| With the widely use of internet, online virtual society has become part of everyone's daily life in reality and online games are becoming a new booming industry. Because of their unique and exchangeable nature,online chatting accounts, online game accounts and virtual currencies, equipments etc. gained by playing games are getting more and more valuable. In this article, they are collectively named "Online virtual property". In recent years, crimes towards Online virtual property have happened frequently, and obviously are becoming an new type of crime, which results in allegations and lawsuits. How to protect online virtual property has become an urgent issue. But current legislations on this issue in China are seriously faulty and under-developed. For example, civil laws and economic laws, like the General Principles of the Civil Law, Contract Law. Consumer Protection Law,all can not provide effective protection for online virtual property, while although administration regulations have been tried to protect online virtual property, since they are lack of the support of legislation, they can not stop the wild spread of such criminal acts.In this article, the nature of online virtual property, the necessity of criminal protection and how it can be protected by criminal law will be discussed. By introducing the generation and development of online virtual property, and discussing further whether they have any commercial value and how they can be categorized from the view point of legal, and comparing the current status of criminal protection of online virtual property between China and advanced countries with regard to legislation and judicature, it comes to the conclusion that online virtual property shall be protected by criminal law and how the legal system shall be designed to protect online virtual property from my personal point of view.
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