Dutch court convicts teens for stealing pixels A pair of Dutch teenagers have been convicted of theft for stealing virtual items from a classmate. Leeuwarden district court sentenced the boys, aged 14 and 15 to community service for punching, kicking, and threatening their 13-year-old victim with a knife until he agreed to transfer a virtual amulet and mask from the game …
I agree with the judgement. The defence's argument is that because the items are not real they can not be sold. The same could be said for the billions of dollars of financial products bought and sold on the stock exchanges around the world. It's a silly argument.
If the item has value, and particularly if those that stole the item ( whether tangible or not) can sell that item on and make a profit, then that virtual item exhibits the key properties of a real physical item and should be regarded as being the same.
Same could be said for intellectual property, and that clearly can be stolen, so defence's argument was clearly rubbish.
>"The court rejected the defense's argument, stating that "these virtual goods are goods, so this is theft," in a summary of its ruling. It cited an earlier ruling the electricity can be considered a material object for the purpose of criminal law and that stealing electricity is theft. The same principle can be applied to virtual objects in this case, the court ruled."
There's an even simpler definition: Anything that you can hit someone for and tell them you'll keep on hitting them until they hand it over is "goods", as far as the definition of "theft" need be concerned.
Because this particular item "the amulet" is transfered from on player to another and that the original owner cannot use it anymore after it is transfered, this is theft. But when something is only COPIED, it is not theft. (and hopefully never will).
This distinction must be made clear so dangerous criminal organisations (such as the RIAA/MPAA) are using the "copy is theft' excuse to STEAL money from innocent peoples across the planet.
a digital item can be stealed if the original owner cannot enjoy it anymore.. but if the digital object is only copied, it is no theft.
Information,
I might knock the snot out of Jimmy to tell me who wrote "dickhead" on my locker. That gives me information which I value, but that would not constitute theft.
It is surely only theft when the thief gains value and others lose value. In the case of the virtual items, the victim lost the life-enhancing pleasures that he would have gained from ownership of the virtual goods.
@Scott & Jaap:
read the article - they attacked him in real life, not online. This ruling does not mean you can go crying to the police because you are attacked/killed and have your stuff stolen in a game.
Mines the one with the Mace of Ultimate Thwappage +10 in the pocket
the company that is now sending cease and desist letters to hospitals/clinics that are testing womens pre-disposition to breast cancer.
when will we wake up and realise that we have truly fucked this world we live in by trying to pass laws on things that are blatantly wrong.
give the kids punishment for threatening, hurting etc the victim but for stealing virtual possessions hell THEY DIDN'T EVEN EXIST!
what's next?
...lemme get this straight. A couple of people assault, beat, and threaten the life of another person, and the bit the courts are concerned about is whether or not you can steal an item that's not made of physical stuff? Surely that's an irrelevant footnote, right? Surely the assaulting, beating, and threatening of another person is already against the law, right? Right? WTF kind of justice system is this, anyway?
Sounds like they got exactly what they deserved. Time spent away from their computers amongst real people. Admittedly, when I was younger, I had quite a few of those moments when you look up from a game and notice that is now light again outside [later on that tended to happen with programming ], but that's no excuse for giving some one a thumping offline instead of on.
I had a mobile phone nicked and the twit that did it racked up £50 on phone sex lines before dropping it in the laundry basket where his mum found it and returned it to me. Do you think I could claim anything back? No. Apparently if it was a landline phone or stealing electricity, yes, but not mobile airtime.
1. the article does not say that the culprits were not also prosecuted for assault and battery (in English law, "assault" is, basically, a threat with the ability to carry it out, the act is "battery", no idea what Dutch law says). I think that carrying a weapon can make it Aggravated Assault. I imagine that they were done for the Dutch equivalent AND for the theft or
2. as in English law, prosecuted for robbery, which is theft accompanied by violence or the threat of violence, in which case I suppose that one would have to prove the theft part as well as the violence.
