Linden Lawyers? Linden Police?

n short..we need them.

P2P and community pressure does NOT work. We need an offical system that can step in when dealing with virtual criminals.

I've used this example before, and it shows how Community Pessure does NOT work in favor of the victim: The contract states a floating island on a private sim. The owner agrees and seperates it, only to join it the next day to the majority land. When the renter complains, the entire community rakes them over the coals as a troublemaker.

The victims of virtual crimes *need* to have a resource available to them where they can take action against such practices. You can't very well lodge an abuse report against 38 individuals living on a private sim, and the owner is apparently above reproach from any quarter. And of course, if the victim blasts the owner, the owner lodges a complaint and the victim is victimized again..by Linden Labs.

Another example: A person rents vendor space for say two weeks at a substantial sum. After three days, the renter discoveres his store has been torn down and all his objects returned so that the space he rented can be given to the owner's 'friend.' The renter cotacts the owener, is told essentially it sucks to be you, and gets not a hint of refund for the price he paid. Angry, the renter contacts live help...to be told 'Sorry..it sucks to be you" by Linden Labs.

How long will LL continue to support virtual criminals and assist in victimizing people that pay good monthly fees for service they never get? Those of us that come to Second Life DO have a reasonable expectation of standards of behaviour, and the TOS implicity implies this.

Please. Give those of us that are victimized some measure of dealing with criminals, instead of just having to suck it up while LL pritects and supports virtual criminals.

PS. I would have posted this in Hotline to Linden but they're not letting me post there...

LL don't support virtual criminals, they just wash their hands of any and all responsibilities. But I think we all have different ideas of what constitutes a virtual criminal and what they would get involved in anyway. Yes, bring the grid down, or hack their client and steal IP, they should step in. But in the examples you give, I would be loathed for LL to get involved anyway. What business or responsibility is it of theirs if you have a private dispute related to renting land or vendor space? They'd be getting into some VERY sticky ground if they started arbitrating this kind of thing.

Your post is cute.

And your example is the real life equivilant to subletting.

I give the post a 3/10.

What I'd like to see is binding arbitration. Perhap you pay a small fee to have a contract registered with a 3rd party (not Linden, not resident) site. In case of dispute, you submit to arbitration. Whoever applies is going to have to pay a fee, just like in RL. The only thing that would make it work is if the Lindens agreed to enforce the results of the arbitration. Oh, and if the arbitrator was truely independent.

Damnit Surreal - I've been working on this for a month, and you let the cat out of the bag too early - I should have this completed by this weekend. The build is complete as well as the structure, I have a couple of bells and whistles to finish up, but I'll be posting more on Friday.

I disagree ... we need more trust network functionality so people can figure out who to trust and who not to more easily.

Because they own Second Life. And they have a duty to protect their own paying customer base. I'm not saying that LL should step in at every hew and cry, but if someone lays down RL money and gets ripped off, Linden Labs is legally liable. They *can* be sued. That's basic business law.

If LL suddenly decided that all of Ansche Chung's holdings were null and void you can BET they'd end up in court. It shouldn't be any different for anybody else. I sure and wholeheartedly agree that a few Lindens isn't worth any attention but a large sum of money is. And if LL did honestly 'wash it's hands' of any p2p transactions then organizations like the Mafia or Al-Queyda could set up accounts and run transactions. You think it's funny? it's not. I guarantee you LL set up Second Life after excruciatingly careful scrutiny by it's company lawyers...and someone losing a LOT of money on an SL based transaction will make LL liable if they sit on their hands and do nothing.

Says the guy who admits he's an alt of another well known player but hasn't the balls to say who so we can't hold his opinions against them.

Yah, I can see how that trust thing works well in SL.

The only way to get real trust is to have recourse. The only way to have recourse is to give up the right to anonymity. And I doubt a lot of people are going to do that. Especially given some of the psycho nutjobs that frequent the place.

That I agree with, but how to do it? Bias plays a big part in everything. I would be more inclined to trust a Linden saying 'Don't trust this person' than I would be some alt I've only spoken to once.

I've also been called cute by ripoff artists.

The point I'm making is that those of us that are taken advantadge of should at least have the right to ask a Linden to contact the person accused, ask what's going on, and then demand a refund for the victim if LL finds the seller/landlord/whatever at fault.

So try it. All I hear is a lot of posturing about how the ToS is bullshit and that they are liable whether they like it or not. I defy someone to actually put their money where their mouth is.

So who decides what's worthy of arbitrating and what isn't? LL? because they sure haven't a great history of consistent and logical decision making so far.



And again - I defy someone to put their money where their mouth is. Frankly, I'd LOVE to see a large 'stakeholder' (no, not necessarily Anshe) get permabanned and have their L$ balance and assets liquidated and do something about it. I'd really like to see where it goes. But again, it's all empty threats and posturing.

