Research On The Criminal Law Characterization Of Illegal Acquisition Of Virtual Property In Online Game

Entering the Internet information era,the online game industry has flourished and the online game market has gradually grown,leading the development of China’s Internet economy.The virtual property of online games such as game accounts and equipment are various and complicated,and they are more and more closely connected with the real life of the public,and lots of people put money directly into online games.However,when the rapid growth of online game users and the virtual property of online games meet the spiritual needs of the majority of users,the cases of illegal acquisition of virtual property are becoming increasingly common,and the crime seriously hinders the development of the game industry and damages the legitimate property rights of game players.In these cases,it is still controversial to determine the criminal law of the act,and in practice,there are often different judgments in the same case,which is not only unfavorable to the protection of the material and spiritual rights of the owners of virtual property of online games,but also unfavorable to the development of judicial justice in China.Considering there are few relevant laws and regulations about protecting the virtual property,it is urgent to identify and regulate the illegal acquisition of virtual property of online games by criminal law.Throughout the theoretical and judicial practice,there is a debate between the crime of theft and illegal acquisition of computer information system data,and the root lies in the determination of legal attributes,that is,whether its legal attribute is property.There are four chapters,mainly about the legal attributes of virtual property,the criminal charge,multiple crime form,and the crime amount.The first chapter firstly analyzes the types and phenomena of illegal acquisition of virtual property in online games,clarifies the definition of virtual property in online games and divides the behavior according to different means and objects of behavior.Secondly,the legislative history including civil law,administrative law and criminal law and judicial status of illegal acquisition of virtual property in online games are sorted out.It is then proposed that the current criminal law dilemma of illegally acquiring online virtual property mainly includes the controversial legal attributes of online virtual property,the complexity of criminal charge,multiple crime form,crime amount,and the core issue is the legal attributes.Chapter 2 analyzes the legal attributes of virtual property of online games from three perspectives: Data attributes,property attributes and right attributes.Firstly,the virtual property has the property attributes.It has value,finiteness,transferability and controllability.Then it discusses the right attributes,including the reasonableness and unreasonableness of the property rights,claims,intellectual property rights and new property rights,and considers that the property rights is more reasonable.Chapter 3 focuses on deconstructing the act of illegally acquiring virtual property of online games,focusing on the determination of the crime of illegally acquiring virtual property of online games and the determination of the number of crime forms.At present,there are two regulatory paths of computer crime and property crime.Firstly,it analyzes the difference between computer crime and property crime,including the difference legal interests,the behavior and the difference in incrimination standards.Secondly,we analyze the number of crimes,and there are three theories,i.e.,competing laws,imaginary competition,and implicated crime.Through the identification of the crime and the number of forms of crime,it is proposed to include the crime into the system of theft,to clarify the scope of theft crimes and computer crimes,to formulate relevant judicial interpretations of the concept of property of criminal law and to provide reference basis by issuing guiding cases.Chapter 4 analyzes and discusses the method of determining the amount of virtual property of online games.It divides virtual property into three types from aspects of different subject of legal interests.The three types include virtual property purchased from game company or third parties,virtual property formed through cost input and virtual property of network service providers.In addition,the instability of the transaction price,the difficulty of proving the input cost,and the difference between the amount of sale of stolen goods and the actual economic loss lead to the difficulty of determining its value.Through the analysis of the above dilemma,it is proposed that a mechanism for determining the crime amount should be constructed,and the different types should be distinguished in the value assessment.Secondly,it is proposed to establish a professional organization for assessing the value of virtual property by drawing reference from overseas laws.