First Cheating and Divorce... Now Laws Against Theft

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KennyFlys

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It seems we have to protect those imaginary characters in the virtual worlds. They can't be taken advantage of so...

Virtual Theft on the Rise
Worlds such as Second life face growing threat, says report

European legislators should consider new laws to prevent the theft of virtual goods, according to a report published today.

The position paper, produced by a group representing industry, government and the academic world, puts forward a number of suggestions to help the European Union deal with the rapid growth of virtual worlds such as Second Life and World of Warcraft.

With more than 1 billion registered accounts in online worlds — many of which make money through the sale of virtual goods and property — the threat of fraud and theft is growing, the report suggests. It says that while 30% of all users have lost something of value, often as a result of criminal activity, only 25% subsequently recovered the items — with laws and procedures for dealing with such situations often fuzzy.

"While annual real-money sales of virtual goods is estimated at nearly €1.5bn (£1.2bn) worldwide, users can do very little if their virtual property is stolen," said Giles Hogben, editor of the report. "They are a very soft target for cybercriminals."
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:dunno:

I don't get it. If it doesn't really exist, how could it be stolen. Frankly, IMHO, it teaches a valuable lesson: GET OUT OF THIS STUPID FANTASY WORLD AND GET BACK TO REALITY YOU LOSER!
 
flyersfan31 said:
:dunno:

I don't get it. If it doesn't really exist, how could it be stolen. Frankly, IMHO, it teaches a valuable lesson: GET OUT OF THIS STUPID FANTASY WORLD AND GET BACK TO REALITY YOU LOSER!
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Be nice, now. Only their world is fake. Their feelings are real.

Their intelligence is... undetectable.
 
flyersfan31 said:
:dunno:

I don't get it. If it doesn't really exist, how could it be stolen. Frankly, IMHO, it teaches a valuable lesson: GET OUT OF THIS STUPID FANTASY WORLD AND GET BACK TO REALITY YOU LOSER!
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+1

It also seems that many peoples' fantasies revolve around cheating on their spouses and stealing. What can we learn from that, hm...
 
hang on - a song is a virtual thing, as is an idea for a new aviation fuel. We already have laws that recognize that property doesn't have to be physical. People pay real money for some virtual stuff, so the theft of that stuff (which represented real effort by somebody somewhere when it was created) is still theft.
 
TMetzinger said:
hang on - a song is a virtual thing, as is an idea for a new aviation fuel. We already have laws that recognize that property doesn't have to be physical. People pay real money for some virtual stuff, so the theft of that stuff (which represented real effort by somebody somewhere when it was created) is still theft.
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Make the theft part of the game and deal with the theft inside the game. They're trying to create their own little virtual world--they shouldn't have to fall on the real world to save their ass when someone steals their house. Take it to the virtual court.

Now--if people from the outside real world are stealing their crap--perhaps they just need to make the game a little more secure. I don't think this country needs to deal with thousands of stupid 'Second Life' lawsuits.

Really--it's a good thing I don't get to decide these things :)
 
While we were playing with the early text MUD games in college on bitnet, the WHOLE CONCEPT was to steal crap from everyone to get your objective accomplished. If you just stupidly set something down without hiding it extremely well then came back a day later, it was going to be SOOO GONE. You just went back out and looked for it again. It's just the way things were.

In 2005, 41-year-old Chinese gamer Qiu Chengwei was sentenced to death for the murder of Zhu Caoyuan, 26 – after alleging that the younger man had stolen an item from him in the game Legend of Mir III.
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Weirdo's. While my education is lacking a bit in the psychology department, I'd have to make an educated guess that there's something seriously going wrong in a persons mind when they can't separate reality from fantasy. Pyschotic break? I bet these are the same people that used real guns when playing cops and robbers a generation ago and had no grasp of the real world results even after the gun went boom.

flyersfan31 said:
GET OUT OF THIS STUPID FANTASY WORLD AND GET BACK TO REALITY YOU LOSER!
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There ya go.
 
jesse said:
Make the theft part of the game and deal with the theft inside the game. They're trying to create their own little virtual world--they shouldn't have to fall on the real world to save their ass when someone steals their house. Take it to the virtual court.
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That's the answer, right there. Second Life police force, one that has the power to ban people, or put their character in jail for a long time?

I've never played the game, but it doesn't seem like much fun to log into a game to sit in a cell...
 
Rotor&Wing said:
Music is protected under copyright law, and it's not "virtual". Songs are cataloged with written music as well as lyrics.
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It's protected only if you've established yourself as the original writer and owner of that intellectual property. But, if you're dumb enough to write and produce a song you've written in a virtual world, you deserve what's coming.
 
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