Merdaneth
Amarr
PIE Inc.
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Posted - 2007.10.31 17:14:00 -
[1]
Edited by: Merdaneth on 31/10/2007 17:16:39
 Originally by: CCP Prism X
Ofcourse not. If I were to steal AMDs newest CPU before they launched it, put it in my desktop at home and then sell that desktop computer to you.. you think IBM would lose their legal claim on the CPU? It's still stolen property and will be confiscated from you were they to discover you possessed it, no? We're reclaiming illegaly obtained goods, not bombing anyone. The OP wasn't penalized, the character he bought was taken down a peg to be equal with others i.e. his networth was put to where it should be.
It sucks to buy stolen goods without knowing it and then have to deal with the authority knocking on your door, but you can't state the authority is being unfair. It would be unfair against the original victim if you were allowed to keep the goods. Justice is when given rules govern everybody regardless of their situation, anything else is favouritism.
Actually, under my national law, if you didn't suspect and had no real reason to suspect certain goods were stolen, you don't have to give it back to original victim. This is done precisely because it would be unfair to the unknowing and innocent buyer who has done his research to have the goods taken away from him when some other person comes up to claim it. However, getting something 'for free' from 'a friend' puts a lot of responsibility on the buyer to properly research the legality of transferred goods. On the other hand, paying normal price to a well known business would put little to no responsibility on the buyer to research it's origin.
In this case, regardless of the guilt or innocence of the buyer, it's a deal 'too good to be true', and he should have done more checking, or accept a possible isk loss. On the other hand, if CCP tracks down illegal isk sales years after the fact to a character that has changed hands publically for reasonable prices several times, I would hardly be fair to punish the (innocent) most recent buyer, nor reverse possibly several character transfers until the character returns to the original isk buyer.
Note: if AMD's suppliers had illegaly acquired some stolen components, which they sold to AMD, were made into processors, and through several vendors and resellers ended up in your PC, it would be highly odd if the original owner of those components came knocking on your door and demanding them back from you.
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