Virtual Theft, Real-World Punishment
Fri Nov 16, 2007 12:46PM EST
See Comments (41)
This would never happen in New York; the police are otherwise occupied. But in Holland, where obviously there's less real-world policing to do, a Dutch teenager, age 17, was arrested in real life for stealing virtual furniture in a virtual world.
The scene of the crime was a web site called Habbo Hotel, a world-building space that's much like Second Life, only it's designed for teenagers. Habbo has a worldwide audience of 82,000,000 registered users between the ages of 12 and 18 and 400,000,000 page views a month.
You can join the site for free, but to do anything of any substance with the other Habbos you need to spend real money. You buy Habbo credits that buy virtual stuff like furniture. Even Target and Rite Aid sell Habbo prepaid cards.
According to The Guardian this was not a solo couch heist. The stolen virtual goods are valued at over $5,800. While the method is not entirely clear yet, it seems that the teen (a group of other boys are being questioned about the incident as well) managed to trick Habbo-ers into giving up their passwords by creating fake Habbo web sites and having kids register there. The stolen passwords were used to infiltrate their Habbo Hotels and swipe the goods. Where did the stolen goods surface? Inside the boy's own Habbo Hotel, of course.
The analysts say that by the end of 2011, 80 percent of active Internet users (and Fortune 500 enterprises) will have a "'second life,' but not necessarily in Second Life." And there's lots of cash being spent to buy virtual cash to spend in virtual lives. So far, the notion of theft of property in the virtual world remains largely untested.
What do you think? If you steal in the virtual world, doesn't it make sense to be tried in the virtual world as well? Should Habbo simply have given back the furniture to the rightful owners and banned the boy from the site? Should the real-world police be working virtual beats?
For more coverage read the BBC report or see Ars Technica for a look at other virtual world thefts.
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27 Posted by dennismcc914 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:41PM EDT Report Abuse
Wow, this is a little too strange...not that someone would steal virtual furniture, that someone would pay real hard earned money for virtual furniture...
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28 Posted by plants101 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:14PM EDT Report Abuse
buying furniture for virtual reality??? dumb dumb dumb
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29 Posted by kmkearnes on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:52PM EDT Report Abuse
Absolutely crime and punishment should be inforced. We are moving to a real digital age when property and assets can take on many many forms. in some cases these SecondLife type environments are big buisness. take some of the real estate developers in SL, the top ones make in the mid six-figures. "farmers" in EverQuest could make upwards of a few thousand a month selling off sites like player auctions and for a long time, ebay. this means that the currency used in these games does have a real world value, in some cases, these values are higher than some 3rd world countries. people spend a lot of real world time to gain skills in a virtual world environment in order to progress through the game. by progressing you build up ones skills and can use those skills to make goods that can be sold on real world markets. in games like Everquest, it wasnt uncommon to see people lose their accounts to some "hacker" normally this hacker used some scam in game to trick the person into giving up their details. when the person would try to log back in they would be met with "incorrect password, please try again". their account had just been stolen and is at present being stripped of all valuables and about to be deleted. the account that was just stolen, some kid, some person has spent an unknown huge amount of time - when i played EQ, my toon had 300+ days of actual in-game play time and had a value of at least $3k on player acutions. that's an account that has real world vaule that i put almost of a year of work into. understand that now, i played the game for close to 6 years, my ingame play time was a year. now you can't tell me the person who steals that account or anyone like it shouldnt face the same criminal charges of somebody who commits fraud for monitary gain. ps. if anyone knows how i can get that year back ,let me know =)
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30 Posted by kmkearnes on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:52PM EDT Report Abuse
this is for the people like the one above who posted dumbdumbdumb. you need to take a serious look around at the world your living in today... i mean ----- ner (capt "beam me up scotty" kirk) plays a shaman! lol. we are shifting into more and more of a digital age where social network through artificially created environments like Myspace, facebook, world of war craft, and the likes. these contribute a lot of positives to our ever shrinking world. consider the millions of young people who are getting exposure to other people who live all over the world, when i played EQ i had friends from holland, uk, japan, philipines, and a few other places. i stress the word friends because these were people whom i built lasting relationships with over a virtual platform. some of them i even had the pleasure to meet in the real world (awesome night in london with Shanelle and Laccy!!) you know the digital divide, the ones that doesn't allow grandma to send emails? well i see it happening again, which side of the crack will you end up on?theres a whole new way to communicate with people whom you havent met yet- what will be your EQ?
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31 Posted by marjangdrz on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:07PM EDT Report Abuse
what goes on in a virtual world should be left to those who live in the virtual world and no one in the real world!!!
