Salty -
I guess if we are trying to get rid of the philosophy of ponzis, and get straight to the question, does Dooglus owe anyone money?
That depends on the jurisdiction of a court in which litigation is potentially taken against dooglus, as well as the tort laws in such jurisdiction, however I would err on the side of "
yes". . . /snip
Ponzi's are not a scam by default, just because the people playing the game end up losing in the end, that doesn't mean that there isn't a calculated risk that players can take with the hope to make money. In my opinion, ponzis with express written rules (like all thousand ponzis I've seen pop up) are not scams in themselves, nor when they close down, as long as they do so in a way that abides by what they have stated to the public. I don't think of ponzis any differently than dice sites. That said, assuming that the ponzis that used Dooglus' source were in fact scams I'm still not really convinced that he would be liable by association. Not only was his association to fix bugs, but he's not really directly liable. If godaddy makes someone a website and they do something illicit with it, godaddy isn't at fault. To modify your gun manufacturer comparison, in this example Dooglus isn't the guy who manufactured the gun, hes the guy who fixed the crooked barrel that the manufacturer produced.