Linden Research runs Second Life, a virtual world that I’ve mentioned before. They’re currently enmeshed in a legal situation because they denied access to a person, who then filed a lawsuit because they unlawfully confiscated his virtual property. The situation has been complicated for Linden Research by something that reads like they had an excessive Terms of Service agreement, but one thing caught my eye: according to the judge reviewing the case, Second Life has an unfair hold over the client because
[...] there were no reasonable available market alternatives to Second Life. Of all the virtual worlds out there, only Second Life granted its users property rights in virtual land.
So nevermind that Second Life is a private business that should be able to deny service to whomever they want, it turns out now that since they’re doing something before anybody else, and they’re doing it in an unique fashion, they somehow owe people the right to access their site.
Grrrr.