Dutch Supreme Court Rules That Free Virtual Items Theft Is Real Word Crime

February 1, 2012 - 3:47pm

The Dutch Supreme Court has ruled that theft of virtual goods is a crime punishable by real-world criminal sentence, even if the stolen items were free.

The crime that prompted the ruling took place in 2007 when two teenagers beat a 13 years old boy and threatened him with a knife until he logged in to RuneScape and transferred a (virtual) mask and amulet to one of his assailants' characters.

A lower court has already sentenced the offenders to 144 hours of community service each in 2009, but one of them appealed to the country supreme court on the grounds that the stolen goods "were neither tangible nor material and, unlike for example electricity, had no economic value."

The Supreme Court however counter-argued that the stolen virtual items have value because of the "time and energy invested" to acquire them.

The court's logic sounds right to us. After all, people don't still worthless stuff at knifepoint. Make sure to express your opinion in the comments section below.

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Comments

Stupid Dutch??

Stupid Dutch?? Easy to say it on the web anonymously.. would have loved it if you said it face to face to me. Would have lodged your teeth at the back of your skull. This may be a stupid law and the supreme court may have taken it to far but what does this have to do with the dutch, and when you say the dutch I assume you mean all the dutch, been stupid.

Meh

Best way to solve this dilemma is to simply remove the ability to share virtual items with other players, wouldn't really a be a major blow to how economies work anyway. You could still use in game auction houses.

Many online games' end user

Many online games' end user agreement states that all items are property of the game developer. With no ownership there are no property rights. However, threatening another player with physical harm in real life is a crime even if there is no property involved.

Game companies should restore

Game companies should restore lost accounts/items/currencies free of charge for customers, which makes this issue pretty much null. They need to also look at IP locking for protection. A bunch of MMOs use it and it adds extra security with little to no extra hassle for the user.

EVE Online

I'll have to forward this article to a few dutch friends of mine who play eve-o. Corp theft is a major pastime there. I have my doubts that the victims would bring the offenders to court tho, based solely on their lack of identity.

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