Online games Virtual currency Many legal disputes dust settles

Daily, June 26, according to Tencent Science and technology reports, in recent years, with the constant popularity of the internet, a variety of Internet applications to achieve rapid development, in which the development of online games is particularly noticeable.　　Statistics show that by the end of December 2008, China's total number of netizens 298 million, of which the use of online games as high as 62.8%, the equivalent of nearly 200 million internet users are online game users. With the large-scale development of online games, a variety of new legal issues have emerged, the survey showed that 61% of gamers have had virtual property stolen experience, 77% of the players feel that the current network environment of their virtual property threatened. This shows that the fictitious money as the representative of the virtual property related legal issues are most prominent.　　The focus of the problem is mainly embodied in the following aspects: Question one: The legal attribute of the virtual currency of the network game on the legal attribute of fictitious money, because of the lack of the legal or policy definition of the authoritative department, it leads to many problems in the judicial practice, it is easy to form a similar case but the　　In the case of stealing virtual currency, the legal attribute or status of virtual currency is not clear, which leads to the conviction of the illegal theft of virtual currency in judicial practice. Case one: July 2007 or so, the criminal suspect Wang accidentally found "Swordsman Love Network Version 2" of the system has loopholes, and then use the loophole into the game server to start copying. About 20 days later, he estimated Jinshan company quickly put up the loophole, also afraid of Jinshan company through the server's "security policy" record to find him, then through others to find Jinshan Company's duty engineer Ning MoU, let him on the weekend when the "Security policy" service shut down. In the 1 to 20,000 yuan per month he temptation, yining some hesitation finally agreed. In this way, Wang MoU told his administrator password, remote access to Jinshan company database server, the game currency "big ticket" for a large number of copies, and sold through Taobao, illegal profits up to more than 2.1 million yuan.　　The procuratorial organ prosecuted the crime of "destroying computer information system". Case two: May 2007, in a company engaged in Web site maintenance work Wang MoU, found that Beijing Jinshan Digital Entertainment Technology Co., Ltd. game Recharge card online sales system security vulnerabilities, can use hacker software intrusion to obtain sales account number and password. He told the secret to a friend Chen, Chen MoU with wish to find him, said want to invade this system to obtain sales account, online to the buyer recharge money. Three people together to an internet café in Hefei to operate, downloaded more than 400 face value of 15 yuan and 48 Yuan Gold Card account number and password, with the stolen recharge card to the game players account recharge, or through Taobao by the value of the prepaid card 50 percent or 60 percent sold to buyers. Cumulative stolen Recharge card value of 892,700 yuan.　　In this respect, Wang was a Chinese hospital in Beijing for theft sentenced to 13 years in prison, two associates Chen MoU and wish a certain also guilty of theft, respectively sentenced to 12 years and 11 years in prison. From the above two cases, weIt can be clearly seen that the criminal suspects of the modus operandi is very similar, but a procuratorial organ to "damage computer system crime" to prosecute, one was the court "theft" conviction sentencing.　　The reason of the two cases similar case judicial practice treatment result is different, except the crime concurrence and so on, more importantly, to the fictitious money legal attribute lacks the authoritative definition. Recently, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Commerce issued a joint "on the strengthening of virtual money management Network Game Notice" (hereinafter referred to as "notice") on this issue made authoritative definition. According to the "notice", the virtual currency of online games, "refers to by the network game operators issued, the game users use the legal currency in a certain proportion of direct or indirect purchase, exist in the game program, to the electromagnetic recording mode stored in the network game operators provided by the server,　　And in a specific number of units of the performance of a virtual Exchange tool "," for the exchange of the designated areas provided by the issuing enterprises, the designated time of the network game services, performance for the network game prepaid card, prepaid amount or points and other forms. According to this stipulation, we can see clearly, the property property of the network game basically got affirmation, can identify the network game service under the network environment "voucher", "Shopping voucher". Then, from this level, if any of the future of online gaming virtual currency related to the theft, it should be unified with "theft crime" punishable.