UK Politician Calls for Real Life Sentences for Virtual Item Thieves

[Fappy]

"The perception from some people is if you steal online it's less of a crime than if you steal physically."

It is less of a crime. It's a game. If you let someone into your guild and they take your crap, that's all permitted in the game. It's on the host of the game if they want to proceed on this. In my headcanon, Mike Weatherley is only pursuing this because his WoW guild got jacked and there is Blizzard is doing nothing about it.

Yeah, this is utterly stupid. You don't own a damn thing in any Blizzard game. You are paying for access to their content, as stated in their terms of agreement, and none of the things your account has access to is owned by anyone other than Blizzard.

I hope your headcanon is true, because I can't see how it could be anything else.

 

[direkiller]

Christ, just wait till they tell him about EVE.

Thing is, isn't it pretty much sanctioned in EVE? As in, that's pretty much part of the game, acknowledged by CCP, and people actually find that alluring as a unique aspect of that player-run universe. From what I gathered anyway.

I think this is more for if someone threatens you with a knife for your account name/PW, they get charged with aggravated armed robbery rather then an assault charge because they did not steal anything with monetary value.

if not they are in for a rude awakening when it comes to how games work.

 

[exobook]

Given there's already precedent on this, hell the article cites a 2008 case where a Dutch court convicted two teens for online item theft, I'd guess the enforcement would be a lot easier than you'd imagine, especially with it being virtually impossible to erase your tracks from the internet.

a more likely way things may change is not from states cracking down on virtual crime, but states cracking down on online crime. Let say a law is passed with penalise companies that are found to not have done enough to protect against the stealing of virtual items with real world value.

Baring EULAs while this law on paper appear to be focused around iTunes account or the like it could easily be applied towards virtual game items. If an item which was brought with real money (from a store, not in-game cash (though that also may be problematic if you consider gift cards)) and its stolen in-game. Does this constitute a crime under the above law?

And for those EVE players in this situation I would be talking about something like the Genolution 'Auroral' AU-79, an in-game item only available from the 10th anniversary collection, paid for in a real store.

 

[nekoali]

Theft of virtual items can be undone by restoring the items though... Not something easily done with real items. But what's next? Prosecuting gankers for assault and battery? If the game in question allows bodies to be looted, like the various zombie apocalypse survival sims lately, could you be arrested for mugging someone in game?

 

[Weaver]

I'll concede that if someone hacks your account and takes your shit there should be a penalty. My thoughts on that are though:

1) I don't think stealing a $10 mount should get you time in the slammer. I'm thinking community service or the like. I really don't think, unless the case is extremely high profile stealing tens of thousands in items from people, the punishment should be the same as someone who robs a store at gunpoint.

2) Hacking is already illegal.

3) If a corporation in EvE gets infiltrated and looses like 30,000 PLEX that should be fine. It's part of the game.
(Note I don't play EvE, so if this isn't possible I'm sorry!)

 

[RaikuFA]

No one tell them about what happened in Diablo 3.

 

[Cartographer]

1) Games are a fantasy world in which, by definition, the normal rules of the real world are suspended. If you can be prosecuted for stealing someone's stuff, how can you fantasy role-play as a thief?

Not what he referred to, in fact that is the somewhat childish tack taken by the report itself.
The conversation to be had is about digital property, the protections that are and aren't in place and how the law views digital theft. Stealing 100 Robes of Power or whatever in a game is nothing more than "Reductio Ad Absurdum", taking a ridiculous, extreme conclusion to try and trivialise an issue.

2) If items are stolen by means of hacking or other exploits, existing laws of fraud and cybercrime should cover that. What's more, since all game code is under the control of the developers, there is nothing stopping them from redressing the issue and restoring the 'stolen' items to you.

Which is what the issue is about, minus the nonsense reported by the apparent "journalists". Cyber crime laws have and continue to lag behind, way, way, way behind what is possible yet whenever they're brought up, by anyone in a position to actually do something about them (read: not just a blogger or internet personality) they're trivialised by people crying about prosecuting someone for online play (see above), or attacked as a privacy infringement. You don't get to decry the slow movement of governments/companies on an issue on the one hand while mocking anyone who attempts to treat the issues seriously on the other, it's hypocrisy.

So it's hard to think of any circumstance in which any new law is required. Perhaps the only thing that might be worthwhile would be a new extension to data protection, requiring game developers to safeguard the virtual property of their players. I could very easily imagine a circumstance in which that might be helpful.

