Dear Merchants, Linden Lab is not liable for your loss

[Sassy Romano]

For anyone who has not had payments reconciled, just to highlight, this is NOT a fault of improper architecture (WEB-4508), it's not a fault of failure due to a software bug (WEB-4580), but it's actually your fault for expecting the service to work.

You would be well advised to read https://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php?lang=en-US#tos10

[Peggy Paperdoll]

Did you know that Wal-Mart is not responsible for damage to your automobile from their shopping carts......even though a shopping cart corral is not provided in their parking lot?  That also goes for Target, Best Buy, Home Depot, Lowes, Macy's, Saks 5th Avenue and all shopping malls (your local grocery store isn't responsible either).

It's a common disclaimer by almost every business in existance in the United States.  You can, if you decide to fight it, take your damages to a court and have either a judge or jury decide if the owners of the business are, in fact, responsible for your damages.......you can do the same with Linden Lab if you want to pursue it.

 

Otherwise, welcome to the real world.  You take a chance on many things everywhere you turn.  Second Life is no different in that respect.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Wal-Mart must refund by cash or credit for defective merchandise, among other things.

They also don't have an arbitration clause for anything under $10,000 for instance on retail level issues.

Wal-Mart buys its own product, if it sold other peoples, it would need to carry insurance and clear policies for the seller. It would be contractual in nature and wouldn't write off all responsibility. They couldn't. It's not legal.

Yes, it's common to attempt to disclaim away any and all liability these days.

On the other hand, something LL doesn't quite understand about its customer base. Between an average higher age demographic, despite a good dose of open-mindedness in lifestyle, sexuality, etc. and partially because of the pitch "your world" ... SL users expect something "more" than that from SL.

SL is often perceived as an escape from real world corporate mentality.

Unfortunately, it tries to play both sides of the fence somewhere between open/crowd sourcing and commercial. It doesn't work for a sophisticated product, as evidenced by a steady decline.

[Kampu Oyen]

No civil contract is a one-sided license to take additional money arbitrarily and offer nothing in return.

OTOH, you should all be ashamed of yourselves.

Conspiracy talk is always counterproductive.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Not sure what you're calling a civil contract or who's taking money and offering nothing.

You can read those 10 pound documents for yourself, there are many policy docs with LL. Just about anything that can be disclaimed away, is.

Why does my coffee smell like almonds?

[Peggy Paperdoll]

Your coffee smells like almonds because it has almonds in it?  Or more likely almond extract.  .  I think I covered the retailers (or businesses) trying to extricate themselves from liability with my comment about about carrying it to the court system and let a judge or jury decide what liability exists and where it falls.  Everyone has that exact same option with Linden Lab.  I do understand the losses are very small compared to real life..........a fender repair for a Honda Civic can be substaintial and the loss incurred by a failed delivery (or deleted product) is pennies.  And because of that the court option is just not something any sane person would pursue (well, not unless that person has very deep pockets in real life and doesn't mind spending it out of principal).

Anyone who doesn't understand that about doing business in SL might want to reconsider doing business in SL.  It's the same in real life.........if you don't have the desire to make your business work (including the losses you might encounter) then you're in a very rude awaking).  Having a business in a virtual world, using developing software by a company that is "inventing the wheel" as it goes, is a very risky undertaking......understand that and you will probably succeed.  Don't understand that and you'll likely fail.....no matter how much you complain.

[Kampu Oyen]

If even 1% of the merchants affected should happen to file small claims in SF, I don't see any way that LL could fight them all, no matter what they would like the court to believe the service agreement says.

And it CAN be done by merchant proxy, under Power of Attorney.

I have done it, in fact.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

Then go for it.  I think it will loose in the end but, if you are so confident on your stance then, by all means stop talking about it and do it.  It would certainly put some of this crap to rest about liability.  I just can't get my head around anyone using a virtual world that deals with a micro-economy convincing a judge or jury that real damage was done due to negligence or lack of protecting them from damage by the developer of a never been done before platorm.

Answer the question.......put your actions where your mouth just went.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

---

Peggy Paperdoll wrote:

 I just can't get my head around anyone using a virtual world that deals with a micro-economy convincing a judge or jury that real damage was done due to negligence or lack of protecting them from damage by the developer of a never been done before platorm.

Answer the question.......put your actions where your mouth just went.

---

This fellow appears to think it's worth a specialty: http://www.web20lawyer.com/electronic_payment_lawyer.html. Next, virtual goods attorney ads on late night tv commercials. Half joking there, there are other specialists in this particular field in legal.

