Harvard Law Mock Trial: Jury Votes Bragg 6, Linden Lab 3
by Alphaville Herald on 06/02/07 at 11:06 am
Since our interview with Bragg Attorney Jason Archinaco we’ve heard plenty of pontificating about the Bragg vs. Linden Lab case from the breathtakingly uninformed, but what would happen if a group of Harvard Law students held a mock trial? What would the jury decide? What would be the nature of their deliberations. Well, now we know. Virtually Blind sums up the deliberations thus:
The nine-member mock jury held 8-1 that Bragg was the owner of the virtual property he purchased. It also found 7-2 that Bragg’s exploit was improper, justifying Linden Lab’s decision to take the property that he acquired using the exploit. However, on the question that is arguably at the heart of this dispute, the mock jury found 6-3 that Linden Lab was not justified in taking property that Bragg had acquired without using the exploit.
There is a transcript of the jury deliberations here, and the course wiki is here. Valuable stuff and well worth the read.
nimrod yaffle
Feb 6th, 2007
I could understand a lawsuit like that.
Seola Sassoon
Feb 6th, 2007
If Harvard teachings are teaching future lawyers to think this way, this it’s quite obvious how we are getting such crazy frivilous lawsuits.
They argue based on what again? Oh yeah, what this guy says with his evidence, without regard to Linden Labs possible evidence, because this case hasn’t even gone anywhere yet, aside from a bunch of filings and refilings and so on.
Secondly, no ‘real’ lawyer, in their right minds would say “so what if he got it illegally, it was still his”, that’s like saying that a homeowner ran behind a robber, caught up to him and got his stuff back. So the robber paid for a crowbar, big deal. That doesn’t mean the robber should be comped for loss expenses on a failed robbery. There’s also the issue of restitution. If someone illegally gains something from another, they might not only have to pay back the cost of what they gained, but more!
They also admittedly made a judgement due to lack of public evidence submitted by Linden Labs on exactly how an exploit was used. Well frankly, that’s for a real court to decide, but a bunch of snot-nosed, illiterate rich kids to decide.
I’m all for education of our young, but this is ridiculous. Aside from that, their infamous wiki? First thing on it is, “Look at us, we’re on a blog, yay!”
Bah, there are so many things wrong with this case, I couldn’t possibly begin to tackle them, even in a few hours.
Prokofy Neva
Feb 6th, 2007
That’s not what they said, Seola, read their decision. They said what isn’t obtained by an exploit *is* his; what *is* taken by exploit was lawfully seized back by LL.
That seems reasonable; the state can’t seize ALL your property unlawfully in most democratic and developed states, they can only seize what was unlawfully taken by you.
I share your concern that young kids, even at Harvard, don’t represent anything that’s not in fact “breathtakingly uninformed,” too.
I would hope that if Bragg v. Linden did yield a decision like that, that LL would follow up with another lawsuit for damages, which I think they’d probably have grounds to do.
We are dealing with the reality that the judge could look at every other EULA case out there and rule conservatively that the TOS language that has that “any reason or no reason” stuff means “too bad for you”.
urizenus
Feb 6th, 2007
“I would hope that if Bragg v. Linden did yield a decision like that, that LL would follow up with another lawsuit for damages, which I think they’d probably have grounds to do.”
Linden Lab *should* have filed a lawsuit for damages in the first place, rather than seize Bragg’s property without trial or even independent arbitration. If Bragg damaged Linden Lab then the Lindens should do what the rest of us have to do — go to court and make their case for compensation. I fail to understand the the position that they should be able to seize Bragg’s honestly acquired property just because they believe they have been wronged and they *can* seize it. If it is Bragg’s property then they need to go to court to get it back. If they proceed in that way they can ask for treble the damages for all I care.
Question for Profky
Feb 6th, 2007
Prokofy, what damages could Linden have suffered you think? I mean, you say you “think”, so what’s your reliable source for thinking that? Or is it just your personal emotional hope that they do, “which I think they’d probably have grounds to do” so then they would file a lawsuit too?
Seola Sassoon
Feb 6th, 2007
The issue here is the fact that on every revision of the ToS, you must accept them all over again. While that’s the blaringly obvious support of why this case should be throw out anyways, I chose to use the restitution angle. From what I understand, he did in fact make sales on items that had been used in a exploit gotten piece of land, therefore, they take his legit land to make up for it. I compare this to the real world, because the courts are in real world. Many people who are found to be doing something illegal may have to pay restitution which CAN include their land.
Of course, I’m just speculating, like everyone else since we can’t exactly see logs from Linden Labs, but I doubt LL would say he used an exploit and not be able to back it up.
I agree, that upon filing, LL should have returned fire. His supposed 4-6k USD he’s out, is nothing compared to the fines of internet hacking for financial gain (which is where I argue the exploit would fall into). The same law that can nab spammers covers this in it’s gray area. Not only should LL sue for damages and lost money due to bandwidth use of the ill gotten properties, and a bill for labor hours spent taking back properties that were gained, but also hit back with a breech of contract suit as well.
Question for Seola
Feb 6th, 2007
ok, so if in fact this person didn/t sell any of the items he is accused of getting in a “exploit”, then Linden wasn’t right? YOu say “From what I understand, he did in fact make sales on items that had been used in a exploit gotten piece of land, therefore, they take his legit land to make up for it.”, but where did you get that understanding? Maybe it’s wrong, then does your conclusion change?
How did you get the idea of internet “hacking” by this this person? Seems you assume a lot to justify your harsh positions?
Prokofy Neva
Feb 6th, 2007
Linden suffered enormous damage to their reputation by the very news of this lawsuit and all its permutations. I should think they’d have no problem arguing this case whatsoever.
Seola, once again, try to separate two things in your mind:
1. The sim or sims that Bragg stole — and I absolutely agree with you that they were stolen through an exploit — swiped, unlawfully, in violation of the TOS and of customary law and of actual law. The proceeds from those resold sims, those “hot” sims, if you will, are ill-gotten gains, and they should be seized back by LL. The issue of whether the sims should be seized back from the people who bought them is a separate issue; that’s of course a matter of knowledge and intent.
2. The money or sims or other property, in inventory, that is completely separate from the heist. After all, he had bought sims legitimately, as well. That’s all in the case material. And he had inventory, and money, unlreated to this theft. A thief who steals a computer at Radio Shack can understandably have that stolen computer seized back, but that doesn’t mean that the state can come in his house, and seize his alarm clock, the car in his garage, whatever. In countries with no rule of law and arbitrary executive power, like Belarus, it’s completely common to find that somebody even charged with a crime, even before the case comes to trial, if they are politically unacceptable, will find their entire bank account frozen, their house put under seal, their furniture inventoried for impounding, etc. — because the state anticipates that there will be enormous damages that they will have to extract in a case, say, a million-dollar fine for libel, and they want to seize possession of all means to pay that fine in advance.
In North America, and the EU countries, this would be rare, although not unheard of (police seize all kinds of stuff and call it “evidence” as the sales later of stuff in their “evidence lockers” tell us). Still, for the state to come in and seize all your goods, just because you stole one thing, would be irregular and rare.
