Narugawanaisa Yumako wrote:
So i was wondering, how binding, or legally setting is a contract through a game. especially secondlife
For 1 . Second Life is not a game. It is a Social community with Businesses and bueinesses that are real life. Linden Lab built, and sells services for the platform for businesses alike to operate and build. The exchange of money makes it not so much a game, but a community with a full working economy. All Applicaple laws in your state and or the state of which the "business" owner is in do apply . Digital signatures can be recognized in more than one way. Having a resident create a note card them selves and making it no mod. pretty much makes for a solid statement as to the contract you have written. It can be either my signature or a process of creating a doccument. Email Signatures as well can be used and legaly binding
Enforceability of electronic signatures
In 1996 the United Nations published the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Commerce.[9] The model law was highly influential in the development of electronic signature laws around the world, including in the US.[10]
The U.S. Code defines an electronic signature for the purpose of US law as "an electronic sound, symbol, or process, attached to or logically associated with a contract or other record and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the record." It may be an electronic transmission of the document which contains the signature, as in the case of facsimile transmissions, or it may be encoded message, such as telegraphy using Morse code.
In the United States, the definition of what qualifies as an electronic signature is wide and is set out in the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act ("UETA") released by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) in 1999.[12] It was influenced by ABA committee white papers and the uniform law promulgated by NCCUSL. Under UETA, the term means "an electronic sound, symbol, or process, attached to or logically associated with a record and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the record." This definition and many other core concepts of UETA are echoed in the U.S. ESign Act of 2000.[11] 47 US states, the District of Columbia, and the US Virgin Islands have enacted UETA.[13] Only New York, Washington State, and Illinois have not enacted UETA,[13], but each of those states has adopted its own electronic signatures statute.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_signature
Legal action can be taken but will not apply to TOS for sl .. Some peole fail to realize that there are companies and businesses in SL lol Its not just a game
There is still a lot of undefined areas regarding Virtual worlds. Legal action has been taken on other residents for various reasons, and have won their cases. Content theft and other things. Laws do apply.