[MUD-Dev] Virtual property lawsuit in China

[Ren Reynolds]

On 28 August 2003 at 01:59 Daniel Anderson wrote:

> Is this the first time this has happened?

I'm not aware of any other cases. There was the start of a suit
against SOE over EverQuest sales, but as far as I am aware it never
went anywhere, and I have not tracked down who actually started it.


On 26 August 2003 18:37 Nicolai Hansen wrote:

> But with all this ebay trading of online characters, virtual
> equipment are getting close to having a real money value. So in
> one way the Red Moon company made this poor guy lose money. They
> can probably hide behind an EULA though ;)

Virtually all virtual items are not legally property. So the value
that they have in practice has an odd status. Certainly under
Western law a player could not take action against a games company
for the destruction of items and the consequential financial loss
that they the player would suffer. This is because the player does
not actually own the items in the first place even though others may
be prepared to give them money for them, so legally speaking there
is no loss.

Though I'd be interested in seeing the transcript of the 'trial'
that Ted Castranova reported on though to see the views express
there.

The EULA point is very interesting and one where the law might
apply. In my view most of the words about ownership of stuff in many
EULAs are at best meaningless, Though in some cases I suspect that
under US law some EULA sections represent 'misuse of copyright' and
would be actionable by a player against a games company. Though
while such an action might in theory work (note the player would not
have to demonstrate harm just that the legal principle of trying to
restrict certain actions through extent of copyright had been
violated) I guess that such an action would be economically
untenable.

Lastly I've just started looking at item sales, with the following
perspective: If virtual items are not owned - then isn't selling
something that you do not have legal title to called fraud ?


On 26 August 2003 18:37 Nicolai Hansen wrote:

> Got me thinking ;) It was on this list there was some debate about
> taxation of online values, wasn't it?

Yes. I think it was concluded that like stocks and shares the
taxable value only has meaning when items are realized - though as I
noted above I'm not sure about the legal status of such a
realization.

Ren
www.renreynolds.com
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev