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Bragg v. Linden Settled
The lawsuit brought against Linden Lab was settled out of court yesterday. Apparently, Bragg was given his SL account back as the result of a “misunderstanding”, SL’s TOS was changed, and no doubt money changed hands from one party to another.
If it had gone to trial, it would have resulted in some of the (if not *the*) first court rulings regarding the legal rights of virtual property holders. Such a ruling could have been a landmark in what can and cannot be expected from MMO/VW companies and their clients – or it could have choked the industry in lethal tangles of governmental regulation. Needless to say, not wanting to submit their business model to the vagaries of whether or not a random judge understood virtual worlds no doubt weighed heavily in Linden’s decision to settle.
Commentary from people who know more or less about this stuff than I:
- Virtually Blind doesn’t have much to say now, but I’d expect more later
- Prokofy Neva has angry (and atypically terse and focused) commentary
- Virtual Worlds News with analysis of the TOS changes prompted by the suit/eventual settlement
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about 2 years ago
I’m rather sad that this wasn’t carried into the courts to finish. I honestly am looking forward to the courts to wade in and make decisions on who owns the toons and such. Unlike Lum I don’t believe it’s a bad thing. Of course anyone in any industry looking at regulations chokes up and goes chicken little but if one looks at the big picture this will have to be decided by courts with attendant government eventually. The virtual world business is not a special little snowflake.
about 2 years ago
I’m working on it – until somebody can shake comments out of one of the players, there’s not much to say. I am disappointed it didn’t go further — at least to summary judgment, so the court would have had to weigh in on the bigger issues — but that is exactly what Linden Lab wanted to avoid. Also, Bragg had noticed Philip Rosedale personally for a 7.5 hour video deposition that was going to take place in the near future. I suspect that the prospect of that video leaking (it almost certainly would have) also provided some motivation.
about 2 years ago
I don’t think that if this had went to trial and decision that it would have done anything towards ownership of virtual lands since that wasn’t really what it was about. The court case was about EULA, the ToS and the manner in which LL recalled a sale of an item without refunding the money behind that sale. Saying “we aren’t going to sell this to you because you broke the rules but we are going to keep your money” is going to get you in trouble every time. Companies that sold virtual items for real cash would then have to start refunding, on a pro-rated system perhaps, an item they sold to a person that they were going to ban.
about 2 years ago
Geez. I wrote about the effects on virtual property extrensively and how this case would be full of interesting stuff on Your2ndplace.com and KnowProSE.com and *predicted* a settlement.
Were you all responding to internet trolls or something?