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Gamer Killed For Virtual Property
The BBC has the story of a young Chinese man who was slain over a virtual property dispute. His killer has been sentenced to life imprisonment. The Guardian Gamesblog has a deeper look at the situation with Terra Novan Ren Reynolds. From the article: "We're becoming a service property marketplace. Is this as good as a manufacturing economy? It doesn't have the moral solidity in a way. You can kind of see that shift in ethical terms. People would think that stealing an album in a shop is immoral, but stealing an mp3 isn't. The idea of property has become more intangible."
So much for, "It's only a game."
"People would think that stealing an album in a shop is immoral, but stealing an mp3 isn't. The idea of property has become more intangible."
The key difference here is that the MP3 is copied, not removed. The original owner didn't lose his copy of the file / song when the other person took it, whereas in the case of the shop, the owner can no longer sell that physical media. The first is not viewed as theft becasue the owner doesn't lose it, where the second involves actually losing something. (Of course, if the MP3 was erased after it copied, that would be a different story.)
It was only a matter of time before a gsamer escalated and arguement to reality, and took it too far.
This guy had to have other issues besides just gaming, if he was willing to kill a man.
Pretty Pictures!
>The idea of property has become more intangible.
er, no thanks.
this is about someone who killed someone else. the reason isn't too relevant and certainly doesn't demand redefining property.
The problem I have with this concept is that it doesn't have any firm basis, as far as I can tell. Manufacturing creates real value in the economy by mining raw materials or farming and providing for essential needs. Entertainment is completely tenuous and everyone can drop it as soon as money gets tight or as fashion dictates. It just seems that service economies could hit bigger highs but much more massive recessions, but I am not an economist and this is all just my impression of the whole thing.
How did a murder morph into a moral arguement on if digital "property" is as good as solid property? Dude's dead. Someone murdered him. That someone should get serious time or death for it.
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Neighbours shoot each other over fence posts , Wives kill husbands for working too much ,People kill each other over football games ,people kill themselves over exams ...
people some times take things far too seriously , so lets just hope people realise this and don't call for the banning of games due to the lunatic fringe who can't grasp reality
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/30/ 1718219&tid=206&tid=209&tid=123
"The idea of property has become more intangible."
My people had no idea what ownership was until the White Man came over and started tricking us into things that we now regret. Further, we know not of this 'internet' or 'virtual property' that you speak of. We smoke'um Peace Pipe.
note: I am of legitimate Cherokee descent, and feel safe in making fun of my heritage.
"How like you to drag your keyboard to a gun fight." - Aaron Bedard (BANE)
I imagine killing a man over an imaginary object makes the insanity plea a little easier.
This guy CLEARLY had other problems - lets not tie it into games. We get enough bad press as it is.
Physics is nothing like religion. If it was, we'd have an easier time trying to raise money!
Imagine killing someone for stealing virtual property - simply some bytes of code.
Now imagine imprisoning someone for stealing virtual property - bytes of code in the form of music or video. Or fining them hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars for something that "doesn't exist".
Would MGM demand the death penalty for copying some movies? Why not? Would it be okay for them to "fine" people by using the police for non-criminal acts? Sure. So how about this guy or anyone of us: why couldn't this guy get the police to get his virtual property back, or at the very least, for the guy to be arrested and imprisoned, just as Warner would insist.
Acting stupid isn't much fun when there's someone around who knows better
All murder trials should take place in Texas. Everyone knows, if you killl someone in Texas, Texas will kill you back.
I can only imagine the online chat for this...
OMG U stole my LEWTS!
No I didn't, you never gave me the full amount
I am going to PWN U
*BANG BANG*
what pisses me off about all the coverage of this that I've read...
I can't find ANYONE who'll say what the stats are on the damn sword. This is obviously the most critical bit of information about the story, and no one will report it.
1h? 2h? +9 for ogres? What?? GAH!
Obviously, there are some circumstances where such a killing would be perfectly understandable. Without the stats, how will we ever know?
m-
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
Interestingly, "virtual" property seems to only be traded between someone in an economy with low wages to someone in an economy with high wages.