Of course like I say, you already agreed to not go to court and arbitrate for anything less than $10,000 in the  LL TOS.

The whole thing will see more legislation, more likely from larger game companies and Zynga, etc.

Virtual goods and currency are nothing new or exclusive to SL. Virtual goods are a bubble in the billions now, not counting SL. Some court time and legislation are bound to follow as companies abuse virtual currency to get around other laws.

 

[Peggy Paperdoll]

When someone finally gets the gonads to take it to court an answer may be given.  Anything can be litigated in court in the US.  All you need is a lawyer to argue your case with strong enough arguments to get a court to hear your complaint........of course some legal violation or breech has to be the center of the argument or it gets thrown out before it even gets started.  For over 6 years now I've been reading 100's (probably 1,000's) of complaints about how LL is cheating or doing it's customers wrong with it's mico-economy and how it's stacked against the users.  In that 6 plus years not a single word about anyone even trying to get it in court (there was one court action but it did not involve a user being cheated or damaged in an financial way.........something about copyrights if memory serves me (I believe the case was settled without a judgement).  With all those accusations and complaints, I would think something would make it to court if what is said by the complainers is even close to a litgitamate legal issue..........it hasn't happened so logic says your assertions are pretty weak.  There are lawyers who take on almost anything if they think they can win........I'm sure some one (probably several from the sheer number of complaints and comments) has talked to one of those "take any case" legal folks out there.

A business in SL is risky.........and that's going to be the first hurdle anyone making a case against LL is going to have to overcome.

[Knowl Paine]

A Business needs some protections from frivolous lawsuit's.

Systems that are off-line, effect all parties involved.

 

In support of Residents, every effort should be made by LL to review and address Resident inquiries involving L$.

If the transaction documentation can be resolved, the L$ should be credited to the proper Resident.   

 

I don't support Blanket refunds anytime there is a problem. Residents have to be pro-active, opt in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Perrie Juran]

---

Dartagan Shepherd wrote:

Wal-Mart must refund by cash or credit for defective merchandise, among other things.

They also don't have an arbitration clause for anything under $10,000 for instance on retail level issues.

Wal-Mart buys its own product, if it sold other peoples, it would need to carry insurance and clear policies for the seller. It would be contractual in nature and wouldn't write off all responsibility. They couldn't. It's not legal.

Yes, it's common to attempt to disclaim away any and all liability these days.

On the other hand, something LL doesn't quite understand about its customer base. Between an average higher age demographic, despite a good dose of open-mindedness in lifestyle, sexuality, etc. and partially because of the pitch "your world" ... SL users expect something "more" than that from SL.

SL is often perceived as an escape from real world corporate mentality.

Unfortunately, it tries to play both sides of the fence somewhere between open/crowd sourcing and commercial. It doesn't work for a sophisticated product, as evidenced by a steady decline.

---

Ummmmmmm.  Chapter and Verse.  Especially on your first line, WalMart MUST?

At least in the states where I have lived and worked in retail (and no not in Wallly World) I have never had a court force me to take back a product.  And yes, I've been there.  Unless I misrepresent the product to you, the bottom line of the fine print is "all sales are final."

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Fair enough, let me rephrase. State by state in the U.S. refunds on defective merchandise is generally a given. In either case it generally comes with an in-your-face clause about displaying policy.

Do they "have" to? Yes. No. Maybe (state by state) Do they? Generally.

In LL's state, no they don't have to.

Then again the non virtual world has something we can't accomplish quite so easily because of the obfuscation of business with LL. They can easily avail themselves of the legal system for very small amounts, they can class action by the numbers more easily. They have consumer law and protection agencies to help them more easily. You stand a fighting chance with these mechanisms if you've been wronged.

Let me say that I'm not trying to come off as legally threatening either (I'm also not a lawyer), and that it's not at all likely that any of this marketplace stuff will result in any legal action. I'm not for it, I wouldn't bring a case personally against LL or be part of a class action. I think that's silly.

I do think that LL needs to be more thoughtful, sophisticated as a company and do what Walmart does do, regardless of the letter of the law in each state.. Because it pays to be smart enough to not put yourself in those situations to begin with by making a minimal effort to your customers when it comes to fairness.

Any action can be initiated and tried regardless of who says what in a TOS and what the current law says.

And what it costs you in having to re-shrink wrap it in the back room to sell to the next customer pays off in good will.

 

[Kampu Oyen]

If WalMart spent 6 months refusing to do anything about an employee using shopping carts to break thousands of car widows and extracting things bought at WalMart in order to sneak them back onto the racks and shelves, WalMart wouldn't be blameless.

