Talk:Virtual crime

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Interesting article, but I think some of the claims need to be substantiated:

"Some countries have introduced laws and special police investigation units to cover such crimes, classing some of them as no different to their real-life counterparts". This looks wrong, particularly the last bit. I accept distinctions can get blurred, but crimes that are purely virtual are qualitatively different from real world crimes and I'm quite sure the Korean justice system continues to reflect this. If real money is being extorted online then that's a crime, if coinage that has no value outside the game is being extorted then it's not (though a different "real world" offence may sometimes apply such as harassment or threatening behaviour)

Similarly "known cases" conflates crime that is virtual (the Korean example) with virtual world events that led to crime in the real world (the China example)--Cjnm 10:42, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps the intro may be a little ambiguous. It refers to the legal situation, in that the theft of virtual property is increasingly being seen as punishable in the real world, as per "normal" theft, and not necessarily that the punishment is equal. As for the known cases example, it shows that virtual crime can lead onto real world crime, something that is certainly relevant. violet/riga (t) 15:54, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have adjusted the intro - so that it still says that police forces are starting to take "virtual crime" seriously, but no longer that laws have been introduced to deal with it. There are no examples of the latter in the article as yet—indeed the section on "Ownership" and the Chinese example suggest the opposite. Hope that's OK. --Cjnm 14:57, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Actually, this article, as it stands, is mainly unsubstantiated rubbish.

Which is completely referenced. violet/riga (t) 15:54, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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I'm just going to throw this out there, to see if anybody objects, but a lot of this article is just copy and paste from Virtual economy. It seems like this could probably be merged with that, although to me, that ought to be dependant upon the veracity of the article, which strikes me as a little fantastic. Junjk 15:43, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This one, virtual crime, that is, is the one that seems fantastic. Junjk 15:44, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This is about virtual crime, something common in the news recently and definately on the up. It includes some details from virtual economy simply because that info is required for context. As more countries follow South Korea's lead there will be more information to go here. As it is, most of the information will be from that country, and thus not too available in English. violet/riga (t) 15:54, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Virtual Prostitution?

I can't imagine why an article on virtual crime does not have an entry on virtual prostitution? --YoungFreud 16:51, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The "Evangaline" case is perhaps the best known one, and I'm still looking for some (more) decent references for it. If you can suggest some, or some for other occurances, then that would be great. violet/riga (t) 17:14, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That's the big one. I have heard that there was a practice going on before that called, IIRC, "Bomba" in which players would whore themselves out for furniture. I'm currently playing Second Life and I've run across escorts and virtual whorehouses in the middle of nowhere.

For more information on the Evangeline case, I'll refer you to the Alphaville Herald interview, now the Second Life Herald. In fact, you might want to read through the Alphaville Herald archives and gather various news sources about it.

BTW, would the sweatshops associated with "Chinese Adena Farming" be considered a virtual crime or just a violation of civil rights?--YoungFreud 17:28, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] In-game vs. out-of-game but related to the game...

This distinction is not made in the article. ...after stabbing and killing fellow The Legend of Mir 3 gamer Zhu Caoyuan... is a case that happened out of the game, and so shouldn't be called "Virtual crime", though it was related to the game. Do these police task forces investigate "crime" inside games (ie. a player tricks another into giving them an item, then doesn't pay), or outside games (ie. through eBay)? Confused is I. -- Consumed Crustacean | Talk | 18:46, Jun 11, 2005 (UTC)

That example is of a virtual crime (not returning the item) leading to a real-world crime. The police forces investigate any calls of virtual crime, and thus both ones you mentioned. The fact that Zhu sold the sword on eBay is part of the case and thus part of the in-game crime. violet/riga (t) 13:22, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Virtual sweatshops

I mentioned this under the virtual prostitution section as "Chinese Adena Farming", but I've got a source on some of this behavior from this article on 1up.com. One of the leading profiteers is a programmer with the alias Smooth Criminal, who apparently caused the big credit dupe in SWG that lead to getting large number of players banned. Another one was Lee Caldwell, whose company, BlackSnow, employed workers in a Tijuana sweatshop to "farm" gold. --YoungFreud 6 July 2005 23:38 (UTC)