So, how have people been able to get the police involved when things were stolen or scammed from them? Since it all belongs to MA, only MA would be able to report the loss. It's that way in the US anyways, and I know people in the US have had cases investigated involving theft/scams on EU.
Good point. Two possible thoughts; these investigations happened and caused a change or clarification in the EULA making ownership of virtual items MA or investigations were initiated but petered out when the details of the arrangement with MA were discovered.
Additional possibility is I'm imagining things... evidently the current ToU
doesn't have any statement about MA's ownership of items. I was sure it included that clause the last time I read it though... anyone got an old copy of the VU9.x EULA anywhere to check I'm not just pulling this out of my arse?
So your items have no value? We are only pretending to spend real money in this game? Remember, MA says this is a Real Cash Economy. You say it's a Pretend Cash Economy?
Here I think yes.
It is all to do with trust just like paying for things with a bank note (British notes actually still say "I promice to pay the bearer on demand the sum of x pounds") the usefulness of the bank note as a currency depends on the trust that the bank will, if asked, give you the declared value of the note, presumably in gold as that is the reserve backing up the western currencies. Without that belief and trust among all concerned the bank note is just a piece of paper.
Same with in game items they really have no intrinsic value (afterall they are just icons representing an entry in some database somewhere) the ped and the sweat and the items are just counters we use trusting that MA will honour the agreement to trade them back to us for the real world money.
The EULA is a legal device that "can" protect MA, but doesn't necesarrily "always" protect MA. My wife is a malpractice insurance underwriter. Have you ever signed a document somewhere when you were doing something, and the document said you would hold the owner "harmless"? She sees people with the signed documents get sued all the time and they lose sometimes. So, even though these people signed a EULA, it still didn't protect the "owner" everytime. Also, this isn't just US law. I'm going to assume you didn't read the link that I provided, which shows the similar laws in other countries also. I only speak mainly of the US because I am very familiar with their legal system.
Agreed, the ToU or EULA is actually probably as leeky as hell as a legal tool. I mean clicking a button isn't the same as signing a document in front of witnesses.
No as it has gone midnight I didn't read the link provided, lazy I know, but thought it would be fun to pitch in to the discussion based on your presumably accurate precies of it.
You are partially correct here. A law is only a law when it is enforced. Not, a law is only a law when it is adhered too. I used to arrest people all the time for not adhering to the law.
Meh... hard argument to have as I'm not totally happy with the statement that a law is only a law if it is adhered to (by the population at large rather than by all memebrs of the population) there is some argument about laws reflecting the views of society so laws that are so out of whack with general consensus are not actual laws of the society but something else imposed by the state. Which is when it becomes ok to ignore the law (civil disobediance) and tumb your nose at the state for not reflecting the society it is meant to serve.
In my original post, I stated that no one would probably enforce this law due to the amount of money involved. But, it is still illegal and once the government decides to go after you they will use anything they can to get you. That is why in the early 1900's the gangsters were being arrested for tax evasion. Because they couldn't get them on their other crimes.
A law is only a law when it is enforced.
Fortunately in our societies we are (in most cases) tried in front of a jury of our peers who happily dole out judgements on a wider rational basis than just the letter of the laws of the land all overseen by an independent (almost) judiciary who often like to make a name for themselves by poopooing the silly trivial cases brought in front of them.
In the case of the mobsters, society, through the jury, convicted and put away someone who they wished to get put away. They didn't care that it was tax evasion they were done for, a bad man was being brought to trial. If a simpathetic granny had evaded taxes so she could afford to heat her home do you really thing the judge and jury would have sent her to prison?
This doesn't even make sense. How is it free from these restrictions?
Sweat can be collected by any player. They will only pay for it if the value they place on the ped cost is less than the value they place on the time it would take to collect it themselves.
No one owns the rights to sweat gathering or can prevent others from gathering sweat. No one or two organisation can have a manopoly on the sweat gathering because there is no need for infrastructure to gather or market the sweat. The nieve ideas of sweat cartels some new players have immediately falls down due to human nature predisposing us to operating a free market.
Just to point out though... we do agree that a) no one should try to fix the sweat price artificially and b) even if they did (not that I think they could) no criminal action would be taken against them and so c) as a law is only a law if it is enforced they are not actually commiting a punishable offence.
Nice discussion though
Edit: just read the article... did you read the last section about price fixing in the rest of the world? (although I admit Sweden does look like it has laws against price fixing as part of the EU so according to the ToU (which is impotant anyway) price fixing in EU is against the law... modulo the argument about the enforcement of that law)