I hope you are grasping these points now. This is what the case hinges on.
It’s not about what he sold and gained from exploits; that’s understood. It’s about what remains.
Essentially, his lawyers’ argumentation swings on this concept of the seizing for any reason and no reason and the “no intrinsic value” escape clauses. The lawyers want to compel LL to concede that their land and Linden dollars in fact DO have intrinsic value.
But if that is done, they will fall subject to taxation, regulation by gaming commissions, and probes from zealous prosecutors about prostitution. So while everybody likes the idea of them recognizing the virtual as real, they will not like the real stuff that goes along with that recognition. I think they should bite that bullet anyway.
The countersuit route, if they pursued it, would open up other cans of worms — why didn’t they open up breach-of-contract suits against others out there who may have caused similar, or worse damage? But we don’t know what cards they may have up their sleeves.
Prokofy Neva
Feb 6th, 2007
1. Linden Lab did suffer damages; an exploit was used to steal property, and while many thieves would have stopped there, this particularly arrogant and aggressive asshole decided to turn the tables on them and try to clobber *them* with a claim of stealing his assets unrelated to the heist. Pretty ballsy stuff. So the frivolous nature of the suit from the get-go, the parading of the drama in the press, the denigrating of the reputation of LL, etc. could all serve as grounds for countersuits.
2. Indeed, the defendant sold the properties stolen. That’s not at issue whatsoever, and is in all the materials of the case. And indeed, it is a hack or an exploit to use the web browser auction number technique to force an auction to open that in fact was not ready in the official queue to open, and which should have opened at $1000 US, as custom and previous auctions illustrate. Forcing the opening of an auction house, and forcing it at a $0 or well-below customary bid IS theft and IS hacking and that’s not disputed, either.
3. The essence of the case as it stands now is whether the non-stolen goods should have been seized. That’s it.
Just a thought
Feb 6th, 2007
:Yawn: All the data in the asset server – in the end – belongs to Linden Lab. That’s the long and short of it all. They are the ones that decide if you can access any of that data at all – not you.
Frankly if someone is permanently banned …. they’ve just lost the right to access their data. If they have been banned over theft? They have lost the right to access the data AND the right to anything they’ve put into the program: After all, who is to say if everything they’ve made wasn’t gotten in the exact same manner as what got them banned in the first place?
In the end, in this case, it is the word of Linden Lab against the word of Bragg: Quite frankly? Linden Lab may have screwed up – they may have assumed that everything Bragg had was gained though this exploit, but what does it matter? A thief should not be allowed to keep anything at all – legally gained or not.
An actual thought
Feb 6th, 2007
@Just a thought:
Your opinion is completely uninformed and little more than knee-jerk reaction. With a name like “Just a thought”, you might actually try *thinking* before you post.
Seola Sassoon
Feb 6th, 2007
Per Questioner:
“”"”How did you get the idea of internet “hacking” by this this person? Seems you assume a lot to justify your harsh positions?”"”"
Easily put? This dude figured out a backdoor exploit on the auctions webpage to force sim auctions to open, he’d bid, then close them and win, getting the land at sometimes nothing, $1, and a few other times a couple hundred bucks. Well below the starting price of $1k.
Prok, there are TONS of cases where someone has been accused without trial and accounts, property, etc. have all been frozen (and in some cases locked out of their own homes) here in the US.
Upon judgement, the accounts can be drained, homes put up for auction, etc. to gain the money the person owes in a judgement.
Here, the trial and jury is Linden Labs. They didn’t necessarily take back sims this dude sold, which would explain taking back money gained through legit sales.
When he agreed to LL’s ToS, he agreed that at any time, LL can close his account, without reasoning even. But that aside, it’s quite legal to freeze assets of corporate entities, and do internal investigations on employees and at that point, if they deem the employee did wrong, can take corporate linked assets without a ‘trial by jury’, or in a court of law whatsoever.
In this case, you could easily argue that since he ‘signed on’ with a corporation, who found him to be breeching contract (the part -in layman- that says you can’t do anything malicious to LL), that these could be considered Linden assets, too.
Either way, no matter how it’s argued, I can’t possibly see a jury or judge giving this guy money. That’s like saying, ‘Okay, here, have your money back, even though you did something that is illegal’. If I were LL, I’d be calling in the NHTCU.
I’m not entirely sure, but I believe hacking for financial gain, is a federal felony. Again, not sure, but if it is, that’s certainly a hefty price to pay for getting back a few grand.
Prokofy Neva
Feb 6th, 2007
:Yawn: All the data in the asset server – in the end – belongs to Linden Lab. That’s the long and short of it all. They are the ones that decide if you can access any of that data at all – not you
Actually, you’re all wrong about that yawn-face. The Lindens provide people with the rights to intellectual property. They don’t just claim total pwnhood over everything except in an abstract way precisely to avoid nuisance lawsuits like Bragg’s. It’s a legal tactic. In practical usage, they give you the right to make and create and sell everything without having them get any piece of it, or seek any piece of it. The fact that you can’t access it 24/7 or always and everywhere is a side effect of the set-up, but they emulate the transfer of ownership sufficiently to make the society work. That’s all that’s needed.
Your ideas that are so absolutist and haranguing are the results of an untrained, unformed mind. I’d highly recommend going and getting a job. A haircut, too. Oh, and do your homework!
Also, banning is a rare occasion, relative to the population, so it isn’t such a factor that everyone has to throw up their hands and despair about their ownership. Ownership has its holes, as I’m quick to point out about these “servers” that we “bought” as “land,” but that doesn’t mean they haven’t created a satisfactory emulation that works, maintaining the suspension of disbelief for millions.
The concept that a thief must be stripped of all he possesses runs counter to civilized law in most developed nations. What do they teach in the schools these days?!
Just a thought
Feb 6th, 2007
Nope, sorry – read any material on this case I could find, and quite frankly I really don’t care if Bragg did or did not amass his original funding through illegal means or not.
Bragg used an exploit to gain data (land) and turned around to sell it. he got caught. His account was denied access to the system and all servers within, the illegally gained funds were taken.
The seizure of all of Bragg’s funds that were used for Second Life is – as far as I am concerned – the right thing to do as well. As I have already said, a thief should not be allowed to retain any sort of material – or digital – possession, be it his nice little watch, money, or data stored on a server. A thief should not get to turn around and say “Hey! I bought that legally!” Then again no one else gets to decide these things now do they?
The court gets to decide – and frankly I hope they nail the thief to the wall.
So to you, I say: Try out your own advice before you respond next time, hmm? After all – it’s obvious you don’t know anything at all about my opinion.
Just a thought
Feb 6th, 2007
Prok – do yourself a favor and don’t bother responding to me anymore. It only makes you look like quite the fool when you’re told afterward that you do not know thing one about the person to which you rather gleefully attempt to put down.
“Your ideas that are so absolutist and haranguing are the results of an untrained, unformed mind. I’d highly recommend going and getting a job. A haircut, too. Oh, and do your homework!”
