Virtual land-grab grabs headlines

It's begun -- a gamer has filed a lawsuit over a disputed sale of "virtual land."

Second Life lets players buy land and build structures that can then be leased or sold on to other players, often for a profit. The game's currency, Linden dollars, can be easily exchanged for real cash.

Marc Bragg, an attorney from Pennsylvania, US, filed the suit against the company behind Second Life, Linden Lab based in California, US. He accuses the company of deactivating his account after he discovered a loophole that enabled him to buy virtual land cheaply within the game.

The suit, filed in a local district court, seeks financial restitution for Bragg who claims he invested around $32,000 in the virtual land. "This is probably the first dispute of its kind," Bragg says in a statement posted online. "This suit challenges the legitimacy of a virtual intangible purchase of an asset."

Bragg adds that the dispute could test the relevance to virtual worlds of existing laws. "Linden Lab is still obligated to honour real-world contract law and consumer law, even if their world doesn't really exist," he says.

Linden Lab, however, asserts that Bragg's suit is unfounded. "We intend to contest this in the appropriate forum," general counsel Ginsu Yoon told Wired News. "We believe the suit to be without merit."

Somehow, this guy reminds me of the kids that would run and whine to their parents whenever they lost some marbles.