The value of the theft was about $850-900 USD. Guessing that you have to play for 40 hours to acquire the weapon, that makes the "wage" about $22 an hour (before taxes). For a buyer in a major American market (LA, New York Chicago) that could be easily be below his hourly earings; I imagine that Japan would be similar. For someone in China - even a major city like Shanghai - that is a significant sum of money. Average household income in Shanghai is less than $1,500 USD (11,718 Yuan in 2000). 40, 80 or even 160 hours of play for over a half year's income would be an incredible opportunity.
So the game item has no value. However, the difference in labor costs creates a value in the time spent to produce the item.
>>The first is not viewed as theft becasue the owner doesn't lose it
>
> That's like saying swearing isn't "viewed as" murder because nobody died.
> Copyright infringement isn't "viewed as" theft because it's a totally different
> thing. The only relation between copyright infringement and theft is that they
> both involve obtaining something that you shouldn't rightfully have.
Copyright infringement involves obtaining something that you shouldn't legally have.
"You are trying to kidnap what I have rightfully stolen!" -- Vizzini
That's because stealing an album in a shop is immoral, but stealing an mp3 isn't. An album is a physical good; if I steal it from you you can no longer use it. An mp3 is what economists call a non-rival good; if I 'steal' it from you you may never notice and have not been harmed in any way, unless of course you believe in Marx's labor theory of value.
That last gives rise to my personal IP motto - 'intellectual property is Communism.'
"My son was only 26 when he died. He was sleeping when Qiu broke into his home. He was barely able to put his pants on before Qiu stabbed him," said his father, Zhu Huimin.
Well, thank god I sleep with my pants ON
1) Your analysis is based on bad assumptions so your result is way off. 2) You're a sick bastard for fucking a horse.
this whole thing doesnt matter why he did it, this is clearly a case of a person who is not stable whatsoever. It was just a matter of what made this person snap and kill someone. This happens every day, all over the world, it is irrelevant that it happened over a video game. SOMEONE GOT KILLED, IT DOES NOT MATTER WHY. No stable person could do something like this, especially over a peice of property, virtual or not...
> Dude's dead. Someone murdered him. That someone should get serious time or death for it.
Big deal, just create a new character and log back in...
The article failed to mention that Qiu Chengwei scored a +5 critical hit when he stabbed Mr. Zhu in the chest.
It should also be mentioned that while Mr. Zhu's death was of course due to stabbing -- other factors included his low armor class and a failed saving throw.
Rumours are currently spreading that Mr. Chengwei was wearing +3 boots of stealth when he broke into Mr. Zhu's apartment giving him a distinct melee advantage.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
An extreme example of what happens when otherwise intelligent adults can't put away the trappings of childhood.
Psychological maturity is inhibited. You get a baby in an adult body, who has a tantrum over a trivial problem that only a child should have, (except that a very grown-up sum of money was involved) reacting in a manner that rational human beings reserve for only the most severe of situations.
And it wasn't even about the money! This dude wanted his toy sword back and not even a shitload of money was good enough to spare the life of this other sad, stunted individual.
I know that playing video games with every free moment of one's time doesn't inflict this degree of insanity on all gamers, and I know that playing GTA doesn't make kids think it's okay to shoot people and blow shit up, but it happens to some degree at least to a hell of a lot of people. I am a geek. Most of my friends are geeks. Many of them are gamers, and not ONE of them who spends a significant amount of each day devoted to a pointless virtual world would I consider to be a psychologically-complete, well-adjusted adult. Good, smart, valuable people - yes. Socially fucked-up? You betcha. And these are just people who miss work occasionally to play Everquest or stay home all weekend for Ultima Online. These are not the disturbingly growing number of vegetables who are sick enough to sell characters, armor and swords on Ebay. These guys sometimes ignore reality for a game, but many people try to make reality a part of the game. How else is it not cheating when you buy in-game items?
