Online Game Virtual Property Law Benefit Analysis

With the booming development of information technology and Internet service, virtual property is no longer strange but more and more integrated into our modern life. While Internet user's mentality of property is in the progress of reforming and virtual property are increasingly treasured, new-type crimes of property violation which aim at virtual property have not only brought challenges to the criminal legislation and judicature, but also opened up new field for research of theory of criminal law.To research protection of virtual property, the article is in the aspect of legal interest in criminal theory. The author's view is that the legal interest of virtual property is part of legal interest of property, which means that crimes that violate virtual property and entity property are both violation of legitimate interests of property. However, articles of traditional crimes of property violation in criminal law will be inevitably confronted some difficulties when apply to the case of crimes of virtual property violation, thus it exposes the loophole in criminal legislation on protection of virtual property. Whether the consistency on legal interest between entity and virtual properties or the obstacle of application of articles of traditional crimes of property violation in criminal law are related to characters of virtual property itself.Focus on virtual property in online games, the paper is divided into three parts. Part One and Part Two are the analysis on characters of virtual property itself in order to found the background knowledge.Part One: virtual characters of virtual property. In other words, it is about differences between virtual property and entity property which is the traditional form of property. The key to analyze these virtual characters is to grasp the relationship between virtual property and electromagnetic records. The relationship can be divided into two aspects. One is to distinguish between them, that is to say whether virtual property and electromagnetic records are same or not. The other is to associate them to study how electromagnetic records affect virtual property.Part Two: property characters of virtual property. In other words, it is about the universality between these two forms of property, virtual and entity. There are positive and negative points of view on the controversy whether virtual property is part of property or not. Despite the sharp contrast, their ways of proof are same that verify whether virtual property has the general nature of property. Therefore on the basis of summarizing the views and reasons both the positive and the negative, the proof of property characters of virtual property can be divided into two levels. The first level is the general nature of property, and the second level is the representation of the general nature in the virtual form.Part Three: the legal interest of virtual property. Firstly, there is no difference about legal interest among various articles of crimes of property violation. These articles have the same legislative spirit that the legitimate property interests should be protected from unlawful infringement. Three kinds of subjects related with virtual property as the developer, the operator and the player will be mentioned in the paper to analyze the content and the legitimacy of their virtual property interests. Secondly, there is neither special provision for crimes which violate virtual property in existing criminal law, nor amendment or legal explanation in the chapter of traditional crimes of property violation. Due to characters of virtual property itself, articles of traditional crimes of property violation, which are usually applied in criminating and sentencing to crimes of virtual property violation, confront several difficulties, which the author focuses on two issues, assessment of virtual property and determination of accusation of the harmful action.