There are plenty of people, on this very site, who will argue that digital theft isn't the same as real life theft (see any conversation around file sharing) I'm guessing you're not one of them then?

I don't think the laws that exist at present have anywhere near the scope, safeguards or guidance necessary to cover what was possible digitally 10 years ago, let alone today. It is frankly sad to see people lambaste and mock any attempted discussion on how governments need to change in light of the digital age, hence my initial post.

 

[Johnson McGee]

It's nice how grown-up the reporting both here and on the Guardian's website is on this matter.
For years people have been complaining that companies and governments are behind the digital times, playing catchup and failing miserably. Here a politician actually sparks a debate about digital ownership and what protections you should expect to be in place for items you have paid for and he's greeted with scorn.
Jim Stirling and Shamus Young have both written about how, as an industry, games aren't taken seriously; nice perpetuation of that with such an amateur take on this issue, tabloid journalism at its finest.

But as a number of people on this thread have pointed out, while on the face of it it's an interesting idea and worth pursuing, the whole thing does fall down when you examine it in any depth, so I don't think it's unreasonable to treat it humorously (not to mention that that is pretty much the house style for news reporting on the Escapist)

Just to summarise the reasons others have given, the suggestion makes no sense because:

1) Games are a fantasy world in which, by definition, the normal rules of the real world are suspended. If you can be prosecuted for stealing someone's stuff, how can you fantasy role-play as a thief?

2) If items are stolen by means of hacking or other exploits, existing laws of fraud and cybercrime should cover that. What's more, since all game code is under the control of the developers, there is nothing stopping them from redressing the issue and restoring the 'stolen' items to you.

So it's hard to think of any circumstance in which any new law is required. Perhaps the only thing that might be worthwhile would be a new extension to data protection, requiring game developers to safeguard the virtual property of their players. I could very easily imagine a circumstance in which that might be helpful.

I would add:

3) Virtual items have no inherent value; Their scarcity is arbitrarily decided on by the creator.

How do you determine the penalty for stealing something with no set value? Usually thefts or insurance claims are based on the amount of money required to replace the items, which in this case could strongly be argued to automatically be $0 (maybe a few cents to pay for the few seconds a developer spends replacing the item) but could also be argued to be any ungodly amount based on whatever value the market or community thinks it's worth.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

1) I don't think stealing a $10 mount should get you time in the slammer. I'm thinking community service or the like. I really don't think, unless the case is extremely high profile stealing tens of thousands in items from people, the punishment should be the same as someone who robs a store at gunpoint.

Well obviously it shouldn't. Because one is just theft and the other is theft AND threatening someone with a deadly weapon. So it should be like shoplifting a $10 item from said store. Or maybe breaking in and stealing something worth $10 from your house. As people mentioned, hacking is already a crime, but so is breaking and entering, but in both cases it's only fair that if they steal something that's worth money, they can be prosecuted for that too.

Of course, then you get into the mess of maybe it being the game companies responsibility to sort out that sort of thing, and what if the game shuts down? It happens, does that count as the company itself robbing it's players just because they chose to spend more money on intangible items?

Mmmmmmmaybe. I mean, like you said, it happens; keeping an online game operating requires a constant inflow of resources, and sometimes a company straight-up runs out of them. On the other hand, if a company shuts down a free-to-play game that has been in operation for less than a year and immediately releases another one in the same franchise, with no way to transfer items you already bought in the older game, it's a pretty clear-cut case of highway robbery, innit? What if the game itself cost money and the company shuts down their DRM, locking you out of the game entirely? What about the Kindle debacle, where Amazon de-listed a bunch of books from their system and remotely wiped them from everyone's ebook readers? They all got full refunds, if I recall, but supposing they hadn't. Supposing Amazon had just wiped everyone's Kindles and been like "Thanks for the free money, suckers!" Where do you draw the line? It's something worth discussing in a world where an increasing amount of what we own is of a non-physical nature.

 

[Flatfrog]

3) Virtual items have no inherent value; Their scarcity is arbitrarily decided on by the creator.

How do you determine the penalty for stealing something with no set value? Usually thefts or insurance claims are based on the amount of money required to replace the items, which in this case could strongly be argued to automatically be $0 (maybe a few cents to pay for the few seconds a developer spends replacing the item) but could also be argued to be any ungodly amount based on whatever value the market or community thinks it's worth.