Playing games is a normal part of growing up, and a healthy stage of life. Every mammal I can think of does this when they're young. It builds character. It's essential. Lion cubs and wolf-pups stop doing this once they have to provide for themselves, though. The only animals who play games throughout their lives are domesticated ones. Would your tail-wagging, yapping dog ever be able to take down prey and feed itself on a regular basis if it had to live in the wild? My nine year old cat who still acts the way a cub does in the real world certainly wouldn't.
Slashdot is surely the wrong soundingboard with which to convey these opinions, but I had to vent.
Gamers, think of your dignity. This is how you look to me and a lot of other people.
Making information hard to copy does not make it property. Laws control the right to copy or transmit information, but information cannot be owned.
"Its just a game, sad people would kill over this" -- Look, its grand larceny, a stupid thing to kill over but it happens every bloody day. Somebody jacked a friend to the tune of what would be in the US $40,000. The friend killed him in a fit of rage. If it were even physically possible to remove $40,000 from someone in the US (short of, say, divorce), people would get killed over that, too. Heck, sneakers and drug deals end up in violence all the time at far smaller absolute dollar amounts than $900...
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Two 15 yr old male geek Gamers. One 8 yr old girl gamer.
Psychological maturity is inhibited. You get a baby in an adult body,
No way, very bright, very lazy, but mature beyond their age.
Good, smart, valuable people - yes.
Absolutely.
Socially fucked-up? You betcha.
Hmmm, all three different. None fscked up, but not especially graceful either.
These guys sometimes ignore reality for a game, but many people try to make reality a part of the game.
Funny thing about reality, it has a way of reminding you that it's around. Failing the exam, Being Fired, losing your significant other, MURDER Conviction/Life or Death Sentence. (Do you get a Gameboy on deathrow?)
The great thing about being a parent is helping them learn these lessons EARLY when its painless. When I do X, I get Y. Way better then to say don't do X! They leave go off to college (if your lucky) MMORPG all night every night, because you're not there saying don't do X. Drop out end up back home playing games in the garage 18 of the wrong hours of the day. Whoa. Whoa Whoa.\Tangent.
Um.. Early. yeah when its relatively painless. But they still learn the lesson. They don't wanna lose that next girlfriend. Or Fail that Exam. (has to be mid term or final though)
Playing games is a normal part of growing up, and a healthy stage of life. Every mammal I can think of does this when they're young. It builds character. It's essential.
Spot on, with ya so far.
Lion cubs and wolf-pups stop doing this once they have to provide for themselves, though.
BullShit Have you ever watched Animal Planet or Wild kingdom? You know the suge Lion gets a small animal and fscks with it for a half hour. Play, pure and simple. Different play then when they were cubs, you might say more mature play. The opportunities don't present themselves as often, but when they do "whaddin that huntin/fishin/campin trip fun?".
Parental tip: Buy ALL games/software for your children and play every game you buy for at least 20 minutes (I average, umm, a little longer) with your child. Talk with your kids about their games. Look, I know you don't give a damn how to kill 42 zombies in under 6 minutes. They, however, just spent 4 hours doing it over and over again. They obviously do care quite a bit. These two things: Play & Listen have taught me more about my kids than all their report cards and quite a bit about the gaming industry. It might help that I let my Atari 800XL rot my brain as a youth and here I sit before a keyboard.
Slashdot is surely the wrong soundingboard with which to convey these opinions, but I had to vent.
If not here, where? Meet me at the coffeehouse?
Gamers, think of your dignity. This is how you look to me and a lot of other people.
Dig? Ni? Tee? What do I care how I look to you. You don't even know me. Is it possible to judge me from the games I play or the hours I spend on my prefferred entertainment? Hey man this is /. Judge me by my spelling erors!
Libertarian or Republican?
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
So what is this case? The "property" is virtual, but by selling it he deprived the rightful owner of the use of that object.
It was a piece of virtual property, yes, but it was worth (and actually sold for) nearly $1000. By Chinese standards that's more than a family can save in a year.
The fact that it's just bits on a hard drive is irrelevant. Let's say that you wrote a novel on your laptop. Then let's say I copy it off your laptop (e.g., while you're in a meeting at work), put my name on it, and sell the rights to it for some $50,000. (So the monetary value is sorta in the same proportion to what you earn, as that virtual sword was for the Chinese guy.)
