A US gamer has filed a "first-of-its-kind" lawsuit in an acrimonious dispute over the sale of virtual land within the online role-playing game Second Life.

The suit highlights the large amounts of money many gamers are now spending in the hope of reaping a profit within their chosen virtual world.

Second Life lets players buy land and build structures that can then be leased or sold on to other players, often for a profit. The game's currency, Linden dollars, can be easily exchanged for real cash.

Marc Bragg, an attorney from Pennsylvania, US, filed the suit against the company behind Second Life, Linden Lab based in California, US. He accuses the company of deactivating his account after he discovered a loophole that enabled him to buy virtual land cheaply within the game.

Intangible purchases

The suit, filed in a local district court, seeks financial restitution for Bragg who claims he invested around $32,000 in the virtual land. "This is probably the first dispute of its kind," Bragg says in a statement posted online. "This suit challenges the legitimacy of a virtual intangible purchase of an asset."

Bragg adds that the dispute could test the relevance to virtual worlds of existing laws. "Linden Lab is still obligated to honour real-world contract law and consumer law, even if their world doesn't really exist," he says.

Linden Lab, however, asserts that Bragg's suit is unfounded. "We intend to contest this in the appropriate forum," general counsel Ginsu Yoon told Wired News. "We believe the suit to be without merit."

Contract dispute

But Bragg maintains his account was terminated after he discovered a way to buy plots of Second Life land, known as "sims", via the game's auction system for a fraction of the normal price. This involved manipulating the URL for an auction to ensure that no one else bid.

Joshua Fairfield, a legal expert at Indiana University Law School in the US who specialises in virtual worlds, says the case does not really concern property. "This is just a straight-up contract dispute," he told New Scientist. He likens the situation to a simple dispute over an incorrect price on a website.

Nonetheless, Fairfield notes that the case has generated a great deal of interest among other players and observers. "The reason there's so much buzz about this case is that everyone is waiting for a real property validation case," he says.