Unclear Virtual Property Rights have Fatal Consequences
In Shanghai, an Online gamer was killed for selling another player's virtual "dragon sabre" for real money.
The China Daily newspaper reported that a Shanghai court was told Qiu Chengwei, 41, stabbed competitor Zhu Caoyuan repeatedly in the chest after he was told Zhu had sold his dragon sabre, used in the popular online game Legend of Mir 3.
This is a case where unclear property rights led to a fatal consequence. The article discusses the issue, saying:
More and more online gamers are seeking justice through the courts over stolen weapons and credits.
"The armour and swords in games should be deemed as private property as players have to spend money and time for them," said Wang Zongyu, an associate law professor at Beijing's Renmin University of China.
But other experts are calling for caution.
"The assets of one player could mean nothing to others as they are by nature just data created by game providers," an unnamed lawyer for a Shanghai-based Internet game company said.
The data created by game providers has high demand, because so little of a product is supplied. If everyone could have a "dragon sabre," it wouldn't have sold for 7200 Yuan. You could say that the providers created the demand by creating a supply that was small in the first place.
This whole problem is hardly new, of course; if fact, free trade leading to death has been going on for thousands of years.
posted by Anonymous @ 10:07 AM
2 Comments:
It doesn't matter in what context, it is everywhere, even in a fake world. Property rights matter to people, always have always will. The idea of property in any shape or from is so dear to people that it can lead to this. This is an issue where strong property rights are not enforce and vigilantism in a dangerous form takes hold. This just shows clear property need to be defined and enforced to not only protect the owner but the person who may violate it.
Defining property rights in the virtual world does appear to be more difficult. They can be defined but who has the right to define these property rights. The creators of the software would be who I would choose.
Currently, people don't own software. Have you ever read the license agreement when you install new software. You own the right to use the software and usually only 1 copy of it. They could add a line about ownership of such things as digital sabers. They could choose to keep the ownership or could grant it to the license holder.
Also, in the digital world that is ran by an underlying "coding language" that we don't see, do the poperty owner own the code or the appearance that the code brings ie the dagger.
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