A man who lost his virtual “real estate” in the online
community Second Life alleges that the game publisher has violated his
property rights by suspending him from the community without
reimbursing him for the real-world value of his holdings, according to
a complaint filed May 2 in a county court in Pennsylvania (Bragg v.
Linden Lab,
Pa. Magis. Dist. Ct., Chester Cty.,
No. CV-7606,
complaint filed 5/2/06).
Marc Bragg was a resident of Second Life, a virtual world that is
built almost entirely by its players and which hosts a bustling free
market economy in which residents create, buy, and sell property.
Linden Lab makes its money through subscription fees and rents it
collects on virtual land. Unlike most online games, residents keep the
intellectual property rights to the goods they create, though,
technically, the goods themselves remain the property of Second
Life.
According to the complaint, Linden Lab suspended Bragg's account
following some land auctions in which he was involved. Bragg alleges
that Linden Lab froze roughly $8,000 worth of his “game
assets” and has refused to reimburse him. The terse,
one-paragraph complaint does not elaborate on the particular practices
that prompted Linden Lab to eject
Bragg.
Tinkering With the Auction System.
Prokofy Neva, a well-known avatar/resident of Second Life who
operates a virtual estate company that rents properties in-game,
explained to BNA how the auction process in Second Life works.
At any given time, Linden Lab has land to offer at auction. Some of
these properties are abandoned parcels put back into circulation.
Others are newly created parcels that have been rolled out onto the
grid and assigned an auction ID number, but which Linden has not yet
put up for sale. When a particular property reaches its turn in the
auction queue, Linden Lab sets the initial asking price; for instance,
a standard, full “sim,” a plot of land roughly 65,000
square meters in size, typically starts off at $1,000.
However, Bragg learned of a way to use the Second Life auction
process in an apparently unanticipated manner that allowed him to
acquire a sim for about $300. Bragg told BNA May 26 about his
process.
The particular property in question was already on the Second Life
grid, and had an auction ID number assigned to it, according to Bragg.
However, Linden Lab had not put that plot up for sale yet; so, it did
not appear on the list of sims for which Linden Lab was currently
accepting bids. Bragg determined that by going to the Second Life land
auction site, calling up a currently listed property, and replacing
the auction ID number that appeared in the URL string with the auction
ID number of the unlisted property, he could call up the unlisted
property out of the standby queue and onto the auction block. Once
that occurred, the browser resolved to a screen that permitted Bragg
to start the bidding at whatever amount he chose. He set the bar low,
and eventually got the sim for about
$300.
Linden Lab: Actions Violated Terms of Service.
“Obviously, we believe that the way Bragg used his account is
in violation of our terms of service,” Ginsu Yoon, general
counsel for Linden Lab, told BNA in a May 24 e-mail interview.
“[T]his is a straightforward consumer contract
dispute.”
Yoon did not elaborate on the particular terms of service
provisions Bragg violated; however, a review of the terms suggests at
least one possibility: Section 4.1 prohibits residents from taking any
actions that “detrimentally interfere with” any system or
data or that “interfere with or disrupt the Service.”
In a May 8 post to the Clickable Culture blog, Neva characterized
Bragg's strategy as an HTML exploit. “[J]ust because you can
find an exploit and use it doesn't mean you have been harmed if the
property is seized back from you--you've done the harming by
essentially stealing property, hijacking it, and reselling it,”
he said.
The substance of Bragg's complaint charges that Linden Lab
“made unauthorized charges on plaintiff's credit cards, breached
an online auction contract by allowing land to auction, accepting
payment, and then suspending plaintiff's account.” Claims
alleged include, among others: breach of contract, conversion, and
interference with contractual relations.
Bragg told BNA that after Second Life learned of Bragg's purchase
of the property for below-market rate, it took the following actions:
• cancelled
the sale, citing a technical glitch;
• froze
his Second Life account, which had about $2,000 on deposit;
• took
back all the land which Bragg had acquired in-game, including plots
obtained using the regular auction method; and
• cleared
those plots of structures Bragg had built upon them and reauctioned
the property.
As for actions Bragg took in response, Yoon told BNA that Bragg
filed his lawsuit the day after Linden Lab put his account on hold.
During the next several days, Bragg sent a flurry of faxes to Linden
Lab's litigation counsel as well as the Federal Trade Commission and
various state consumer protection authorities. He also contacted
multiple press outlets.
“Are these the typical actions of an innocent consumer with a
legitimate complaint?” Yoon
asked.
TOS Disclaims Rights in Goods.
Bragg stated in his press release that his lawsuit seeks to clarify
the “legitimacy of a virtual intangible purchase of an
asset.” However, Bragg's theory that he has a persistent,
compensable property right in his virtual real estate may conflict
with the terms of service.
Section 2.6, which deals with account suspension and termination,
states that: “you understand that you shall receive no refund or
exchange for … any content or data associated with your Account,
or for anything else.”
Section 3.3, which covers ownership of account data, provides that
the resident “do[es] not own any data Linden Lab stores on
Linden Lab servers (including without limitation any data representing
or embodying any or all of your Content).”
Bragg's press release frames the dispute as a quest to establish
the legal rights that flow from ownership of virtual real estate, but
Linden Lab questions whether the analogy to real property is an
appropriate one.
“The term 'virtual' may not have a strict legal
interpretation, but if anything it means that the thing being
described is NOT whatever comes after the word
'virtual,' ” Yoon said.
A hearing is scheduled for June 1 before Magistrate Judge Mark
Bruno.
The complaint is available at
http://pub.bna.com/eclr/cv7606.pdf
The terms of service are available on Second Life's Web site,
http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php