In the same year, two Dutch teens were also found guilty of forcing a younger player to log into his RuneScape account and hand over an amulet and a mask, the digital-age version of stealing another kid's lunch money. The Dutch court ruled: "These virtual goods are goods (under Dutch law), so this is theft."

It's Blizzard's (or CCP's) property that you're bringing into existence by throwing money at them. It's only a transaction in the most minimal sense.

I'm really not sure how far that would go IRL. Just because I think of "my" character and "my" ships as a lexical shorthand doesn't mean that they're legally mine. If someone passes a law to the contrary, the results will be... interesting, to say the least. For example, let's say that World of Warcraft has finally run its race, and Blizzard wants to pull the plug. Can the whales sue Blizzard for "taking away" "their" property that they spent so much money on? How could Blizzard make them whole without essentially guaranteeing that World of Warcraft would limp along in perpetuity? Could you will your virtual properties to other people? Sell them on contract?

I doubt that advisor has given the issue more than a few seconds' thought.

It would be as bad as the 'Dangerous Dog' act which instead of saying prosecute the owners of 'Dangerous Dogs', instead attempted to define that a 'Dangerous Dog' was a breed of dog that does not actually officially exist, then have them all impounded and put down!!!

so you are saying that in the end, probably the only ones that are getting prosecuted are those that hack wow accounts using a laptop with a pentium II processor and 640kb of ram

Interesting, go to jail for stealing something that is not tangible. Half of EVE would be in jail. Police can't enforce this. "I find you guilty of theft and the disbandement of BOB. I fine you 800 bitcoin and 1 year hard labor." While your in your cell the inmates will ask you what you were in for and you can reply "grand theft orca". A goon goes to jail "I'm in for racketeering and coercion charges." or maybe "Harrassment in local and criminal mischief"

Interesting, go to jail for stealing something that is not tangible. Half of EVE would be in jail. Police can't enforce this. "I find you guilty of theft and the disbandement of BOB. I fine you 800 bitcoin and 1 year hard labor." While your in your cell the inmates will ask you what you were in for and you can reply "grand theft orca". A goon goes to jail "I'm in for racketeering and coercion charges." or maybe "Harrassment in local and criminal mischief"

Even before calling the plug there's bound to be stuff like: "This is MY item I've spent so much money on, and now patch XYZ devaluates it completely. I want to be compensated!"
So far such cries for compensation only referred to ingame compensation, but with a legal change as outlined above, they'd probably escalate into "real world" compensation demands.

The internet clearly needs more crying and outrage.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2014/jul/24/thieves-world-warcraft-real-prisons-tory-mike-weatherley

"David Cameron's chief adviser on intellectual property, he has asked ministers to consider passing a law that would mean people "who steal online items in video games with a real-world monetary value receive the same sentences as criminals who steal real-world items of the same monetary value"

and "Weatherley, the MP for Hove, East Sussex and a Warcraft player himself, says that since players can spend serious amounts of real-world cash on items, even though they exist only online, they should be offered the same protection as victims of theft in the world of solid objects"

I wonder, should we invite him to eve online, or keep him away from it at all costs?


also, doesnt blizard consider all ingame items in wow as their own property, and dont allow you to sell it for real life cash? if so then it HAS no monetary value does it? so then if you steal the "silly looking sword of uberness" do you get fined/jailtiem based on teh "street velue" of said item? go to jail for "possesing stolen goods" or "fencing"?

The only in-game item where a real world monetary value might be assigned to it in EVE is a still-in-redemption PLEX.

That is against the game rules to steal. As soon as you convert it from a redemption system PLEX to an in-game object, that issue is no longer relevant.

Don't worry about it. smh... pfft that idiot deserved to get scammed if he vouched some legislation over his sorry ass cause. what a miserable douche.

That being said, that law will never internationally be recognized. Someone donate that guy a tear cup. If anyone is prosecuted over a game, wow, that would be the day the industry implodes.

The next elections are wide open due to the apathy that the UK voter has due to everybody being sick and tired of all the lying that all politicians engage in...

What part of "the game company's don't get to pick what is and isn't covered" did you not get? I realize the vast majority of CODE. are mentally handicapped, but read what I wrote a bit before you chime in.

here's something relevant that made me feel bad.

I asked myself what would be the easiest way to scam, metagaming as much as possible. this was the sequence:

recruit noob
convince noob a purple raven is uber
tell them where to buy PLEX to fund it
have them trade the purple raven for a pre-flight check

the feels that resulted from conceiving the plan were surprisingly bad.

Jonah, most people say it is not bannable. use alts and communicate in-game to keep it within the confines of the game...