The point here is not stealing ingame items but the real life threats imho.

There is a thread in eve gen about this already.

The only reason that went to the courts is because of physical attack.

As you can read in this article and others which are more detailed the defense claimed that the charges of theft had no grounds because they claimed virtual items can not be considered gooods you can steal.
The reason why appealed to the highest court is not because of the threaths its because of the charges of theft.

It is because they took him round the kids house and threatened him with knives in order to transfer the item, there's a big difference between joining a virtual corporation and taking stuff with no real life human presence and going round someone's house and forcing someone to hand something over, those of you thinking its relating to direct virtual theft are ********, if they had of hacked the kids account no court action would have been taken, its the fact that they went round someone's house to do it

EDIT: if anything a kidnap charge should have been thrown in there too

As you can read in this article and others which are more detailed the defense claimed that the charges of theft had no grounds because they claimed virtual items can not be considered gooods you can steal.
The reason why appealed to the highest court is not because of the threaths its because of the charges of theft.

- the rules of RuneScape do not cover obtaining objects in the manner that occurred in this case: the objects were taken from the victim outside the context of the game itself.

You do know that "appealed" is a term for the DEFENSE trying to OVERTURN the decision of a lesser court right? NOT the term for someone BEGINNING legal proceedings.....

The case WENT TO court because of the physical, RL attack. If the prosecution somehow FAILS to obtain a lasting conviction it will be because they tried to throw the stupid theft charge in ON TOP of the clearly valid crime.

Read the link i posted.

Summary of judgment

Taking a virtual amulet and mask from another player in the RuneScape game environment amounts to theft in this case.

Consequence of the judgment

The defendantGÇÖs conviction is now final. Because the reasonable time requirement was exceeded, the Supreme Court reduced the alternative sanction to 144 hoursGÇÖ community service.

Yeah, ok, so it held up DESPITE their focus on THE WRONG POINT.

Nonetheless, read my post, it WENT TO COURT because of the physical attacks, without those it would have been thrown out. And you STILL don't seem to understand the definition of an "appeal"

Stealing in-game items out-of-game is not the same as stealing in-game items in-game

Seems reading is difficult for you.



The whole point of this case is that now it is considered theft.

Says the person who did not read the part where it said "In this case"

the "in this case" applies to the naming of the 2 items.

No it relates to the charge of theft, please please please try to take someone to court that steals your in-game items in-games because i'd love to see you go broke trying to put together an actual case

Go explain then to all those websites that posted this article that they are all wrong and you are right.
Please do me a favor like that.

Just because you probably didnt read it all and i've made you look stupid enough:

http://www.rechtspraak.nl/Organisatie/Hoge-Raad/Nieuws/Pages/Taking-virtual-amulet-and-mask-in-RuneScapegame-is-theft.aspx

Judgement of the Supreme court paragraph

"Within the game environment the victim had exclusive de facto control over the objects in question. He lost that control as a result of the actions of the defendant and his co-accused.
The Supreme Court concluded that these actions amounted to theft."

Stealing in-game items out-of-game is not the same as stealing in-game items in-game

Now read 1 more time.
Try it , i know you can.

Everybody in this thread has grasped the purpose of that case but you, I'm actually becoming less intelligent just conversing with you, and I thought my intelligence was pretty low

That your a moron is pretty clear yes.

*you're


There are a load of other spelling mistakes in your post, but I think this one encapsulates pretty nicely what I wanted to say.

It is because they took him round the kids house and threatened him with knives in order to transfer the item, there's a big difference between joining a virtual corporation and taking stuff with no real life human presence and going round someone's house and forcing someone to hand something over, those of you thinking its relating to direct virtual theft are ********, if they had of hacked the kids account no court action would have been taken, its the fact that they went round someone's house to do it

EDIT: if anything a kidnap charge should have been thrown in there too

The theft of virtual items is irrelevant from a legal perspective; the charges most likely to be presented are aggravated assault, assault causing bodily harm, assault with a weapon and/or uttering threats. Robbery charges could apply (since the defendant was technically taking things that don't belong to him), but as case law in that regard refers specifically to physical property, the prosecution will have to make a very good case for it to stick.

