He's actually suing LL?!?

Please. This is a software exploit. And that's it. No further discussion is needed. This is going to be laughed out of court.

You may have just earned yourself a subpoena with the above post.




They might want to rething sending that subpoena after reading this post, and others by you though.

You don't sound like you'd make a very good witness for the plaintiff

Ah was beginnin` ta think that NOBODY had noticed that th` gentleman had stated that he had followed the directions of a Linden.

The thing everyone is glossing over, and that I noticed right off, was the mention of gambling regulations, land sale regulations etc etc.... I really wonder if he is doing it to get back the money, or if he's doing it hoping to create enough publicity that the various commisions that we all know *SHOULD* be involved since the servers are based in the U.S. but are not as of yet, take notice and start investigating further into the game world and the practices going on within. I could just imagine if the California state gambling commision (if it even exists.. i'm not american so dunno) started investigating in-game casino's since they deal with real world funds under the cover of lindens how much this guy would be laughing at home knowing he got his payback.

Ummm regardless of offered reward if you just walk in someone's house and take the money that's theft. Totally irregardless of whether they intended to pay the $20 or not.

You're taking the word of this shyster as gospel? I thought you were smarter than that, Llauren.

P2

most people keeps thinking this is the 'silliest crap they have ever read' or 'the guy is a moron'

but..

legally hes in his right - upon winning the auction him and linden labs entered a contract - the sims - virtual or otherwise - are now his - the only way this could not be if he hacked the site or gave misleading information - the way he got to the auction area is another matter - is/was it password protected? if not then its in the realm of 'public awareness'

if your website or shop is selling an item at a marked price - you have to stick to that price - thats how i got away with loadsa cans of energy drinks for 10p each insted of £1.00

the mistake here was created by linden labs by not putting the marked price on the auction before making it publicly available - and any website that is reachable by entering a url counts as publicly available - yes he screwed linden labs over - yes he could even know that this seems 'odd' that their starting at 0 insted of 1000 - but LEGALLY he hasnt done anything wrong - and he has a completed purcuse that linden labs is - by law - having to accept

maybe doing the 'im a lawyer route' first wasnt a good idea as it turned nearly everyone against him - yet you are all flaming him for the wrong reasons - flame him because he found it first not you - and because he's a lawyer he wont have to pay lawyer fees ever flame him for that - dammit i will (bastard)

but congratulations on getting youre sims and i hope they hand them back with your payoff as soon as poss

---------------------------edit - adding on -------------

quote:-
LMAO, you have got to be kidding me. So someone is suing LL because he got in trouble for trying to take advantage of a glitch and lost money upon trying to sell the land he scammed. That would be like me trying to return something I stole at the store and getting the poilce called on me and me suing the company because hey, when I stole the item and left the store, a security alarm never went off...

CLASSIC!
--------------------------------------------------------
yup its a glitch - but still legal

trying to return something......a security alarm never went off - he never stole it - it was in plain sight available for anyone in the world to see - all the yhad to do is put in an address - according to most peeps here that is a felony - if it is then any company that you have shopped with online can take youre money - ban you from shopping their and not send you your goods you bought OR the money you spent on it - stop relating this to a shop on the street - its an online shop and it put the product online as available - all they had to do was disable teh ability to auction or put the 1000usd starting price in before they put it online - they didnt - they pricemarked it at 0 and made it publicly available (even if it wasnt 'advertised' or linked to via their main site)

An interesting take on "hidden" URLS in one company TOS...

http://www.codetek.com/legal.php

"USE OF WEB SITE INFORMATION

Registration keys and private or "hidden" URLs obtained from or through CodeTek Studios, Inc. may not be posted on any web site or given, sold or disseminated to any third parties. CodeTek Studios, Inc. reserves the right to terminate (de-activate) any registration key found to be posted or given, sold or otherwise disseminated in any way to any other web site or to any third party without the permission of CodeTek Studios, Inc. or obtained through the unauthorized use of a "hidden" or private URL on CodeTek's Web Site. The 'unauthorized' use of a hidden or private URL shall include, but not be limited to, the posting of that URL on any web site (other than CodeTek Studios' Web Site) or given to any third parties. Customer shall not be entitled to any refund or credit for any registration keys de-activated by CodeTek Studios, Inc. "

You can't "win" an auction that wasn't valid to begin with so the contract couldn't have been valid. This is more analogous to someone hitting a button on a vending machine and realizing that it's malfunctioning and spitting out candy without requiring payment. If you stood there and exploited that flaw to take all the candy from the machine you couldn't very well sue when you were arrested for theft of property.