Theft, by the way, at least from what I remember from some years ago, is basically, the appropriation of property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it, with exceptions covering such things as a reasonable belief that one has got a right to it, finding it and being unable to trace the owner etc.. So, in English law, it comes down to the defintion of property in this case (leaving aside the assault).
The poster talking about "extortion" needs to get out a bit and realise that not the whole world is under USA law, yet.
"...a digital item can be stealed if the original owner cannot enjoy it anymore.. but if the digital object is only copied, it is no theft."
I imagine you'd probably think differently if someone made a complete copy of all your personal information, HDD contents etc for their own enjoyment, and possibly profit? How about your ISP copying all your online actions and selling that - after all, it's to help you have a better online experience!
In neither case have you lost anything, but I'd still consider both cases to be theft. By railing against the RIAA etc, be careful you're not giving more ammo to the Phorms of this world....
> Also, Scott, I take it you haven't played many MMOs, as you genraly can't "steal" items from other people in game. You can trade them but not steal them, unless they are BoP.
... *sighs* Bring back Ultima Online in the pre-Trammel days when "thief" and "murderer" were career choices </nostalgia>
It sets a precedent for when governments attempt to dip into virtual earnings for tax purposes. The US (shocking no?) has already made rumblings about wanting to do this.
By allowing these items to have 'value' that 'value' can then be taxed as income... allegedly.
Oi. When will the Stupid stop?
it wasn´t WoW and he does not have a omfgret pally. Since patch 3.0.2 every time I Divine Storm + CS + judge + HoW someone I hit so freakking hard that even that players descendants feel teh pain!!
Anon, cause I am ashamed of being so nerd.
Mines the plate one with the purple [Brutal Gladiator´s Scaled Chestguard] tag on it.
@ P. J. Isserlis
Your definition is almost spot on - except the property taken must be COPOREAL moveable property. This is why cases regarding the theft of virtual goods in the UK (to my knowledge one hasn't been reported yet) will be very interesting.
Courts in England and in Scotland have previously held that stealing customer data on a floppy disk (case is starting to date!) did not satisfy the corporeal element of the crime of theft, thus the only crime committed was the theft of the physical floppy, not of the data on the disk. Of course you could sue for damages, but the theft of the data is only theft in the moral sense, not the legal one.
The intent of intellectual property rights law is to render a non-rivalrous good (such as an image of an audio CD, or a copy of a digital photograph) excludable. Non-rivalrous goods are those for which possession by one person does not prevent possession by another (rivalrous goods tend to be tangible, e.g. a car or a hamburger). Non-excludable goods are those by which there is no mechanism to prevent those who have not paid for them enjoying them. Non-rivalrous, non-excludable goods (AKA public goods) tend to be things like a beautiful sunset or a free concert in a park (the park itself is non-rivalrous and non-excludable, up to a point). The purpose of IPR is to assign a more-or-less temporary monopoly on a non-rivalrous good in an attempt to make it worthwhile for content providers to continue making new content.
If the artefact in the RPG was non-rivalrous, then (other than the assault and battery) the perpetrators would have been guilty of copyright infringement, which is usually treated as a tort (although in some jurisdictions it is liable to criminal sanction). But since the original owner relinquished his ownership of the artefact and could not subsequently enjoy it, it was rivalrous, and thus the perpetrators' actions constituted theft with violence, i.e. robbery.
Ok, let me get this straight...it's ok for someone to make a digital copy of music on the internet and then transfer that for yourself and then listen to it over and over again and never pay anyone, right?
So by that reasoning, it should be ok if I make a digial copy of your bank card and transfer your money to me so I can spend it over and over again. That's alright now, innit? And what's best; I never have to pay for it!
By the by...the judge should have had the older kids locked in stocks and let the younger one kick them in the 'nads a few times (in addition t their time for theft).
"I imagine you'd probably think differently if someone made a complete copy of all your personal information, HDD contents etc for their own enjoyment, and possibly profit? How about your ISP copying all your online actions and selling that - after all, it's to help you have a better online experience!"
I would feal up set BUT it is not steeling it is a diffrent offence I do not nkow what but it is nt stealing
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