3 things, then I suspect I'll be leaving this thread for good:

1) The case did establish that virtual items are "goods"
- But this is not news. EVE has LONG contented that all in game items are "goods"
- That is why they say that THEY OWN EVERYTHING. If it wasn't a "good", they couldn't own it, could they Roll

2) What made this a crime (you know, the things that go to COURT rather than being laughed at and forgotten):

3.6.3. The final complaint GÇô manifestly aimed at the issue of unlawful appropriation GÇô that taking virtual possessions from other players is one of the very objectives of RuneScape is incompatible with the fact, established by the Court of Appeal, that the rules of RuneScape do not cover taking objects in the manner employed by the defendant and the co-accused.

-Mind you, this means that ANYTHING covered by the rules IN ANY WAY is arguably not a crime - even cheating/hacking, as these generally have very clearly defined penalties in nearly every game (aka: the banhammer)
-Of course, in the case of hacking, local laws would supercede the game rules, so its still a crime if you can identify the culprit.
-Similarly, if any game was stupid enough to put rules in to cover physical violence of the sort used in this case, local laws would still apply IN ADDITION to the game's rules....but any case that is covered by the rules of the game and NOT illegal according to local laws is perfectly legal, even if it involves transferring virtual 'googs' without the owner's consent P

3) Obviously the OP is either a moron or a troll....My guess is both. Blink

I think that pretty well sums everything up. Cool

I referr you all to my previous post. I still think it sums this ENTIRE case up rather nicely, INCLUDING how it ties into EVE...



Obviously i was wrong about leaving the thread for good though...

You agree that all intellectual property or other rights in any game character, account and items are and will remain our property. Jagex owns all rights in the Jagex Products, and you are only granted permission to use such products, subject to and in accordance with these Terms and Conditions.

Wow! A large number of idiots in this thread who seem to lose the ability to read when the material contains data they don't like.

What was this ruling? It was a ruling against an appeal. The appeal was against a lower court's conclusion that ' the virtual amulet and virtual mask in the online game RuneScape are goods which can be the object of theft within the meaning of article 310 of the Criminal Code'. The case has nothing to do with the violent means used to extract the goods out of game. It is entirely to do with whether the lower court was right to allow that the goods could be objects of theft. It does not just apply 'in this case' but will apply in all cases involving similar types of property.

Article 310 of the Criminal Code reads as follows:
'Any person who removes any good belonging wholly or partially to any other person with the intention of unlawfully appropriating it is guilty of theft and liable to a term of imprisonment not exceeding four years or a fourth category fine.'

So, two things here. Firstly, the court has accepted that, despite the Runescape EULA, ingame goods do belong to their ingame owner ('wholly or partly'). This is quite a big deal. A particularly interesting feature of the ruling is that it denies that virtual objects are just data (rather than goods), despite sharing characteristics with data. This might put a break on both the cry that 'It's all just pixels' and that 'the EULA says everything belongs to CCP so it must be true!'. At least one national court has decided at the highest level that this is not the case.

Secondly, the goods have to be removed unlawfully in order for their removal to constitute theft and nothing in this case suggests that removal via ingame means would constitute unlawful removal. One of the grounds for the appeal was that 'the appellant argues that taking away the virtual property of other players is one of RuneScape's very objectives'. The lower court had specifically ruled (and the supreme court agreed) that 'the rules of RuneScape do not cover obtaining objects in the manner that occurred in this case: the objects were taken from the victim outside the context of the game itself', strongly implying that no crime would have occurred if the theft had taken place within the context of allowable behaviour patterns in the game.

That provided no impediment to the court finding that the goods both belonged to the player (and not to Jagex) and had value. This is not old news (to me at least).