Weeeeeell, I don't know about that. Surely *nothing* has 'inherent value' in that sense, and everything is worth precisely what people are prepared to pay for it. If people are prepared to spend thousands of dollars on a virtual farting pink pig on DotA, then that's what the virtual farting pink pig is worth. That's a basic principle of market capitalism.

However, as I said, you're right that because these digital objects are created virtually and have no replacement cost, it's hard to see how it's possible to 'steal' them in that sense. Which was my point - just as banks are legally required to reimburse you for money stolen through online fraud (if it wasn't your own fault), site owners should be legally required to replace items stolen through nefarious means.

The conversation to be had is about digital property, the protections that are and aren't in place and how the law views digital theft. Stealing 100 Robes of Power or whatever in a game is nothing more than "Reductio Ad Absurdum", taking a ridiculous, extreme conclusion to try and trivialise an issue.

All right, but the point still remains - what kind of digital property is it possible to 'steal' in such a way that the content provider couldn't instantly replace at no cost to themselves?

As far as I can see the only protection we need is from content providers themselves, who are the only ones in a position to take away from us things we have paid for. That's a genuine concern and not one I think was being addressed here. What protection do the players of EVE Online have against the site simply closing up tomorrow and taking all their money and digital possessions with them? For that matter, what protection do we have against Google doing the same thing?

 

[epicdwarf]

Ok I can see fines being given to in-game scammers and thieves if these items are bought with REAL MONEY, but not jail time. Unless the item in question costs a shit-load of money. Other than that, it is foolish to give people jail time for stealing $15 items and the like.

 

[Rellik San]

I think people are missing the fact that he did mention: "If you've paid real money" so we're talking things like £100 in game purchasable like say: Chest keys, etc.

Which sure there are many games that smartly bind such items to your account, but just as many that don't. I think he's clearly talking about situations where people are hacking accounts, stealing items purchased with real money and leaving the account bare. I also believe this is more about placing additional charges on top of the hacking.

In effect, you work so you can buy your TV with real money, if that get's stolen, you'd have every right to be pissed, so if you work to buy a cool set of armour with real money, then you'd also have every right to be pissed.

 

[LostCrusader]

Finally, a reasonable way to deal with all those bastards that need roll everything!

 

[Cartographer]

The conversation to be had is about digital property, the protections that are and aren't in place and how the law views digital theft. Stealing 100 Robes of Power or whatever in a game is nothing more than "Reductio Ad Absurdum", taking a ridiculous, extreme conclusion to try and trivialise an issue.

All right, but the point still remains - what kind of digital property is it possible to 'steal' in such a way that the content provider couldn't instantly replace at no cost to themselves?

As far as I can see the only protection we need is from content providers themselves, who are the only ones in a position to take away from us things we have paid for. That's a genuine concern and not one I think was being addressed here. What protection do the players of EVE Online have against the site simply closing up tomorrow and taking all their money and digital possessions with them? For that matter, what protection do we have against Google doing the same thing?

I would truly love to live in a world where replacing an item was all it took to make theft okay, where the only negative consequence of stealing could be undone by simply returning or replacing the item. I don't 'cus this ain't.

Further, no cost to themselves? Doing so undermines any sort of economic model that may be in existence. There is no such thing as free, even in a digital world; the content had to be created originally, it took time and effort that needed to be paid for. On top of that, it would take time to police and we all know what time is (insert popular MMO joke here).

I don't play Eve, never have, but I'd be extremely surprised if the TOS didn't explicitly spell out that you have no right to anything in the event of a server termination; you're right that any discussion about the value of digital items would by necessity have to address the value of all digital accounts and would have to address the trend of "services" rather than "products" that companies have been shifting to of late as they realise it's more profitable not to sell you a product once every 10 years, but rather charge you for a service monthly.

But, trivialising and mocking the people who bring it up helps how exactly?
It's shoddy reporting and hypocrisy, from a site that should know better since it's called for just this discussion to begin on numerous occasions.
(Frankly, the Guardian piece is crap and what I'd expect from a newspaper of its quality.)

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

He's probably recently been hacked and he's really, really butthurt about it.

 

[Flatfrog]

I would truly love to live in a world where replacing an item was all it took to make theft okay, where the only negative consequence of stealing could be undone by simply returning or replacing the item. I don't 'cus this ain't.

