New Second Life terms and conditions

[Kyrah Abattoir]

53 minutes ago, CaithLynnSayes said:

You never had rights. As Ive stated before, you are in SL's house and LL can at any given moment kick you out and they don't need to give you any reason.

It's really important that users of a service understand that you have no rights. It is in a company's best interest to serve you well, but they don't have to. You can go to another company/service if you don't like what the first company offers or allows you to do. That's about the only right you have, the right to leave.

I don't mean to sound harsh, just realistic and it's important anyone using a service understands this.

We don't want much:

LL expects us to settle any outstanding debt in their favor, we expect them to do the same when it is in our favor.

[Chic Aeon]

With all that has been happening this last couple of months, please keep in mind what I believe I said somewhere at the beginning of this thread (thank you @animats )  ....

 

In Sansar they changed things (this before selling to Wookey ) that the ONLY money that could be taken out via Tilia to Paypal were the SALES that creatirs made using their market.  So folks that may have been tipped for singing or doing work for hire withing Sansar  etc could not take money out. 

 

In one way it is reasonable, in another unfair. So each person will need to decide how the new rules -- and going forward I am guessing MORE new rules -- will affect them personally. Once again the content creators are the ones getting hurt in this (at least presumably). 

Edited October 31, 2022 by Chic Aeon
spelling

[CaithLynnSayes]

18 minutes ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

LL expects us to settle any outstanding debt in their favor, we expect them to do the same when it is in our favor.

And yet they don't have to when they don't want to, because you agreed to that when you clicked the "i agree" button, because lets not forget that ToS also includes:

The Service exists only as long as and in the form that we may provide the Service, and all aspects of the Service, including your User Content, are subject to change or elimination.

This is section 1.2. Most Terms of Service on just about anything will have this near the top if not the very fist statement in it.

 

Again, understand that you came to LL because you wanted to be in SL. They didn't ask you to come. You didn't vote for them and they don't represent you. They owe you nothing. And if you look at this quote from ToS carefully they basically say; We can just delete what you created or bought and we can decide to no longer provide you with a service and there is nothing you can do about it. Is this harsh? No, that's a business protecting itself from being sued.

I am not defending LL here, well actually i am. But more to the point, i'm trying to make people see what the importance is of actually seriously reading the Terms of Service before you agree to it.

[CaithLynnSayes]

You know. An interesting thing would be that if the users of SL that clicked the "I agree" button without reading any of it, had a sit down with someone and went over all of it. Every single thing in the Terms of Service and explain to them what it all means.

I think a lot of people would be in for a bit of a shock, some may never even have signed up. - A bit comparable to that one quote from Henry Ford:

It is well enough that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and money system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.

 

[Ceka Cianci]

On 10/29/2022 at 2:35 PM, Arielle Popstar said:

So you have your IRS considering it a virtual currency with an actual value while Tilia itself inserts the clause "at its sole discretion" implicating that it considers it play money in that it dictates whether it will convert the Lindens to US $. And since the L$ only has a real world value at the whim of Tilia, unless the IRS is willing to accept L$ for tax liabilities it really cannot be considered to have any real value outside of SecondLife.

As far as I can tell and I'm gonna say this as, Don't go taking this as financial advice to live by or anything solid, people do their own research or contact  your pro you deal with. hehehe

Ok butt covered now!! \o/  hehehe

 The only time I can see users are trading, convertible virtual currency, is when lindens are placed on the exchange..

This is why I think I kept seeing, lindens are considered a closed loop digital currency, popping up in my searches.. Because in their token/ game money form in world, they are cut off from the real world economy and limited to the grid value.

While Lindens remain in world, you can't do any legal real world trading with them.. You don't do any legal real world trading with another user, until you hit the exchange.. We as users, only have permission for real world value trading of Linden Dollars on the exchange and nowhere else.

I thought I remembered hearing not so long ago, that you had to have things set up with tilla, to actually trade on the exchange, but that may be just my mind remembering something wrong again.. That happens a lot too.. hehehe

Aaaanyways, The thing with bit coins and cryptos is, even in their coin or token or whatever form they are in, they can at any time be real world traded in the real world economy and are considered convertible all the time.

I spent most of the day yesterday reading and reading and reading as much information I could find, to see where the point of linden dollars, being a linden and linden being a convertible virtual  currency.. The only place that I can think of that happening, is when it's happening on the exchange.

You can't trade them on the grid because the exchange isn't on the grid.. you have to do that on the web site where the exchange is.

If you are not able to trade on the exchange, you can't trade them.. Now I don't know if just having the ability to be able to trade on the exchange  changes the way someone's lindens are looked at by the IRS..

