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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.

9 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"?

  2. 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
  3. 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.

  4. 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'.