A Question of Reality: Lawsuit Filed Over Land Rights Inside Second Life
© Torley
A group of Second Lifers has filed a lawsuit against Linden Labs (owner of the Second Life game) and they hope that the suit will be granted class action status. Believe it or not, they are suing over land rights inside the virtual world.
The short version of the story is fairly simple. Second Life is the most realistic of the virtual worlds out there. In its early days it sought to distinguish itself from other virtual worlds by promoting the concept of land ownership inside the virtual world. Users invested considerable sums of money in property they thought they'd be able to use for profit. They even paid a regular fee that Linden Labs likened to a property tax.
Then one day they logged in and found that they terms of service had changed, that they no longer actually owned their land, and that the only way to get back into their virtual life was to agree to the terms of service.
The group (based mostly in Pennsylvania) is suing in California because previous lawsuits have established that Second Life's terms of service are subject to California's consumer protection laws.
This will be a fascinating case. Inc.com and Mashable are among the people following it so far.
~admin
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said on
That really is a fascinating story, Greg. It’ll be very interesting to see what kind of precedent that case sets.
saç bak?m?
Linden Labs is stupid to take away what their customers already have purchased. And why does Linden Lab bother? They can basically create as much virtual land as they want.
very nice story and very important for the future of virtual worlds in general. in the real life it would be against the law and i am very intent to the result!