[MUD-Dev] Real money and virtual worlds

[Matt Mihaly]

On Mon, 18 Nov 2002, Ron Gabbard wrote:

> It's not unlike the federal government to use money and tax laws
> to force entities, over which they would usually have no
> authority, to do their will.  The establishment of efficient
> market prices through online auctions for ingame items is just the
> hook the federal government needs to make the case that virtual
> items have real world value and the "winning" of such items is
> taxable should they ever want to play that card.

Hmm, interesting, but given that many terms of service specify that
the items are strictly owned by the company providing the game
service, would this still apply? It seems like it'd be the
equivalent of the government taking control over the production of
tvs just because some thieves stole some tvs, sold them, and didn't
pay taxes on them.

I'm not saying governments aren't asinine enough to do it, just that
it seems as if it might be more difficult than what you described,
in the US at least. I'm certainly no lawyer though.

--matt


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