Hmm, let us see where this little fallacy of yours breaks apart shall we? My ideas are the result of my being sick and tired of criminals being allowed to reenter society – as all but the worst of them are allowed to do – and that their punishments often do not teach them any lesson whatsoever. Getting a job? Hmm, you mean to be telling me going to someone’s house, fixing their computer or even helping them set up a nice surround sound system (general tech support, freelance) isn’t a job? Oh wait 0 it is! Haircut? That has nothing at all to do with the price of tea in china. Homework? Hmm, last I checked I graduated from the living hell that was the education system some time ago. Yay for surviving the mental conditioning that is the bullshit they try to teach in this state – yay for independent studies.
So, to sum THAT up – you really don’t know what you’re talking about when you attempt to poke at me, do you prok? Do YOUR ‘homework’ next time, hmm?
Oh – and sorry, but you’re wrong: Linden Lab owns the servers, that means they own everything in them. Guess what? You’re renting the space – as this case, and any further or prior banning and asset seizures have and will show. Funny thing of it is – we haven’t heard from anyone else that has had this happen to them because :GASP!: they realized they did not actually own anything at all!
Prokofy Neva
Feb 7th, 2007
No, fixing computers isn’t a job, silly, it’s a game, it’s a virtual world. Did somebody con you into thinking you had a job?
Actually GASP they write on their website GASP that you can “own land” and they leave the servers to you to run and make money from, for years at a time. Amazing stuff.
Yes, I think it’s high time for a haircut, it could help you think more clearly.
Urizenus
Feb 7th, 2007
“there are TONS of cases where someone has been accused without trial and accounts, property, etc. have all been frozen (and in some cases locked out of their own homes) here in the US.
Upon judgement, the accounts can be drained, homes put up for auction, etc. to gain the money the person owes in a judgement.”
I’m only aware of this asset seizure being done by the Government, say under a RICO statute, and then with some form of judicial oversight, all pending trial. Is Linden Lab now acting as a proxy for the US Government, seizing property because of…what exactly? … racketeering? Did someone make Ginzu Linden a US Attorney and Philip the overseeing Federal Court Judge? And did they hold the trial without telling us, because it sure looks like Bragg’s assets have been liquidated.
It’s very simple, if it is Bragg’s property they can’t legally seize it. They need to go to a court of law and claim that they were harmed and ask for compensation. But, as Prok points out, when they do that Bragg will probably ask why they didn’t go to court in response to far worse and far more damaging actions (grid crashings etc.).
Petey
Feb 7th, 2007
I wasn’t around for Bragg, but I read a discussion about this whole thing here:
http://forums.secondcitizen.com/showthread.php?t=8478
And from what I understand–that Bragg’s exploit was merely changing the number on a URL–then that’s not an exploit. Not even close. It’s not hacking, it’s not a backdoor.
You’re essentially arguing that manipulating a known URL structure is a backdoor or exploit. In that case, accessing http://fr.wikipedia.org directly, because you know that the English website is http://en.wikipedia.org and that the logical subdomain contraction for “France” would be “fr” is a backdoor.
It’s a ridiculous assertion.
Seola Sassoon
Feb 7th, 2007
Prok, you are flat out wrong actually. The Lindens *DO NOT* provide rights to intellectual property in any capacity. They are gained upon creation in a sense, regardless of where it is, so in essence, it’s once you draw it up on photoshop. It’s the proof of doing it first that most people argue about. This is why they cannot just take whatever I made off my wall in my store and start selling it themselves.
Aside from that:
“”"The concept that a thief must be stripped of all he possesses runs counter to civilized law in most developed nations.”"”
Don’t put absolutes of the real world on virtual property, the only real absolute is that it’s virtual heading to a real court. I based mine solely on crime and that they can freeze and claim tied assets. They also don’t give ‘rights’, they give privilages. BIG BIG BIG BIG difference when it comes to American law. Civilized law doesn’t mean that if you do something against the law, they can’t take what you’ve gained. Happens all the time IN ALL COUNTRIES with civilized law. Here, you don’t pay your taxes, thereby committing fraud? They put your house up for auction even if you own it outright to pay it back. Have a judgement against you that you owe a corporation/company/person/family that you haven’t paid? They’ll freeze your account if you don’t pay it back reasonably. Think it can’t happen? Read about OJ’s book advance and the Goldman family. It’s the most covered case and easily available to find, but it happens in smaller circles. People’s wages are garnished and bank accounts frozen with intent to drain, if they have nothing of value and they are to pay back to the court for crimes committed and incur a fine. The wages aren’t related to the crime, in fact they are earned before and after the crime. It happens all over North America, South America, Europe, Asia, etc. in civilized law recognizing countries.
And GASP, you don’t run the servers, they do. And they own them. And it’s quite clear that whatever you do, if it’s malicious, they can decide what to do if you abuse the system (so to speak).
They had every right to take back what was cost to them. Which could include the money gained ‘legally’. If they didn’t take back the sims from the new owners (which I understand in most cases they didn’t), then who do they get the money from? The person who did it. Just because A dollar is legal and B dollar is illegal doesn’t mean neither can’t pay what’s lost. Honestly, where do you draw the line anyways? He earned 1 million Lindens BEFORE the exploit so that means he gets to keep 1 million? Which 1 million is it? The million he gained legally was used to pay for illegal properties… so because that million was legally gained, he gets to keep it?
Petey
Feb 7th, 2007
@Uri:
Exactly. If Linden Lab is right, and everything within Second Life is the intellectual property of the user who created it, than the user can’t be denied access to their property without due process. The court won’t give up their jurisdiction to a company.
That is assuming, of course, that the courts buy into that entire assertion to begin with.
Seola Sassoon
Feb 7th, 2007
Uri, you’ve more or less stated my point though.
Linden Labs IS the government in this case and they did what they deemed correct, just as a court of law would do for real life property.
You are wrong in saying that if he bought it, regardless it’s his. When you agree to the ToS, you agree that they can do what they want with your account and assets pertaining to it.
They cleaned up the trash (tongue in cheek) in one account wipe.
Petey:
As for the changing of url’s, it’s debatable in a court of law based on recent bills enacted. If you type in random url’s and get to information that is supposed to only be known to the corporation, then it’s deemed a form of hacking.
It’s not the same as typing to get to a different *public domain*, that’s the ridiculous assertion.
As for that post that leads to Second Citizen, a quick read over makes me believe that most of them have no clue what really happened. He didn’t just go to an auction ID and win a bid, he was able to FORCE sims that were in queue for auction but not up yet to go on sale for $1 and take the sale, since the live auction was never seen. If I went to eBay and found a backdoor url that allowed me to win auctions for 1 cent with no other bidders, you can BET I’d have a lawyer at my door.
Just a thought
Feb 7th, 2007
Try again prok – fixing a computer is a job – and a very profitable one if you’re not the sort of nice guy that doesn’t charge an arm and a leg for the simplest of tasks. After all – if Tech Support, freelance or not, did not exist you’d have to spend a fortune every time something happens to that poor computer of yours that you could not fix yourself!
