchase sims by automated auction. Through their system (perhaps using it in a way they hadn't intended or anticipated) a user was able to purchase some sims. By having the auctions available to the world and freely available to be bid upon, they may be implicitly agreeing to sell the land for whatever the highest bid is. If you list something on eBay without a reserve, you can't just walk away if the price doesn't go as high as you had hoped.

Secondly, your example is completely backwards.

Third, the TOS has not been tested in court, so agreeing to those terms may be absolutely meaningless from a legal point of view.

I know enough to be annoyed that I have to share the planet with people like this guy, to whom ethical behavior is such a mystery.

But if eBay screws up, and starts selling your item before you get round to filling in the "reserve" box on the form, then the sale shouldn't be allowed to happen.

I am not sure if a small court in Pennsylvania is the right venue for this lawsuit. It seems silly to me like suing the rabbits in the moon because the tides were too low or something.

Don't like my argument, too bad. His sorry ass is booted as it should be. You should be ashamed for defending someone like that in the first place.

Again, none of it matters, LL can boot anyone's ass to the moon at their sole whim... which they did. Don't like it, then perhaps you shouldn't have agreed to those tems when you signed up to play SL.

You mean the guy that decided to ban a user that won an auction, right?

You should be ashamed for coming up with fallacious arguments. I'm just happy to be providing a well-needed balancing POV to this mob.

And, as I've said in other posts, if this case goes forward we'll get to see if LL actually *can* boot people at their sole whim. Just because it's in the TOS doesn't make it so.

Fallicious in YOUR eyes Ricky... I'll bet not many other people would agree with you.

He got booted because he cheated and got caught... plane and simple. Just punishment for the deed. That being said, doesn't really matter if it is just or not. This isn't a democracy and LL can indeed boot anyone out for any or no reason. Don't like it, don't log in.

Actually, yes, yes it does. It's called 'a private system'. They can boot your ass at any time, for any reason they see fit. SL isn't public property, you know.

Then they're idiots. Your argument was some convoluted scenario in which someone takes my house then sues me for damages. Clearly not the case here, and clearly not even close to what *my* original example was trying to explain.

LL can boot anybody out, but if they call bullshit on them and take it to court, the TOS may wither and die. As I said, just because it's written down doesn't make it legally valid or enforceable.

And, anyway, I don't log in. Not since the big TOS change back in October. I had pre-paid for a year, so I'm just cashing out my L$500/week while to keeps coming in...

And what if the TOS said they could come to your house and take your car if they feel like it? Would that be valid too?

That is not even a valid argument and you know it. They say they can take you off of *their* system at any time for any reason. Not come and take *your* property for any time for any reason.

Also the agreement to binding arbitration and the liability limitation, which was $50 dollars if I remember correctly. This TOS could be so one sided that it would be easy to challenge various clauses.

Another point is that even answering a complaint, or making a motion to dismiss, will cost LL money, and it would require a member of the Pennsylvania bar, which by coincidence is one of the 4 states where I happen to be licensed. It might be less expensive to just give this guy back his account with all his Linden.

Either way, whether this case sets legal precedence affecting all virtual property rights at least in the state of Pennsylvania, or it gets his money returned, this is an interesting case!

Oh, it clearly IS the example. LL did not authorize or agree in any way, shape or form to sell an entire farking sim to the jerk for $1 USD. He got caught and is suing for lost income on a fraudulent transaction, what BS, exactly like my scenerio.


That remains to be seen. More likely a counter suit by LL will cost the guy dearly and be an example to others who want to act immoraly and KNOWINGLY exploit a glitch for their own profit, at LLs expense. Somehow I don't think LL is too concerned about this low life. Any judge worth his salt will throw the book at him.


Works for me, everyone else like you should follow your lead, SL would be a better place.

Comment:

I'm just reading along here, but this particular post made me think. Where in the world - the real world - would this sort of thing be allowed?

I mean, what company in the real world is entitled to take a person's money - just shut off their account and take whatever is in it - with no reason given, no recourse, nothing, whenever they want to? Even if they catch a shoplifter or a bank fraud, they aren't entitled just to help themselves to all the person's money in their account, and refuse to discuss it.

The typical online game TOS wording - "You can give us money and use our service but we can shut you off at any time for no reason or any reason, and you just won't ever get your money back, and any money that you have in your account can be confiscated by us at any time we want to," - may be illegal in itself.

This is of particular concern as the line between real life money and business and "worthless" game money and business gets blurred. And as SL is on the forefront in this blurring, it isn't surprising that they would be likely to come up first when these sorts of TOS are challenged.

I'm thinking, and I can't think of a single other real life company with such a lovely set-up. Not Macy's, not a bank - nobody! And not one of those would even dare to set up such a contract. Nobody would put up with it, and they'd lose all their business, not to mention it wouldn't stand up in court.

I'm not saying anything about this case in particular, and I'm certainly not talking about whether or not Lindens are real money, even though Lindens, as well as the initial cash investment in the account would be involved, and even though Linden Lab itself is now preparing to go into the business of selling them for cash money, which certainly makes them quantities of definite quantitative value.

I'm thinking - maybe all the online games have gone on entirely too long with these TOS contracts that say they can keep your money and kick you out whenever they want.

Maybe if nothing else, this lawsuit, or others like it, could get the courts to take a look at those kinds of contracts, which are common to online games, and perhaps shouldn't be.

This suit or ones like it could change the face of consumer rights in online gaming.

CC

Linden Labs is to the Metaverse ... as the original Napster was to music sharing.

Yes, LL is going to be ripped to bits by litigation. I suspect this is just the first of many actions.

Not only is it pretty inevitable in this lawyer-ridden society, but it's also inevitable in any centralized implementation of the metaverse, just as it was with Napster.

The metaverse won't blossom until it becomes distributed.