I think the moment they become a currency that is of real world value, is the moment we have permission from whoever really owns the currency, to do real world trading..

We would be breaking the law otherwise, so I think IRS is going to look at when we are legally allowed to trade them, rather than when we are not allowed to trade..

With the recent IRS changes, they really made things confusing as it gets..

This is what it say's on their site  now after they posted about game money.

"February 14, 2020

The IRS recognizes that the language on our page potentially caused concern for some taxpayers. We have changed the language in order to lessen any confusion. Transacting in virtual currencies as part of a game that do not leave the game environment (virtual currencies that are not convertible) would not require a taxpayer to indicate this on their tax return."

I take it as, they are not convertible until they hit the exchange, where we have permission, which happens outside of the game. in world we do not have permission and cannot trade them in real world trades.

 

Disclaimer.. This is not tax advice or trading advice.. This is just an attempt at trying to put the pieces together from the information that I have dug up..

 

 

Edited October 31, 2022 by Ceka Cianci

[Kathlen Onyx]

22 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

In Sansar they changed things (this before selling to Wookey ) that the ONLY money that could be taken out via Tilia to Paypal were the SALES that creatirs made using their market.  So folks that may have been tipped for singing or doing work for hire withing Sansar  etc could not take money out. 

 

 

I suppose it's easier to produce a paper trail if they only allow withdrawals for things they can track. You can't really track how much a singer makes in tips or a creator as those are not things that can be tracked on paper. 

[Kyrah Abattoir]

7 minutes ago, CaithLynnSayes said:

Again, understand that you came to LL because you wanted to be in SL. They didn't ask you to come. You didn't vote for them and they don't represent you. They owe you nothing. And if you look at this quote from ToS carefully they basically say; We can just delete what you created or bought and we can decide to no longer provide you with a service and there is nothing you can do about it. Is this harsh? No, that's a business protecting itself from being sued.

Contract law is a little more complicated than that thankfully, and varies from country to country. You might be used to be taken advantage of to the point of seeing it as a normal occurrence, but not everyone is.

 

[CaithLynnSayes]

Just now, Kyrah Abattoir said:

Contract law is a little more complicated than that thankfully, and varies from country to country. You might be used to be taken advantage of to the point of seeing it as a normal occurrence, but not everyone is.

I'm not sure if you understand what Terms and Conditions or Terms of Service are but it can not be simpler as LL presenting you with a set of conditions they and you will follow and in it they write that they can change said agreement at any point. It really crystal clear and has nothing to do with what country me, you or LL is in.

Please educate me if you think i'm seeing things not as they should be. Thank you.

[AlizeKristal]

I cannot even see it to accept it.  I've tried 7 times.

[AlizeKristal]

Does anyone have any idea how to get it to show in order to agree to it?  I've tried 7 times. I am using Firestorm.

[Rowan Amore]

Just now, AlizeKristal said:

Does anyone have any idea how to get it to show in order to agree to it?  I've tried 7 times. I am using Firestorm.

Log out of your dashboard and log back in.

[Ceka Cianci]

1 minute ago, AlizeKristal said:

I cannot even see it to accept it.  I've tried 7 times.

Try logging out of your dashboard and loging back in..

If you can't get it to pop up on your dashboard, see if you can get it to pop up when loging into the viewer..

[AlizeKristal]

Thanks so much Ceka!  It worked.

[Gabriele Graves]

Shouldn't this agreement acceptance have required a 2FA token before allowing someone to just accept it with their login/password?.  Potentially someone could have accepted one of these with hacked credentials.

Edited October 31, 2022 by Gabriele Graves

[Arielle Popstar]

42 minutes ago, CaithLynnSayes said:

I'm not sure if you understand what Terms and Conditions or Terms of Service are but it can not be simpler as LL presenting you with a set of conditions they and you will follow and in it they write that they can change said agreement at any point. It really crystal clear and has nothing to do with what country me, you or LL is in.

Please educate me if you think i'm seeing things not as they should be. Thank you.

Because contract law ie the ToS, is not always based on criminal or consumer rights laws. The ToS can say whatever it wants and both parties beholden to it up the point where it allows one party to deny the inalienable rights of the other, so if an aspect of such a ToS is contrary to any of the laws of a particular land, it will not stand up in court. In past when such aspects have been challenged, the seeming normal procedure for companies is to settle out of court to prevent some first precedent being set that cancels a policy or rule of a platform and forcing them to change it for the rest of the residents.

So basically it allows the use of a ToS that keeps the great majority in line as it is too expensive for the amounts involved to contest a particular point but that doesn't mean there are not legitimate points of contention that one(s) with the financial clout couldn't legally object to.