LL say they can terminate your account at any time for any or no reason. They can delete your stuff, discontinue the L$ and there is squat you can do because nothing has any value. And you can all argue about it til you're blue in the face, but until someone actually tries it, no one knows for sure what would happen, however clear cut you think the law is.

That is true, absolutely and without argument. I don't deny that and won't. Nor would I sue LL because that's not the point of this thread and I've never lost a substantial amount of RL money.

However, the last part of your quote is a bit erroneous. How about Sony Entertainment getting sued successfully by the parents of an EQ player that committed suicide because no one online liked him? How about a LOT of gaming companies getting sued successfully because of bad p2p transactions? History speaks for itself.

But again, I'm not advocating or suggessting that anyone sue LL or do anything of the kind. I'm just asking for LL to take a more hands on approach in behalf of the people that do get victimized. Only LL and is lawyers can honestly decide what is and what isn't worthy of their involement. But we as paying monthly customers should at least have the right to go to a Linden and say hey this is messed up and hear Ok, we'll look into it rather than..well..sucks to be you.

All right, guess I'm saying it again.

If you're going to spend big money in Second Life, get the terms in writing.

Yes, a real world contract.

I think the basic problem lies in Lindens fundamental philosophy behind Second Life. When they set up this world they adopted a strongly hands-off approach, simply to see what social changes take place. They wanted to create an open-ended world that was shaped by its residents.

That is a great philosophy to have. The problems have started recently when the number of players has become so great that now we are seeing the unethical and the criminal entering this world. This was inevitable, but now the hands-off approach is leading to injustice and real hardship for some, and a lessening of the overall ethical ambiance for everybody. We have gone inworld from the generous willingness to give and to share, which was exemplified in the sixties, and seem now to be in a headlong plunge into the eighties, with its 'me-first, profit at all costs' aesthetic.

I am, and always will be, against the idea of a player-run security system or court system. I suspect this is really what the Lindens would like to see developing, but the potential for corruption is quite scary. However, something is needed. If the Lindens don't get hold of this problem Second Life could turn one day into a squalid little world of gamers and criminals, the rest of the population having long since departed.

You can sue whoever the hell you want. That doesn't really clear anything up.

To quote Selador Cellardoor:

"...Second Life could turn one day into a squalid little world of gamers and criminals..."

By the look of things large tracts of SL have already gone that direction.

There is software for this? Damn.. why didn't I find this out before I married loser husband?

Erased cuz of duplicate post. o.O

Do you have any links to sources for this information? I don't recall such a case ever succeeding and I can not find reference on the web.

And by this same token, SOE must be shitting bricks with how many people would want to sue them over the way they pooched SWG.

-Ghoti

But why would LL ever be sued for that? You are not purchasing the service from LL, you are purchasing the L$ from them. (Well from other people on Lindex I guess) That would be like saying you payed some guy 100 dollars to fix your roof, and he skipped town, so you are sueing the bank who you withdrew that 100 dollars from.

This is vey good advice. Remeber that SL can be construed as a platform. In which case it is simply a means of communication by which two people come to an agreement. Frankly if I were plunking down serious money, I would want to know the players RL name and address as well.

That way you can enforce the agreement in a real life court, should something go wrong. It sounds a bit unusual, to have an RL contract for say the building of virtual property, but don't let that stop you, the end prodcut of anythign we do in SL is intellectual property and RL courts will happily help you to protect that.

Criminal law is a very different animal really, but in terms of big expenditures, an RL contract is the way to go. To me the real value of exploring SL dispute resolution is in all those trnasactions that are too small to bother with the courts, but important enough to be meanignful (like say a $200 land sale, or a rent dispute), it is in this realm that SL rule of law would make a big difference.

So what do we do?..compain until LL adds it?..or put together a player operated solution possibly similar to what the Better Business Bureau does?(BBB.org) The consumer could launch a complaint and the business would be notified to have a chance for rebuttal or to make ammends. All this would be visible to the general public even for complaints in progress(which would encourage business to respond quickly). Once the system is in place it would be just a matter of getting the word out.

IANAL, but it all comes down to how legally binding the TOS is. It is *very* explicit that you, Anshe, or anyone who agrees to partake in SL, own *nothing*.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/mar02/31536.asp

It happened dude. TO be totally honest, I'm shocked you haven't heard of it until now. It's been fuckin Wiki'd.

If anything in the future, we will have independent continents with adminstration being able to ruthlessly hash out their own problems and enforce harshly. Part of the problem is magnitudes, and the level of control that a mainland sim currently offers compared to owning your own island. Now own a lot of islands, and you can set the rules.

This is beginning to rear its head but hasn't been latched on closely enough.