Evidently South Korean police have said that out of 40,000 complaints of cybercrime in the first six months of 2003, 22,000 relate to ‘crimes’ committed in online games.
The argument appears to be that the theft of game items that can be sold for real money on EBay are real life crimes.
Full story:
I thought for MMOGs its all the game company’s property, from a legal standpoint.
That’s the stance that SOE and Mythic take.
That article was so vague. I wish it would have named some specific crimes. I’m not sure the examples it tossed up were actual crimes that had been reported. It read almost like the author was tossing up hypotheticals.
I think the article is fairly clear that nobody is actually being prosecuted for these crimes. The fact that such crimes are “reported” in Korea doesn’t mean that anything is being done about it; the police in America take thousands of complaints every year about things that either aren’t crimes, or aren’t crimes the police will pursue. Reporting an incident does not equal investigation or prosecution by the government.
The article seems to be more of a speculation piece, wondering if such crimes ever WOULD be investigated or prosecuted. Interesting question. I guess it’s theoretically possible. For example, in California, petty theft is the taking of something of value from another without their permission. Would that apply to the theft of an intangible online item? It could, I guess. The article concentrates almost exclusively on the “of value” issue, which to me doesn’t seem like a big deal–I don’t think it would be hard to demonstrate that online items or characters have some value. More problematic are things like “taken from another” (if the property all belongs to Sony, it hasn’t been taken when it goes from Player A to Player B) and “without permission” (if you play a game with PvP, for example, that seems like tacit permission for people to gank you and take your stuff if they do it within the rules of the game, even if you don’t want them to).
What about crimes like fraud, embezzlement, or extortion? Again, one big stumbling block would be Sony’s claim that all the property is Sony’s–you haven’t defrauded anyone out of anything if the valuable item never leaves Sony’s possession, right? Unless you claim that the valuable item was the “license” or whatever from Sony to have the item in your inventory.
Another issue, not really addressed in the article, is the possibility of a civil lawsuit. Most property crimes are also civil wrongs that can be pursued by the victim. For example, taking someone’s property is a crime (theft), but also a tort (conversion). Could a player sue another player for taking property? They’d have the same problems as above, but they would benefit from having a lower standard of proof, and not having to convince the police to pursue the case. On the downside, the cost of a lawyer would probably be more than the case was worth, unless online stuff has gotten very valuable.
Anyway, interesting article.
The article seems to be more of a speculation piece, wondering if such crimes ever WOULD be investigated or prosecuted. Interesting question. I guess it’s theoretically possible. For example, in California, petty theft is the taking of something of value from another without their permission. Would that apply to the theft of an intangible online item? It could, I guess. The article concentrates almost exclusively on the “of value” issue, which to me doesn’t seem like a big deal–I don’t think it would be hard to demonstrate that online items or characters have some value. More problematic are things like “taken from another” (if the property all belongs to Sony, it hasn’t been taken when it goes from Player A to Player B) and “without permission” (if you play a game with PvP, for example, that seems like tacit permission for people to gank you and take your stuff if they do it within the rules of the game, even if you don’t want them to).
I don’t think anyone could be prosecuted. It really is the game company’s property. To use an anology, say you work in an office. You’d have your computer and desk, but they really aren’t yours they are the property of the company you work for. Now say another employee takes your computer and puts it on their desk. They haven’t legally stolen the computer and would never be prosecuted for a real crime as such. The matter is an internal issue the company will deal with.
Good analoy, tronnc, but there’s another element at work here. What if people within the company were using eBay to pay for the right to have a particular computer at their desk, thereby assigning an independent monetary value to where that computer is sitting within the company. It seems that the tricky angle the article brought up.
-TomWhat if people within the company were using eBay to pay for the right to have a particular computer at their desk, thereby assigning an independent monetary value to where that computer is sitting within the company.
Then I would qualify that only those items which have transferred through the changing of hard currency would have actual real-world value applied to them outside of the jurisdiction of the game company’s ownership.
However, in those cases, it’s more likely that you’ll be dealing with eBay and the Federales than the game company and the local deputies.
What if I pay $50 on EBay for an item and then SOE nerfs it? Do I have a property interest in the item I bought? SOE is clearly going to say “no,” and although I don’t know much about the issue legally, my instinct is that SOE is right: that EQ players purchase a license to use the game, but the game and everything in it is SOE’s property.
It really is an interesting issue, though.
