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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.

29 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 Waste55 · · Score: 5, Funny

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

      Imaginary?! What are these tiny dots I keep starting at while I type?! Someone must have slipped something into my drink! ;)

    2. 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.

    3. Re:It's funny and sad... by Pikiwedia.net · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'm in big trouble! I've commited murder in numerous games, used weapons of mass destruction in civilization.

    4. 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.

    5. Re:It's funny and sad... by vux984 · · Score: 5, Interesting

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

      Good point.

      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?

      Not "more". LESS.

      Surely the theft of either of those would be taken seriously - I don't see why this should be any different.

      Because you don't "own" your WoW account. Its not your "property" to start with. You are paying Blizzard for access to THEIR GAME. And according them, everything in your account is THEIRs.

      So if blizzard decides X is too powerful or valuable or whatever they can, at their option, simply remove them from the game, or substitute another item, or change the parameters of the item, etc, etc. And you can't say squat. They can also simply 'ban' you.

      The same simply isn't true of your bank account. Your bank can't just decide you aren't a customer, and close your account. Transfering your funds to another account, or perhaps even just "deleting" them.

      So while we EXPECT the contents of our bank account to be treated as real property. We don't really expect the contents of our WoW account to be held to the same legal standard. And I'm not sure we WANT to.

      If Blizz catches you cheating, and bans you, should you be allowed to sue them for "damages"?

    6. Re:It's funny and sad... by lysergic.acid · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      so the kid was physically assaulted with a deadly weapon, but the court decided to charge the perpetrators for stealing the victim's Runescape items? is it just me or are the court's priorities just a little screwed up?

      i'd much rather lose some virtual money/items than get stabbed or beat up. christ, the company that runs Runescape can just restore the the items back to the kid who was robbed. heck, they could just create new items to give to him. it's not like it costs them anything to make those items.

    7. Re:It's funny and sad... by TheoMurpse · · Score: 3, Interesting

      In that case, perhaps we don't make "theft" of online property a crime, but we allow people to sue in tort for it. Tort has always been the great, equitable equalizer throughout history. Why not permit a suit to be filed in this case, too?

      Be careful of slippery slope arguments here. I saw someone above say that treating WoW gold as real could lead to treating avatars as real people. Sure, it could conceivably lead to that result. However, consider this:

      Coveting your neighbor's wife is not illegal. However, murder is. Are we not worried that allowing the ninth commandment of the Christian Bible to be broken will lead to allowing the seventh commandment (prohibition on murder) to be broken. It's silly, but conceivable. In fact, I think it is equally conceivable compared with the theft-and-avatar-murder analogy of the person above.

      The only reason this presents any novel issue of law is the fact that this is done in a virtual world. We must determine what the nature of the virtual world is (i.e., whether actions in the virtual world count as "real" actions, where actions in the world take place in the real world, if they in fact take place at all, etc.).

      Who would have jurisdiction in a case where someone from China plays WoW (say, a server in the US) and kills a Russian player. Which court has jurisdiction? The US, Russia, or China? I would posit that, as the old legal principle of equitable justice says, we should go with what is fairest to all parties involved.

      In this case, we have a corporation that (likely) doesn't give a shit about what happened on their servers from a legal standpoint. Thus, we have a Chinese and a Russian player. Well, we (the US, and presumably most other countries) already have legal doctrines that determine where trials take place in international disputes.

      I'm perfectly happy with a "theft of WoW gold" offense being merely a tort, not a crime.

      If Blizz catches you cheating, and bans you, should you be allowed to sue them for "damages"?

      If the contract/license you enter into with Blizzard when setting up the account doesn't waive your right to sue them for such an act (i.e., through a "revocation of service" or "waiver of claims in tort" clause), then you ought to be able to sue them.

      Can you give me a good reason why you shouldn't be able to? Don't give me the hogwash about "it's their world." Without a license provision, estoppel should give you the right to sue them. The elements of estoppel are:

      1. Defendant induced an expectation on the part of the Plaintiff
      2. Plaintiff relied on the expectation
      3. Were the expectation false, the Plaintiff would be harmed

      It seems to me that in this case, absent a license/contract provision, this would be a textbook example of estoppel.

    8. Re:It's funny and sad... by lysergic.acid · · Score: 4, Interesting

      i think that shows how skewed our culture's value system is.

      it's considered worse for a teenage computer geek to hack into a business network our of curiosity, unintentionally impeding commerce for a few days (which the company analysts will claim has cost tends of millions of dollars in damages), than it is for someone to rape or murder another person. the legal punishment for non-malicious curiosity-motivated computer crimes are far worse than the sentences given to violent offenders.

      this seems completely unbalanced to me. do most people really think non-malicious computer crimes (i'm not talking about spamming, spreading viruses, DDoS, etc.) are worse than things like rape/murder/assault/etc? it also seems like the courts treat financial damages to the corporate sector far more severely than murder & rape, the victims of which are usually the poor. what do other think about the relative severity of these different types of crimes?

    9. Re:It's funny and sad... by mysidia · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It seems to me that if someone has given you their username and password, then you implicitly are entrusted with the authority to login and do the things that person can do. Including things like routine maintenance; creation and deletion of avatars.

