Revolutionary Litigation

Tateru Nino at Massively is reporting that the Lindens are facing yet another lawsuit, this one accusing the Lab of fraudulently representing the nature of property relations in Second Life by suggesting that ownership of virtual land and objects rested with users, when in fact everything on the grid, in the final analysis, belongs to the Lindens (as is made clear in the newly-revised Terms of Service). The plantiffs allege that they have been expropriated without due process, contrary to the provisions of Californian Law, and have hired a lawyer with experience of virtual-world litigation to argue their case.

This case is, in effect, an attempt to impose capitalist social relations on the feudal landscape of Second Life. We have of course been advocating this for a while, though what we had in mind was an indigenous revolution rather than inviting a foreign power (in this case the State of California) to invade and reform the system by force.