Comments on: Woman Faces Charges Over Virtual Murder, Teenagers Sentenced For MMO Extortion

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:53:04 +0000

1st case is invasion of privacy pure and simple.

2nd case virtual or not is harassment.

By: Jeffrey A. Murphy

Jeffrey A. Murphy — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 08:29:49 +0000

I’m fairly certain that avatars are not the player’s property, but the property of the MMO’s administrators. this issue is probably directly addressed in the EULA, such as World of Warcraft’s “You can be banned for literally no reason whatsoever clause” essentially expressing that Blizzard owns it’s players.

200 hours of community service for the ‘extortion’ of an item that doesn’t exist in reality as nothing more than a collection of bits and cost the original owner nothing more than fifteen minutes of play time (likely) is grossly overcompensating. It seems as though Amsterdam isn’t as laid back as the rest of the world would see it.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:46:34 +0000

The avatar was the dude’s property. You can’t just go around destroying property. Das illegal yo!

By: rossthefrogboy

rossthefrogboy — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 08:19:04 +0000

Martine parry-
Are you calling the non-English speaking population uncivilised? If so, you might want to take a look at Japan. It is one of the wealthiest, most high-tech countries in the world, speaking in civilian terms. One of these crimes occurred in Japan, yes, but they do have a very different social order over there. It’s very pretentious to say that your own system is better.

By: Stein Ove Asp

Stein Ove Asp — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 14:23:10 +0000

Yes indeed. Having english as a nations native tongue has always raised the standards of its legal system and practised democracy… Good one.

By: Ivan 'Nahu' Lozano

Ivan 'Nahu' Lozano — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 17:12:46 +0000

Well it all comes down to the legal definition of property. I don’t see much about these being undemocratic or unsafe.

By: Martine parry

Martine parry — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 11:16:22 +0000

These stories highlight the lack of sanity and perhaps the lack of a true democratic legal system (as we fondly think of it) within these countries.

Legal systems are different all over the world and many are unsafe and undemocratic when compared with much of the English-speaking world’s legal systems (these are sadly also changing for the worse). Unfortunately harmonisation is moving us to a more authoritarian system. I’m sure none of us wants this ..

By: Enner

Enner — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 07:06:04 +0000

Indeed it is serious business.
Is this more evidence of the blurring line between reality and the virtual world? I’m getting scared.

By: coffeehigh

coffeehigh — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:45:41 +0000

wow… in japan you delete a character you goto prison, here you get your account suspended, i bet they dont have as much issues with hacking there

By: Sol

Sol — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:08:17 +0000

This is great. It reminds me of a story where two clans in WoW meet in real life to duke it out.

….I know I’m probably being insensitive, but Darwinism at work?