The problem I see is that he set the minimum bid in the first place when he had no right to. The minimum bid is set by the person who owns and is selling the item- in this case Linden Labs. He had no right assuming the role as the auctioneer. In all auctions, the auctioneer first sets the minimum bid, then the auction clock starts ticking. In this case, this person took it upon himself to sneak his way up on the auctioneer podium before LL or the bidders could get there, pose as the auctioneer, start a bidding price and the bidding clock, then quickly run to his seat as the only bidder in the house and snatch it when the clock ran out.

he didnt set the mininum price - linden labs just failed to raise it to 1000usd before posting it

Naw, Ah jes` was wonderin` why no-one seemd to have noticed for so --ahem-- long.

In ma humble opinion, based on admitedly limited information:

1. IF this detail is correct, THEN he is in the right, and LL in the wrong.
   
2. IF this detail is incorrect, THEN he is probably in the wrong, and LL in the right.
   

Further information --which Ah do NOT have access to-- is required for further analisys.

Toodle-oo!

Emphasis on the seemed. I commented on it back on the 2nd.

link

Disclaimer: not saying I'm the first and not researching to find out.

What was the minimum price set at? Do we even know if there was a minimum price set by LL of $0.01? This is a technical uncertaintly that I am not sure any of us know, but going off logic, I really don't see LL setting starting bids at $0.01 if they are just going to jack the price up to the universal starting bid of $1000 again prior to the start of the auction. I think if LL set a starting bid, this would have triggered the start of the auction clock. Does anyone have clarification on this? In all bids that I've seen both on the Internet and in RL, auction clocks starts once the starting bid price is set by the seller, not when the first person accepts the bid price.

It's as simple as LL not bothering to set the default value for the minimum bid field to $1000. Without them doing that the field would be NULL or 0 till they manually changed it. And from what I can see of LL coding practices I can certainly see that happening.

So if I walk into a grocery store and see a box on the floor filled with unstocked caviar that hasn't been priced yet and the pricing gun sitting on the ground, it's perfectly acceptable for me to price all the cans for a $1 and buy them?

Those pieces of land were not priced yet, he had no rights to price them himself when clearly the minimum bid for them is always $1000.

For me this whole issue is about personal ethics. From what I understand, this fella had bought land at auction before, so he was familiar with the opening bids as set by LL. Just supposing he "accidentally and innocently" stumbled into these auctions and "won" them for US$1 or whatever the insanely low amount was. As an ethical, responsible human being, he should have immediately contacted LL and said, "OMG, here's what just happened -- I think there is a problem you should be aware of and correct immediately."

Instead, whether by accident or intent, he plunged ahead, took advantage of the situation, and started re-selling the land at a personal profit. (I can just see him, wriggling in his chair like a small schoolboy, ready to pee his pants with excitement...).

To me, it's like in RL when you are at the check-stand and the clerk fails to ring up an item or gives you back too much change. What kind of person are you? Do you keep knowledge of the error and the money to yourself? Or do you point out the problem to the clerk and make things right.

Legal issues be damned: This is an educated man -- he knows right from wrong. He chose -- and continues to choose -- to take the lowest moral ground. Then again, and pardon my bias, he's a lawyer.

Dewey, Cheetham & Howe

True enough, and I believe that it was set to NULL not out of coding negligence, but because if they had set a value (such as $1000) in that field, the code would have triggered the start of the auction clock. This leads me to believe there was no minimum bid price set- this person was the one who set the ridiculously low minimum bid price, which triggered the start of the auction clock. In doing so, he assumed the role of the auctioneer when it was not within his right to do so.

Haha, I admit I wouldn't. Considering I don't even remember what Linden it was.

Opinion:

That's a thought. Maybe the Lindens are more freezing his account than just taking it. As for the gym analogy, I'm not sure. I would think the guy could go to court and demand his money back, and win. I just don't know.

CC

The webpage was exactly... nevermind, give me a minute and I'll photoshop a mockup.

Ok, this is what it looked like. If there was a bid, which I saw a few that were, it showed the name of the person who bid even though it was still up for auction.

"Bragg learned of a way to purchase virtual land significantly below market values, and invested thousands of US dollars purchasing land in an attempt to resell this land at a profit."

Opinion:

He did not invest thousands of U.S. dollars purchasing this land. Unless there is something HUGE we don't know. He invested peanuts in purchasing this land.

coco