Land Piracy

Recently, my friends Sym Byrd and Wintermist Byrd, along with their entire group, have been robbed of the land that they owned. Due to a glitch in the system, when they attempted to transfer ownership of the land from the old group to the new one, a group of people stole the land away for a pittance during that brief gap because the glitch made it go up for sale by default. The land they invested in is now owned by a group of sodding ***holes who are trying to sell it back to them for an insane amount of money, while they only got about 1L each for their own land.

This is piracy, ladies and gentlemen, and they contacted the Lindens about it. The Lindens did nothing. I'm standing up for my friends, and I'm going to invite others to join me. This is wrong, and it can't be allowed. The Lindens MUST take responsibility for people who pirate land because of a glitch in SL!

- Flynn

I'd be curious about this glitch you speak of, only because I have never experienced it. I have noticed that land can stay for sale at the price it is listed for when you join property which is the biggest problem I have to be careful of when re-cutting land.. On the other hand though, I've never noticed a peice of land go up for sale when I either set and deeded a group, or when I have set the land to sell to a specific person. It would be nice to know what led to the glitch, so I and others don't have to experience it.

The most common mistake people make is not using the set button to specify who they are selling to at a low price. If your friends did not use the set button below the price box, then they did not experience a glitch. I think it is wrong that someone would take the land from you. Most people I know that sell land would have given it back to you, but you have to be careful. Linden Labs has always taken the stance that they will not try to determine which land sales were mistakes when you set the price yourself, clicked the box, and then clicked the continue button when warned the land would be going up for sale. If it is a glitch, it would probably help if you explain step by step what they did that led to the glitch, so that Linden Labs can see that the land was put for sale without you having to go through all the steps to get it up for sale.

I have heard of this happening in the past, which is why LL set up an option for selling to a specific body.

But in this case, land was apparently being sold from one group to another. I've never actually done that, so I don't know what's entailed.

However, I do believe this: Linden Lab all too often denies accountability or responsibility in the way their system operates, or the things that take place on it.

I don't think it would take all that much for Linden Lab to check records and recognize that a piece of land sold for a ridiculously small amount of money. That recognized and based on the testimony of several members of the selling group, it would make sense they would cancel the transaction and return the land to the seller group to do with as they pleased.

If they determined this was an intentional piracy by the purchasing group (which considering the price, it likely was)... then imho they should even consider banning the buyer for a few days to show they will not tolerate such activities. However, LL has a rep for excessive tolerance of unethical activity on SL and often favor the criminal over the victim (how many people have been banned for defending themselves against griefers?).

But if evidence of land piracy is present, they should take care of it... because otherwise, there is going to be a group of ticked off users that are going to smear Linden Lab's reputation all over the internet, and bad publicity in the instance of online games can be very damaging. I would believe there are already a number of people out there who badmouth SL every chance they get because of similar things that have happened to them... things LL should have handled and didn't.

I visited another online VR game yesterday (somewhat similar to SL) and asked them how their system compared with Second Life. They'd never heard of Second Life. Ouch. Apparently, they didn't even consider SL to be competition. For that situation to exist, someone somewhere just isn't doing things right, y'know?

As a realtor, i'll be happy to see action against this kind of "land stealing".

But, where is the limit ?
Let's say...
Someone sell a very nice land at 3/sqm,
i buy it and set it for sale at 6/sqm in the next second.
The original seller notice he priced too low and want his land back, to resell it at higher price.

Did i stole the land ?
I'd say no, of course. But the original seller will think i stole 3/sqm.

One way to solve problems with land sales is conformation dialog to owner ("Do you wish to sell your 512sqm land in Happy (234,23) for L$4000 to Joe Doe?" Yes No). While waiting for seller to approve/deny sale (if offline for instance), the buyer should likewise have an option to bail out. This way LL will eliminate use of landscanners/automatic scripts who buys up cheap land as well as land piracy and accidents.

I mean... In rl all trade of estate demands a contract signed by both parties. Why should SL be any different?


Lis

Well, first of all there is no way to make an automatic buying script. I script quite a bit, and I do land sales. There is no way. Land scanners don't scan for cheap land, they scan for released land.

That aside, your idea about asking the owner to approve or deny a sale will hurt every person that is not online a great deal. Their property will only sell when they are online. Should a person be on SL non-stop just to get their property sold. If a person wants land, runs into it not being approved, and they find land that does have someone online, then the first person looses the sale. This means land sellers who spend a large amount of time online will have a great advantage over they every day resident selling one property.



This is a good point. I personally think that anything under 1$L/meter2 without the set button is an obvious mistake. I don't think anyone out there sells their property lower than first land on purpose. I do remember a time when there were a few properties under 2.0$L/meter2 six months ago that no one was buying. If we ever hit that again, it would be nice if it wasn't automatically considered a mistake.

