Theft of virtual goods generated sentence in real life

The events took place in The Hague, a city of 500000 inhabitants on the west coast of Holland. A 13 year old boy was in possession of an amulet and a mask in the world of RuneScape , they were taken by real threats. The events ended with two young men serving a sentence with community work hours and setting precedent for crimes that include virtual goods.

The platform involved is a massively multiplayer role-playing game online (known as MMORPG by its acronym in English) where more than 10 million registered users interact in a medieval kingdom. The game contains wizards, monsters, warriors and other classic characters of this genus. In the title the user can use amulets in the battles are won or created with their skills, give them special powers to the character who takes them. The masks in turn can accelerate the collection of points in some cases while in others only work as avatar clothing. Both are part of the various collections through the gaming experience.

The crime took place in 2007 when a young couple was beaten and threatened a 13 year old boy forced to leave the objects that were obtained within the play. Pointed a knife the smallest was taken to a computer where you agreed to Runescape to deliver the mask and amulet while another of the offenders was ready to collect the objects that would be available. After the fact the victim made the report in a local court ruling issued in 2009, but the defendants appealed taking the case to Dutch Supreme Court. The platform had already made ​​headlines for criminal acts , but to a lesser degree of violence.

The defense attorney argued that the mask and amulet are not tangible objects or materials and, unlike the case of electricity, for example, lack of economic value. But the Dutch supreme court ruled:

The goods have an intrinsic value to the plaintiff for the time and energy you put into your collection in the game.

The business model free-to-play has been an unqualified success on mobile devices and social networks, prompting companies to seek profit through purchasing generations after downloading an application or use of a platform. Virtual goods are a business giant in the world and its great growth makes it increasingly more difficult to recognize the limits of virtual economies, were previously defined almost exclusively for games today could be applied to many more businesses. Only in the United States expect to transactions exceeding 2.9 billion dollars in this category.

There are few cases in which the court takes outbursts or scams such objects, but certainly in the coming years should legislate on them because they are paid or free will be everywhere. It will be necessary to understand and protect achievements that a person gets into a virtual community as objects of their property.