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Dutch Court Punishes Theft of Virtual Property

Posted by timothy on from the pick-a-fight-your-first-day-with-the-toughest-avatar dept.

tsa writes "Last week, the Dutch court subjected two kids of ages 15 and 14 to 160 hours of unpaid work or 80 days in jail, because they stole virtual property from a 13-year-old boy. The boy was kicked and beaten and threatened with a knife while forced to log into Runescape and giving his assets to the two perpetrators. This ruling is the first of its kind for the Netherlands. Ars Technica has some more background information." In Japan, meanwhile, a woman has been arrested for "illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data" after (virtually) killing her (virtual) husband.

12 of 276 comments (clear)

  1. It's funny and sad... by VeNoM0619 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's funny and sad...how imaginary pixels can run people's lives to do horrible things in a physical world.

    --
    Disclaimer: I am not god.
    We may not be created equal
    But we can be treated equal.
    1. Re:It's funny and sad... by TeacherOfHeroes · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Its not as if real money is any more tangible when its sitting in a bank account.

      Are things like wow gold really anything more than the electronic equivalent of gift certificates nowadays or banks that printed their own bank notes way back when? Surely the theft of either of those would be taken seriously - I don't see why this should be any different.

    2. Re:It's funny and sad... by A+Pancake · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How did this get modded insightful?

      For the most part religious people are brought up to believe their specific religion.

      There is a rather large difference between being raised and indoctrinated to believe something all your life compared to taking a video game seriously.Even the most fanatic 14 year old still knows what he's playing is not real and deep down may know it doesn't matter.

      This has nothing to do with virtual property and everythign to do with some brat teen having a sense of entitlement that preceeds his understanding of consequences.

      The decision wasn't likely "Hey, this is so important to me personally that I need to use violence to achieve this goal" but more likely "Our whole group of friends plays Runescape and if we do this we can be the best and everyone will love us." The only thing virutal property or virtual worlds would have played into it is that the perps may have expected to get off easy if caught because no real property was stolen.

    3. Re:It's funny and sad... by liledevil · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Message from the netherlands, and this has been in the news for a couple of days over here as well.
      The i aint going into whether or legal system is good, if our priorities are screwed up, whether our sentences are too high or too low, but just a little feedback from the dutch sources.
      please dont hold me for not using the proper words for everything, i will try to explain this as good as I can.
      The sentence the 2 boys got was for stealing property with violence.
      The motivation of the judge was that like with real-life property you had to go thru some kind of effort to obtain these items and being able to use them afterwards, therefor it is property and had some kind of value(ingame gold, status, emotional)
      His motivation for calling it theft was that the boy who got beaten and threatened wasnt able to use the "property" after this, saying his property wasnt within reach for him and therefor stolen.

      I hope this clearifies any questions about how the judgement was made.

      sources(in dutch):
      http://games.fok.nl/news.php?newsid=27831
      http://tweakers.net/nieuws/56315/jongeren-veroordeeld-tot-werkstraffen-wegens-diefstal-virtuele-goederen.html
      http://webwereld.nl/articles/53099/taakstraf-ge-ist-voor-digitale-diefstal.html

  2. Not Punished for the Violence? by GaryPatterson · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Surely the first case would have revolved around the attack by the two boys, using the knife, threats and all that. I mean, that's a pretty straightforward criminal act right there without going further to look at the proceeds of crime (data).

    I know, read the article, read the article. It's early, and I'm skimming headlines.

    1. Re:Not Punished for the Violence? by Artraze · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think the point is that the theft counted as part of the offense. In other words, rather than being viewed as assault, it was viewed as a mugging.

    2. Re:Not Punished for the Violence? by AlXtreme · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Surely the first case would have revolved around the attack by the two boys, using the knife, threats and all that. I mean, that's a pretty straightforward criminal act right there without going further to look at the proceeds of crime (data).

      They were also charged for the violence, conditional jail-time of 1 and 2 months. Source for the dutchies.

      --
      This sig is intentionally left blank
    3. Re:Not Punished for the Violence? by anomnomnomymous · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The question was wether the virtual asset could be considered as a 'real' asset: And thus robbery could be charged.

      --
      When you shoot a mime, do you use a silencer?
  3. Theft is theft by clarkkent09 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This ruling is the first of its kind for the Netherlands

    I doubt that. I'm sure there were other cases of teenagers being convicted for stealing something in the Netherlands. It was something of value, otherwise they wouldn't have wanted it so badly, and the victim was deprived of it. Obviously, there is the issue of beating and threatening with a knife, but even if that wasn't the case it wouldn't be any less of a theft than if they stole some physical object. Can someone tell me what is the complicated issue that tfa is talking about? Seems pretty straightforward to me.

    --
    Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
    1. Re:Theft is theft by LandDolphin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "How do you steal an item that doesn't really exist (a.k.a. virtual)?"

      So, if I take your Credit card and charge it up, I did not steal anything because the physical money never exsisted?

      Or how about MP3's? Do those have any value? There as virtual as anything in a game is. Just 1's and 0's like the items in a game and the money on your credit cards.

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      Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
  4. Bad Article Summary by MWoody · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The second link is getting passed around as the Japanese woman "killing" her husband, which (rightly so) sounds ludicrous to most gamers. In reality, she logged into his account and deleted all of his characters and information, an act that is certainly worthy of some sort of punishment. Whether or not it needs to be brought to the attention of real world police is arguable, but quit making it sound like she's guilty of PvP.

  5. imaginary pixels..not the beating and menacing? by Simonetta · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've come to trust the Dutch as a serious and civilized people, so I suspect that it more the kicking, beating, and menacing with a knife that got these bozos punished; not the 'theft of imaginary pixels'.