Residents threaten lawsuit to force landbot ban

Residents threaten lawsuit to force landbot ban

By Eric Reuters

SECOND LIFE, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Jeanie Shields sold a plot of virtual land worth almost US$500 for less than a penny, and she blames Linden Lab.

Shields, through her Second Life avatar Jezebel Bailey, tried to deed over 22,000 square meters of land to a friend. The two of them were alone in the sim. To make it easy, she listed the parcel for one Linden dollar, and told her friend to buy it.

Ten seconds later when her friend clicked on the land, she discovered to her dismay it had already been sold.

Shields’ parcel was acquired by a landbot, a controversial automated computer program that scours Second Life’s database of estate listings, looking for land below market value. Her pleas for assistance to Linden Lab having gone unanswered, Shields has teamed up with lawyer Marc Bragg (Second Life: Marc Woebegone) and is threatening legal action against Linden Lab in an attempt to shut down the landbots.

Second Life’s software supports selling land to a specific person, but Shields said since she was alone in her sim with the buyer she assumed it would be safe to list the land on the open market. “Why would I be expected to know what a landbot is?” Shields said. “It’s not on help island. It’s not in the TOS.”

Shields said she called Linden Lab’s concierge, asked online help, and even appealed directly to Linden executives. “The answer was the same,” Shields said. “Sorry, all sales final.”

Shields’ lawyer, Bragg, is a familiar figure to Linden Lab, having initiated a lawsuit against the company and its chief executive, Philip Rosedale, last year. In motions in the previous case, Bragg v. Linden Research, Bragg got a Pennsylvania judge to rule Linden’s Terms of Service “unconscionable.” Linden settled the case earlier this month and restored Bragg’s Second Life account, previously frozen.

“They give you warranties you’re buying this land and it’s yours,” Bragg said. “After the last go-round, I hope Linden Lab has grown up a little bit and realized they don’t own the universe.”

Bragg and Shields are collecting signatures for a possible class action lawsuit against Linden Lab, and have gotten about 150 Second Life residents to sign on so far. Shields says she wants 5,000 co-signatories before initiating legal proceedings.

CLASS ACTION STATUS IN QUESTION

Sean Kane, a lawyer specializing in virtual worlds at the law firm Drakeford & Kane, questioned the legal basis for the lawsuit, especially the attempt to secure class action status.

“Anyone can sue for anything, but the amounts are so small that regular courts won’t want to deal with it, so you would probably be dealing with small claims court unless you have class action status,” he said.

Class action lawsuits can only proceed if each case represents a plaintiff in the exact same position.

“With the utilization of landbots, each action is unique,” Kane said. “A good defense attorney can probably defeat the class.”

Bragg’s involvement with the case may backfire. Linden Lab ejected Bragg from Second Life after he allegedly used an exploit in the real estate auction system to purchase land below market value, and Bragg sued in response. The case recently settled out of court. Terms were not disclosed.

“If I was defending Linden, I would definitely raise these past issues and argue he’s not appropriate counsel,” Kane said.

LANDBOT COUNTERMEASURES

Among the possible steps opponents of landbots say could be used by Linden Lab to curb the practice are a time delay between putting land for sale and its appearance in search engines, an improved real estate dispute resolution process, or implementation of “CAPTCHA” image recognition technology to deter automated programs.

Shields is finding support from land traders who resent the landbots, feeling it gives a competitive advantage in the virtual real estate market to coders with the best programming skills. “I deal land myself, last month over two million square meters sold, and it always irks me that anything that is sold under market value no one in the game except the bots has a chance to buy,” said Chaos Mohr, who declined to reveal his real-life name.

There are five landbot programs running in Second Life, said Yohan Pintens, who’s responsible for one of them. He said in cases like Shields’ where there was obviously an error, most buyers return the parcel the question. “You’ve got (right now anyhow) a single rogue bot that does not return mistakes, four others that do,” said Pintens, who declined to disclose his real-world identity.

Pintens defends the practice of using landbots in general. The various pop-up windows and confirmation requests already in place make it very clear land listed for public sale can be bought by anyone, he said. “You have to specifically either select ‘Anyone’ or a ‘User’ when selling land.”

Shields hopes the threat of litigation will prompt Linden to change its policies so other inexperienced landowners won’t end up in the same predicament. “We don’t wish to go to court, that’s a last effort scenario,” she said.

500美元贬值为1美分，second life 居民又要诉讼

路透社 Second Life10月24 日消息

由于Landbot 作怪，second life 用户Jeanie Shields 以不到一美分的价格卖掉了原本价值500美元的虚拟土地，她将此归咎于林登试验室---second life的运营商，并威胁要提起诉讼，禁止使用Landbot.

