[Yasky]

Link to news

Dutch court convicts 2 of stealing virtual items


Tue Oct 21, 1:09 pm ET

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – A Dutch court has convicted two youths of theft for stealing virtual items in a computer game and sentenced them to community service.

Only a handful of such cases have been heard in the world, and they have reached varying conclusions about the legal status of "virtual goods."

The Leeuwarden District Court says the culprits, 15 and 14 years old, coerced a 13-year-old boy into transferring a "virtual amulet and a virtual mask" from the online adventure game RuneScape to their game accounts.

"These virtual goods are goods (under Dutch law), so this is theft," the court said Tuesday in a summary of its ruling.

Identities of the minors were not released.

The 15-year-old was sentenced to 200 hours service, and the 14-year-old to 160 hours.

[.Sotek.]

Going to jail over RuneScape? ROFL.

[Knight Of Apocalypse]

I like this alot. US needs this, so many people/kids/etc get scammed everyday.




You lot on my kraken club, ill make judge judy sentence you to 250 hours of cleaning dog shit.

[pathwriter]

Jurisdiction makes this sort of law almost impossible to prosecute. Even assuming the federal government declares this a federal crime (unlikely), quite a lot of theft takes place across international boundaries. I'm not even sure that anyone except California would be able to leverage information out of Square-Enix with regards to tracking down the culprit in such a situation (CA because that's where SE has offices, if I recall correctly, may have been WA).

[Aeonknight]

It's at least a step in the right direction. People need to be held accountable for what they do online, since they are in fact dealing with other people.

[Deo2]

Well, the only reason it doesn't work with FFXI is because it's all paid subscriptions to use SE's stuff. It's not theft since all virtual goods are property of SE and they still belong to SE before and after scams. SE's just obligated to satisfy their customers.

For Runescape, being a free to play game, is property of everyone and anyone. So there's no boundry that keeps the laws of real life countries from stepping in other than international. Probably the only reason this worked at all was because the 3 people were in the same country.

[xPaperdoll]

Errr..."coerced" the 13 year-old into giving them items means the kid did it willingly. There's no mention that he was even threatened in anyway, just convinced into doing it. So, if someone comes up to me on the street and says "hey you, I think it would be an AWESOME idea if you gave me your watch, as a matter of fact, maybe I'll give you something in return for it later!" and I give it to him, I'm technically "coerced" but I'm not threatened, and it's CERTAINLY not theft. Giving willingly because you're dumb isn't being stolen from. That judge needs to go back to law school.

[1337NancYBoY]

This is one of those ideas that seems good, but will turn out to be just another way to get arrested for bullshit. The only people pushing for this are lawyers and retards; lawyers because they can smell money, and retards because they're part of a global conspiracy to redistribute all the money in the world into the pockets of their attorneys (example).

Property theft in the 'real' world has direct effects on the victim, for example having one's car stolen can make it impossible to get to work, but I doubt having your O-hat QM'd would be a detriment to your livelihood or personal life. Would you like to get subpoenaed every time you out-lot someone or steal claim? Because that's what would end up happening.

Videogames are a pastime, they're entertainment, bringing someone up on charges because they stole something from you in a game is like putting on a band-aid after you eat a pecking flurry. Or, better yet, akin to the police getting involved every time there's a foul during a basketball game.

Don't get me wrong, stealing/hacking someone's account is a different matter entirely (invasion of privacy, etc.), but screwing people out of an imaginary hat? Do want that to be the latest mockery of our legal system?

[Aeonknight]

This is one of those ideas that seems good, but will turn out to be just another way to get arrested for bullshit. The only people pushing for this are lawyers and retards; lawyers because they can smell money, and retards because they're part of a global conspiracy to redistribute all the money in the world into the pockets of their attorneys (example).

Property theft in the 'real' world has direct effects on the victim, for example having one's car stolen can make it impossible to get to work, but I doubt having your O-hat QM'd would be a detriment to your livelihood or personal life. Would you like to get subpoenaed every time you out-lot someone or steal claim? Because that's what would end up happening.

Videogames are a pastime, they're entertainment, bringing someone up on charges because they stole something from you in a game is like putting on a band-aid after you eat a pecking flurry. Or, better yet, akin to the police getting involved every time there's a foul during a basketball game.

Don't get me wrong, stealing/hacking someone's account is a different matter entirely (invasion of privacy, etc.), but screwing people out of an imaginary hat? Do want that to be the latest mockery of our legal system?

Our legal system is already a joke. At least this way we can have some fun with it.

[Kaikaitos]

Errr..."coerced" the 13 year-old into giving them items means the kid did it willingly. There's no mention that he was even threatened in anyway, just convinced into doing it. So, if someone comes up to me on the street and says "hey you, I think it would be an AWESOME idea if you gave me your watch, as a matter of fact, maybe I'll give you something in return for it later!" and I give it to him, I'm technically "coerced" but I'm not threatened, and it's CERTAINLY not theft. Giving willingly because you're dumb isn't being stolen from. That judge needs to go back to law school.

To be coerced is to be threatened (or blackmailed/tortured) into doing something involuntry
your example is just a very bad hustle

[Deo2]

Give us your [item] or we will pk u until you drop it!!!

/depends on pvp system

[thursdasy]

Wow that must have taken awhile go go through the legal system, you haven't been able to do unbalance trades in months (in runescape).

[xPaperdoll]

To be coerced is to be threatened (or blackmailed/tortured) into doing something involuntry
your example is just a very bad hustle

Ooh, learned something today, you're right. I used the wrong word.

The judge is still wrong though, because in an online game, I really doubt this happened:

"Coercion- Statutes declare a person guilty of a misdemeanor if he, by violence or injury to another's person, family, or property, or by depriving him of his clothing or any tool or implement, or by intimidating him with threat of force, compels that other to perform some act that the other is not legally bound to perform."

Because tbh even if you said "I'm going to punch you in the face right now" you don't know where I live and I'm not threatened for my physical safety. And if you did know where I live, then it would be stalking, spying, invasion of privacy...w/e. It wouldn't be *just* "coercion". in this case, because it happened on the internets. Basically, anything that could have put this kid in any actual danger would have had other allegations and corresponding sentence.

[Geothermal]

Give me your Hagun or I'll shit down your chimney.

[Dagon]

I like this alot. US needs this, so many people/kids/etc get scammed everyday.




You lot on my kraken club, ill make judge judy sentence you to 250 hours of cleaning dog shit.

No we dont. Our court systems are ALREADY clogged with jackfucks. We dont need more screaming about "HE STOLE MY F#*$CKIN CLOUD SONG!!!"

[xPaperdoll]

No we dont. Our court systems are ALREADY clogged with jackfucks. We dont need more screaming about "HE STOLE MY F#*$CKIN CLOUD SONG!!!"

Actually, that would make for a very special Judge Judy episode.

If Judge Judy did a "halp, he stole mah itemz!!11" special I would be elated.