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

4 hours ago, CaithLynnSayes said:

You never had rights. As Ive stated before, you are in SL's house and LL can at any given moment kick you out and they don't need to give you any reason.

It's really important that users of a service understand that you have no rights. It is in a company's best interest to serve you well, but they don't have to. You can go to another company/service if you don't like what the first company offers or allows you to do. That's about the only right you have, the right to leave.

I don't mean to sound harsh, just realistic and it's important anyone using a service understands this.

I was speaking of rights for mesh and any creations you upload. Not my right to party.. 

Edited November 1, 2022 by LittleSparrow Skydancer
harsh isn't the word that comes to mind when I see your post though. lol

[PheebyKatz]

Cleared my browser history because it was loading too slow, and then today got the Terms and Conditions thingy in Firestorm. Might be related, Iunno.

Being the way I am, I read every single word, then clicked "Agree" anyway.

And yeah, they're just protecting themselves.

[CaithLynnSayes]

4 hours ago, PheebyKatz said:

Cleared my browser history because it was loading too slow

Say that to the support people in the Firestorm Support group and watch their eyes twitch in sync  

"Things load slow, so i will delete everything so it has to load everything instead of a few things..." Because logic...

Anyway, i digress, i'm sorry.

[Qie Niangao]

Why does it say, at the very bottom, that it's "Effective: July 31, 2017" ? Is that some weird quirk of how contracts are written in California?

 

[Alwin Alcott]

9 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Because contract law ie the ToS, is not always based on criminal or consumer rights laws.

soo.. when somebody doesn't agree can sue them untill the end of times? .. óf cóurse they need to be in accordance to consumer rights and any other laws. 
Offering business and services in the EU even means they can't limit, at any level, the consumers rights.

Edited November 1, 2022 by Alwin Alcott

[Drayke Newall]

On 10/30/2022 at 1:08 AM, Ceka Cianci said:

I think the thing that separates it is, it only has value here in this world and not open to the rest of the world.. it doesn't impact any other economy but the second life economy..

Cryptos have a world value and can impact the real world markets..

Are you sure about that?

Take for example, a person who lives in a country that has an equal exchange rate to the USD ($1-$1). They buy Lindens at that price. Then the market changes and that person's country dollar is now worth 0.6 cents to the USD. They then cashout their equal exchange bought LD to their wallet which is always converted to USD and that money is then converted back to their local currency at a higher exchange rate than bought.

This means that person, who invested $1000 into buying LD's (a game token) at exchange parity has just netted an approx. $400 profit, all under the radar of tax agencies as it was not profit made by sale of products but using the exchange as an investment opportunity and simply cashing out what was put in and not spent.

Keep in mind Linden Lab and residents only need to provide data to the tax office if they SOLD a product and earned an income from that. Cashing out something that was never spent in SL doesn't incur such reportability.

You may think this is an out there example, however, I know a few people that profited by such during the 2008 market crash. Now, obviously this doesn't happen regularly or in an extreme situation as RL currency trading does, however it can and still happens. Whenever a currency is converted on an exchange, be it an RL exchange or SL exchange one can always make a profit trading that. SL is just unique that it has no regulation or reporting whereas RL exchanges do.

Incidentally, this is also why the IRS and other such tax offices around the world have moved to try and tax (capital gains etc) virtual currencies and crypto due to such practices happening. The Linden Dollar being the exception as it is not considered a virtual currency but a game token that, according to ONE company - Linden Lab, has no real-world value...

To compare Linden Dollars to crypto, keep in mind that there was a time when crypto itself could not buy anything and was simply traded. It, like the Linden Dollar, was a token that had to be bought with RL money and then converted to RL money to spend in RL. One bitcoin was worth 'X' USD, just the same as One Linden is worth 'X' USD. Additionally, when bitcoin was only traded, a person could trade a bitcoin for something without cashing it out first, just like someone can trade or buy something with Linden Dollars without cashing it out first'.

Trying to argue that the Linden Dollar is a Game Token and different to Crypto is grasping at straws.

Edited November 1, 2022 by Drayke Newall

[Lindal Kidd]

@CaithLynnSayes,

There's no need to keep arguing that LL says that Linden Dollars are tokens with no value and they can take them away whenever they choose.  I fully agreed with that part.

What I am saying you got wrong is that that is what this thread, and the change in the Tilia ToS, is about.

It's not about the tokens.

It's about the dollars.  The US dollars, the legal tender for all debts public and private.

The new ToS says that Tilia can, at its sole discretion, grant or refuse your request to withdraw US dollars from your Tilia account, i.e., a Process Credit transaction.

That's what's new, and that's what's wrong.

[CaithLynnSayes]

2 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

@CaithLynnSayes,

There's no need to keep arguing that LL says that Linden Dollars are tokens with no value and they can take them away whenever they choose.  I fully agreed with that part.

