Yet another lawsuit filed against Linden Lab

Linden Lab is the defendant in yet another lawsuit, filed on April 15 by plaintiffs Carl Evans, Donald Spencer, Valerie Spencer and Cindy Carter, who allege that LL "knowingly offered to sell the class members virtual land and the ability to acquire ownership rights in virtual property and then took the plaintiffs' property and did not honor the owners' rights in their property."

According to a document posted at http://www.virtuallanddispute.com/, the complaint is a class action complaint filed on behalf of the plaintiffs and others who have had similar experiences.

Specifically, the four plaintiffs claim that that LL and Philip Rosedale "lured consumers across the United States to invest real money into Defendants' game world by promising those users that they would own the virtual land and property they purchased as well as he 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 Complaint further alleges that Defendants froze and deleted or converted all the U.S. Dollars, virtual land, and property that Plaintiffs had entrusted to Defendants without offering any explanation or recourse for recovery."

The complainants  seek declaratory and injunctive relief, compensatory and punitive damages on claims of fraud, conversion, intentional interference with contractual relations, unjust enrichment, wrongful expulsion, and violations of California's Consumer Legal Remedies Act, False Advertising Law and Unfair Competition Law.

The policy that set Second Life apart from other platforms was that residents could secure actual property rights for virtual elements, including land purchased from LL, as well as retain the intellectual property rights for any virtual items or content the participants created.  This policy was announced in a November 2003 press release (read here).

Almost four months later, LL posted another press release, stating that same policy, while in an interview with the Guardian in 2005, Rosedale said, "We started selling land free and clear, and we sold the title, and we made it extremely clear that we were not the owner of the virtual property."

"Desperate for a participant base to generate profits, Linden made a calculated business decision to depart from the industry standard of denying that participants had any virtual items, land and/or goods," the plaintiffs state in the complaint.

The suit then claims that the business model began to change markedly in 2006, after Marc Bragg (see below) filed a consumer lawsuit. During that case, Rosedale admitted that representations of ownership were "in fact, false and misleading," according to the complaint.

The foursome also state that, shortly thereafter, LL began removing such representations from its website and to "deceptively and quietly strip ownership rights from players." The filed complaint further states, "At no time did Linden Labs make any attempt to compensate what the plaintiffs estimate were as many as 50,000 participants who bought virtual land based upon the earlier promises."

The complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylavnia frequently refers to a previous lawsuit against the virtual world creator. "Bragg v. Linden" was filed in 2006, and another document on the website for attorney Jason A. Archinaco states, "The Complaint was filed originally as a small claims action in Chester County, Pennsyvlania, asking for return of the $8,000.00 in land costs / value that Bragg claimed he had lost when Second Life froze his account and took his property."

The same document also states, "Ultimately, the case settled, but not until after Judge Robreno issued a reported decision which essentially declared the Terms of Service agreement a contract of adhesion, declaring the arbitration clause unenforceable, and that personal jurisdiction over Phil Rosedale as an individual defendant existed because of 'Phil Linden's' participation in making statements over the internet inside of Second Life that induced the sale of land on the promise that consumers owned the land they were buing from Linden Labs."

The page containing information regarding the current lawsuit against LL also seeks other class members who have encountered the same experience as the named plaintiffs and offers a claim inquiry form for those who wish to find out if they have a case. That form is located at http://tinyurl.com/2vmuayx/.

Both Linden Lab and Attorney Jason A. Archinaco did not respond to requests for interviews.