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Dutch Court Convicts 2 Of Stealing Virtual Items
AmazingAvery
Age of Conan AdvocateMember UncommonPosts: 7,188
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.
www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/21/ap/strange/main4536700.shtml
Interesting! I wonder what other countries classify virtual goods as "goods"
Comments
That’s pretty stupid imo. Items in an mmorpg shouldn’t be counted as goods, they should be counted as intellectual property, and if that intellectual property is kept in the game then their shouldn’t be any grounds to a case.
holy crap thats a lot of community service.
even getting caught with pot gets only like 40 hours
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NOW that is the biggest load of crap I heard this month. I say this is even WORSE than Jagex's 10/12 updates! Why? kids suffer for virtual crap? People there must be crazy! fucking crazy
Im sorry to say, but 2 older kids con a 13 year old? Thats crap, theyre lucky, in my day, said 13 year olds older brother beat the other two up bad enough for a trip to the ER.
Secondly Id like to add, information gets bought and sold as a commodity all the time, so I can see where this is coming from.
Again Id just like throw out there, there are consequence to actions, the 2 older boys knew what they were doing was wrong. I think its good that theyre being held accountable for their decision to do something that they knew was wrong. It wasnt an accident, they made the choice to steal. Regardless what the item or items in question were, they still made the wrong choice. Now they have to live with it.
Do parents not teach personal accountability anymore?
I agree with the Dutch on this one. Theft is theft. If there is a victim there is a crime. If there was no victim here then it would not be a crime. say for example if you steal in game from an NPC as part of the game that would not be a crime simply because the NPC is not a victim, A human player is a victim therfore stealing from them regardless of if in agme or out of game is still a crime. I think it is about time Kids were set straight on real reprecussions to their actions whether or not they are sitting at a computer or mugging a kid on the street.
Now as far as the claim that virtual items do not have real value , the second that anyone sells a virtual item for real cash all of the same items have been given real value. It has been determined through gold sellers and real world traders that there is a cash value to virtual items in Runescape therefore the damage to the victim of theft would be determined by the current real world value of the items.
Other games such as second life have given real world value to all of their ingame items therefore it has been determined that virtual items DO have real value. Therefore if some one steals something of real value it is theft, and is a crime.
In that case they should have gotten jail time not community service. We have what you call "juvie" here, which is basically kiddie jail, and sounds like those 2 belong there instead of out on the streets doing this crap to others.
Thanks for the extra info, if that’s the case then the kids should have been tried as adults for extortion, threat of force with a deadly weapon, and if they forced the kid to one of their houses they should have also been charged with kidnapping.
I agree. I've seen this story in several places, and nobody EVER mentions the knife or the beating, even though they are very real crimes and far more serious punishments are given every day. People are too busy panicking and making a big scene "ZOMG VIRTUAL THEFT" and fail to realize that the items are irrelevant, virtual or otherwise.
I agree. I've seen this story in several places, and nobody EVER mentions the knife or the beating, even though they are very real crimes and far more serious punishments are given every day. People are too busy panicking and making a big scene "ZOMG VIRTUAL THEFT" and fail to realize that the items are irrelevant, virtual or otherwise.
Yep I didn't know the "other details" till just. totally agree
Wow those kids must have had a shitty lawyer... Like fucking first 10 lines of the EULA "All items and characters are property of Jagex and we just allow you to use them" or something like that but the Dutch court claims that its an item they have say over...
But seriously who the fuck takes some one to court over a video game...
Might wanna read the other posts as well, especially the ones explaining how these kids took the victim to their house, beat him up and threatened him with a knife.
They got off easy, as is usual in Dutch Law
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Did you read the rest of the posts? They kid got beat up, basically kidnapped and held up with a knife till forking over the items. I would of did more then that to be honest. This 15 and 14yr old need a good ass whoppin, seriously. Beating up some kid over a game item is plain stupid. Especially for a game such as Runescape.
Ok I re read the posts and the post makes more sense to me now
although doing all that shit here and only getting 160 hours of community service? WTF
lol thats funny. i do that to my friend with a toy sword. most of time he just destroy my toy.lol
They got off easy. Also people who think virtual items are not the same as rl stuff. think again. would you feel someone stole from you if you wrote a book on your laptop and someone stole it, it was never real just bits of data floating in virtual space. or maybe they stole your E-mail or virtual diary. this is now all counted as time your spent of things you earned . so think about it next time someone reads your private messages online. if you feel vr is not real then print them out and delete the NOT REAL stuff.
to be honest i might just laugh at my misfortune.
This article clarifies it more. Let's just say I didn't find it.
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wat article?
The american dollar is virtual goods. Every month...many of us pay our mmo accounts with money that is backed by nothing...dollars in name only..even the paper franklins and washingtons in our pockets might as well be intangible.....and if we steal those...we get in trouble. So why not punishment for the theft of other virtual goods?
wat article?
Click the 'This'.
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Robbing some kid for his runescape items? Thats just sad. Although I have a dutch friend that I talk to and she says computers are a rarity over there and if you have a computer thats about all you have to do in your free time is play PC games like runescape. So I see why they get so serious about stuff like that.
Yeah yeah ok..
wait.. what? computers a rarity here in holland? thats the funniest thing ive heard in a looong time
holland has the most broadband connections in europe o_0 over 80% of all homes have acces to the internet here (in holland).
also "if you have a computer u can only play rs" what the hell?
are we 3rd world country or what... we have all the latest computers lol :P dunno where that gf of yours lives, maybe under a big rock? 
MMOs currently playing: -
About to play: Lord of the Rings Online
Played: Anarchy Online (alltime favorite) and lots of f2p titles (honorable mentions: 9Dragons, Martial Heroes, Dekaron, Atlantica Online)
Hey hey no need to take offense I just said computers are a rarity, I didn't say they werent the latest or that you live in a third world country.
Btw she lives in the Netherlands and she's not my gf.