[Opensim-users] ToS and HG

[Karen Palen]

I can only repeat what I learned in my "setting up a business" seminar a
few years ago:

"Your goal should NEVER be to make your TOS/Rules/Agreement legally
bulletproof. If there is that much money involved that it is really
necessary then you need to spend the money for a lawyer!

"What you should do is try very hard to make the rules/ToS/Agreement
state exactly what you mean and be extremely clea rin stating that. This
is the starting point if you hire a lawyer anyway.

"If you do a good enough job then people will either comply, or go away
(be banned!). Even if it ends up in court the fact that it was clearly
written and easy to understand will be a major help in your case.

"Lawsuits generally only result from two or more parties come up with
different interpretations about what was said or agreed. If it is
completely clear then there is simply no point in going to court!"

Sadly that level of clarity is harder to do than it seems, and you might
want to hire a lawyer just to get the phrasing exactly right and
consider all of the possibilities.

In any event plan on several drafts, and get a couple of people who see
the document for the first time to read it and tell you in their own
words what they think it says. You WILL be surprised the first few times
you do this - I KNOW!! :-)

Oh yes if you are planning on something that large/critical, then ALSO
look into setting up a business entity (Corporation, LLC, or whatever)
to run it.

See http://www.keytlaw.com/ for a summary of this aspect.

"Information & Articles about Arizona and United States Law"

Keyt is an Arizona/US lawyer, but the issues he raises are universal. I
highly recommend studying his website!

As Keyt says in one of his articles, the day the process server knocks
on the door is one day too late!

Karen

On 09/13/2011 10:32 AM, Sarge Misfit wrote:
> Location, or jurisdiction actually, is definitely a big factor. From
> what I have seen is that it is the location of the grid's "official"
> headquarters that is the deciding factor. However, every ToS that I
> have seen also specifically states the jurisdiction, so it may be that
> I would have to include that as a requirement. I had planned to
> anyway, but its a good idea to raise that issue to, for the benefit of
> others. I don't think its about how strict a law is. Having worked as
> a researcher in a law office (quite some time ago), I can tell you
> that this is pretty new ground, so we may be developing precedent
> here.
> 
>  I just don't want to be the chum that gets tossed into the pool :-)
> But I also don't want to end up with some overly long legalistic ToS,
> either. I want to develop one that is in plain language and easy to
> understand. In fact, I am using SL's ToS as an example of what NOT to
> do *chuckles*
> 
> On 9/13/11, Robert Martin <robertltux at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 12:24 PM, Sarge Misfit
>> <fubat.enterprises at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Doesn't HG already land a person at 128, 128, ground?
>>>
>>> The reason I'm asking about this is that I am planning on making my
>>> stand-alone public and having a good ToS in place is important. I
>>> don't want to end up setting up a visitor as violating anything. Other
>>> recent discussions have raised this issue, mostly about avatars, but
>>> also the very important issue of intellectual property protection.
>>>
>>> For example, the DMCA applies to US-based grids, but I'm Canadian, so
>>> my ToS should include something about Canadian IP protection law
>>> having jurisdiction. I think.
>>>
>> The real hook is that the law gets "messy" since there are possibly 3
>> different countries involved and the overlap in laws may cause
>> conflicts.
>> 1 users physical location
>> 2 users POP /network "location"
>> 3 location for the grid server/ grid owner <---- this may actually be
>> a fourth location
>>
>> I would think that somebody needs to throw enough "chum" into a shark
>> pool to get this sorted out as a first pass effort.
>>
>> In this case i think that the stricter law applies (which would be the
>> US DMCA) for those using a Canadian Grid in the US.
>> --
>> Robert L Martin
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