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PC Games (Games) Role Playing (Games) Entertainment Games

Online Gamer Wins Virtual Theft Lawsuit 38

Posted by simoniker from the virtual-money-for-nothing dept.
ThePretender writes "A Reuters article details the story of (what I believe is) the first online-gaming lawsuit won regarding virtual theft, with a Chinese court ordering a game company to 'return hard-won virtual property to a player whose game account was looted by a hacker'. Apparently, the article feels the need to throw in that the RedMoon-playing gamer's looted booty included 'a make-believe stockpile of bio-chemical weapons' for some reason... 'I exchanged the equipment with my labour, time, wisdom and money, and of course they are my belongings,' said Li Hongchen (the gamer) and the courts agreed, ordering the game company to restore his bounty." We've covered earlier stages of this lawsuit in the past.
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Online Gamer Wins Virtual Theft Lawsuit More

Online Gamer Wins Virtual Theft Lawsuit

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  • UO could be next (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Kurgol ( 53885 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @12:21PM (#7765847)
    Not sure if this bodes well, Ultima Online have had a long standing policy of not replacing lost items for any reason. Wonder if this could be legislated ;-)

  • Let me get this straight... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @12:35PM (#7766024) Homepage Journal
    OK, let me get this straight:

    Person spends long hours working with computer.
    Person creates virtual object.
    Person loses virtual object due to crackers exploiting software bug.
    Person sues maker of software for restoration of virtual object.
    Person wins in court.

    OK....

    So, can a person sue Microsoft to restore all the word processing documents they have lost due to crashes? Can they sue Microsoft for the files lost when a web site is defaced due to an IIS bug?

    Begin RANT:

    All these stories of people getting so wrapped up in various online games just indicate to me that some people have
    a) Too DAMN much time on their hands, and
    b) a complete ABSENCE of a sense of proportion.

    Just 200 years ago, most people were too focused on TRYING TO STAY ALIVE.

    Now we have people with nothing better to do than to sue other people over make-believe!

    Is that progress, or what?

    (and that question is asked in all seriousness - I tend toward "or what" myself....)
    • Sure; you could consider that analogy if MS already had a copy/defination of the lost object in hand and merely had to copy it to your account for you to access it.
    • However, if I accumulate say in game currency which is exchangeable in some form with real world currency (ie, selling credits on ebay) then wouldn't theft of the ingame currency constitute a real-world loss and therefore be covered under theft laws?

    • Re: This isn't Flamebait (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The guy may have made his(her?) point in a blunt, annoyed manner, but he made a very good point. Where do you draw the line between one set of data that represents a virtual possession, versus another set of data that has real-life value?

    • Re:Let me get this straight... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by brkello ( 642429 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @03:48PM (#7768399)
      Ugh, where to start with this.

      So, can a person sue Microsoft to restore all the word processing documents they have lost due to crashes? Can they sue Microsoft for the files lost when a web site is defaced due to an IIS bug?

      This is a horrible analogy. If MS was able to restore a document, they would. But they didn't create the document, so if it is lost, how in the world can they bring it back? In an online game, the company creates the objects and therefore is able to restore them.

      I think that this is progress. Many years ago, only the very wealthy could enjoy free time. Now a majority of people have free time to do with it what they want. You may not agree with how they use it, but I think you might be a little judgemental in this case. You really don't have the right to tell others what they should do with their free time.

      This person chose their free time as being a game. They spend a lot of time getting the character up to a point and they just don't want to lose all that from the negligence of a company or some malicious external party. Just because something is virtual, doesn't mean it it is without value. I didn't think I would need to make that point on Slashdot. So you don't care about video games. You can replace it with anything you value and put a lot of time in to. Let's say you are at work and just finished a program for accounting that took two years. Someone hacks your site and you didn't back it up. The virtual thing with value is lost. I understand that a video game really doesn't effect other people and is not as important as the example above. But to that one person it represents time and money, and that is enough for it to have value. It is unfortunate that this had to go to court, but if it wasn't a valid case, he wouldn't have won (I know that all cases that are won aren't valid, but that is usually when it is someone with money and power, this is just some guy who plays a game).
      • [quote] Just because something is virtual, doesn't mean it it is without value[/quote] No, but the player needs to actually own it and not just subscribe to it in order to have a legal right to that value. If you join a gym, you don't have the right to sell the equipment there. If a particular cycle that you like to ride is out of service one day, you don't have a right to any cash value that you might associate with your usage that day, and if someone steals the equipment in the gym you don't have a rig
        • I don't really agree because your analogy misses the mark by a long shot. This doesn't show the negligence of security on the gym's part like in the case. It would be like having gym membership and they give you some "virtual" money good for stuff at their online gym store. You have been going there for years, building up your gym points. But the gym has horrible security on their website and some bastard at the gym steals your points and buys his own personal gym with it. Your time and money earned yo
    • OK a valid respons Musician spends long hours toiling on mixing board Musician creats hit single (not actually an object either) Muciaian looses song to downstairs neighboor due to "wall is thin bug" Musician sues asshole for stealing song profit. the person is exploiting a mistake in the software. the software maker did not intend for the bug to be present, but the person exploiting it, knows what he is doing. your argument is lame. speaking of time on there hands, you must have at least as much as i to