Further, no cost to themselves? Doing so undermines any sort of economic model that may be in existence. There is no such thing as free, even in a digital world; the content had to be created originally, it took time and effort that needed to be paid for.

Yes, but by the time that content has been bought and paid for, that work is done. Replacing the missing content is no more work than changing an entry in a database. So I don't see why it really isn't just as simple as I said (and ok, there's no such thing as zero cost, but it's certainly pretty much marginal).

Similarly, what kind of digital content can you think of for which replacing it doesn't negate all the negative consequences? I mean, sure, between the time it was taken and the time you can get it replaced there is a time when you don't have it and might need it; and of course there's potential emotional distress and time taken in organising the replacement, but essentially it still boils down to what I said, which is that there needs to be a legal framework for the providers of digital content to be required to minimise those issues.

As for the Guardian piece, I thought it was ok - relatively light-hearted as befits a blog piece rather than a formal news article but it covered the main points well enough. It sounds like you have some kind of more general animosity towards the paper that's making you react a bit strongly, to be honest.

 

[Nurb]

So, Nanny, does that mean RL murder sentences for PVP griefers?

 

[Leg End]

Oh boy. This is going to be a fun thread.

Christ, just wait till they tell him about EVE.

/thread

Christ, just wait till they tell him about EVE.

Thing is, isn't it pretty much sanctioned in EVE? As in, that's pretty much part of the game, acknowledged by CCP, and people actually find that alluring as a unique aspect of that player-run universe. From what I gathered anyway.

Yes, yes, yes, and yes, with the only exceptions being people that early on or even late in, not actually realizing what kind of game EVE actually is.

Ugh, I can understand the sentiment but it would be a minefield to enforce. I mean, what about online games where you're legitimately allowed to kill other players and take their stuff, would that then also be against the law or only if the offending 'thief' hacks the game? How about exploits?

This being one of the big questions. If it's only applicable to account theft, then there isn't much of an issue, but then the issue changes to, how do you actually assess the value of the items in question and the account stolen?

I think the MP is just refering to people who hack accounts or steal items outside of the game's systems. And for paided for items, I think its not a bad idea. It's not clear from here if he does JUST mean that though.

It's actually clear enough to reasonably assume he means general item theft. If it's not, it's his botched wording.
The argument for paid items actually brings up another issue I'll be talking about in a moment.

I think he is strictly talking about hacking and stuff like that, not exactly stealing the stuff inside the game like in EVE or other MMOs. For example, beating the shit out of the enemy and taking some ships/content (idk, I dont play EVE) would be cool but hacking the account of the owner of those ships/content and sending over to the thief would be a crime.

Here's a bit of a scenario involving a friend's personal experience in EVE, as well as me being on Teamspeak as this is happening.

Said friend has another friend who was in a Corporation(think Guild), with the corp talking about booting him because they were merging with another corp, with the new corp requiring a certain amount of skillpoints(think "training" that gradually happens, but at a roughly fixed rate and 15-20 million skillpoints can take a year for a new player who doesn't know about ways to boost the training speed and accumulation of skillpoints). Also at this point they start treating him like shit for no real reason, so, he decides to leave, while taking a few presents for himself.
This person, and my friend, proceeded to steal(rough estimates, would have to ask them again the exact ships/items) a Archon(Amarrian Carrier Capital Ship), 2 Tengu(Caldari Strategic Cruiser), 1 Proteus(Gallente Strategic Cruiser), along with some Starbase Modules, and whatever shiny Modules(different from Starbase Modules, basically items to customize the ship, with "Shiny" being very valuable Deadspace, Faction or Officer items, which can value hundreds of millions to billions in the in game currency) were fitted to the ships, with the only reasons he didn't steal more being that he didn't have the skills to fly most of the stuff, and most of the people started logging on as the theft was happening so he decided to get my friend and GTFO.

It has some sense since its stuff that even though virtual do have a real life price to it but it would be really hard to work with it and the best option seems to simply put better security measures and means of punishing the thief by banning the IP, user, etc..., since its virtual the item can probably be tracked and delivered back? Again, I dont know.