Service agreements protect companies from having to pay for losses due to honest mistakes and unforeseeable technical failures.

Service agreements do not protect companies from having to pay for losses due to gross wilful negligence or intentionally harmful acts.

LL's service agreement would protect them from having to pay for accidents.

LL's service agreement does not protect them from pretending to have accidents or pretending that technical failures are unforeseeable.

So let's consider how accidental and unforeseeable the current collection of problems can possibly be.

1) It's possible that it's an accident that LL chose to secretly deploy "bugged" code on the day of the year on which it would potentiate the maximum damage to merchant confidence, 13 September.

Given that 16 September represents the peak day for birthdays, the maximum yield for a birthday-item-related listing enhancement of 7 days would be applied on 13 September. Thus, as a same-day bork (optimum for gift disruption), 13 September maximally destroys merchant utility for such an enhancement, and likely also affects the maximum number of merchants who buy enhancements for birthday items.

But birthdays are just the tip of the iceberg. Borking Halloween in December is obviously less effective than borking Christmas in October. But the build-up of merchant activity for 4th quarter sales promotions begins earlier. Items must be listed before they can be promoted, so, in addition to any other 4th-quarter items also being listed or promoted early, Halloween items will tend to start to be listed before the first 30-day enhancement period, which puts the early vulnerability date into September.

13 September would have borked a larger part of the 4th quarter had the rest of DD been deployed on that date (which it somewhat did in any case, as seen from the fact that the quarterly report has been withheld, and can't be any better than the bad one before it). Specifically borking the 13th optimizes the additional destruction of birthday enhancements by producing unannounced same-day inteference with gift item processing during a 7-day peak period, corresponding to the length of the shortest enhancement, best fit to this annual peak.

Thus, 13 September is the most dangerous day of the year to risk borking the market.

The probability that it was chosen merely coincidentally approaches 1 in 365.

2) It's possible that it's an accident that LL chose the 2nd most destructive day to re-deploy the 13 September borks and to continue with the borking from there, (as if) in spite of the fact that they were seeing an effective repeat of the previous incident right from the start (which even they acknowledged by offering a comissions holiday later).

After an incomplete, but numerically effective bork of the whole 4th quarter, LL waited until 14 February to apply the next secret bugged deployment. Not the 13th. Not the 15th. As with the birthday peak, 14 February is a major date for gift processing. And, as with the birthday peak bork, the deployment was unannunced, in a repeat violation of Brooke's  earlier statement that DD code would not be deployed unannunced.

This incident borked St Patrick's day much as 13 September borked Halloween, and set the stage for the more extended borking of Easter on 21 March, just as merchants were done counting their combined losses for 14 February and 17 March, much as the additional bork not provided in the 4th quarter would have done to various 4th-quarter holidays. In fact, the borking of the 14xxxxx cluster, a cluster of items listed essentially a year before the 13 September bork was clearly to have been deployed earlier, had the 13 September deployments been allowed to continue; thus "coincidentally" borking 4th-quarter items from both 2010 and 2011 at essentially the same time. And this, oddly, just at the same time of year when borking them would have done the most damage to merchant confidence.

Even without the borking of the 14xxxxx cluster, 14 February is the 2nd most dangerous day to deploy "bugged" marketplace code. Look at any other day of the calendar and consider what I describe, and it becomes clear that 14 February is second only to 13 September in terms of these dangers.

The probability that it was chosen merely coincidentally approaches 1 in 364.

The combined probability of these dates being chosen by coincidence is 1 in 365x364.

That is, it approaches: 1 in 132860.

To put it another way: this is a set of two bad date selection decisions we should expect such a company to make about once in every 132,860 calendar years, given no criteria at all.

Or, to put it another way: if LL had 66,429 employees and they were EACH asked to come up with one pair of 2 possible deployment dates for new marketplace code, probably NONE of them would come up with a more dangerous pair of dates.

So you can probably just print this and take it to your lawyer right now.

But why not consider the rest of the coincidences?

A) Transaction errors uniformly favor LL, not merchants or customers.

B) The specific timing of the listing of the 14xxxxx cluster, and the time at which the bork would have occurred, had it been allowed to proceed.

C) A mascot for DD which, based on height, color, species, markings, and behavior is a violation of the Care Bears trademark for Oopsy Bear. Why a bear? Why green? Why such a precise height? Etc.

D) "Other". There's plenty of "other". Make your own list.

And not unforeseen. It was largeley foreseen and stated as foreseen on this very forum. Just take a look.

