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."

Comments

Stealing versus Copying

[GJSchaller]

"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.)

Re:Stealing versus Copying

[stienman]

The key difference here is scarcity. Unless the MP3 copyright holder can control distribution, the MP3 loses any value.

Decades ago the USA was one of the first nations to disconnect money from gold. US currency is now just as intangible as the MP3's bits, and is becoming moreso as transactions go electronic.

The value is due to the scarcity perpetuated by the control the Federal Reserve has over the creation of paper and coin currency, and further by the government "backing" the currency with a guarantee - "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private."

It used to be that information was controlled simply by the fact that it was expensive to move it from place to place and process it. Now that information has become almost infinitely liquid, it has lost much of its value because it is no longer inherently difficult or expensive to deal with.

Just as currency no longer is backed by gold, information is no longer held back by cost.

This actually leads to stronger intellectual laws to provide the market with a crutch as we move forward. Obviously this will change over time, but if it were allowed to suddenly change too quickly the markets would suffer a minor collapse, instead of a slow fall that can be checked as people and businesses adjust.

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

The original owner and the purchasers did lose something, just not what some consider important.

A problem is that the sellers want to sell one copy to everyone, and remove any possibility of a secondary market. The buyers want to re-sell their property. This is being worked out by turning everything into a service, and the reason the market is going to a service economy is that the producers want it so badly. I suspect a middle ground will be found, but only after a consumer backlash/bubble.

-Adam