  • virtual property (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You'd think that theft of virtual property would already be pretty well established as a crime... it shouldn't make any difference whether the property is redeemable for real money [infonow.net] or for entertainment. Theft of amusement fair tokens is the same as theft of vegas chips.

    • Re:virtual property (Score:3, Interesting)

      by *weasel ( 174362 )
      the lawsuit was not over the theft of virtual property.

      it was over whether the game maker should give a player stuff back that he claims was stolen by a hacker.

      the court decided the game maker should replace the persons stuff.

      It had no bearing whatsoever on whether the theft was a crime, or the alleged 'hacking' of the game was a crime. It -did- have a bearing on whether the meatspace court had jurisdiction to dictate fair compensation inside of a virtual world.

      whether the court can force a game compan

  • Tax It (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Cajun Hell ( 725246 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @12:39PM (#7766073) Homepage Journal
    If it can be stolen, then it's property. If it's property, then it can be taxed. Also, increases are income, and that can be taxed too.

    Clever thinking, Chinese government.

    • Re:Tax It (Score:5, Insightful)

      by musikit ( 716987 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @01:58PM (#7767067)
      i would agree with you for the people that say gain 1 million gold in everquest and sell it on ebay. the article doesn't mention weather he was interested in selling or not or if sold items at all. in which case fine tax him! however he wasn't going after what the items are "worth" in real money he was going after basically a refund. he wasn't even asking for money for his time he spent (Which i believe a lot of americans would do). again the article doesn't mention these things. all it says is he spent approx. $1200 USD on playing the game and he wanted $1200 USD back.

      However if you are nice enough to live in the US then the tax law does allow you to make money off your hobbies however i believe it is limited to $500
    • what would this be, you have to give the digital government a cyber mule? do they ran sack your house if you don't fill out your digital W2

  • Real law, virtual law -- another crossover (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jezor ( 51922 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @12:39PM (#7766078) Homepage
    As someone who teaches cyberlaw [tourolaw.edu], I find this case interesting but not unique. After all, what we're really talking about is intangible property--essentially, a contractual right to do certain things in a certain context. Almost like a license. In other words, the company set up the game to allow the player to do X, then messed up its security so that the player was prevented from doing X. Player didn't get the benefit of his agreement to use the game.

    What would have been more interesting would be if the game had included a virtual "court," the player had won in that "court," and a real-world court had been used to enforce the "judgment." I'm sure that's coming one of these days. It's a logical outgrowth of situations such as that described by Julian Dibbell in "A Rape In Cyberspace," [juliandibbell.com] which I assign to my students each semester. {Professor Ezor}

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @12:40PM (#7766096)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Interesting take on the future of cyberspace (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Tikiman ( 468059 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @03:17PM (#7768028)
      for one thing this mean a court of law in a country (China) says virtual items are just the same as real. Likewise it means that there is a legitimate claim to such items, ie a person can own a item even if it is intangable.

      while not so much a issue now, It COULD be one in the future, one that could become a very serious issue. By making things legitimate now you advoid the issues that could come later

      This is exactly what we have now - with US currency. Its not backed by any metal standard - it only has value because we think it does. I am curious as to what percentage of money used in transactions is "virtual", e.g. credit cards, wire transfers, etc. The only difference between money in a MMORPG and "real" money is that real money is backed up by a government as opposed to a private company with no real guarantees.

    • for one thing this mean a court of law in a country (China) says virtual items are just the same as real. Likewise it means that there is a legitimate claim to such items, ie a person can own a item even if it is intangable.

      It's ironic that this happens in China, which is Communist in name. A simplistic view of communism would be that private property doesn't exist - and now virtual private property (private virtual property) does exist.

  • When the company gave back all his stuff, did they find out where it went to? And removed it from the offenders account, or simply recreated the items.

    If they just recreated them, I can see this being abused, somone hiding an item then "hey someone stole my 10000 point axe of doom, i'm going to call my lawyer!"
  • China is running statute law system.

    While US and UK etc. are running common law system.

    This case is very unlikely to be used as a preceding case for common law system.