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32 Posted by jondavault on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:40PM EDT Report Abuse
Here's my addition to the conversation: I used to play a game called Asheron's Call. The game was one of the first MMORPGS, and I loved it. I spent countless hours raising my character levels and watching my charactar grow spectacularly. Speed increased phenomenally with character improvement allowing one to travel the world many times faster than we are used to seeing. Difficult spells that often fizzled would blast enemy units with great effects. The large community of gamers that used to play Asheron's Call knew how valuable items in their 'world' were. They understood that said battle axe with said attributes would take X amount of time to work up to in a non-trade environment. That type of game knowledge allowed users to make their trade decisions based on time. I met many people while playing that game. Microsoft employees, kids, geezers, and the like. We all spent lots of time playing the game. However, every person lived within different monetary and time margins. Bill from microsoft, for example, wouldn't be able to trade his way up to a Matty Robe for at least a hundred hours of gametime leveling. However, Joe who was a kid had lots of time to play the game and work up to Matty Robe trading and beyond. Therein lies the difference: The weight one places on the game they are playing will be the deciding factor as to whether or not they will involve the real dollar bills in gametime trades. I think that games are so inter-twined within people that they represent reality. Why else would a Microsoft employee dish out $200 cash to me for a Matty Robe? The marginal value he received from the Matty Robe was equal to or greater to him than that of the money he gave me, and therefore; a good deal to him and myself! There are other times I have witnessed a buyer and a customer feeling satisfied with their purchases and sales in virtual worlds. Why limit ourselves to sale in real-time only... when all we have is time. Isn't make believe a real belief afterall? Cheers! BUMP
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33 Posted by raygray20 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:31PM EDT Report Abuse
on another note, the answer to the question therein, i think he should get in trouble in real life, ppl do spend real money for the time and items in the virtual world, so why not prosecute him for the crime in real life. its the same as someone sending out snail mail with a brochure made to look like something real like dell for instance and a fake address to order and send in money or check then keeping it and not giving them anything, or setting up an accoutn to accept credit cards liek paypal or something i dont know ppl can get creative, anyhow the point is ppl spend real money and someone stole what they paid for, so hence the theft was of the money not the virtual items.
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34 Posted by blackyloverlf on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:08PM EDT Report Abuse
wow this so sooo confusing i mean i dont understand why anyone would buy virtual stuff he should go to virtual prison!!
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35 Posted by inuyasha9000000 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:24PM EDT Report Abuse
i think he should have to return it and be banned. i mean what dumb person spends their hard earned money on stuff that doesn't exist
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36 Posted by t3xph33r on Thu Jan 10, 2008 9:44AM EST Report Abuse
I am a registered habbo user! And its a really cool website, but, i do think that spending real money on fake things is stupid, thats why i don't even have a hotel room, i just go to hang out... ha ha
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37 Posted by elisa_rodriguez13 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:53PM EDT Report Abuse
true that, yo.
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38 Posted by t3xph33r on Thu Jan 10, 2008 9:48AM EST Report Abuse
Hi elisa! haha
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39 Posted by gonzalez_jonathan_gonzalez on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:11PM EDT Report Abuse
Well thats da stupidest thing ive ever heard! why da heck will somebody spend real money on fake things. And i think its dummer dat the teens that were stealing shouldnt go 2 jail And y would anybody visit dat website ITS NOT REAL GET A LIFE 2 ANYONE DATS SPENDING DA CASH!
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40 Posted by gonzalez_jonathan_gonzalez on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:11PM EDT Report Abuse
Well thats da stupidest thing ive ever heard! why da heck will somebody spend real money on fake things. And i think its dummer dat the teens that were stealing shouldnt go 2 jail And y would anybody visit dat website ITS NOT REAL GET A LIFE 2 ANYONE DATS SPENDING DA CASH!
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41 Posted by xmaradmuh on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:53PM EDT Report Abuse
This article and most of the comments are really interesting. Robin didn't get it, and made sure that most readers don't really get it either. very educational... First of all, it's not up to us to judge how other people spend their hard earned money, especially when it comes to entertainment and hobbies. If someone is into stamp collecting then they may spend thousands of dollars on some unique stamp even if it says 10c on it. Secondly, the value of things, services, etc is decided by those who pay or are willing to pay for them. If a 10c stamp can be valued and sold for $10,000 then its value is $10,000 not 10c. You may think otherwise, and if everyone in the world thinks like you do, then the value of the stamp changes, but if there's a community of people, or just one person, who will pay $10,000 for this stamp then it's worth $10,000. If it's stolen it's a theft of $10,000 not 10c. Just think of auctions and the stock market. The last point is that the theft was done in real life. His virtual character didn't steal the virtual furniture in the game, but the real-life kid stole, in real life, virtual furniture and gave it to his virtual character. It's a real-life theft of virtual objects valued thousands of dollars. It deserves real-life punishment. You can't even argue that he may have done it because he thought that the virtual furniture is worthless. He stole passwords to obtain the virtual furniture, so he must have valued it otherwise he wouldn't have bothered.
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26 Posted by smartywoot on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:28PM EDT Report Abuse
Its funny the way you guys talk. You say they waste their money by buying therse things. Well is considered wasting money to buy any type of video game. Nothing in it is real. However some people find it pleasant. Some people go to the movies, yet nothing there is real. Please give these people their proper respect. Just because they do this does not make them soicially inept.