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Teenager dragged to court for giving away a friend's VIRTUAL gold coins in an online fantasy game (Daily Mail Online)


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RuneScape makes the news, but not exactly in a good way:

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2328922/Teenager-dragged-court-giving-away-friends-VIRTUAL-gold-coins-online-fantasy-game.html

 

I found the sentence to be somewhat hilarious:

 

He was given an eight-month conditional discharge and was ordered to pay £16 compensation by Swansea magistrates.

 

£16 punishment for trashing a six-year-old account.

 

Jagex could score some PR points by doing the wronged player a solid. But we all know they wont.

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Goddammit, Belmont.

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01001001001001110110110100100000010101000111011101100101011011000111011001100101

00100000011000010110111001100100001000000111011101101000011000010111010000100000

0110100101110011001000000111010001101000011010010111001100111111

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First of all, that article is so bad. What's with the pictures, and calling gp 'credits'? Also what's with the whole 'no real world value' thing, I'm sure your collection of holiday pictures is worth nothing, still not a nice thing to remove some >.>.

 

Second, $16 is kind of lame. But I guess it's not about the compensation, this guy needs to be fined for hurting someone (emotionally).

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Will they give him a virtual sentence now they have wasted virtually everyone's time.

 

This wins all the internet (the comments from the article)

Edited by Jeremy841
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Thats what you expect from Swansea residents - once Cardiff City are playing in the premiership they'll know who's boss again and stop with this tomfoolery.

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First of all, that article is so bad. What's with the pictures, and calling gp 'credits'? Also what's with the whole 'no real world value' thing, I'm sure your collection of holiday pictures is worth nothing, still not a nice thing to remove some >.>.

 

Second, $16 is kind of lame. But I guess it's not about the compensation, this guy needs to be fined for hurting someone (emotionally).

 

It's the Daily Mail, they aren't renowned for doing actual research :P Best used as toilet paper.

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"Unfortunately, the real world isn't the same as a fairy tale."


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Oh jeez, it's partially her fault anyway. So why is she being looked at as an innocent person? She had to give him the password so he could even do that. This is why if you're sharing a computer, you have two separate accounts on that computer. Your's and the other person; both password protected. Also, you never give out your Runescape password anyway. I don't feel bad for her at all.

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Oh jeez, it's partially her fault anyway. So why is she being looked at as an innocent person? She had to give him the password so he could even do that. This is why if you're sharing a computer, you have two separate accounts on that computer. Your's and the other person; both password protected. Also, you never give out your Runescape password anyway. I don't feel bad for her at all.

So if you give a copy of your house's keys to someone you think you can trust, but they end up stealing some of your stuff and giving it away, you should be partially guilty?

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First of all, that article is so bad. What's with the pictures, and calling gp 'credits'? Also what's with the whole 'no real world value' thing, I'm sure your collection of holiday pictures is worth nothing, still not a nice thing to remove some >.>.

 

Second, $16 is kind of lame. But I guess it's not about the compensation, this guy needs to be fined for hurting someone (emotionally).

 

It's the Daily Mail, they aren't renowned for doing actual research :P Best used as toilet paper.

 

Check out this gem http://www.dailymail...te-minutes.html

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Oh jeez, it's partially her fault anyway. So why is she being looked at as an innocent person? She had to give him the password so he could even do that. This is why if you're sharing a computer, you have two separate accounts on that computer. Your's and the other person; both password protected. Also, you never give out your Runescape password anyway. I don't feel bad for her at all.

So if you give a copy of your house's keys to someone you think you can trust, but they end up stealing some of your stuff and giving it away, you should be partially guilty?

 

Not guilty of the theft, but of poor judgement.

 

Edit: If you want to give your password/items/services away then you should be ready to have them taken with no compensation. It's your stuff, and so your responsibility to hand them out (or not at all) only to people you find trustworthy. Since people cannot force their way into your account except by your action or inaction, (barring extreme circumstances) your account and it's content's safety rests with you.

 

Nobody is accusing the "innocent victim" as being responsible for carrying out the theft, but they effectively opened the door for the accused.

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Based on his article, Bond seems to be ridiculed by the whole episode being played out in the court. But imo Belmont's action is wrong regardless of whether the gp (and in fact any kind of virtual money in future reference) have any real monetary value or whether the victim is partially or fully responsible for trusting others and sharing log-in details. I think £16 is a little bit of a joke. In consideration of the abundance of online games at the present, this is not going to be the last of such cases, I believe the magistrates need to make a statement to everyone that actions along the line of theft or unauthorised access to computer and contents of any forms that are under some extent of restricted access, cannot be tolerated by imposing more severe punishments. As for Jagex, from the advertising point of view, any publicity is good publicity. A low profile story like this is just another free advertising opportunity...I'm sure they can work out a good spin if they want to take on this.

'Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.' T.S. Eliot

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Oh jeez, it's partially her fault anyway. So why is she being looked at as an innocent person? She had to give him the password so he could even do that. This is why if you're sharing a computer, you have two separate accounts on that computer. Your's and the other person; both password protected. Also, you never give out your Runescape password anyway. I don't feel bad for her at all.

So if you give a copy of your house's keys to someone you think you can trust, but they end up stealing some of your stuff and giving it away, you should be partially guilty?

 

Oh geez not this discussion again. You should go pass through Off Topic amd check out the discussions over there regarding this principle :twss:

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That article is really poorly researched (but as expected from the Daily Fail).

 

The £16 compensation was for the booze he stole the same night, he also paid £85 prosecution costs and a £15 victim surcharge. A total fine of £116 which considering he is of "no fixed abode" must have felt pretty harsh.

 

He wasn't charged with the theft of the virtual items, he was charged with gaining unauthorised access to a computer and making unauthorised modifications to computer material and for that he was given eight-months conditional discharge. It's one of the lowest punishments a court can give and as long as he stays out of trouble for the next 8-months then he'll be fine.

 

I'm sure Jagex will have given the girls stuff back (as they have done on rare occasions). The biggest punishment for this kid is that he'll probably be ridiculed by his mates for playing RuneScape and his relationship with the girl now over.

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"We don't want players to be able to buy their way to success in RuneScape. If we let players start doing this, it devalues RuneScape for others. We feel your status in real-life shouldn't affect your ability to be successful in RuneScape" Jagex 01/04/01 - 02/03/12

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Saying the ingame "credits" don't have any real world value and comparing it to monopoly money is just blatant ignorant...

 

If anything, it demonstrates how out of touch both the "journalist" and his editor are with the technology involved ... :rolleyes:

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Aaaand if he is...?

 

What are you some kind of no-life gamer virgin?

 

Oh geez not this discussion again. You should go pass through Off Topic amd check out the discussions over there regarding this principle :twss:

Don't you dare! We've been going around this circle for days. :(

Edited by Ginger_Warrior
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Virtual currency has well established exchange rates for real currency which vary over time, just like any commodity. I don't know why people are so surprised when stuff like this does happen. A £100 fine does seem a bit low though, considering she'd been playing for 6 years I'd imagine the items he took were worth more than that.

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Except that the fine wasn't for the virtual money, it was for the stolen alcohol, valued at £16, and the remaining £100 a mixture of prosecution costs and victim surcharges. In fact:

"Teenager Keiron Belmont in court for decimating man`s online RuneScape fantasy game profile"[/i].']No separate penalty was imposed for the computer game offence.

It's only been mentioned three times in two pages, so it's pretty clear to see why you'd have missed it. :-|

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