Real Legal Rights To Virtual Property On Second Life?

Could there be real legal rights attached to the ownership of real estate on the internet? Should there be? The case of Carl Evans v. Linden Labs is tackling that issue, where plaintiffs are the owners of virtual real property. In the class action lawsuit, users of the virtual world Second Life are claiming that the site lured them in with the promise of actual ownership of property, and then changed the rules on them such that the real estate is now a service that the company can control and cancel. The complaint alleges, in pertinent part, that the company and its founder: lured consumers across the United States to invest real money into [the] game world by promising those users that they would own the virtual land and property they purchased as well as the content they created, and then unilaterally, without the consumer owner's consent, knowledge, or permission, changed the terms of the service agreement to state that these land and property owners did not own what they had created, bought and paid for, and that these consumers had no choice but to click on a new terms of service agreement or they could not have access to their property. The problem is that consumers paid for their virtual land, under the impression that they owned it based on representations by the virtual world's founder, Philip Rosedale and Linden Labs. They were also given the bundle of rights typical of all property owners, the fundamental right to use, exclude, and transfer their property interests to other users. All these signs point to an expression by the company of ownership of land, and a user expectation of ownership of land. However, users are claiming that the representation of land ownership was fraudulent, as it differs from the company's actual practice. They say that over time the terms of service had been changed and other statements on the website were altered such that they no longer indicated that land ownership was a feature of the site. All members of the class action have lost money as a result of the loss of control of their virtual properties. The interesting larger question is whether true real property principles could be applied to virtual properties. In the United States, the government can take your real property by eminent domain under the 5th and 14th amendments, but only under certain circumstances. First, the government must be acting out of a reasonable belief that taking the property would benefit the public. Second, the government must provide you with "just compensation" for the value of the land taken. They cannot just appropriate any tract of land for any purpose. This is why the taking of property in Second Life seems so unfair - it would never happen that way in real life. While it is still unclear what the reasons are behind the taking of users' land, a couple of speculations can be made. Based on an older lawsuit involving the company, it is believed that Linden Labs might be looking to go public or sell and wants to own as much of their land as possible when that happens. It is also possible that users were abusing the platform and taking advantage of loopholes in the site's land auction system to obtain large tracts at low prices. Until the company responds to the allegations and the case evolves more, we can only guess as to how this dispute will play out. In the meantime, users will remain cautious of spending money on virtual properties that they might lose at any time.

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Real Legal Rights To Virtual Property On Second Life?

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