In game value of these items varies greatly, with the only thing I am able to properly put a price tag on in ISK(EVE Currency), being the Archon, with one of the cheapest available being worth 1.3 billion ISK, according to EVE Central, a out of game market checker basically. With the common method of comparing the "real world" value of the items to the in game item PLEX(Pilot License Extension), which is pretty much the only item you can buy with real world money, only from CCP(you can buy it from people in game with real world money, but the EULA and CCP heavily forbid this, and if caught, you WILL be banned). The value of a PLEX at the moment being around the 783 million ISK mark if sold properly on the in game market. If we converted Dollars to ISK based on the average $20 value(not counting the current sale CCP is having on PLEX, or buying them in bulk), the Archon would be valued around $35. However, valuing the items like this has a massive flaw which I will explain in a moment.

I'll concede that if someone hacks your account and takes your shit there should be a penalty. My thoughts on that are though:

1) I don't think stealing a $10 mount should get you time in the slammer. I'm thinking community service or the like. I really don't think, unless the case is extremely high profile stealing tens of thousands in items from people, the punishment should be the same as someone who robs a store at gunpoint.

2) Hacking is already illegal.

3) If a corporation in EvE gets infiltrated and looses like 30,000 PLEX that should be fine. It's part of the game.
(Note I don't play EvE, so if this isn't possible I'm sorry!)

More or less agree with your post, though the whole buying mounts thing has an issue that I'll likely explain at the bottom, just wanted to clarify, yes, it's totally possible for a person to infiltrate a corp and jack 30,000 PLEX, though anyone storing PLEX like that, most of the community will agree, they were openly asking for it.
Also 30k PLEX would be $600,000 if bought at the individual price. Just a fun figure for you.

And for those EVE players in this situation I would be talking about something like the Genolution 'Auroral' AU-79, an in-game item only available from the 10th anniversary collection, paid for in a real store.

Not totally correct. The item is only ORIGINALLY available in store, buying the Second Decade Collector's Edition.
However, the item can be sold on the in game market for ISK(around 1.5 billion at the time of this writing). This raises another issue, which, again, I'll explain at the end.

...which I'm already at actually. Also the points I'm about to make appear to have already been covered, but I'll just hammer it in anyway.

One of the big issues with this whole entire thing is, how do you value these items, and how do they gain this value?
Using EVE entirely as an example, but it's actually the perfect example here.
PLEX inherently has no real life monetary value. While the item itself can be traded on the market for in game money, it cannot be traded for a dollar amount and only has a value set by the players, with no actual real equivalent.
If I've played EVE for years, amassed a giant fortune of ships, items, ISK, ect, but have not spent a single cent on the game itself, not for PLEX to sell for ISK and get these items, not for a regular subscription, but have solely funded everything by my efforts in game, what value do these things have? I didn't spend a damn thing on any of it. Does this mean what I have has no value? Why? How is it different from the idiot that buys a shit ton of PLEX and spends it on an officer fit navy raven? IF you say because he spent real money on it, well, here's a counter.

For the Genolution implant example above, somewhat similar to PLEX in a way, someone had to spend real money on the Collector's Edition for that item to "exist" in the game. If someone say, destroyed the ship of someone who had that in their cargo(because reasons), by the reasoning of Mike over here, that person committed destruction of property, not including the ship in this because too big a variable.
What happens if that very item is sold on the in game market? I buy it? With in game money?
Does it retain the value? If yes, why? If not, why? Assuming not, why? I have the item, and someone at some point paid money for it. Does it no longer have value because I didn't pay real money for it, and all of the money I've earned in game to pay for it with, doesn't matter?

The core of the argument here is, none of this stuff has any goddamn value to it. It's all CCP funny munny.
Actually selling in game items for real money is absolutely prohibited by the EULA. You agree, that none of this crap has any monetary value when you accept that EULA.
You have no way to actually assess the value of these items, and if you do, you're setting a value for digital bullshit that the creators agree has no real world monetary value. If it did, everyone on this killmail is guilty of some kind of crime, somewhere.

And don't even get started on the CFC and Burn Jita.

The defense rests.

 

[Leg End]

So, Nanny, does that mean RL murder sentences for PVP griefers?

The way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised anymore.

For a bit of fun, go to http://www.eve-kill.net/?a=home and look up all of the various destroyed ships. For every 780 million ISK destroyed, add $20.

When you feel like you've added enough, count the people that were involved, and think of the possible charges.

 

[Johnson McGee]

-snip-

I was trying to explain the concept of artificial scarcity as it applies to this issue. Maybe I didn't do a fantastic job.