Posted by Eugene Volokh:
"Dutch Youths Convicted of Virtual Theft,"
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_10_19-2008_10_25.shtml#1224695366
reads an [1]AP story:
A Dutch court has convicted two youths of theft for stealing
virtual items in a computer game and sentenced them to community
service....
The Leeuwarden District Court says the culprits, 15 and 14 years
old, coerced a 13-year-old boy into transferring a "virtual amulet
and a virtual mask" from the online adventure game RuneScape to
their game accounts.
"These virtual goods are goods (under Dutch law), so this is
theft," the court said Tuesday in a summary of its ruling....
Now this might sound odd -- why should the legal system police
"virtual theft," especially since the ability to steal, defraud, and
the like within a game may be an important part of the game? But
things become much clearer when one reads [2]the longer story, from
Radio Netherlands Worlwide:
The culprits, who cannot be named due to their age, kicked, hit and
threatened their classmate with a knife before the 13-year-old gave
in and transferred the Runescape items, an amulet and a mask, to
his attackers' online accounts.
So the theft may have been on virtual goods, but it was accomplished
through physical violence in the real world, and against a real
person, not an avatar. It's clearly proper to prosecute the physical
attack and the threats; and I think it's sensible to prosecute it as
theft as well, since the defendants did take from the victim something
they had no right to take, using violence in the real world. I'd call
this "real-world theft of virtual goods," not "virtual theft."
I continue to think that generally speaking the law shouldn't prohibit
purely in-game "theft," "murder," "rape," and so on. But outside-game
violence (or even in-game threats of outside-game violence) are the
proper subject of the criminal law, including when the violence or
threats coerce action or transfer of valuable objects within the game.
Thanks to [3]Michael Williams for the pointer.
References
1. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iT7F2Dwn5tbgz4hmX98Ft0DX7pKAD93V2C380
2.
http://www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffairs/region/netherlands/081022-virtual-theft-is-real
3.
http://www.mwilliams.info/archive/2008/10/convictions-for-theft-of-virtual-property.php
_______________________________________________
Volokh mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.powerblogs.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