      Deleting someone's avatar when they don't want it to be done may be despicable, but if they gave the credentials, and failed to explicitly revoke the authorization, it seems the person's access was authorized...

      C++ programmers (MMORPG programmers) will now have to think twice before they "delete" that person object.

      Next thing we'll hear is about game operators being charged with a crime, due to deleting a character, or due to gold msysteriously disappearing from a player's inventory.

      Not to mention the crime of failing to report amounts paid/exchanged in barter with the player on a 1099, when a player obtains or trades item with shops in the game.

    10. Re:It's funny and sad... by ScrewMaster · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well, I didn't read the FA, but it sounds like this is probably more about the fact that these two assholes beat and robbed another boy. Even minus the theft, they'd still have been in trouble for assaulting someone, and virtual or not, they took that which did not belong to them.

      It's a bit of a stretch to say, well, it should be taxed because a couple of bullies got charged with stealing it. And the actual crime here occurred in meatspace, not in the virtual environment.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    11. Re:It's funny and sad... by Vastad · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What do you mean no presence? And why would you focus on the virtual goods or currency itself? Why ignore the context?

      Would you tell thousands of players of MMOs that their sense of fair play is misguided because players that use gold farming services and items bought with "real" currency don't have a "presence" in the real world?

      What about how these gold farming services are provided? Does anyone actually know how its done? How do we know there isn't some sort of sweatshop set-up in some neighbourhood in Guangdong where the "farmers" toil at a desk with no worker's rights and no health plans of any sort and being paid a pitiful percentage of what's charged?

      real money can buy real things

      What does "real money" represent? It's a unit representation of our time and labour which we then exchange for goods and services. So just what do you think people going to gold farming services are buying? They are paying for time and labour of course! Just so they don't have to invest their own. How is the time and labour invested to get that certain mount or special weapon in an MMO "not real" in meatspace? Isn't it obvious why honest players are in uproar and how some brat teen doesn't want to work that hard?

      As VoidCrow says, if you have a huge surplus of virtual currency, you can sell it for real currency. I'd say that qualifies for presence beyond the game itself. If it didn't, gold farming services wouldn't be profitable. I don't understand why you were modded up at all.

    12. 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 Sponge+Bath · · Score: 4, Funny

      It does seem odd. To make that fair the judge should have
      the bailiff beat the attackers with a night stick
      and then sentence them to a virtual jail.

    4. 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. wtf? by easyTree · · Score: 5, Funny

    They kicked/beat/threatened him with a kife and the most important crime was IP-theft. wtf. Did I mention 'wtf' ?

    --
    Requiem for the American Dream
  4. 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.

      --
      Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
  5. I didn't know the Dutch had Ag Assault by LithiumX · · Score: 4, Funny

    Erm... while I'm not too horribly offended over the theft of virtual (game) property, the fact that it was a matter of Aggravated Assault is a totally different matter.

    Wait, the knife and beating happened in the real world, right?

    --
    Do not confuse "Freedom of Choice" with "Free Will".
  6. What a treat... by Emb3rz · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Gimme loots or I PK u IRL lol"

  7. Digital crime? by psychicninja · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Japanese lady was actually charged for fraudulently accessing the guy's account, not for what she did after logging in.

  8. Kids these days by J.R.+Random · · Score: 3, Funny

    If those punks had kicked, beaten and threatened that boy with a knife inside the virtual world of Runescape instead of of because of Runescape it would have been perfectly legal and they'd have gotten his stuff from his corpse and leveled up. Some punks have no common sense.

  9. 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.

  10. Re:Hmm... by borizz · · Score: 4, Informative

    On the radio, they quoted the judge as saying that virtual property gives joy, you've worked to earn it and in this case, if one person has it another can't have it (well, the admins could easily clone it, but that's beside the point). So in essence, they said it's a lot like real tangible property.

  11. 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'.

  12. This contradicts earlier precedent! by RevWaldo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Thus spake Wikipedia -

    Ooka Tadasuke (1677 - 1752) was a Japanese samurai in the service of the Tokugawa shogunate. During the reign of Tokugawa Yoshimune, as a magistrate (machi bugyo) of Edo, his roles included chief of police, judge and jury, and Yamada Magistrate (Yamada-bugyo) prior to his tenure as South Magistrate (Minami Machi-bugyo) of Edo. With the title Echizen no Kami (Governor of Echizen or Lord of the Echizen), he is often known as Ooka Echizen. He was highly respected as an incorruptible judge. In addition, he established the first fire brigade made up of commoners, and the Koishikawa Yojosho (a city hospital). Later, he advanced to the position of jisha bugyo, and subsequently became daimyo of the Nishi-Ohira Domain.

    One of the most famous stories is called "The Case of the Stolen Smell" where he heard the case of a paranoid innkeeper who accused a poor student of literally stealing the fumes of his cooking by eating when the innkeeper was cooking to flavour his dull food. Although his colleagues advised Ooka to throw the case out as ridiculous, he decided to hear the case. The judge resolved the matter by ordering the student to pass the money he had in one hand to his other and ruling that the price of the smell of food is the sound of money.

    --
    Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!