Oh – and by the by – the wording on the web page for Second Life is designed to sucker people like you into using the program and service. sorry, but that’s the way it is and the way it works. Any data in the asset server belongs – at the end of the day – to the owners of said server: Linden Lab. I think it’s high time you faced facts:
1.) Linden Lab RENTS out the server space, and the space on the grid to you. They are your landlord. They alone decide if you get to ‘keep’ the data – yes, data – not ‘land’.
2.) In the event of an exploit being used to illegally gain money they have every right to remove access to the servers and take back the money.
3.) Taking money away from such a thief that they acquired legally as being a legal right is NOT something I have claimed – if you will pay attention I have said it is the RIGHT THING TO DO. It teaches the thief a lesson: steal and you’ll have to start all over again. whether or not this is a legal thing to do is – in my eyes – moot and quite frankly not for me, you, or anyone else outside of a Federal Court to decide.
Now, those are the facts as they pertain to Linden Lab, their rights as a company, and my own opinions on the mater. The first entry there is not open to debate or dispute for a rather simple reason: I don’t take things stated anywhere by any corporation word for word as they appear. to do so is a foolish thing to do as it sets you up to be taken for all you’re worth.
The fact of the matter prok is that you cannot handle the idea that Linden Lab – like any other company with something to sell to the masses – purposely worded and words their web page to draw people in. Such a notion so utterly shakes your world – it is so alien to you – that you combat it each and every time with the same tired BS line right from the mouth of the very people who want nothing more than your money.
I will leave you with one final fact Prok: My personal life, appearance, job, etc has NO bearing whatsoever with this discussion or for that matter with the price of tea in china. either debate the points without resorting to personal attacks – which means without dragging the PERSON into it – or don’t bother debating at all.
Oh – and just so you know prok, I’ll gladly stoop to your level if need be to slam the point home.
Seola Sassoon
Feb 7th, 2007
Petey:
“”"”Exactly. If Linden Lab is right, and everything within Second Life is the intellectual property of the user who created it, than the user can’t be denied access to their property without due process. The court won’t give up their jurisdiction to a company.
That is assuming, of course, that the courts buy into that entire assertion to begin with. “”"”
Sims ARE NOT intellectual property. They are virtual property. The difference is huge. Intellectual property is something that came FROM YOUR BRAIN from concept to creation to use. Virtual property is (in this case) land that LL puts out, hosts and maintains in lieu of a fee. You own intellectual property. They own virtual.
Prokofy Neva
Feb 7th, 2007
No, read the TOS. I am not “flat out wrong”. You have intellectual property rights to your creation. You can sell it and make money for it and have permissions on it. You can even make it the subject of a trademark or a lawsuit alleging infringement.
I suspect your knowledge of law is limited, Seola; it shows. You’re having one of those typical haranguing “forums lawyer” slugfests that are so boring and silly.
There is no precedent — yet — that tells us in the United States what we can and cannot expect about virtual property. This might be it; it might not me. You can’t know it, and you could be wrong.
They might invoke the typical EULA stuff and say it’s a privileged club, like the Boy Scouts, not subject to intrusive demands from the state, or they might say it’s like the Mall of America, and has certain responsibilities because it is a common carrier and public commons. We’ve all been over this a million times. The only thing anyone can say is that they do not know; no judge in the land has examined the merits of Second Life property YET and ruled on it.
And GASP I do run the servers at my end. I adjust them constantly, as people all over who own islands do. It is an emulated ownership, but it’s just as real as owning a domain name, owning a website, owning an email account and DSL line, that in fact are “the property of” telephone companies or Internet Service Providers. You fail to see that there is never an interest in being arbitrary and clawing everything back, if a company wishes to have its virtual/emulated/online services or products recognized and purchased.
The Lindens don’t get into half a defensive mode with even a fraction of the sneering as all the forums legal specialists do. That’s what’s especially hilarious to watch. If they did, they wouldn’t have customers. It may be a shill of sorts, but it’s a pretty reliable shill, as they keep supplying access to servers for a fee, they keep letting people design stuff and sell it without taking anything from them.
The cases where they’ve seized people’s property you can could on one or two hands.
The courts either accept the argumentation that LL can’t seize this property, or they don’t. It doesn’t even have to be about interpreting whether what is involved is “property” or “land” or merely a “servage storage services”. It’s like renting a locker at Grand Central Statement.
The loss of the sims, at far less than the regular price, which they can’t seize back, in fact are good grounds for the counter suit for damages.
Only Petey “No Moral Compass” Awful could say that using an exploit to force open an auction at $0, when it’s normal mode is $1000, could call this “back door” and “not a hack”. The technical jargon used for it is immaterial. It’s a criminal auction; it is indeed an exploit. Nobody but the awfuls have trouble understanding this basic fact of criminality.
Just a thought
Feb 7th, 2007
Thank you seola for trying to put it into words that they can understand. I will admit, I have a difficult time phrasing things in a manner that can be easily understood by all ….
Petey
Feb 7th, 2007
@Seola:
“As for the changing of url’s, it’s debatable in a court of law based on recent bills enacted. If you type in random url’s and get to information that is supposed to only be known to the corporation, then it’s deemed a form of hacking.”
Right, but I think it will be difficult to convince a court that, if you know http://domain.com/12345 is the sale site for land parcel 12345, and then you want to buy parcel 54321, that is is HACKING to go to http://domain.com/54321. Seems more common sense to me.
As for the property argument, whether or not it is virtual property doesn’t matter if the court buys into the assertion that it IS property. I think the entire reason this case hasn’t been thrown into arbitration is because the court recognizes that Linden Lab may have committed fraud by advertising ownership when, in fact, it was ownership-at-whim. And as for intellectual property, I’m curious to see how Linden Lab will argue that, if one does truly own intellectual property, LL has the right deprive you of access to it.
My point is that if Linden Lab wants to be treated as a platform, or–heaven forbid the court indulges Rosedale’s delusions–as a “country”, then they will have to stop being cavalier about who, how, and why they ban people from their service.
Petey
Feb 7th, 2007
I don’t mean to get personal, but can I just say I love how each and every Prokofy post is like a thrilling blindfolded roller coaster ride? You find yourself reading along, think you know where the next twist and turn is, and then BAM plunge into a delirious dig at your moral integrity.
I love it.
Urizenus
Feb 7th, 2007
Petey says: “I think the entire reason this case hasn’t been thrown into arbitration is because the court recognizes that Linden Lab may have committed fraud by advertising ownership when, in fact, it was ownership-at-whim. And as for intellectual property, I’m curious to see how Linden Lab will argue that, if one does truly own intellectual property, LL has the right deprive you of access to it.”
That about sums it up for me. The Lindens have painted themselves into this unbelievable legal corner where they may have to say “it isn’t Bragg’s property, see, we were committing fraud when we said otherwise in our marketing campaign.” Either that, or they have to say “no, it was his property, we just decided to steal it back from him because he is a pain in the ass.” What a freaking legal mess.
RZ
Feb 7th, 2007
@Seola:
“As for the changing of url’s, it’s debatable in a court of law based on recent bills enacted. If you type in random url’s and get to information that is supposed to only be known to the corporation, then it’s deemed a form of hacking.”