There is a simpler way Linden Labs could fix this without having to check records. They already don't allow you to set land up for 0$L without using set. Why don't they just raise that to 1$L/meter2 without set. If the land is 512meter2, do not let the person sell for 512$L. I think that would solve a great deal, most of the mistakes are when a person tries to sell to someone else for 1$L.

That's easy to solve. Have the seller present you with a no-mod notecard detailing the sale agreement. Then there's no question as to the arrangement. You can show that card to anyone who questions the deal.

Many thanks to all of you who have responded to this thread. I've heard some very good suggestions on how to rectify the situation, and checking the sales logs is a great idea, looking for too-low purchases of land.

Now, the only trick is getting the Lindens to actually read this and do something about it. :/

Man, I keep hearing about this more and more, and frankly it's kinda scary. I think LL doesn't care because they want people to buy islands. I'm getting griefed constantly and LL does nothing.

But getting an island solves almost all these problems. Pretty soon the mainland is going to be fulla griefers and people (like me) who cannot afford an island.

In any case, I wanted to respond to this:



I think it's safe to say that if someone sets an abuse report immediately after an extremely low-cost sale, detailing specificaly what happened, potentially with chat logs, then there should be something they can do to resolve the situation.

Personally I Think there should be a delay or comformation before a sale is complete to stop this. The least LL could do is add a checkbox, set to be checked on default, that says "Confirm sales before transaction occurs" or "Approve sales before transaction occurs". Then for people that legitimately want to just sell their land to anyone can uncheck the box.

This way if a newb screws up, someone can tell them about the checkbox, before they lose their land to some asshole.

A similar thing happened to me...

I made a mistake and a land hawk flew in, grabbed up my land before I even knew what was happening and refused to listen, compromise, care, or have sympathy in fixing the situation. I had to buy the land back from him at a crazy price.

The most frustrating thing about the situation was that Linden Labs offered no support or help or even responses to my emails. A "too bad, so sad" reply would have been better than the absolute silence I received.

Hard lesson learned...

That is absolutely shameful. I am sure there was a reason you decided to acede to the demands of this pirate? Myself, I'd have told him to choke on his land and called Linden Lab hotline every day until I got some response.

But the fact that Linden Lab doesn't respond to such things is disgraceful.

However, consider this fact of business: it is my experience that when a company treats their clients very well, those clients are actually resistant to go to competition. However, when a company does not treat its clients well, they only leave more room for competition to come in and, doing a better job, eat their market. Which is exactly what is likely to happen sooner or later.

Linden Lab isn't the only company capable of creating a 3D VR interactive world. All it takes is for another company to realize the profit potential involved. My estimate is another company could launch a viable, functioning world in a little over a year of concerted effort. I do find it somewhat amusing that LL seems to be in constant denial of that fact and that they continue to take (or fail to take) actions such as you describe above. My primary question would be: why would LL not believe that you as a customer, would tell them to kiss your tail and slam the door behind you, taking your grievances elsewhere on the net? One person spreading bad rep across the forums can do significant damage to a company.

My question of course is whether Linden Lab has changed this "non interference" land policy over the past few months, or if they still have the same old MO. I had thought they'd changed their griefer policy to once of less tolerance until attack by a griefer last week with absolutely no punitive action by LL. I realized at that time that at least in this area, LL has made no progress whatsoever. The griefer problem is as bad as it has ever been-- compounded by 120,000+ users and a free-membership policy.

I definitely agree with you there. I never experienced any significant problems until SL became free. Griefers will always take advantage of free, and it just becomes worse when the real administration does nothing to stop them.

For the record, people on free accounts can't buy land.

I'm refering to the griefing in general, not the land-buying piracy. However, griefers may be attracted by the free, find out they can make real money by cheating people, and move up to a premium account to do just that.

But this is like the 5th time I've heard about it. How are these people popping in seconds after someone accidentally sets the land for sale?

That's a good question Jakkal. There's a chance that this is a coincidental circumstance and that there are enough corrupt people on SL to take advantage of it every chance they get. That said, it's hard to imagine this happens on a regular basis, especially with the SELL TO function now available. There's the possibility I guess of somone overhearing a land deal is about to go down and hanging around until the precise moment of sale, hoping someone does not set the SELL TO function.

IMHO, This is a great idea, Jakkal....

For example:

When a property is sold, a dialog box appears to the Seller to confirm the sale. Once the dialog is sent, the land stays in a "Sale Pending" state for say... 30 to 60 minutes. If the Seller does nothing after the timeout, the land sale continues normally to the new owner. Likewise, if the seller immediately confirms, its immediately sold. This will give the seller 30-60 minutes to decline the sale if a mistake was made.