    Save your champagne until someone actually win a simliar case in US, UK... :)

    Well, to gamers in China, save your champagne as well. There's no 'preceding case' mechanism I can tell in China's statute law system. I think you'd better save it til YOU actually win a case. :)

  • Terrible Ruling (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Shihar ( 153932 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @01:25PM (#7766661)
    I personally find this ruling to be terrible and not thought out. When you are paying for an online game, you are paying for a service. Now, if the service states that under the event of bugs, hackers, or whatever, you are entitled to reimbursement and they fail to provide this, fine. Take them to court. They are breathing their end of the agreement. If on the other hand this is not a promised piece of the agreement, then this is utterly ridiculous. For online games to be viable services, they need flexibility to decide how they want to deal with problems like lost virtual property.

    As an intelligent consumer you might very well make your decision about what games you play based upon the level of security they are willing to offer. Second Life for instance states that any thing you create is yours. Other games make no such claim. If you like that sort of agreement, then shell out money to Second Life and not SWG or Everquest.

    If there was a true breach of contract here, great, the company got what it deserved if it did not live up the services it said it would give. If on the other hand there was no such promise then this sort of decision is a blow the online games (at least in China).

  • pk (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    So, my understanding of most of these games is that if you kill someone and take their stuff, well, that's frowned upon, but still "ok" because it is considered part of the game. But apparently, if someone just takes your stuff, that's a different manner. I understand that in one case, it's a bug and the other it's gameplay, but I wonder what courts will make of that distinction down the road when the line becomes more grey.

  • Disgraceful (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Mirkon ( 618432 )
    This is just ridiculous.

    Aside from the victim's general idiocy, aside from the ominous implications of a government (even the Chinese government) interfering with the play of an online game, there's something to be said about the crux of the man's case, the fact that he worked for the items and required compensation at their loss.

    It's a game.
    He paid that much to play enough to amass those items? Good for him. But that's a dumb move, and no one should be protected for it. He put all his eggs in on
  • I'm very much saddened by the responses posted so far.

    This is an excellent ruling.

    Maybe people think the guy's "sad" or whatever for caring so much about his virtual property, but that is irrelevant in a court case.

    I sincerely hope this case will send a message to other games companies that they cannot treat their customers in this way and then hide behind an EULA, not answer telephones, ignore e-mails, etc.

    If a company's business is allowing people to play an online game then they have a responsibility
    • If someone hits me on the head with a golf ball I'm within my rights to sue not only the offender , but also the course owner , even though it just a game.
    • Agreed.

      It should have been decided in a 20 second gavel-smack from Judge Judy (or the Chinese equivalent thereof), as it was too stupid to have gone to court. The game company, assuming that they accepted culpability, should have immediately restored the virtual property. That's surely just plain common sense, they have utterly failed to provide the service for which he paid - that is in part to maintain his (virtual) property. By their own admission (D'Oh!) his virtual property had absolutely no value to
    • Yup, excellent points.

      Folks are way too focussed on the fact that it was a game. It's totally irrelevant what the data was. The guy was paying them to store his data, whether it's game data, financial documents, tax returns, or whatever. And most likely, they won't even allow you to store the data yourself, so it's not like he could have had a backup.

      I can't believe it ever got this far, myself. Basic customer service should have investigated the matter, restored the data if they could show it was their

      • Folks are way too focussed on the fact that it was a game. It's totally irrelevant what the data was. The guy was paying them to store his data, whether it's game data, financial documents, tax returns, or whatever. And most likely, they won't even allow you to store the data yourself, so it's not like he could have had a backup.

        That's assuming it was his data to begin with. Realistically, all this person pays for is access to a server, with the ability to use database records which are owned by the compa

      • He wasn't paying them to store his data, he was paying them to be entertained. (Ie the definition of a game). Let's pretend you're playing cribbage and someone moves your peg back (costing you points) when you aren't looking. Do you sue the company that made the cribbage board and the deck of cards? You didn't buy cribbage to accumulate points, you bought cribbage to have fun playing a game. The points aren't your property, they are an indicator of how you are doing(did) in the game. Same as this guys red m
        • Let's pretend you're playing cribbage and someone moves your peg back (costing you points) when you aren't looking. Do you sue the company that made the cribbage board and the deck of cards?

          Of course you don't, because the crib company never promised that a prime feature of the board was that it would remember the state you left it in. The board has done *everything* they promised it would. That however, is not the case with the online game, and why he won his case.

          You don't pay to accumlate virtual ite

  • I hope to God that this doesn't cross over to any other countries because this sets a very bad precedent for online gaming services. Suddenly, the items in a game aren't an aspect of a [i]service[/i]. This is the court in China saying that the items are, for all intents and purposes, real and that players actually own them. God help the developers if they have to roll back a server and players decide to sue for "lost wages", or if a game is no longer profitable for them and they decide to terminate the s

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