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Experts Discuss Virtual Theft And Real Crime
Harlequeen writes According to the BBC, police forces across the globe are looking into whether on-line theft in MMORPGs can be considered a real crime. A law expert called in by the BBC seems to think they can, but does virtual crime need real justice?" The piece takes earlier revelations about Korean cybercrime as a starting point, and Dr Roger Leng of the University of Warwick agrees that "the law has no problems treating the intangible as valuable", suggesting: "It's possible to steal any form of property right which is not represented by tangible objects."
In an environment such as many RPGs create, "Thieves" are a class of characters. While I certainly don't support Grief-killing or otherwise, I think any legal team would have a hard time proving that the Thief class was not intended to steal, and therefore should violate any sort of law.
Furthermore, since most EULAs include statements which claim the ownership of the content to be the company, players stealing from players is not stealing in the sense that property is physical changing ownership, because the company still owns it either way.
Ummm ... I think they are referring to theft of actual items in the game by way of exploiting the software in a 'cracker'-type fashion, not in an RPG fashion. They seem to be interested in the cases where someone logs on, and their character's keep or whatever is gone, and the property of another player through an online auction, not in the sense that a 14th level thief picked the pocket of the character ... I hope this makes sense!
is it that bad seein a hot chick again? if i see a hot chick walkin down the hall i dont say "repost"
Give them online community service.
100 hours of helping out n00bs will be enough to persuade even the most hardened criminal to repent.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
I disagree with the law expert. MMORPG items and money may look like property but they fail a critical test: They require no effort from the MMORPG company to create or destroy.
Property does not exist in a world where the president of the MMORPG company can wave his hand and become a "billionaire", or strip people of their possessions solely for the sake of plot. Or heck, just for fun for the programmers. For instance, when the Beta of an MMORPG ends, and all the chars are reset for the production release, if someone sued to get their Flaming Sword of Main Antagonist +34,532 back, would we think they had a case? (No.) What if in the new production version there was no Flaming Sword of Main Antagonist +34,532?
Even "intellectual property", which I also think is a misnomer (though unfortunately I haven't yet published the part where I explain how we should think of it), at least requires effort to create. (It fails to be property in other ways, but not this one.)
Moreover, I'm not aware of any property that can be legitimately destroyed legally by a simple server glitch. You can create "IP" and even if you do it on a computer and the computer crashes, you still theoretically have the rights to it (although you may not be able to exercise them); the crash destroyed your only copy of the work but not your rights, which is all you actually be said to "own". A computer glitch may convince the bank or the government you don't own your house when you do, but we still behave as if there is a higher "property"-ness, beyond just what records say; you'd have the right to correct these records, even government records. Also see squatting laws. For MMORPGs, if the property is destroyed via glitch, you have no recourse, not even in theory.
Basically, it may look like property, and it may walk like property, but it does not quack like property. Therefore, it is not a duck. I mean, therefore, it is not property.