Legal Precedent: Virtual Goods are real in the Netherlands

Yet another precedent seems to have been established for the legal protection of virtual goods.

This time it's not SecondLife but Runescape that came before the courts. This article on the Radio Netherlands website recounts how a 13 year old boy was bullied by two slightly older boys who then ended up in court.

This case has a very interesting twist that I believe we will see repeated in the future:

The court dismissed the defence lawyer's argument and cited an earlier ruling that electricity can be considered a material object for the purposes of criminal law and stealing electricity is theft. (emphasis is mine) The court ruled that the same principle can be applied in this case and stealing virtual Runescape items is theft as the owner was forced to hand over his possessions.

Interesting logic and one that's hard to argue against. I can't wait to see this prosecution angle tried in the United States.

Why you DON'T want to own virtual goods...

or I should more accurately say, why you AND Blizzard don't want you to own them.

Today brought a good article from Dave Kosak of gamespy that explains in layman's terms the myriad of issues that might arise if you actually owned virtual goods from games like Runescape or World of Warcraft (trademarks belong to their owners, etc., etc.)

Found here, this article has some great examples of the legal ramifications that might result if you actually owned your leet loot:

Let's run a thought experiment and say that you do own your virtual epic sword of double damage. It's yours, and you're allowed to sell it. It has monetary value. Technically, a series of Bad Things(TM) can now happen:

1. Because your sword has real-world value, you should technically report it as earnings come tax time. Did you earn $4700 worth of lewt while raiding this year? Some of that money belongs to the government.

2. Wait a second, acquiring the sword was based on a random-drop loot table, and you pay a monthly fee to play. That means every time you kill a boss, you're technically gambling. All your local gambling laws now come into play.

3. Uh oh, one month later the game developer decides that swords of double damage are overpowered and ruin the game. The item is "nerfed" to only do 20% more damage instead of 100%. Suddenly it drops in value. But you had 20 of those swords on the auction house! You've just taken a huge financial loss! Can you now sue the developer?

Good stuff right? Easy to understand right? Those are only the beginning. Without thinking too hard most of us could probably extend the list without too much effort:

1. Sales tax liability for the vendor if your items have real monetary value
   
2. Sales tax liability for you if you were to sell your Purple geared death gnome to someone else
   
3. Supply and demand issues when players can sell items outside of the game
4. If you lose money on your items (see Dave's point number 3, above), does that mean that you can claim gambling losses for your monthly WoW subscription when your guild is having a bad streak

All in all, a good read. Now where did I keep that list of virtual law issues?