Not anymore. At least, it’s not going to get you charged in California.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/16610866.htm
“In a 38-page report, the CHP “recommends that no charges be filed in this case” and advises the Schwarzenegger administration tighten up the “overall security of their computer network.””
…
“The Angelides campaign later acknowledged that its staffers had obtained the audio file, contained on a Web site of the governor’s speeches, by backward browsing. Essentially, aides opened the Web address, or URL, from one of Schwarzenegger’s public speeches and clipped a few characters from the end of the address. That yielded a directory of audio recordings.“
Seola Sassoon
Feb 7th, 2007
Prok, you have a limited sense of anything. You made absolutely no point or sense in your post. You basically reiterrated what I said, in different words to make me look wrong and you right – don’t be stupid.
Mine:
“”"The Lindens *DO NOT* provide rights to intellectual property in any capacity. They are gained upon creation in a sense, regardless of where it is, so in essence, it’s once you draw it up on photoshop.”"”
Prok:
“”"You have intellectual property rights to your creation. You can sell it and make money for it and have permissions on it. You can even make it the subject of a trademark or a lawsuit alleging infringement.”"”"
Yes, exactly what I said. What I said you were wrong on, is that Linden Labs DOES NOT give out intellectual property rights. That’s an absurd statement. A platform company DOES NOT give out rights to creations. So Prok, I think YOU might have little knowledge on how law works and the statement as such:
“”"The Lindens provide people with the rights to intellectual property.”"”
There’s no gray area. The Lindens do not do it. Deal with being wrong. Don’t say what I’ve already said as your proof of being right. You just look silly.
“”"And GASP I do run the servers at my end. I adjust them constantly, as people all over who own islands do. It is an emulated ownership, but it’s just as real as owning a domain name, owning a website, owning an email account and DSL line, that in fact are “the property of” telephone companies or Internet Service Providers. You fail to see that there is never an interest in being arbitrary and clawing everything back, if a company wishes to have its virtual/emulated/online services or products recognized and purchased.”"”
No you don’t. Can you look at them? Can’t you fix a broken piece of hardware? No. You can’t. Adjusting them from an outside source isn’t exactly maintenence when speaking about computers. That’s like saying because you run Windows on a public computer when you are using it, that grants you the full rights over it, no matter what. That’s another absurd statement. As for ‘property of’ for all that you listed, you’re slightly wrong in the fact that if you do something wrong, they don’t expect back pay. Many companies have clauses in contracts that if you use their services and do something illegally, you can be charged for a full amount agreed upon whether service is sustained or not.
I.E. I find a backdoor through my DirecTV satellite box to order free movies and I’m under contract to use it lawfully for 2 years. I have 13 months remaining. I not only have to pay for what I’ve watched illegally but the remaining contracts. They also, in their language provide for an additional ‘monetary losses’, which can include court injunctions, fees, even employee investigation fees.
But hey, we can use your analogy and use it to the extreme. “Duh, excuse me judge, I did get child porn and sell it, but you can’t take more from me than what I made illegally, which is like 20 bucks. The other million I made selling real porn.”
I want to live near Prok. Just so that when Prok leaves their house (if that ever happens), I’m gonna get into it using the key bump. Then I’m gonna steal everything. (Then I just have to laugh.) Then when Prok tries to get me arrested, I’m gonna say “But he was stupid enough to use crappy locks on his house! It isn’t my fault!”
As for the judgement in California, you aren’t exactly saying much with it.
Firstly, there was no financial gain involved. Secondly, there isn’t a Terms of Service that covers that within the website’s pages. Thirdly, this wasn’t a case of backward browsing. He didn’t just remove a few characters from a publicly used webpage, he changed it entirely.
A company the works with virtual properties and such released quite a good paper:
http://www.themis-group.com/uploads/Pitfalls%20of%20Virtual%20Property.pdf
I particularly like the Monopoly analogy, though it’s semi-applied to SL since you do use real money to pay for items. The article deals mostly in traditional MMO’s, but the same codes essentially apply to SL. It’s also from 2004, so a bit dated, but still a great read.
China currently allows someone to sue gaming companies for loss of virtual property, but only if no other issues are involved, a few years ago, some dude lost some wonderful weapon, sued and won.
In most cases around the world, so far, in the gaming industry, which whether strictly defined or not, SL is a part of, in a checklist style, the cases were determined by ToS’s and EULA’s.
As for it not having any laws on the books. That’s also a wrong statement. It’s covered in the languages for laws written up on virtual property. In fact, thanks to the boom of the internet, there are classes offered at universities for virtual property.
Another good article is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_economy though it does reference at a point the first link I listed.
“”"Some have claimed that real-economic interactions within virtual economies create a game that constitutes gambling, and that these games should be regulated as such. [3] Others, such as The Themis Group’s Richard Bartle have argued that the notion of virtual property is inherently flawed since players do not “own”, materially or intellectually, any part of the game world, and merely pay to use it. In fact, one of the dangers of investment in virtual property is that the game developer is free to change the game world at any time.”"”
Ironically, I came across an article from March, 2k4 that mentions this blog in the debate on virtual property. K, I digress.
South Korea has sort of paved the way in crimes in this manner. They have already started prosecuting people who have virtual property by ill-gained means. At the end of the day, whether it’s a sword or a sim, it’s all virtual property, which is owned by the company you use to access it.
If this were the real world and you did ‘own’ it, then your tier would fluctuate based on taxes for that year. But it’s fixed. By the law of Linden Labs. By the way, if you own it, why aren’t you claiming the acreage owned on tax filings?
By there is one situation where Linden Labs could possibly be held accountable. That’s copyright infringement of real corporations. LL hosts the images and allows for transfer and free sharing (on their part, technically) between the residents. They’d essentially be classified as a ‘Napster’ of trademarks.
While the player doesn’t mind that LL take the fall for what they created, they also don’t want LL to rule over what happens when they do something wrong? You can’t have it both ways. Either it’s all LL or no LL. You don’t pick and choose what’s LL’s fault when it comes to their world. On paper and in law, it’s their’s. THEY own it. We pay a fee to be allowed to have the title of owner, but you can’t march into their office and take the server your sim is hosted on because you ‘own’ it.
Question for Profky
Feb 7th, 2007
Profky – I’ve not read anything anywhere of any reliability that says this guy resold any property he bought from Linden that Linden claimed he didnd’t acquire properly. I’ve read all the documents at secondlife.typepad.com and a bunch of articles; some articles say that but there’s no source. Doesn’t seem your information / facts are reliably based. All I’ve read is he bought one Taessot for $300.00; that’s it. And he did’t resell it. I’d love to see where you get your information?
Prokofy Neva
Feb 7th, 2007
Um, irresponsible anonymous Question, The entire case hinges on the fact that Bragg used an exploit to grab what should have cost at least $1000 on the auction for peanuts, he then resold it to other people at a whopping profit. He acquired it improperly. Only noir word-saladists can’t see that obvious fact. And he resold it. This is in every single discussion of this case, including in legal journals that grabbed it early on. Google it, look on Tateru Nino’s exhaustive zillion-part study of this, and stop being *a dick*. The entire case *is about this*. He resold his exploited sims, this isn’t in doubt or dispute, except by you.
