Virtual Currency Becomes Real In South Korea

garylian writes "Massively is reporting that the South Korean Supreme Court has stated that virtual currency is the equivalent of real-world money. For those of you who might not be drawing the link, the core there is that selling in-game currency for real money is essentially just an exchange of currency and perfectly legal in South Korea. This could have sweeping implications for RMT operations the world over, not to mention free-to-play games and... well, online games in general. The official story is available online from JoongAng Daily."

Comments

If this remains the case

[JoshuaZ]

They need to do better jobs keeping track of currency levels in different games. As virtual currency becomes more common in game settings, better cryptography needs to be used to make sure that people don't change the numbers. Similarly, there becomes issues with income taxes and the like. In the long run we should probably all switch to cryptographically anonymous currency anyways which can be easily implemented using blind signatures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_signature so that even the bankers don't know who used which bills for which transactions. Unfortunately, many large institutions (such as governments) will likely resist such systems because they lead to a substantial loss of control.

Clueless gamer blog gets it wrong

[Animats]

The gamer blog has it wrong, the article poster didn't help, and the Slashdot "editors" blew it as usual. Read the article in JoongAng Daily (which they offer in English). The key issue here is that online gambling is illegal in Korea, and two game players were charged criminally for making money from an online game. The Supreme Court of Korea ruled that they were not gambling, so they don't get fined.

This decision doesn't affect relationships between players and game operators. It's not about EULA enforceability or property rights. It's a criminal law issue. If you trade game currency, you're not going to be fined or go to jail in Korea. Whether a game site can ban you is a separate issue.

Re:Legal?

[DaveV1.0]

Yes, it is illegal. See 18 USC Chapter 25 486:

486. Uttering coins of gold, silver or other metal

Whoever, except as authorized by law, makes or utters or passes, or attempts to utter or pass, any coins of gold or silver or other metal, or alloys of metals, intended for use as current money, whether in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

Liberty Dollars were not authorized by law, and therefore the minting of same is illegal.