[sldev] Legal action / Linden labs action upon hackers?

[Stickman]

On Sun, Oct 25, 2009 at 10:34 PM, Brandon Husbands <xotmid at gmail.com> wrote:
> What do you all think should there not be legal recourse for people hacking
> say in game items that have a out of work connection? Like systems that have
> databases where they exploit it through sl? Can / will linden labs care
> enough to take any action? Or do you think you would need to go out of world
> and sue either them or ll / file for full disclosure?  I ask this cause
> people constantly try to exploit combat systems. I am wondering what
> recourse there is for said events.
>
> Whats your thoughts as developers?

If I develop software for Windows, and Microsoft came to my legal
defense if someone was found hacking, I would be freaked out. That
feels like Microsoft is laying some claim to my product.

Besides, Microsoft has no idea how I built my system. Maybe I'm an
idiot and made it extremely insecure. I doubt they'd enjoy
representing that in court.

It's well known that Microsoft has bounties on worm and virus
creators. But that's a first-party thing. Any third party thing is the
responsibility of the third party.

Having said that. That are a lot of clueless parties as to what the
law is and says. Especially since we're dealing with something new and
unusual that thrusts people into an intellectual property situation
with no knowledge of how the laws work. Which is why I made this Jira
(already resolved, though Under Advisement) which asks for a Linden
lawyer to have office hours.
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-3263

I'm all for educating people. But I'm strongly against bailing them
out. Consequences exist to teach people lessons. Remove the
consequences, and no education happens.

-Stickman