Seola, are you smart enough to realize that you twice, reiterated mistaken concepts, and I twice corrected you, I didn’t reiterate the mistaken stuff you said. But I’ve been forced to conclude that you aren’t capable of grasping these concepts.
The Lindens grant intellectual property rights. It’s in the TOS; it’s in practice; it’s not disputed. I’m baffled as to why you are being silly about this. Sure, you can get all emo and dramatic and literalist and say, Oh, woe is me, the Lindens really pwn everything because they can boot me from the servers or shut the game down any time. But for all practical purposes, and within the TOS, people have IP. It isn’t an absolutist IP, but then, what IP is? It’s far from perfect due to CopyBot, but it is an IP.
Your obsessiveness about RL big companies copyrighted images within SL is misplaced. No RL company has evern come in LL and fussed about this. Ever. In their lives. They might. But…they didn’t. Not a one. So you do have to look at practice, and jurisprudence. There isn’t a single case.
Honestly, Seola, you turn a discussion like this into a fractured fairy tale by being witless and dense.
Prokofy Neva
Feb 7th, 2007
>Either that, or they have to say “no, it was his property, we just decided to steal it back from him because he is a pain in the ass.” What a freaking legal mess.
Well no, not a mess, really. They just have to decide whether they want software and services, or a world and a metaverse. Simple, really.
If they want software, they’ll just push for the most conservative version of this case, and, in anticipation of future lawsuits of angry land-owners when they open-source, go for an aggressive, literal understanding that there’s no land, and they were only selling a game and server space, and insist on the strictest construction of the EULA.
But they could go in a different direction entirely and therefore salvage the Metaverse from ignomy before it gets started. They could say yes, we made a world, and yes Bragg had land. He had land he stole from us; that was wrong, look ,here’s how he stole it. And in anticipation of damages we’d need to seek because of his theft from us of land, we’ve seized his account indefinitely with all his assets, just like the government of Belarus or Russia. So when we’re all done determining that yes, he had land that yes, and that yes, we were within our rights, anticipating the felon’s flight, to seize his assets because he stole from us, we’ll turn around and start the next lawsuit in which we sue him for damages, not only for that actual land, but for pain and suffering and libel, implying we’re bad people.
I really do hope they go for that second option.
Oh and as for this point, Seola:
Again, a witless reading of what I’ve presented. We all accepted that there are lots of *EULA or TOS* type cases. That’s the garden variety. That’s understood from the get go. But that’s not an acceptance of virtual property. That’s an acceptance of a license to use game tokens. Their TOS gives you a license to use fictional game tokens, as it is now, taken literally.
But if you mount a more complicated case, you could say that they’ve implied, and created, a public commons that is in sum total larger than their cramped EULA notion of game tokens and they have actually endowed virtual property with real qualities — it is sold on an auction; it is transferred to the user for his exclusive use; it is able to be sold or bought by other users, etc.
And that’s the kind of case we do not have: a case that *recognizes* the validity of virtual property. That’s obvious in what I said.
Question for Anonymous Profky
Feb 8th, 2007
you keep using the word exploit. why? there are tons of articles by those with much more apparent computer experience on this thing than you that don’t agree with you. i really don’t think you’re very well informed. there was no “hacking”, or messing with any servers, etc., it apparently was something linden created and released and was used by many. how is that an exploit? especially if they’re aware of it, it’s avaialble to the public, and it’s used by many many many….. without it being turned off? I guess that’s the value of being anonymous on these discussions, you can say whatever you want without accountability…. if you really had an important opinion, wouldn’t you put your real name to stand behind it?
On "no land"
Feb 8th, 2007
Profky, I read your suggestion that they may go for the “no land” concept. You must hav read Mitch Kapor’s recent interview; exactly where they seem to be heading; towards devaluing all land and switching out of the land model into advertising revenues… thoughts on that one?
Seola Sassoon
Feb 8th, 2007
“”The Lindens grant intellectual property rights. It’s in the TOS; it’s in practice; it’s not disputed. I’m baffled as to why you are being silly about this. Sure, you can get all emo and dramatic and literalist and say, Oh, woe is me, the Lindens really pwn everything because they can boot me from the servers or shut the game down any time. But for all practical purposes, and within the TOS, people have IP. It isn’t an absolutist IP, but then, what IP is? It’s far from perfect due to CopyBot, but it is an IP.”"”
Uh no they don’t. Linden Labs CANNOT give IP rights in the legal sense. No matter how fairy tale of a world you think it is. Let me give you the legal jargon in the ToS, since that’s where you say they GIVE the rights…
“”"3.1 You have a nonexclusive, limited, revocable license to use Second Life while you are in compliance with the terms of service.
Subject to the terms of this Agreement, Linden Lab grants to you a non-exclusive, limited, fully revocable license to use the Linden Software and the rest of the Service during the time you are in full compliance with the Terms of Service.
3.2 You retain copyright and other intellectual property rights with respect to Content you create in Second Life, to the extent that you have such rights under applicable law. However, you must make certain representations and warranties, and provide certain license rights, forbearances and indemnification, to Linden Lab and to other users of Second Life.
Users of the Service can create Content on Linden Lab’s servers in various forms. Linden Lab acknowledges and agrees that, subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, you will retain any and all applicable copyright and other intellectual property rights with respect to any Content you create using the Service, to the extent you have such rights under applicable law.”"”
Basically, it says yeah, you get rights *within* Second Life. Nowhere does it say that LL grants you the IP rights over your creations. THE ONLY PART ON GRANTING: It says it grants you a license to USE Second Life. Otherwise it says you RETAIN the IP rights in SL. That is completely different than LL granting you IP rights, because if you knew anything about what you are talking about, you’d know you get them automatically upon creation, because, as common sense would show you, if you had any, that intellectual property that you created is yours.
I dare say pwned in this case. If you are going to flaunt the ToS and what it does and doesn’t do, you should really read it first.
Aside from that, while you debate what is ‘implied’, that won’t hold in a court of law. It’s what’s in fine print that holds up. People imply all sorts of things, and it’s not the reality of the situation because of what’s written down in the legal form. You can’t sue a company who clearly protects themselves. Your world, your imagination is what they imply, but do you own your world? No. They tell me the whole world is mine, that MUST mean I own every sim out there!
The only thing obvious in what you say is that you are clueless in what you type. You can’t make a case on implications when there is fine print, you can’t walk in to someone’s company and take the land you paid for, and you can’t prove that LL didn’t take half a brain to think of any of this.
But I like how you sidestepped that lil scenario of me breaking into your house because you had crappy locks. It’s your land, it’s your place, you own the stuff inside, but because I could bypass your locks, I get to take whatever I want and you can’t have anything but what you paid for back in money. Guess there’s no such thing as ‘damages’ in the court of law either, nor is there emotional stress, mental anguish, physical stress, etc. because if there were -GASP- people would have to pay money that they made legally!
As for the terms of exploit, people are debating on what they believe the definition to be and what it really is.
Here is the definition:
To utilize, esp. for profit;
To use selfishly for one’s own ends
To employ to the greatest possible advantage
To make use of selfishly or unethically
A security hole or an instance of taking advantage of a security hole.