That is because the defence did not bring the EULA into the case like they should have - they tried to make the argument that the items were not goods. Stupid defence attorneys who cba to research the game their case revolves around are a separate matter entirely.

Jagex didn't bother to intervene because quite honestly I doubt they even knew about the case until after it was over. However, had the case been against Jagex, that clause would have caused the theft charges to be dropped (obviously assault would have remained).

The clause is there to protect the game company, not the players. Without that clause, any time CCP took isk away from someone for RMT or any other reason, that person could legitimately take them to court for stealing their isk, and unless CCP could PROVE to the COURT that the player broke a rule with a clearly stated penalty of the isk/items being removed, the player would have legal grounds to SUE them for it and WIN.


Regardless of all of that, whether you knew it or not, nobody on an official level has ever disputed that virtual items are "goods"....

#2 is the far more relevant point to the discussion of video game "theft" being illegal.

You seem very sure of a lot of things. I'm sure you're not simply asserting your own opinion as fact and can provide some evidence to support these points.

Having grown up around ****** junkies and other scumbags, hearing about two kids beating another one for his video game items still makes me a little sick. This entire planet needs to be nuked.

You seem very sure of a lot of things. I'm sure you're not simply asserting your own opinion as fact and can provide some evidence to support these points.

Its not exactly like I'm pulling it all out of thin air you know...

The court's entire decision, complete with overly long legalese explanations of each and every little detail, is linked from the link if you bother to look at it. I quoted the part I was referring to.

Feel free to consult a lawyer if you want 100% assurance that I'm interpreting the legalese correctly...but I think it pretty much speaks for itself.

That's weird. It looked to me like you made an assertion about how the case would have gone if the appeal had been based on a different strategy, concluding that actually, despite the court finding the goods belonged to the victim they would have found otherwise if you had been there to lead the way. You provide nothing at all to support this claim and I see nothing in the judgement that suggests that ownership of the goods would have been denied to the victim on the basis of the EULA if only someone had been intelligent enough to draw the supreme court's attention to it. But, given your certainty, I'm sure you can cite precedents from other similar cases where things have been decided in the way that you indicate they would have been decided here if the EULA had been brought up.

To use an analogy, in case its still too hard for you to understand:

• Lets say you rent a car.
• You drive the car to a store, and as you get out, someone holds a knife to your throat, takes the keys to the car, and drives away with it.
• However, being an odd thief (to fit the analogy), they return the rental car to the company when they are done with it.

Now, MY position is that while they certainly threatened/assaulted you, and may have, in a VERY loose sense "stolen" *something* from you in the form of a service you had paid for.......They most certainly did NOT steal the car from you - because YOU NEVER ****ING OWNED IT. In fact, since the rental company got the car back, they will never know the difference. As far as they are concerned, no theft ever occurred.

YOUR POSITION, on the other hand, appears to be that by renting the car you somehow "owned" it, and that they STOLE YOUR CAR - so you propose that you can go ahead and charge them with 'Grand Theft: Auto' and obtain a conviction for that crime, so you aren't going to bother pushing the assault or robbery charges.


See the difference now? If not I really don't think I can help you, see my advice above, and enjoy being counter-sued for legal expenses

Excluding the violent taking of the car (which is robbery) essentially taking a car and returning it is a very different crime, most country's have laws regarding "taking without owners consent". The wording might be a bit different but essentially it sets it aside from "theft" as theft is usually classified as "intending to permanently deprive the owner of the item".

Robbery is different still, robbery usually covers taking something from someone using either intimidation or force (armed or not) and doesn't count whether the property was ever returned or to be permanently stolen. Victims neither need to be in lawful possession of the items or even have value, it doesn't matter whether they belong to somebody else or in fact even if the stuff is contraband or if the victim had stolen them first. All that matters is the way they where taken from the victim.

Thats why in this case the real charge should have been robbery.

Hypotheticals, with the same basic set of facts (Player A threatens Player B in RL, forces A's in-game character to transfer in-game items to B's ingame character):
1) What if the item being transferred was a Second Life resort worth $5,000 real money?
2) What if it were a Titan, worth $X in RMT?

