Judge Won't Dismiss Second Life Land Grab Case

Warning: The lawyers involved with this topic will take your mind and twist it until it bursts forth with cerebral irreconcilability. Be assured, this is real and, probably, legal. Just hit the reset button on your synapses and you should be fine.

A case against Linden Labs, the company that produced popular virtual world SecondLife, involving a virtual land grab and repossession will go to court as a motion to dismiss was denied.

Attorney (of course he is) Marc Bragg exploited a sort of game cheat within the virtual world to buy up some prime virtual real estate at below market value. Bragg invested about $8,000 in the digital land, but once Linden Labs figured out he'd gamed the, um, game, they yanked his account and declared a type of virtual eminent domain.

Bragg sued because, well, he did invest real money in the fake world. Linden Labs moved for dismissal because Bragg, in their estimation, had cheated the system. But it's not that simple, says the judge, the TOS does indicate that users own the things they purchase within Second Life.

Since Linden Labs set it up that way, and allowed for an exploit, they sort of had it coming…at least that seems to be the tone taken by a few observers.

Valleywag's
Mike Masnick of