Dutch Court Punishes Theft of Virtual Property

tsa writes "Last week, the Dutch court subjected two kids of ages 15 and 14 to 160 hours of unpaid work or 80 days in jail, because they stole virtual property from a 13-year-old boy. The boy was kicked and beaten and threatened with a knife while forced to log into Runescape and giving his assets to the two perpetrators. This ruling is the first of its kind for the Netherlands. Ars Technica has some more background information." In Japan, meanwhile, a woman has been arrested for "illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data" after (virtually) killing her (virtual) husband.

wtf?

[easyTree]

They kicked/beat/threatened him with a kife and the most important crime was IP-theft. wtf. Did I mention 'wtf' ?

Re:bah

[Anonymous Coward]

in Soviet Russia virtual property steals you!

That explains the botnets, then!

I didn't know the Dutch had Ag Assault

[LithiumX]

Erm... while I'm not too horribly offended over the theft of virtual (game) property, the fact that it was a matter of Aggravated Assault is a totally different matter.

Wait, the knife and beating happened in the real world, right?

Is that real jail?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or virtual jail?

Re:OK?

[TinFoilMan]

No, it was Mr. Mustard in the Kitchen with a pipe.

What a treat...

[Emb3rz]

"Gimme loots or I PK u IRL lol"

RL: Where the women playing women are really men

[acon1modm]

from T2ndFA:

The woman, who is jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his identification...

So even the real-life woman playing as the virtual woman is a man? My head is spinning.

Re:It's funny and sad...

[Waste55]

It's funny and sad...how imaginary pixels can run people's lives to do horrible things in a physical world.

Imaginary?! What are these tiny dots I keep starting at while I type?! Someone must have slipped something into my drink! ;)

Kids these days

[J.R. Random]

If those punks had kicked, beaten and threatened that boy with a knife inside the virtual world of Runescape instead of of because of Runescape it would have been perfectly legal and they'd have gotten his stuff from his corpse and leveled up. Some punks have no common sense.

Re:Not Punished for the Violence?

[Sponge Bath]

It does seem odd. To make that fair the judge should have
the bailiff beat the attackers with a night stick
and then sentence them to a virtual jail.

Re:OK?

[whitehatlurker]

No, it was Kernel Panic in the linked library with the named pipe [ibiblio.org]! Gee.

As C Heston said...

[elfin_spectre]

I'll give you my avatar when you take it from my cold dead hands.

Re:It's funny and sad...

[Pikiwedia.net]

I'm in big trouble! I've commited murder in numerous games, used weapons of mass destruction in civilization.

Re:It's funny and sad...

[32771]

The parent must have suggested we stick to a one dimensional arrangement of pixels where there is no such thing as an imaginary dimension. Just like you should only use good old fashioned real numbers, everything else is just sinister.