Wouldn't you think: "WTF? It was _mine_, not his! Who the fuck gives him the right to take and sell _my_ stuff?"
Now say you came to talk to me about it, and I basically told you "fuck off, sucks to be you, the money is mine now." Because that's what happened between those two people.
Now maybe you'd just gnash your teeth, decide to just hate me now and avoid the christmas rush, and control yourself enough to not commit manslaughter. But then realize that a lot of people don't have _that_ kind of self-control. People get into a homicidal rage for a lot less money every day.
And anyway, the fact remains, virtual or not, Person A took something owned by Person B, sold it, and pocketed the money. A lot of money. Very _real_ money. It wasn't over virtual property, it was over _real_ _money_. Period.
Now I can see how two-bit hack journalists would love to hammer on the "man killed over virtual sword in a game" idiocy. That's the kind of a crap sensationalist headline that sells subscriptions. Whereas "man killed over a shitload of real money" doesn't quite have the same edge.
But seeing the number of responses that treat it like some continuation of an in-game feud, completely ignoring the amount of _real_ _money_ involved, gets depressing at times.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
It's about some young guy so addicted to the bloody online games that ends up killing people in the real world. What's wrong with the virtual property right stuff? It's a mindset problem. Even it is not valued for £480, he would probably do the same thing. Of course, as taweili pointed out, there may also be economic reason that caused this kind of tragedy. If that so, there could also be an organized crime based on that, then whom we can blame for?!
Hey, no need to bring out your probably well-practiced defense against people who say you're a bad parent for letting your kids play video games. I agree with everything you said, and if I was talking about kids you'd have a very strong point.
I don't think you're a bad parent because you let 15 year olds and an 8 year old spend a lot of time gaming. Even when you let it interfere with life a little so that it teaches them something. It's completely normal and positive that you play video games with your own kids under your own roof. They're kids. That's what games are for.
If nothing changes in the next 10-15 years though, and your boys are 30, still live with you and don't have careers, still play vide games for five to fifteen hours a day, maybe selling characters and items to support their addiction, then that becomes sick and pathetic.
Libertarian or Republican?
Neither... Both... Sometimes a Democrat or a Green too. My opinions don't come from a list that the group I'm comfortable with gave me. I vote all over the spectrum, and I think for myself when I can.
Not a defense, just an opinion from a my perspective. Hmm never had to practice.. Although it took about an hour and half to compose this post between the 3 kids. What you say is a likely scenario, if left to their own devices (Ha,no pun intended). My job, and every parents job, is to help them understand Cause and Effect.
If nothing changes in the next 10-15 years though, and your boys are 30, still live with you and don't have careers, still play vide games for five to fifteen hours a day, maybe selling characters and items to support their addiction, then that becomes sick and pathetic.
That's the snag. Which lessons do you let them learn to prevent this decidedly unfavorable result?
Libertarian or Republican? Neither... Both... Sometimes a Democrat or a Green too
I knew I should have put Independent. Bet you are registered though as a REP. for the primaries. Good reasons for that. I am a Democrat. That means (to me) I listen to all sides and I weigh the merits. I do give more weight to the poor rather than the rich, small biz versus corp, environment over economy. My personal motto though: A good idea is a good idea no matter what its source.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
Downloading a copyrighted mp3 isn't stealing. Stealing necessitates depriving someone else of property. Downloading a copyrighted mp3 is copyright infringement.
You get a haircut and don't pay the barber, you've stolen from him. You get your house painted and don't pay? You've stolen. Stealing is taking something, a physical object OR A SERVICE or anythign else of value without paying for it. Taking things without paying for them is stealing, therefore, downloading an Mp3 that would otherwise cost money to buy, IS STEALING.
If the killer could have copied the virtual sword his friend "stole", he probably wouldn't have killed the guy. Having backups makes such thefts less damaging, so probably will reduce the violence associated with propery transfers. People get violent upon property loss, which is less necessary with virtual items. But of course no mass media corporation is going to use an event like this to evaluate our disporportionate value of property over human life. Even when the theft and murder are committed in Communist China.