Most of all, that against which the service agreement does not protect LL is accountability for obvious fraud, expecially in terms fo fraudulently inducing people to participate in throwing their money away, regardless of where it goes or why.

(Summary...)

The Motive: get merchants to rent more land, increasing total LL revenues otherwise "lost" to marketing and sales not in-world.

The Means: destroy merchant confidence in sales not in-world, and possibly shut down all other options by pretending to fail at improving them.

The Opportunity: whoever suggested the dates 13 September and 14 February had the opportunity.

[Rivver Boucher]

Complaining in SL is sort of like an addiction. Sometimes fueled by the development of a recent problem or issue. Other times for the sake of.. the addiction.

But, if any of you take out a CD of any software you've purchased.. you'll read a disclaimer clause much the same as Linden Labs has.

What!!?? Oh No!! It can't be!! .. It is.

But really, in the course of lets say a year, how much do the actual losses amount to? Ten bucks? A hundred? In most states anything under $2,500 lands you in small claims. Where all the attorneys in the world won't do you a bit of good. Your on your own there. No legal representation involved. You can bet Lindens will have a quite skilled representitive in place. Their a company, it works that way.

You could also gather a collection of merchants together and file a class action suit for all those hundred or so bucks a year in losses. Even combined, whos going to pay for the attorney?  If you can get it out of small claims court and get a class action suit accepted by the judicial system ( Stroker Serpentine managed to but we saw how well that was going. And he had a good copyright infraction case! He was lucky it went down the way it did at the end) .. once again.. whos going to pay all those legal fees? And if you lose? Your responsible for all of the legal expense the Lab incurred. Even divided among the class action participants, that'd be a hefty chunk. Not to mention your own atty fees.

Doing business always comes with its hidden expenses. If your a grocer or even WalMart, you have theft and shrink. You have the person who slips and falls and the world as you know it is comikng to an end. So you carry insurance for just such cases.

What I never seem to see mentioned is what Linden Labs does give you. A tool and environment in which you can create your pretties and market them. All bundled into one package.

Someone mentioned their creating the wheel and its true. They are. The ride is going to be bumpy, and smooth, and bumpy and at times very bumpy.

Being in business in SL not only is risky, it also carries those unexpected expenses and has hurdles to overcome, just as being in business in much of anything.

The difference is SL has forums to vent into. Filled each day with venting.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Agree with your points on legal.

Got Peggy's point as well. You're a grown up, this is business, buck up. And that's generally great advice.

What people sometimes don't understand is that a merchant who has achieved a level of success has indeed bucked up many times over in business for themselves. Creating, packaging, support, promotion ... it's about one of the most time consuming things you can do. We've pulled all nighters and for years supported not only our products but also bugs in LL's product. For instance I pay a staff tens of thousands of L$ (more than couch change when converted to dollars) a week to support almost entirely LL bugs. $300/month for the land.

Some merchants earn livings and rely on the income here with LL's blessing.

Seriously, it's easier to run a small retail store than to be a merchant here. That you can do in a 40 hour week and earn $50,000/year. Speaks volumes that people choose here to run a business, it's a huge compliment to LL and the creative environment and great world that we have.

Might want to either walk in those shoes a bit or cut critical merchants simply asking for a higher level of product, communication and business the same slack you think they should cut SL.

Could be better. MUCH better. That's all. I think at the end of the day we all want to be on the same side and move on.

And it's not addicting, I can stop anytime I want. Really.

[Kampu Oyen]

>Complaining in SL is sort of like an addiction. Sometimes fueled by the development of a recent problem or issue. Other times for the sake of.. the addiction.

Are you saying that LL is in an enabling relationship with people who like to complain? If you're not saying that, how is what you are saying different from that?

>But, if any of you take out a CD of any software you've purchased.. you'll read a disclaimer clause much the same as Linden Labs has.>What!!?? Oh No!! It can't be!! .. It is.

Sure it is. They are not responsible for honest mistakes or anything unforeseeable. They ARE responsible for doing intentional harm or refusing to take simple, easy measures to prevent it when repeatedly alerted to them.

LL has refused even to correct text giving people demonstrably incorrect instructions, even when the text change is spelled out for them, and even when there is no possible legitimate advantage to refusing to make the change.

>But really, in the course of lets say a year, how much do the actual losses amount to? Ten bucks? A hundred? In most states anything under $2,500 lands you in small claims.

