Virtual Land Dispute Spills Over Into Real World

Lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania seeks to collect damages from gaming company on virtual land purchase​

WEST CHESTER, Pa., May 8 /PRNewswire/ -- On May 1st, 2006, a possible
first-of-its-kind lawsuit was filed in local district justice court to seek
remedy for a virtual land deal gone sour. The suit seeks financial damages
in the thousands, in part for a breach of a virtual land auction contract
and for violation of the Pennsylvania Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer
Protection Law. This suit is unique because the land doesn't actually
exist.
Marc Woebegone, known in the real word as Marc Bragg, has filed suit in
the local district justice court in West Chester, Pennsylvania, a small
town located 25 miles west of Philadelphia, PA. Bragg purchased virtual
land, known in Second Life as "sims," using real US currency. Bragg learned
of a way to purchase virtual land significantly below market values, and
invested thousands of US dollars purchasing land in an attempt to resell
this land at a profit. Bragg claims that employees of Linden Research,
Inc., the company who creates, manages and maintains this online world,
allowed the auction to be created, and after Bragg paid US dollars for the
land, terminated Bragg's account, without explanation, without citing any
violation of community policy, and have since refused offer a credit or a
refund. Bragg's calls to customer service and Linden Lab's legal counsel
have gone unanswered. Bragg's final option? Seek relief in a real world
court.


Rest here

 

Idiocy knows no boundaries.

I pray for the day I have enough money to throw around to pay thousands of dollars for something that doesn't exist.

 

They offer a service, he payed the service wasnt given,he wins,if I were them I'd settle out of court

 

I wouldn't. Chances are, it was an outside auction, and companies like this get upset when you make money off of their intellectual property. The guy never owned it in the first place.

I'm sure the EULA states what he did was wrong somewhere.

Correction: I read a little closer. The thing is, he did this outside the game I bet, which most likely, is NOT allowed.

-or-

The "Bragg learned of a way" sounds a whole lot like an exploit he found. That will get you banned, too.

 

I wanna have a discussion but I agree with you,phhhh

 

1. It was an auction from the OFFICIAL SITE, not outside the game, no hacking occured. It was land that LL (Linden Labs) was selling off and took back.

2. This has affected several people (yes more than 1 person). I know several people that has their accounts on hold, their v.land and money taken, while being "investigated" for hacking which I absolutely know that they aren't able to do.

There was no exploit as LL claims. There was no hacking as LL claims. There was nothing done wrong as LL claims by the people who bought v.land. and LL is trying to cover their rears. If you would like more on this I can certainly supply more letters and possibly more articles.

 

You hear this a lot. If its online, there is always a way.

There is always an exploit at some point that gets patched sooner or later.

Nothing online is unhackable.

Will be interesting to see what the outcome is.

 

I'm interested if you have more info,basically all I wanna know is,was the virtual land purchased from linden labs and the price agreed,i.e was payment taken and an agreement signed and then the LL changed their minds because they thought it was worth more or an accounting mistake was made on their part,

Auctions complicate thing a great deal they have the ability to switch around who is the offerer,e.g instead of a store offering to sell you a product at a said price,in an auction you are offering to buy e.g the virtual land for $$ which makes LL the acceptor of your offer,in a real auction its tough doo,but they represent themselve,unless they have a third party company running the auction,in which case everyones beef is with the auction company

Also what was the way he'd found to buy land on the cheap,do ya know matey?

 

I dont understand this "second life" game. How can virtual land have a value, when technically there is an unlimited supply?

Is LL a U.S. based company?

edit- just read is based out of san francisco

 

I would imagine its like real estate in real life,everyone wants land closest to the rest of the people and buildings,this will be considered prime real estate,from a quick look at the map it does seem like a virtual world you can walk around with the main shops and buildings clustered into groups easy for people to find shops they want and since theres about $60m private business going through the place it becomes essential for your shops to be easy for people to find

If you bought land cheap in auction thats in a prime location now it may well be worth alot of money when the 'settlement' has expanded and someone would like to purchase you land and open a business,hence the court case

I think