Oooh, you better watch out there. Either *all* money is play money or none of it is, and if you don't understand why, you shouldn't be running a corporate share exchange.
That's what I just said, *all* of the money is play money.
The chances are good that one day the courts in some jurisdiction (I'm specifically thinking the UK with it's ... pragmatic ... approach to law & justice) will in fact hold people in gaming worlds responsible for the ways they handle that cash. It just hasn't happened yet because the size of the damages isn't large enough. Creating corporate entities - with the corresponding increase in capital at work in the metaverse *will* hasten the day.
I agree with you, and more. In our litigious society, someone is always pissed off, has an agenda and is looking to sue someone out of existance, right or wrong. I've said in the forum before that one day verdicts will come down on ALL of this. The hookers, the brothels, the casinos (I suspect this will also extend to include bingos and other "*ingos"
, the L$ exchanges themselves and yes, even the stock exchanges. We do live in a time in which people must be careful not to enjoy themselves, seek excitement and/or push the envelope in any way, even in instances where such activites don't result in harm or loss. If one does, one must accept that all kinds of agendas are out there lurking.If you watch the video, you'll see that during his talk about the stock exchange, Philip Linden also indicated that he felt these virtual companies were suable. I think that this was in response to a question about fraud. I agree with that position, and I don't think that "the buck stops here", at virtual corporations, with respect to this type of exposure either.
People who STEAL, an all too common occurance in SL, could probably be made to be accountable for their actions. I think it is good that the SoP stock exchange panel has brought this fact into the spotlight. Hopefully it will give these nasty people something to think about. I know there's someone out there that *I'd* love to provide with a big headache, but it just isn't worth it to try to recover my L$25,000 in value.
Disclaimers are only a limited protection. If there's enough money involved, a lawsuit may still occur, and you may still lose.
True, and true. An infinate number of things may or may not happen.
Indeed. And while it may sound like I'm negative on the idea of corporations in SL, in fact I'm not. I *do* think the problems are non-trivial, and the liability issue is one where I would liike to see very clear legal advice - written fromthe PoV of someone who was highly incentivized to make it hard on the SL-based corporation and/or the virtual share exchanges.
- C
Stay tuned!
I think that the topic of whether residents can get away with sueing us has come up enough that we may need to enlist the services of a qualified securities lawyer to advise us on where these operations stand today and how best to protect ourselves from residents who may be harboring agendas.