I’d like to reiterate the obvious:
Don’t allow users to trade in-game material for money, and this won’t happen.
In-game happenstance should not be a crime in the real world. Otherwise, there is no game, as the question of a game’s reality gets decided in a court of law.
So what happens in a game like MTG:online where there is something beig actually purchased? What happens if your assets are hijacked?
But the only way to do that is to not allow things to be traded at all, and that would be detrimental to the games.
Good question from TT about MTG. If someone somehow steals my deck or gets cards from me through fraud, would that be actionable? Do the folks behind MTG treat the electronic cards as the company’s property, or the owner’s property?
I’d have to think towards the User property angle for MTG. If only because WotC has said you can send them full sets of cards and get the online versions in-game (or the reverse is true, I forget which). They’ve basically said that there is a connection between real-world and the game in terms of physical product.
As for MMORPGs, I realize that buying is a form of trading, but it really is different. The reason there’d be far less trading if you banned (being able to do this is a whole different thread) buying items is that the only reason it happens is because people have more money then time, and the people with more time then money delight in that fact.
Personally, I think there’s no actionable crime involved in MMORPG item theft (fraud sales, maybe, since it’s by nature fraud, but still maybe). It should be handled by the game company however they see fit (ban a proven “thief”, return the item to the victim, laugh and say “Fool!”, whatever). You’re paying someone to give you access to a portion of a game you don’t own, so it can’t be stolen from you.
How are problematic ebay auctions handled? With a user feedback system. There we have an electronic system for selling real world goods, which I would call a halfway step between “real world system for selling real world goods” and “electronic system for selling electronic goods”.
If after every transaction in a MMORPG, users could give a thumbs up/thumb down and a description of a problem, communities could police themselves.
Yet another market that can’t be shut down, because people really want it, same as drugs, alcohol, prostitution.
My take:
The problem is that for virtually all the MMORPGs, actually getting to level 50 or whatever isn’t as much fun as lording it over people that you are level 50 and have the Sword of Foozle Slaying. Real-world auctions are a natural outgrowth of pellet-based “gameplay”. Maybe if they don’t want people buying in-game status with real-world money they should make a game whose fun comes from more than building status.
A number of points:
"Property can be incorporal as well as corporal, for example intellectual property.
If the company is accepting money in exchange for something, and if that exchange is legally enforceble in court (i.e., the company wants to be able to sue if the check bounces), then by legal definition (in the common law, the civil law is different) there has been an exchange of property. In this case, the property is probably in the form of a license to use. But a license to use somebody elses property is itself a form of property, and is protectable by both criminal and civil sanctions.
I agree that this particular case might not actually constitue theft technically defined. But is would still constitute “conversion” (unpermitted use of property by someone not the owner). An example of conversion would be me renting a car, and while I am renting it, someone else taking it for a joy ride and then abandoning it. That seems to be what is happening here. The player is licensing access to a company’s service. That license gives that player exclusive rights (a property right in the form of a license to use) with regards to particular aspects of that service (a special gaming capacity called a +2 sword). That exclusive capacity has be appropriated – or converted – by someone other than the licensee and without that licensee’s permission. This would be sufficient to give the state the right to prosecute the converter if it choose.
Finally, two other points. As a matter of criminal law, the question of who actually owns the property is irrelevant so long as it is agreed that the “theft” was by someone who didn’t own it. And the simple fact that a company says that it owns all ‘property’ associated with a particular game does not by itself make it so. In some cases (probably not this one), the law will determine that a valid transfer of some property right has or has not occurred despite the proclamations of the prior owner. A common locale for this is in bankruptcy proceedings.
Surely by taking part in a game where theft is allowed anyone who willingly signs up is consenting to the possiblity that their in-game property might be taken by another player. To take another example if I launch a rugby tackle on someone in the street, I’m guilty of assault. If I were to do so whilst playing rugby or American Football, I could reasonably expect not to be arrested.
IANAL and all that, but it could come down to what English law, at least, refers to as ‘lawful excuse’. Theft being the taking someone else’s property without lawful excuse. Playing Everquest according to the rules of the game could be argued to be a lawful excuse for taking in-game property.
The entire South Korean online gaming population needs to get a life.
I think there is much to what you say, although I wonder if it is really all that great even at the high levels. Current MMORPGs are all about the tease… kind of like a market bubble where everyone is looking for the greater fool. But what do they do when the supply of virgins dries up? (Switching metaphors in mid-stream. ;-))