For group-owned land sales, maybe popup the dialog to all the officers for authorization by one of them.

Or, some other tweak of the above. But I think something like this would be a step in the right direction

land scanners have a lot to do with this and now with the advent of p2p a thief can pop in on any parcel and buy it re set it to sell and begon before you even knew it sold.
they should deactivate any kind of land scanning i cant see any ligament use for such scanners other then to steal land from unsuspecting individuals.

Please help me understand your statement. If a plot of land is up for sale
and a user with a land-scanner see it and buy's it for the price you offered
it for, how is that stealing?

Maybe I'm old fashion, but when the seller is being paid whatever price
they offered the land for, I don't see that as stealing.

And if the buyer wants to turn around and reseller the land, why is that
wrong? They are the new owners. They can do whatever they want with
the land, including resell it for more. If the previous owner didn't price
their land correctly, its their own loss.

I remember when I was shopping for my first non-first land plot. I came upon a lot for sale for $1 or some such thing, and the owner was standing there building on it.

I stopped and told the guy that his land was for sale. I very nearly bought it before I realized that it must be a mistake.

He immediately set the land not for sale, but didn't even say thank you.

Sometimes I think I'm just a sap. What do you think?

Anyhow, I can't imagine the mindset of anyone who thinks buying some virtual plot is worth making another person unhappy. So maybe I am a sap.

because the land scanners are set to look for very cheap land and IM the owner of the scanner when cheap land is found.
99 % of land that is set cheaper then the average is a mistake by the seller. most of these mistakes are because the seller does not understand the system and the selling process.
so the scanners only purpose is to find such land and let the owner of the scanner take advantage of the sellers mistake and buy it up quick before the seller realizes there mistake.
it is not breaking the rules it is not unlawful but it is dishonest business and is very very unethical. it is not illegal stealing but it sure as hell is unethical steeling.

but for you to be asking this question i can tell you would have no ethics if you think this practice of steeling land is OK.


EDIT:
ya know the more i think of your question about land scanners the more i begin to get very up set because it is perfectly clear you and many like you have no fucking ethics and don't give a fucking shit about any one but your own income.
and its people like you who ruin it for the rest of us.
as for my use of profanity i really don't give a crap i am pissed off and the mods or linden labs can do what they will with me
this practice of land steeling will never be acceptable.

Ow, a corporate-mentality if I've ever seen one. LOL.

Wow, nothing personal, but that set of questions actually makes me wonder if you would conduct an SL business with the same philosophies.

It's theft because the sale wasn't intended for the person who buys it... and he knows that. He's trying to be an opportunist-- a pirate-- and is taking advantage of the moment to the detriment of others. It's a totally immoral, unethical and underhanded thing to do. It is taking something without intent or permission of the owner. That's what makes it theft. It's wrong. I'm actually surprised that isn't obvious.

"A man who will do his neighbor dirty in order to succeed, is already a failure."

I don't call that being a sap Barbarra. I call it having a conscience. Apparently an increasingly rare commodity these days.

I just want to note that there is no way for a "land scanner" to scan for land that is set for sale. There are just no LSL calls to do it.

The only possible "land scanner" is one that scans for land set to "public land", which happens if you "Release Land" on a parcel under 512 sq. m. Now - if you "Release Land" that means you are willing to give it up for no compensation. And there is a confirmation dialog....

To the best of my knowledge, the idea of a "land scanner" as some kind of secret tool is a myth because there is absolutely no way, to determine the price, the name or the description of a parcel via LSL scripts. Such a functionality would make our job in the land business much easier, but it is not available.

The way these people operate is much simpler, but still effective: You simply open up the Find window and sort by L$/sqm. You refresh that window a few times every window while you are in SL (or have an automated tool do this). As soon as you see a piece of land with an extra low price you check it in the window. If the descriptions contains something like flat or even waterfront or if it is in a new sim, you TP there and buy it.

(Land scanners were possible in earlier days of SL where abandoned land did not fall back to Gov Linden.)

This is a disgusting business practice, IMHO, but it is perfectly "legal". When I put up a price sticker on a product in RL I have to sell it for that price. Excuses like "ooops, I did not mean it" do not work and can be brought to court. It is impossible for Linden Lab to decide if the price for a piece of land really was an accident or the old owner simply has changed his mind.

How would you determine the fair value of the land? Where would you draw the line? Even, if you installed such rules (which would be discussed on and on right here on the forums I am sure), does anyone think the Lindens would send dozens of people inworld (and pay for them) who would rule in cases of such disputes?

I figure that these people are looking at the Land For Sale in the Find screen, sorting it by L$ per sq m, and refreshing it until they see a plot that is set for sale at next to nothing -- setting a 512 for sale for L$1 would result in a price of less than L$0.002 per sq m, for example. Then they TP in and buy it.

P2