All 5 of these definitions apply. (There are some cases where it is used in a good way as well, but I picked these out, of course.)
He used, selfishly and unethically, a security hole, taking advantage of it, and gaining an advantage over other players, for his own purpose and profit.
Exploit is not equal breaking into a network by means of bypassing security measures, as is the traditional definition of hacking. He used an exploit.
on ethics
Feb 8th, 2007
:: “selfishly and unethically, a security hole, taking advantage of it, and gaining an advantage over other players, for his own purpose and profit”
is that any different than when buyers find land mismarked and buy it? i hear sellers complain, linden does nothing. that’s their policy, buyer and seller beware, you make a mistake, tough luck, be more careful next time. also, in a “world” where land is perpetually created, there’s no value loss simply b/c one marks something lower than the market “will bear”… really, at pennies…. per the average deal…… and a million users, no other users / players lost anything. in the abstract high flatulent cerebral cortez realm for those that like intellectual exercises, maybe…. in the real world? nada’
Seola Sassoon
Feb 8th, 2007
No, frankly it’s not BUT there’s a difference. The buyers didn’t exactly find them in a hidden spot, it was public.
However, I agree it’s unethical, but it’s a compounding compenent for the definition. This isn’t about how it defines other people’s ethics, this is how the word exploit is applied to this case.
Additionally, if you argue that role, most often in such cases as against airlines who accidentally offered $50 tickets due to a corrupted public webpage ON THEIR account, they had to honor them. Such as the fact when someone mislabels a sale on land. It would have taken hours upon hours to investigate and it more often than not, turned to a ‘he said/she said’ on most of those deals, because the people who bought them, claimed the person who sold it to them, said they’d take that price. Then the person goes back and tries to get money back out of it.
This is quite different in going to a legit page and then changing the url’s to get to pages that were not public.
RZ
Feb 8th, 2007
FYI, if something is labeled with an obviously incorrect price (as in the example of $50 airline tickets or $1.99 iPods on Amazon), the seller is under no legal obligation to sell for that price. It’s a long-held principle of contract law that such a good-faith mistake cannot be taken advantage of.
Seola Sassoon
Feb 9th, 2007
Actually, the seller is obliged to finish the purchasing if someone does finish the process of buying the item. They don’t have to give it to those who didn’t pay that price, but they do have to go those who went through the purchase process that price. Upon purchasing, it’s a legally binding contract once the item is accepted paid for.
Prokofy Neva
Feb 10th, 2007
Seola, why do you continue with these uninformed remarks, prefaced by silly phrases like “actually”? RZ is right. Are you a lawyer? And if you are, are you a contracts/torts sort of lawyer? And if you are that (seems highly unlikely) have you ever dealt with a virtual world case? Seriously, you need to stop flooding the forums here with this misinformation.
An exploit was used to heist this land. Just because the keys are left in a car, doesn’t mean you get to steal it. You don’t. It will be seized back from you. In a setting like these auctions, where the automatic nature of the system means that the seller can’t see that exploit being exploited, these notions that the “purchase has to be completed” are out of date.
And ultimately, this is not a mislabeling. Lindens didn’t mislabel their land. An exploit was used to force-start an auction not officially prepped and labeled $1000 opening bid. It’s like stealing off the truck before there is even a price.
Prokofy Neva
Feb 10th, 2007
>you keep using the word exploit. why? there are tons of articles by those with much more apparent computer experience on this thing than you that don’t agree with you. i really don’t think you’re very well informed. there was no “hacking”, or messing with any servers, etc., it apparently was something linden created and released and was used by many. how is that an exploit? especially if they’re aware of it, it’s avaialble to the public, and it’s used by many many many….. without it being turned off? I guess that’s the value of being anonymous on these discussions, you can say whatever you want without accountability…. if you really had an important opinion, wouldn’t you put your real name to stand behind it?
Word salad.
Arrogant nihilism.
W-hattery.
You’re the anonymous one here, fucktard.
I don’t care what coders with no ethics and hackers and script kiddies think about this. That’s fortunately not who will decide the matter. Indeed it is an exploit, and indeed “hack” is indeed the colloquial term to use when somebody uses an exploit to get into a door.
It was not used by many.
It was not created by Linden to be used this way.
It is an exploit.
Prokofy Neva
Feb 10th, 2007
on ethics (you apparently have none yourself in this regard), the Lindens didn’t mislabel their land. They didn’t accidently set it to a wrong price. It was stolen, forcing an auction, like hot-wiring or joy-riding a car. An exploit was used. End of story.
Prokofy Neva
Feb 10th, 2007
Yes, exactly what I said. What I said you were wrong on, is that Linden Labs DOES NOT give out intellectual property rights. That’s an absurd statement. A platform company DOES NOT give out rights to creations. So Prok, I think YOU might have little knowledge on how law works and the statement as such:
“”"The Lindens provide people with the rights to intellectual property.”"”
There’s no gray area. The Lindens do not do it. Deal with being wrong. Don’t say what I’ve already said as your proof of being right. You just look silly
>No, you’re wrong. Intellectual properties would exist and be recognized as inherent in the real world. This is an artificial world. The default is that all property is the game company’s. Therefore, the sovereign does indeed give out, provide, yield to, authorize the IP. Read the TOS. Read the news stories. And stop being so stupid.
What state did you say you had passed the bar in again?
Prokofy Neva
Feb 10th, 2007
>I want to live near Prok. Just so that when Prok leaves their house (if that ever happens), I’m gonna get into it using the key bump. Then I’m gonna steal everything. (Then I just have to laugh.) Then when Prok tries to get me arrested, I’m gonna say “But he was stupid enough to use crappy locks on his house! It isn’t my fault!”
There’s a word for people who write shit like this. It’s called “twat”. I save it for special occasions. This is surely one.
Prokofy Neva
Feb 10th, 2007
>Essentially, aides opened the Web address, or URL, from one of Schwarzenegger’s public speeches and clipped a few characters from the end of the address. That yielded a directory of audio recordings.”
The recordings were not property, not valued at $1000.
Prokofy Neva
Feb 10th, 2007
I really loathe witless “Internet lawyers,” Seola. They are really the worst kind of trolls. Everyone knows that the Lindens advertise that they *grant their users IP*. You may not find this colloquial, journalistic term precisely to your liking as an anal-retentive bullying Internet lawyer, but it is accepted and is the common law here. None other than our illustrious publisher, Walker Spaight, uses exactly this term “grant IP” in his articles:
http://www.3pointd.com/20060918/secondcast-32-no-ip-rights-in-sl/
Read none other than the Lindens’ own blogs on the official website blogs:
http://blog.secondlife.com/2005/04/
Where Babbage Linden under the article “Screenplay 2005″ says, “Linden grants IP ownership to residents”.
Furthermore, if you are going to be citing the TOS zealously, read what you just printed:
“Linden Lab acknowledges and agrees that, subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, you will retain any and all applicable copyright and other intellectual property rights”
What that says is that LINDEN LAB GRANTS IP. They are the owners of the servers, they control access, and they ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGERE that you can retain “applicable” copyright. You might construe an abstraction that this is somehow inherent in your design process and work of creativity, but it is Lindens *conceding it* and making it possible. That indeed is GRANTING IT.
