An attorney whose Second Life account was shut down due to cheating allegations is suing publisher Linden Labs for $8,000 in restitution. The lawsuit, filed in 2006, is finally getting underway this week.
Marc Bragg claims he found a legitimate way to purchase land in Second Life far below market rates. Linden called the technique cheating, and terminated the account as a EULA violation. Bragg lost real estate and currency.
Bragg v. Linden Research charges that Linden “breached an auction contract by allowing the land to auction, accepting online payment, and then suspending plaintiff’s account.”
Bragg was able to purchase a plot of virtual land, known as a “sim,” for $300 real life dollars; well below the usual $1,000 value. Players in Second Life legally own any virtual property they buy; in other MMOs, the publisher owns all property.
The hack: Bragg copied the URL for a legitimate auction, then swapped in the ID number for land not yet up for sale publicly, so there would be no minimum bid and few, if any, competing bidders. Sounds like cheating to me.
“If they’re not running their auctions properly to begin with … the onus is on them to do that,” Bragg told Wired News. “Granted people make mistakes, but they’re not treating it like a mistake.”
Bragg’s online Linden Dollars had a street value of about $3,200.
One Comment
Wow, this is really outdated. Case amicably settled…..
http://secondlife.typepad.com
Marc