Jeanie Shields ，试图通过她在second life 的账户 Jezebel Bailey，把大约22,000平方米的土地转交给她的一个朋友。当时只有她和她的朋友待在那片土地上。为了操作方便，她把那片土地以1L$的价格挂牌，并告诉她的朋友去买它。（译注：L$是second life里面的虚拟货币，可以与美元兑换，价格浮动，大约1000L$=4$）

10秒钟后她的朋友去点击那片土地以获得之，结果却惊慌地发现土地已经被人以1L$的价格买走了。

Jeanie Shields的那块虚拟土地是被一个landbot买走的，landbot是一种有争议的可自动运行的计算机程序，它可以搜索Second Life的房地产列表数据库，可用来查找那些低于市场价格的土地。为此Jeanie Shields请求林登试验室的帮助，却没有得到任何答复。于是她联合曾与林登试验室达成庭外和解的Marc Bragg 律师（上一篇文章提到了此人），威胁要对林登提起诉讼，要求关闭所有Landbot.

Second life的软件能够使居民做到--将土地卖给指定的人，而Jeanie Shields女士说由于那块地上只有她和她的朋友，所以她认为先前的做法是安全的。（译者注：即使没有landbot，Jeanie Shields女士的做法也有危险：只要能用鼠标点击那块土地，即使是没有站在那块土地上的人也可以买到它）。Jeanie Shields女士说：‘凭什么说我必须有责任知道landbot 的存在？服务条款里没有这样的规定，帮助岛上也没有说明。’

Jeanie Shields女士还提到她曾给林登的客服打过电话，请求在线帮助，甚至直接向林登的执行官发出呼吁，但是所有的回答都是一样‘抱歉，所有的交易都是不可逆转的。’

Jeanie Shields女士的律师是Bragg，也是林登实验室的‘老朋友’了，他去年曾起诉过林登和它的CEO-Philip Rosedale（译者前一篇文章曾报导）。（译者注：有讽刺意味的是，Bragg曾因使用landbot购买低于市场价的土地，而被林登冻结了账户）。Bragg说：‘林登承诺你买的地就属于你。经过上次的交道，我希望林登能有点长进，能意识到他们并不拥有整个宇宙。’

Jeanie Shields女士和Bragg正在征集签名，打算发起一场集体诉讼控告林登试验室，目前已征集到150个second life 居民的签字。Shields女士表示，在正式开始法律诉讼前，她要征集5千个签名。

集体诉讼形式受到质疑

Sean Kane，是Drakeford & Kane律师事务所专门负责虚拟世界业务的律师，对这项诉讼的法律基础提出质疑，尤其是集体诉讼的形式。他是这样解释的：‘任何人都可以因任何事情提起诉讼，但是由于诉讼量极小，以至于普通法庭根本不予处理，因此你需要申请特别法庭处理案件，不然的话你就要发起集体诉讼才行。’而集体诉讼只有当所有原告都受到完全同样的侵犯才能成立。‘在本案中，每次侵犯都可以看作是唯一性的，’Sean Kane说，‘一个好的辨方律师很可能会抗诉成功。’

Bragg卷入此案可能会自讨苦吃（详见前篇译文）。Sean Kane说：‘如果我为林登辩护，我绝对会用他以前的案子为由，质疑其作为原告律师的合理性。’

防landbot的方法

在所有林登可能采取的对抗landbot的方法中包括，在设置土地出售和所售土地公开显示之间加上时间延迟，以及改良的地产要价处理系统或者实行CAPTCHA图识别技术阻止自动程序。

Jeanie Shields女士正在寻求憎恶landbot的土地经销商的支持，这些经销商们认为landbot使那些高超的程序员在虚拟地产交易中获得竞争优势。‘我自己打理土地，上个月卖了大约2百万平方米，让我苦恼的是，只有那些landbot才能购买到低于市场价的土地。’土地经销商Chaos Mohr说道，他拒绝透露自己的真实姓名。

Yohan Pintens（也拒绝透露真实身份）说second life中大约有5种landbot在运行，他本人编制了其中的一种。他认为，在Jeanie Shields女士的案例中，购买土地的人绝对可以看出来卖地的人犯了错误，买主应当归还土地。5种landbot中，只有一个是流氓软件不会归还，而Jeanie Shields女士恰恰遇到了。其他4种都会归还。Yohan Pintens总体上赞同使用landbot，因为它们已经设置各种弹出窗口和确认请求，以便明确它们列表中的土地都是对公众销售的，任何人都可以购买。同样，卖主在出售土地时也可以设置土地卖给任何人或某个指定的用户。

Jeanie Shields女士希望能同过诉讼的威胁促使林登改变政策，这样就可使那些没有经验的土地主免受同样之害。她说：‘我们也不想上法庭，那将是最后的手段。’

（译者注：联想到林登的CEO---Philip Rosedale也在做secondlife的虚拟土地交易，不由得让人们对second life的土地市场前景产生担忧）