Yes. If you take the above explanation to an attorney, he'll most likely tell you it's going to be a small claims case in your state (you might all be able to file in California, I'm not sure). But that doesn't mean he can't do anything to help you prepare. The last time I went to small claims was for $200. I didn't use an attorney. The other guy did. HE LOST. Why? Because the facts were in my favor and I showed that, much as merchants here will be able to do if they so choose. In Massachusetts, my filing fee was $30 and the guy was also ordered to pay that, and an additional amount for transportation costs for my proxy under Power of Attorney, who was not a lawyer, but just someone who agreed to submit my papers because I was out of the country.

The process was not fast, but the final outcome was pretty inevitable as far as I could see. The defendant had a history of just gradually waiting for people to get sick of sticking up for themselves and giving up. So I just didn't give up.

If nobody speaks up for their small losses, someone at LL will reap a fortune from the apathy and inaction. If everyone speaks up, that's going to be a lot of filing fees on top of whatever else LL is ordered to pay. The guy I took to small claims was eventually pursued by the County Sherriff for nonpament of less than $300 total, and they made a very hard and clear point of making him pay it when they finally caught up with him.

>Where all the attorneys in the world won't do you a bit of good. Your on your own there. No legal representation involved. You can bet Lindens will have a quite skilled representitive in place. Their a company, it works that way.

No number of attorneys can rewrite basic laws of probability, or the basic facts of this series of incidents. The guy I took to court didn't understand that, either. Now he does.

>You could also gather a collection of merchants together and file a class action suit for all those hundred or so bucks a year in losses.

No need in most cases. Small claims. Easy.

>Even combined, whos going to pay for the attorney? 

Maybe a merchant or someone else who is sympathetic to them who is also an attorney would do it pro bono. How many people do you think are upset about what has happened. Do you honestly think none of them would also be attorneys?

>If you can get it out of small claims court and get a class action suit accepted by the judicial system ( Stroker Serpentine managed to but we saw how well that was going. And he had a good copyright infraction case! He was lucky it went down the way it did at the end) .. once again.. whos going to pay all those legal fees?

In small claims, which is what most of these cases would be, LL would pay the fees. And they would probably be less than $50 per user anyway.

>And if you lose? Your responsible for all of the legal expense the Lab incurred. Even divided among the class action participants, that'd be a hefty chunk. Not to mention your own atty fees.

Not in small claims. In small claims, if you lose, you'll most likely lose only what you've already lost, some small bills, and a bit of time. So it's practically nothing to lose unless the judge decides it's frivolous and decides you're contemptuous or something. Just keep your nose clean from the beginning of the process to the end, and you should be fine.

>Doing business always comes with its hidden expenses. If your a grocer or even WalMart, you have theft and shrink. You have the person who slips and falls and the world as you know it is comikng to an end. So you carry insurance for just such cases.

Irrelevant... almost. Except that if LL does get sued, I don't think lawsuit insurance will necessarily cover lawsuits which they actively invited by repeated refusal to take any action to protect themselves. The hidden costs for not resolving this matter some other way are probably not smaller, but a lot larger than the Lindens have so far imagined. They could become effectively uninsurable for lawsuits, and then all it would take to put them all out of a job would be one long, tedious suit by one especially dissatisfied person of means.

>What I never seem to see mentioned is what Linden Labs does give you.

They give what we agree to pay for, or less. The less is the problem.

>A tool and environment in which you can create your pretties and market them. All bundled into one package.

Xstreet provided the same things unbundled, but not less effectively for their own part.. But rather than simply try to compete by providing something better, LL decided to shut them down and provide something not as good. I don't know if antitrust legislation would apply, but the principle behind it certainly does.

>Someone mentioned their creating the wheel and its true. They are. The ride is going to be bumpy, and smooth, and bumpy and at times very bumpy.

A bumpy wheel should be replaced by a less bumpy wheel, not a more bumpy wheel.

>Being in business in SL not only is risky, it also carries those unexpected expenses and has hurdles to overcome, just as being in business in much of anything.

I astound myself by finding occasion to quote Donald Rumseld in a favorable light: "There are known unknowns and there are unknown unknowns."

 LL should be acting to reduce the number of unknown unknowns. Instead, they have been acting to increase it.

>The difference is SL has forums to vent into. Filled each day with venting

When you disagree, it's venting.

But what it is when you agree?

[Kampu Oyen]

>I think at the end of the day we all want to be on the same side and move on.

Of course.

What any reasonable person should want here is simply for LL to clean up its act and keep it clean henceforth.

Maybe that's what they're doing.

But every day you wait for them to demonstrate that conclusively, you lose.

Patience in this matter could end up costing you a lot.

Is it worth it?

[Paula001 Goldschein]

lol what's the story with that honda and the walmart parking lot?