Defendant Convicted Guilty in First Case for Stolen Virtual Currency of On-line Game

The first case for stolen virtual items of the on-line game ever occurring in Taiwan’s justice history was finalized by the Taipei District Court lately.  The court determined that the virtual items available in the on-line game “Lineage” should be valuable movable property and under protection provided by the Criminal Code; therefore, the defendant should be considered committing offenses of theft, successive fraudulence and interruption and be sentenced to detention of 50 days, which punishment may be commuted to a fine, and placed under two years’ probation.

 

The defendant, after knowing the victim’s sign-in name and password, proceeded to steal the items owned by the victim, including virtual equipment, weapons and properties totaling 1.62 million “Lineage currency” (i.e. the currency used in the virtual space), in the on-line game.  In the responsible judge’s opinion, though the “Lineage currency” refers to a virtual currency, the game players in the real life are used to purchasing the virtual equipment available in the on-line game at the currency exchange rate for NT dollars and Lineage currency (1:100) in order to get upgrade or relevant items, and this has become a well known identification and phenomenon.  Therefore, the judge determined that such electronic record should be supplied with specific trading value and protected under relevant provisions of the Criminal Code.

 

Source: Liberty Times 06/04/2002

Translated by Corrina Wu