So stop word-salading here, and realize that Bragg’s lawyers will use just these very types of publications and statements and implied undertakings to mount their case.
And seriously, no IP issues are involved in Bragg. He isn’t claiming them. He has not designs seized by Linden.
>But I like how you sidestepped that lil scenario of me breaking into your house because you had crappy locks. It’s your land, it’s your place, you own the stuff inside, but because I could bypass your locks, I get to take whatever I want and you can’t have anything but what you paid for back in money. Guess there’s no such thing as ‘damages’ in the court of law either, nor is there emotional stress, mental anguish, physical stress, etc. because if there were -GASP- people would have to pay money that they made legally!
This sort of nasty, little piece-of-shit bullying crap — total W-hattery meant to invoke people who stalk me in RL and bully me — is not something I respond to when I realize there is no intellectual debate here, there is only a semi-educated, half-witted “Internet lawyer” trying to shout down someone with warmed over Internetisms.
Like I said, leaving the keys in the car doesn’t mean a car that is taken isn’t stolen. It’s stolen. Like a break-in to a house. I seriously think you have no handle on the law as it is actually practiced. Are you a trial attorney? What law school did you go to? And what state did you pass the bar in?
Prokofy Neva
Feb 10th, 2007
>Prok, there are TONS of cases where someone has been accused without trial and accounts, property, etc. have all been frozen (and in some cases locked out of their own homes) here in the US.
Upon judgement, the accounts can be drained, homes put up for auction, etc. to gain the money the person owes in a judgement.
Oh, I forgot to answer this one back then. Cite one, then, if there are TONS? That is relevant to this case? And frankly, I don’t care if you come up with 1,124. They aren’t the norm. They are the exception. Most of the time, due process is used to seize property. You could argue this wasn’t done with LL, but they could argue back that under the EULA of this club, they have that right.
Again, there isn’t one, single, bona fide case of *virtual property* being examine by a RL judge in the US in this way. And saying that it’s all on a server, that LL owns it all, etc. etc. isn’t the sort of thing if you were purchasing server space and making a website. So why say it here? It’s essentially the same thing. It’s a server of storage that people purchase. When you rent the $40 box at Manhattan Storage each month, Manhattan Storage doesn’t come out on its forums every day and whack you over the head, or sic their fanboyz at you, telling you that you don’t really own that storage space, that you are on suffrance, and that they own the warehouse, and fuck you.
Instead, they keep taking your money, and you keep your boxes and crates there. Honestly, the real world is a much nicer place than the forums filled with fucktards and Internet lawyers feeding on Second Life.
RZ
Feb 10th, 2007
@Seola
“Actually, the seller is obliged to finish the purchasing if someone does finish the process of buying the item. They don’t have to give it to those who didn’t pay that price, but they do have to go those who went through the purchase process that price. Upon purchasing, it’s a legally binding contract once the item is accepted paid for.”
Seola, your statement is simply incorrect. If an item is obviously mispriced, there is no “meeting of the minds” at the time of purchase. No contract is formed where one party to the contract has actual knowledge that the other contracting party is under a mistake of fact as to the contract terms. In other words, you can’t take advantage of what you know is an obvious mistake. Therefore, no contract is formed for the purchase of the mispriced item, and the seller is under no obligation to complete the transaction.
That’s how the law works, no matter how much you might think otherwise.
Seola Sassoon
Feb 11th, 2007
Prok, how dumb are you? You are arguing my point with the first post. I mean come on, do you really HAVE to stoop to arguing a person’s side when it looks like they are right?
And yes, I have worked in law. And yes, I have dealt in virtual cases. And I’m currently working on the bar. But what I’ve said to you isn’t anything special based on that experience. What I’ve said is readily available through the internet through law libraries.
As for IP rights… you’re the dumbass to bring it up. Don’t argue it, then when someone proves you wrong, say, it’s not part of the case. That just looks absurd. Secondly, the are you dumb enough to think that ‘retain’ and ‘grant’ are the same thing?
As for using an exploit… uh… duh. That’s what I’ve been saying. Are you really idiotic enough to use what I’ve been saying as how it IS an exploit to argue against me that… it is an exploit?
The only one sounding uninformed is you. You sit here and state you hate ‘internet lawyers’, yet here you are giving your ‘legal’ opinions. Guess you really are self loathing.
As for one of those TONS of cases? The most famous coming to mind, is the Enron scandal and let’s toss in the Martha Stewart case. In those cases, assets personal and professional were frozen after investigation pending a judgement. Want to go smaller? All over the country, local public positions have embezzled money from the governments they work in, and have had personal and professional assets and accounts frozen upon investigation, pending judgement. Of course, being as so wonderfully brilliant as you are, I’m sure you know all about them right? But alas, no matter how much proof I come up with in my argument, it doesn’t matter because *YOU* don’t hear about them in your hole, and therefore it’s not true!!!
As for breaking into your house, I was putting the situation in your personal space. Get over calling everyone stupid names when they make a point you can’t counter. I think I just found your specialty! Labeling people when they make you look silly!
You always want proof of everyone off their statements and want to know their qualifications from everyone and their names and blah blah blah, but you don’t have to provide any information on what formed your opinion. How hypocritical of you… you are no better than anyone else, and judging by my associations with you over the last year, you have no idea what you are talking about 99% of the time.
Please do us all a favor and shut your mouth when all you have to say is rambling nonsense.
RZ, there were several judgements in the late 90′s and early 00′s in favor of consumers, brought by a class action, when the companies they bought from reneged on the pricing stated on a website. Even though refunds were issued, it was the company who advertised the deal and it was put up. In a few of the cases, the judge ruled that the private firm responsible for the pricing error comp the company for lost revenues and in turn the company had to provide the price that the consumers bought the item for.
The reasoning behind these judgements in favor of the consumer is that they don’t have the ability to judge whether or not it is an intentional pricing. There’s no way to know it’s an obvious mistake as the consumer. Corporations every day are offering 1 cent sales, 1 dollar sales, etc. for a limited amount, and therefore it wasn’t unreasonable to expect that the items they purchased were part of a marketing promotion. A few companies that IIRC that were involved for internet pricing for Wal-Mart (movie mispriced), Air Tran (air tickets), Best Buy (CD’s), and Victoria’s Secret (bras).
When Amazon offered 100 Playstation 3′s for (I think) 100 bucks or something ridiculously cheap this past Christmas, if the judgements had not gone in favor of consumers in previous cases, they could have easily said ‘oops nevermind’ and gotten all the publicity to go along with it.
There are bills now protecting consumers passed by Washington in… 2002 or 2003, that says a company that sells a rate, and the payment processing accepts that and does bill the consumer, they must hold true, because just as the contract on anything else is binding for the consumer, it must also be binding for the company. This is usually the bill cited in the cases of internet purchasing and most states have a Consumer Protection Division now, that works like the Attorney General for consumers.
However, this is irrelevant, since the sims were not on a public url, for others to be able to utilize.