Wake Up Smell The Coffee

You're not giving away free oranges. LL has given premium accounts our own orange trees and you want to cut them down because that's easier than enticing us to buy more oranges.

It's not the point that we are buying our L$ thru LL, the point is that LL contracted with us and have an obligation to fulfill that contract.

If the L$ hit 1000/1, premium acct holders would not be able to pay less for a premium account even if we made the contract when L$ was at 200/1. We agreed to the contract and we're obliged to fulfill it same as LL.

Not correct a class action lawsuit can be filed. Again I do not wish to do this but will do so only if it becomes required. Also our oranges are not free! We pay money for them!

By the way, it costs about $100US just to file a lawsuit (take out a form, fill it out, and submit it, just to get things started). That's about $32,500 to $33,000 in Linden$. A bit over a year worth of $500l a week payments.

Start saving up those stippends, guys.

In a class action, that would be done by the lawyer who would get a cut of the settlement/winnings.

Jeez, if you guys ran businesses in RL, you would be eating out of dumpsters by now.

I pay my rl bills in American Dollars or Japanese Yen Yes it would take a lot of camping to make that much money in second life!

What does filing class action lawsuits have to do with business litigation?

mmmmmmmmmmmmmm me likes coffee, but that and every thing you said has nothing to do with why the linden goes down the simple fact is there are not enough buyers for all the sellers.

even my 8 year old knows that

"Of course not, but it certainly helps to chop a few up, waft the free fragrent samples under the noses of potential customers to whet their appetite and adjust your charges as the morning goes by to make sure you sell your supply is exhausted just prior to when the farmer's market closes."

Very true. And offering a L$50 stipend for all new accounts for the first month only would do exactly this.

"They signed as soon as they offered the premium acct with 500L$ stipend."

Did you read the end-user agreement (or TOS, or whatever it is...the small print stuff)? I haven't, but I'd bet a few L$ that LL have something in there along the lines of: "Lindenlabs reserve the right to change their services at any time, without consultation". Just like how my mobile phone provider changed their billing system; I had a choice; stay with the new system, or cancel my account. Perfectly fair.

Musuko.

Oh.. and before you get too outraged about that... read the second paragraph of the ToS, specifically:
And, in case you think the wording at the time of your renewal is binding throughout your billing period, see paragraph 3:
How legally binding is it? Who knows. But by using the service, LL can say that you agreed to the Terms of Service which will severely weaken your case.

Ok, Jopsy, quit trying to confuse this issue with facts.

If they can cash out at their chosen rate and make tier, they clearly CAN afford it. Just because it doesn't suit you doesn't make it wrong or absurd.

I suppose a court test would solve this question. I myself see the possibility of fraud charges and possibility conspiracy to commit fraud. It will be up to the Nation, State and Local government to determine this when required.

"I myself see the possibility of fraud charges and possibility conspiracy to commit fraud."

No such possibility exists. If they place a contract in front of you (the terms of service) and you agree to it (proceeding to use their services), then you are bound by that contract and agree that they can do what they state they reserve the right to do in that contract.

There is no fraud. They state clearly what you are consenting to by using their service. There is only fraud if they did not state those reserved rights in the TOS and then went ahead and exercised them. This is not the case.

Musuko.

How many times does it have to be stated ? You cannot be held to what is deemed to be an unreasonable contract on several different grounds. Please, read up on contract law before making blanket statements like this, people make this mistake here over and over again.

"You cannot be held to what is deemed to be an unreasonable contract on several different grounds."

The Second Life terms of service is not an unreasonable contract. Consent has been freely given by all participants, the participants are competent adults, and the contract does not violate law or require any of the participants to do so.

"Please, read up on contract law before making blanket statements like this, people make this mistake here over and over again."

Ah, so you have read up on contract then. Very good! Perhaps you could explain to us, then, how the second life terms of service breaks the law and on what grounds you would have your agreement with SL voided?

Musuko.

I always agree to what I think are unreasonable contracts which breach contract law.

Just because I am cool like that.

The claim however would be that, since the ToS says nothing about Premium membership (it only mentions "fees", ie tier), the contract of sale entered into at the time the Premium membership was purchased co-exists with the Terms of Service and prevents the stipend being removed because, although LL could do that under the ToS, it would break the contract of sale.

Contract law requires consideration of all parties. It could well be argued that the ToS does not adequately consider the party other than LL, since it effectively guarantees them nothing. Remember that this cuts both ways - if they can legally take away Premium stipends for the sake of the economy, then they can legally zero your L$ account for the sake of the economy too.

Does the ToS state anywhere that the $L doesn't have any value, money-wise? If yes, and you signed it, does that not mean that you and LL have agreed that $L isn't worth anything, and cutting $L does not constitute any loss to you? (if it doesn't, this is irrelevant).

By the way, I took business law as well. "conisideration" doesn't mean taking the other party's interests into consideration, i.e. caring about the other party. It is defined as simply "some right, interest, profit or benefit accruing to the one party or some forbearance, detriment, loss or responsibility given, suffered or undertaken by the other." In other words, the contract requires one party to loose something and one party to gain something, or to have an exchange. In this case, the user looses $10US, and gains access for a month, while LL gains $10 and gives up server space and bandwidth. If the contract listed in the ToS does not state anything about guaranteed stippends, then they are not guaranteed, but the consideration still stands: both parties have lost and gained something specifically listed or agreed upon in the contract/ToS.

In case you haven't noticed, this, like all the other threads on here, is for people to post stuff about how smart they believe everyone should think they are, how much they have had experience in economics and business, regardless of whether their experience is relevant or not, and how much they believe everyone else should think their opinion is worth. Nothing more, nothing less. Everything else is just people attempting to fit their words into that context.

The ToS states that L$ have no monetary value but that they are a "license", which means you could claim that you didn't recieve the "license" you paid for.



That's questionable. As far as I know (and I've only studied this 'unofficially', so you might know better) consideration is judged based purely on what's in the agreement, not on what actually happens. In that case, the user does not gain "access for a month" from the ToS because the ToS is not legally binding on LL to deliver access (ie, ensuring that the grid remains up, that their account remains functional, etc.). Of course LL do try and ensure that everyone has access, but since they aren't bound to by the agreement, the fact they do so doesn't count towards consideration.

But again - living by the raw terms of the ToS could mean dying by them as well. It's not in anyone's interests, not even LL's, that LL reneges on what residents believe they're getting, even if they're legally protected in case of doing so.



The question is whether the Premium membership could be considered a seperate purchase which would create its own contract, additional to the ToS.

One thing that I don't think has been tried is the following:

Offering savings account that offer a larger interest rate than inflation.
To avoid the spiral, this bank should *not* take $L out of SL. The deposit interest obligation should be paid (as in RL) by in world loan and mortgage income.

Then people have another reason to keep their $L in world.

I think we have a fundemental confidence problem with the $L, namely that regardless of sources, sinks, supply and demand people are worried about:

A)Volatility
B)That the $L could cease to exist tomorrow, while USD will likely remain.
C)SL professionals must pay their RL bills in RL currency, necessitating taking out large amounts of $L on a regular basis.

Not sure the credibility of said "bank," but Ginko Financial has existed for way over a year now, and has been doing just that. On the worst days of the $L value decline, their interest rates at least cover enough to keep your total $L at the same $USD value. I've held my money with them (now over $230,000L) since last June.

SL bank just opened and I have opened an account there, what is the interest rate at Ginko Financial?