What I am saying you got wrong is that that is what this thread, and the change in the Tilia ToS, is about.

It's not about the tokens.

It's about the dollars.  The US dollars, the legal tender for all debts public and private.

The new ToS says that Tilia can, at its sole discretion, grant or refuse your request to withdraw US dollars from your Tilia account, i.e., a Process Credit transaction.

That's what's new, and that's what's wrong.

I don't think i'm arguing, sorry if it comes across that way. I didn't mean to.

I'm European and maybe things are different here. But i did read both LL's and Tilia's ToS. Tilia's ToS said this from day one, just like i pointed out LL's ToS does as far as there is a saved record. So i don't really understand all the hoopla. But i will just revert to a reader of this thread instead of a contributor. I don't want to have a fallout with anyone here.

 

 

I know i kept banging on about reading (and understanding) ToS. I don't mean that to belittle anyone, i'm actually trying to help in that aspect. I'm not saying you do, but please don't see it as me looking down on you, or anyone. Instead, if you need help in understanding something from ToS, feel free to poke me. Inworld even, we could have a (voice) chat about it. But no laughing at my ridiculously thick Dutch accent  

Edited November 1, 2022 by CaithLynnSayes

[BelindaN]

The ToS "scroll down and agree" flipped in yesterday around 10am SLT.

I know this because I was in world before that time, but brought my alts in world to get a group gift in world. Suddenly I got the ToS message, and then again. When I went to my dashboard I was logged out and got the ToS when I relogged.

[Ceka Cianci]

8 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

Are you sure about that?

Take for example, a person who lives in a country that has an equal exchange rate to the USD ($1-$1). They buy Lindens at that price. Then the market changes and that person's country dollar is now worth 0.6 cents to the USD. They then cashout their equal exchange bought LD to their wallet which is always converted to USD and that money is then converted back to their local currency at a higher exchange rate than bought.

This means that person, who invested $1000 into buying LD's (a game token) at exchange parity has just netted an approx. $400 profit, all under the radar of tax agencies as it was not profit made by sale of products but using the exchange as an investment opportunity and simply cashing out what was put in and not spent.

Keep in mind Linden Lab and residents only need to provide data to the tax office if they SOLD a product and earned an income from that. Cashing out something that was never spent in SL doesn't incur such reportability.

You may think this is an out there example, however, I know a few people that profited by such during the 2008 market crash. Now, obviously this doesn't happen regularly or in an extreme situation as RL currency trading does, however it can and still happens. Whenever a currency is converted on an exchange, be it an RL exchange or SL exchange one can always make a profit trading that. SL is just unique that it has no regulation or reporting whereas RL exchanges do.

Incidentally, this is also why the IRS and other such tax offices around the world have moved to try and tax (capital gains etc) virtual currencies and crypto due to such practices happening. The Linden Dollar being the exception as it is not considered a virtual currency but a game token that, according to ONE company - Linden Lab, has no real-world value...

To compare Linden Dollars to crypto, keep in mind that there was a time when crypto itself could not buy anything and was simply traded. It, like the Linden Dollar, was a token that had to be bought with RL money and then converted to RL money to spend in RL. One bitcoin was worth 'X' USD, just the same as One Linden is worth 'X' USD. Additionally, when bitcoin was only traded, a person could trade a bitcoin for something without cashing it out first, just like someone can trade or buy something with Linden Dollars without cashing it out first'.

Trying to argue that the Linden Dollar is a Game Token and different to Crypto is grasping at straws.

The lindx is a real world exchange and you do get a 1099k for exchanging on it and you do have to report even the smallest trade..The only place you do any legal real world exchanges with another user is on the exchange.. It's the only place we are given legal permission to trade the linden dollar in any real world exchange.

When lindens are in the world of second life we don't have that legal permission to do any real world trading of any kind.

In other words, the time lindens become a convertible virtual currency is when they are on the exchange..

Bit coin and crypto's are convertible all the time because you can trade them in real world trades their whole life, be it for other forms of convertible currency or for money or for anything like buying a cup of coffee.. any of those trades or purchases, you'll want to keep a record of all those transactions no matter how big or small.

Try buying bit coin or crypto's or a cup of coffee at startbucks  with a linden dollar, while it's still inside the world of second life. You are not legally allowed to do that.

 

As far as the person that made 400.00 exchanging usd for their countries currency.. Does the IRS tax them at the exchange where they convert usd to their currency? Because that's not a linden dollar trade to their currency, that's a usd exchange for another currency..  That's a separate exchange..  Because linden to usd is a taxed exchange..

Edited November 1, 2022 by Ceka Cianci