/ Cory Doctorow / 10:46 pm Tue Jun 9, 2009

Chinese court hands down prison for extortion of virtual wealth

A court in China sentenced a gangster to three years in prison for extorting virtual goods from a game-player (presumably someone involved in gold-farming, running a large guild or something other than simple play, as the man had nearly $15,000 worth of virtual items; though he may have just been super hardcore):
According to the Xinhua news agency, the man, along with three others, assaulted another man in the cafe, forcing him to give up various virtual goods and 100,000 yuan ($14,700) worth of the virtual currency known as QQ coins. The coins are the currency utilized by the major Chinese web portal, Tencent. It is used for the purchase of online goods and premium services for supported titles...

Despite the clear financial value, no law exists in China to protect virtual goods or currency. This case changed set a new precedent: The court ruled that the victim should be protected because he spent money on the extorted items. Under the ruling, the three men who assisted in the crime were fined. The primary defendant was sentenced to three years in prison.

(via Raph)

16

  2. Isn’t all wealth virtual? Or at least subjective. Real-world currency has as little intrinsic value as Tencent QQ’s.

    I am not a big fan of the Chinese court system, but in this case they got it right.

  4. Isn’t all wealth virtual?

    No, but modern money is.

    But what struck me in the article was this:

    the man … assaulted another man …

    Isn’t assault always illegal? Whereas extortion in a game, if you can figure out a way to do it all in the game, should be legal. Because if it wasn’t part of the game then the game programmer would have made it impossible.

  5. “QQ coins”?

    I’m assuming that those are the equivalent virtual value of the collective bitching about engineering/warriors/server downtime on the Warcraft forums, yes?

  6. How the heck did the guy get $14,700 in virtual currency? Some sort of commerce, or did he really spend $14,700 of his own money on it?

    Makes World of Warcraft look pretty damn affordable.

  7. was the court finding based on the assault? or assault and robbery? Or extortion? How does Chinese law work?

  8. Takuan @5:

    IANAL But: My understanding is that the cops tell the judge what you did, and they look-up your mandatory sentence on a list. :)

  10. I’m glad to see a country finally starting to deal with virtual property.

    I don’t see how virtual property is any different from “real” property with respect to its value. Assuming that it can’t be duplicated (which is dictated by the contracts and rules of the virtual world they are present in), each item has a value that it can be traded for. A player buys that item with real currency and could trade it again for real currency with somebody else.

    Compare this virtual item to a book: you buy it with money, you can use it for something (it has intrinsic value to the person who is in possession of it), and it can be sold to others for money. If I steal your book, you have lost the value that the book held both in your use of it and the potential to trade it to others. Is this any different with a virtual item?

    Keep in mind this argument is specifically towards whether the theft of such an item should be treated similarly to real property theft. A much different argument would be necessary when considering other things, like whether or not you “own” the item or are allowed the use of it by the service provider. Here too though, there is a similar theme: if you have paid for something, it is yours to do with as you please, and anybody preventing you from doing so is denying you a right that you have paid for.

  12. Are the RIAA not trying this very thing? Extorting money with force for a virtual thing of value as perceived by them?

  13. No, the RIAA is trying to defend its members intellectual property; they see people who republish members IP without their consent as thieves. There’s a cognitive difference, I suppose; property in a game, within the game, “feels” (is perceived as) more like physical property in the physical world. Hmmmm.

  14. How does virtual property differ from intellectual property, I wonder?

    Fundamentally.

    Intellectual property is the privilege to determine who gets to distribute or use certain information. It is created by the government, is based on legislation and its purpose is to influence real behaviour.

    Virtual property is some imagined object that exists only in a game, is created by the people who play the game, and its purpose is to let them do some stuff that in the real world can be done with actual property, but is illegal.

  15. How soon before somebody gets arrested for assault with a deadly weapon in World of Warcraft?

  16. Just wanna point out that the point here is not assigning value to virtual property and the correct perception.

    It’s about virtual currency that has real cash value.

    For example: 10 Project Entropy dollars has a fixed worth of $1 USD.

    Therefore if you are to physically force someone to transfer PED to you, you are stealing real assets.

Comments are closed.