How legally protected are we with Land Deed "shares"?

[Shard-Angel]

Greets.

Can anyone tell us how much legal protection do owners of Land Deed (shares) have under the law - should MA decide to stall/stop paying dividends 2 years down the road (or any similar non-payment/miniscule payment scenarios)?

We know these are not actual "real world" shares - but... how legally binding are they?

Do we actually "own" shares in planet Calypso? Can they destroy/stranglehold/sell-off/rename the planet to escape payments?

Can any legal-eagle shed some light please?

Thanks.
PS. Please let's skip endless debates on EULAs or risks of virtual goods, etc. Thanks.

 

[KijkkiJikki]

You don't own them. You are depending on MA to show good faith. If you dont trust MA to do what they say then you shouldn't buy them.

 

[Art Jennifer]

It is in MA's interest to keep paying.

If they just stopped one day, it could bring EU down and damage their reputation

 

[mastermesh]

Nothing legal to it at all... They changed the old deeds for apartments and stuff like that to not show any ownership language about 2 years ago (in part, I think because someone in Second Life was suing Linden Labs over something related to in game estates in that virtual world and it revolved around the definition of 'ownership'), so someday MA (or some new company that buys MA down the road) could just decide that they want to remove that ownership language or reword the deeds... or they might just outright remove the deeds from avatars and issue some form of compensation on a whim like they did with the personal revive owners and the pe exchange/shareholder tickets because they've done similar in the past...

Here's what the apartment estate deeds used to say:


The fact that the 'owners' of estates like apartments in game don't get voting rights on Calypso by default ought to piss a lot of apartment owners off, but most of them don't care because many of the apartment owners are not too active...

 

[Artrat]

It is in MA's interest to keep paying.

If they just stopped one day, it could bring EU down and damage their reputation

Yea, this is true. The only scenario I can foresee in which they stop paying completely is if they are forced to declare bankruptcy. And in that scenario the land deeds will be just one of many problems. We will be lucky to get our TT values out of MA.

But I for one am betting that that is not going to happen (Betting being the operative word)

 

[XeroX2]

We are as legally protected as we have been with any other item that holds a Markup we paid in Entropia Universe since the servers went online. There is no difference whatsoever. In our current system the deeds hold the advantage that they are directly bound to MindArk which makes them a bit saver than certain other PP items.

 

[cWal]

The Client Loader tells all

"The success and profitability of the planet will determine the revenue received as a land lot deed holder. If Calypso becomes more popular, the ROI will be higher; similarly, if the popularity of Calypso decreases, the ROI would also decrease."
From "The Client Loader", well known book written by MA
All is said.

 

[Jimmy B]

MA aren't going to stop paying dividends. The resulting mass sell-out would kill the game.

The risk is MA going bankrupt or shutting down EU. That risk applies to all items in EU not just land deeds.

 

[Dollymaus]

The risk is MA going bankrupt or shutting down EU. That risk applies to all items in EU not just land deeds.

You have another big risk which only applies to deeds: new Planets and Players leaving to them. As this looks like the direction in which Ma wants to develop the game probably the most important one in the next few years.

 

[ermik]

Greets.

Can anyone tell us how much legal protection do owners of Land Deed (shares) have under the law - should MA decide to stall/stop paying dividends 2 years down the road (or any similar non-payment/miniscule payment scenarios)?

Im sorry but i really dont understand how you mean, what laws? you mean real life laws?

you dont own the deeds, your avatar does.

and your avatar is owned by MA , but controlled by you.

your deeds have no connection to the real world we live in, your avatar owns them and he/she lives in a virtual world.

 

[Immortal]

You have as much claim to them as anything else in EU i.e. absolutely zero. MA can also change the rules in the future and just pay you back the original asking price if the things ever become too valuable.

 

[K-Max]

Said it once and will say it again. If you want guarantee's and assurances you need personal legal documentation in your hand on what you own specifically stating your rights to ownership between you and the company (MA), real life documents not some description on a fake in game item. Without that there are no assurances, you have no rights, you deposited cash to buy fake stuff so your money is now fake (PED) as well unless you sell that fake stuff and then issue a cash withdrawal then it becomes real again. Fake stuff has no real world value hence has no real world rights, but once you issue a cash withdrawal then things become real, until then don't expect to be able to claim real life ownership and rights to anything.

The game owners control everything, can do whatever they want, change things anyway they feel suits them etc. but should they make drastic changes as not paying dividends out all of a sudden it would make a lot of people mad and they would lose a lot of income from these people so in their own self preservation they would most likely not want to do it. A person puts heck of a lot of trust into this gaming company when they invest into this game on virtual property, one of the reasons I say it is one of the highest risk ventures I have ever seen in all my years of trading and personally would not own anything expensive in this game. Unless I become super drunk one night and say f it all and depo my life savings away because I know I'll die in a few weeks or months from some incurable disease. I'll stick to my low deposits and just play slowly for fun and not expect this game to make me any income at all, until that day comes.

 

[remontoire]

I don't think the legal protection is really zero, at least as long as you can show all of your actions as having been above the board, that is, you don't get banned because you did something idiotic. However, if MA builds a new planet where everybody voluntarily moves from Calypso, or simply neglects Calypso after it is confident that it does not suffer a major meltdown, you are pretty much out of luck. Same if they do another sale of Calypso and it turns to be as successful as SEE.

They promised to make certain kinds of payments until your avatar met some conditions, accepted money for it and started to carry out their side of the contract buy making at least one payment. From here on you need a lawyer that is competent in contract law should something go wrong.

EULA is a secondary matter subordinate to laws.