Is it theft then? I think so, clearly for 1). The item being robbed had dollar value. The game itself has built-in real money transactions. Forcing someone to transfer an item is not much different than forcing him to use his/her card to withdraw money at an ATM.
For 2), it's the same. The Titan has isk value. Isk value is convertible to PLEX. PLEX are convertible to real money. Same result, Player B was robbed of real money, so it's theft.

My hypothetical car was worth $50,000. It still wasn't theft. The 'owner' (the rental company in the hypothetical, Jagex in the real case) HAS the item, just like they did before the incident.

Robbery? - YES
Theft? - NO


PS: RMT is against the rules, even if you DID own it (which you don't) - thats like trying to prosecute someone for stealing the [elicit substance which apparently cannot be named on these forums - highly illegal nearly everywhere] you were going to sell illegally behind your house...

Edit: Replaced the randomly censored drug name....

Real edit: also missed the edit button...oops, you get my point

[quote=Ubiquitous Forum Alt]
Just because the MMO game company has the item, it doesn't necessarily follow that it owns it. Or that the players are renting it or borrowing. Once the game company has allowed its in-game items to be traded for real money, it has lost ownership of them. The game company has effectively introduced virtual in-game items into the real world market. Those items are now commodities like any other, changing hands between individuals based on legal money transactions. The "title" and control of the item is being transferred from one person to another, in exchange for something with real value. Those conditions imply transfer of legal ownership. That's under English-American property law principles, at least.

The interesting thing about the Dutch court decision is, they used a "time and effort" test. They said the kid's time and effort spent in getting the virtual items created the ownership interest.

Edit: Due to forum buttom misfire.

In second life that may be true - I've never played it.

In EVE, Runescape, and most other MMORPG games, however, it EXPLICITLY STATES in the EULA that the game company "retains ownership" of all in-game items and monetary units - you are essentially renting them for the fee of your monthly subscription, and they also reserve the right to take each and every one of them away from you at any time without needing to give a reason. You *do not own anything* in EVE.

(obviously if CCP randomly took everyones stuff away everyone would quit and they'd go out of business - but nobody could SUE them for it and expect to win anything, because they would not have violated any laws)

You go right ahead and let me know when CCP signs a contract granting you ownership of your own items....

You go right ahead and let me know when CCP signs a contract granting you ownership of your own items....

Reading is difficult isnt it?
The verdict doesnt speak of ownership it speaks of " rightholderGÇÖs control ".

And : " Within the game environment the victim had exclusive de facto control over the objects in question. "

" He lost that control as a result of the actions of the defendant and his co-accused.
The Supreme Court concluded that these actions amounted to theft."

theft (+++¢ft)

GÇö n
1. criminal law the dishonest taking of property belonging to another person with the intention of depriving the owner permanently of its possession

Almost as hard as using google for 2 seconds to do a minute amount of research:



Theft requires ownership. The court was wrong, because the defense attorney was too stupid to bring the EULA into evidence to have the theft charges dropped in the appeal, and it is not the judges' job to FIND the evidence for themselves, they just analyze the evidence brought in by the attorneys.

Almost as hard as using google for 2 seconds to do a minute amount of research:



Theft requires ownership. The court was wrong, because the defense attorney was too stupid to bring the EULA into evidence to have the theft charges dropped in the appeal, and it is not the judges' job to FIND the evidence for themselves, they just analyze the evidence brought in by the attorneys.

Four pages of illiterate people arguing semantics no less

lol no, sorry. You don't get to step back now and act like you're above them.
You're doing the same thing they are.

Almost as hard as using google for 2 seconds to do a minute amount of research:



Theft requires ownership. The court was wrong, because the defense attorney was too stupid to bring the EULA into evidence to have the theft charges dropped in the appeal, and it is not the judges' job to FIND the evidence for themselves, they just analyze the evidence brought in by the attorneys.