--
make install -not war
What about being the largest supplier of information services and application needs?
If you took the time to read it.
Considering the fact that people in the US have been killing other people for a pair of sneakers (Nike's, who's real world value is SOLELY based on perception), why is it so hard to fathom a murder conducted over a virtual sword (its worth, likewise, is based purely on perception).
I thought about this too... I think there's a flaw in the logic that monetary value drops towards "zero" as scarcity decreases or becomes non-existant. (EG. Anyone who wants that MP3 song can get it for free with ease.)
If you assign a price to an MP3 (for example) and the public feels some of that price rewards the artist for his/her hard work, a percentage will pay the price - regardless of the ease in obtaining the song for free.
Control of distribution is a "diminishing returns" game, the way I see it. If you can maintain very tight control on the distribution, then yes - you might be maximizing your profit potential. (This is pretty much how concert tickets work. You hire security and ticket-takers to try to guarantee nobody gets in to see the show for free. Then, you can charge the maximum price the market will bear to go see that show and still make ticket sales.) But whether you only realistically maintain "some" control or practically none, I'm not sure it makes much difference. Once it becomes fairly "feasible" to duplicate a work, you're at the mercy of people *choosing* to pay or not pay for it.
(To use my concert ticket analogy again, it'd be like having ticket takers at the front gate still, but security is lax and there's a back entrance people can easily sneak in. At this point, why not just put out a fish bowl with a sign asking people to please pay as they enter, and get rid of all security measures? Either way, a lot of people will choose to pay - because they just want to "do the right thing", while others won't.)
If virtual theft should be prosecutable, as some on this board suggest, what about other crimes? What if you shoot someone on Quake -- can they sue you for wrongful death? What if you bump someone's car in GTA -- can they sue you for virtual whiplash? Where will it stop?
Telemarketers steal my time. Security cameras steal my image. When I'm out in public, people look at me and steal my reflected photons. The supermarket steals my personal information when I use their discount card.
So, I steal back. I steal songs by singing them in the shower. I steal books by "borrowing" them from the library, and by loaning or giving away "used" books I've purchased. I steal from pretty girls by gawking at them.
Now, tell me again why I shouldn't download MP3's? Because it's stealing? And how is the public library any different than file sharing? How is a VCR (tape delay) any different than DVD? No, not because it's digital. They wanted VCR's to be illegal, too. They wanted sheet music and libraries to be illegal.
It's only some zeros that don't want ones and zeros to be free.
Spin 1: people make their own choices. Spin 2: Games of a violent nature make it more likely that people will act violently after playing it. Choose your poison :)
It really seems that people are starting to live (i.e. work, rest, play etc.) in a virtual world. That's amazing - I read ideas like that in Greg Egan's "Diaspora" and thought that it was ridiculous.
Having dissed your point - You are right though... People's lives are more important than our definition of property...
A few computer programs already go this direction. AFAIK, 3d Studio is non-transferrable and I remember there being a big stink about World of Warcraft not being able to be re-sold because you couldn't acquire a new account with a resold copy. To make it illegal only requires some fine print in the licensing agreement. To make it impossible (or very difficult), you only need to have some way to link that specific copy of the software to the computer it was first installed on, not too difficult in this era of increased connectivity.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
(To use my concert ticket analogy again, it'd be like having ticket takers at the front gate still, but security is lax and there's a back entrance people can easily sneak in. At this point, why not just put out a fish bowl with a sign asking people to please pay as they enter, and get rid of all security measures? Either way, a lot of people will choose to pay - because they just want to "do the right thing", while others won't.)
One dowside to this model is that it favours people who always cheat - the honest ones end up paying so the dishonest ones can have fun. In essence, it becomes a "tax on morality" (in much the same way as lotteries have been called a "tax on stupidity").
It works reasonably well as long as the honest greatly outnumber the dishonest, but breaks down hen the reverse is true.