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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)


lordkafei

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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. :-|

 

I know. Which is why he should have been fined for the theft of her commodities in addition to that. I didn't 'miss' anything, you just misinterpreted what I said. I know he didn't actually receive any penalty for the theft of her RS stuff. I am saying that the sum total of his fine should have at least matched the value of what he stole. I disagree with the court not fining the guy for the theft of virtual goods as I view them in exactly the same way as physical commodities, as my previous post explains. Which is why a £100 fine seems low to me.

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Wow – *someone* appears to be grouchy this morning … :unsure:

 

Actually, when looking this issue through, as presented by the article, it’s really an all-round failure on the part of both the Court and the media involved here. Unfortunately, neither the media nor the Court appear to have any concept of the actual value of the “virtual credits”. Not surprising really, both institutions are generally run by a crusty older generation that still regards the computer as “the magic box” … :rolleyes:

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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. :-|

 

I know. Which is why he should have been fined for the theft of her commodities in addition to that. I didn't 'miss' anything, you just misinterpreted what I said. I know he didn't actually receive any penalty for the theft of her RS stuff. I am saying that the sum total of his fine should have at least matched the value of what he stole. I disagree with the court not fining the guy for the theft of virtual goods as I view them in exactly the same way as physical commodities, as my previous post explains. Which is why a £100 fine seems low to me.

By this logic, should the 'commodities' we earn in-game not be subject to taxation, since they allegedly have a real value and therefore qualify as a source of income?

 

Or... we could just accept that all in-game items remain owned by Jagex and avoid a lot of complications. Baring in mind that RS gold only has a value when you sell it, which involves breaching the terms and conditions of playing the game.

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The issue is that people want things both ways. We don't want to be taxed, or worry about those things being in our "estate" but we also don't want someone who is caught stealing them to go without any fine at all.

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The issue is that people want things both ways. We don't want to be taxed, or worry about those things being in our "estate" but we also don't want someone who is caught stealing them to go without any fine at all.

Pretty much. I get the feeling that we won't get a decent set of laws regarding the topic for a long time; The older generation doesn't know much about it and the generation that's going to take over for them just wants the half that benefits them. :razz:

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Taxing is easy. Jagex gives the relevant institutions drops & gp equal to what all the players gather, subject to RWT rules as usual.

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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. :-|

 

I know. Which is why he should have been fined for the theft of her commodities in addition to that. I didn't 'miss' anything, you just misinterpreted what I said. I know he didn't actually receive any penalty for the theft of her RS stuff. I am saying that the sum total of his fine should have at least matched the value of what he stole. I disagree with the court not fining the guy for the theft of virtual goods as I view them in exactly the same way as physical commodities, as my previous post explains. Which is why a £100 fine seems low to me.

By this logic, should the 'commodities' we earn in-game not be subject to taxation, since they allegedly have a real value and therefore qualify as a source of income?

 

Or... we could just accept that all in-game items remain owned by Jagex and avoid a lot of complications. Baring in mind that RS gold only has a value when you sell it, which involves breaching the terms and conditions of playing the game.

 

RS Gold has a real cash value whether you are interested in selling it or not. For the sake of argument let's say the price of eoc gold is £0.15/M. If you have 500M then it is worth approximately £75 whether you intend to sell it or not. If I have no intentions of selling my Sony stocks or my gold bullion (I wish I actually owned these things), those things still have a value. Virtual currency is no different.

 

You don't pay tax on commodities you own, you only pay tax on your income from those commodities. If I had a pile of gold bars sitting in my room, I wouldn't pay tax on them as I derive no income from them. Same with a pile of RSGP. It is only when you sell those items - real or virtual - that you obtain a taxable income from them, although that does not stop those items from having a value.

 

Whilst I don't dispute that all in game items are owned by Jagex, Jagex has shown a remarkably small interest in preventing the sale of those items. Less than 100 people have been banned for RWT in the past 12 months; and at a conservative estimate, of the order of tens of thousands of unique accounts have bought or sold virtual items for real currency in the last year using the most popular black market site alone. More likely that number is far higher.

 

Until Jagex show more interest in taking action against people selling items they own, the fact that they own them is effectively irrelevant in the same way that a law enforced in fewer than 1% of cases would be irrelevant.

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RWT rules forbid trading RS items for goods, too, and I think bitcoins are close enough to goods that Jagex would ban you (if they went after RWTers, that is). When you do get to court, you might stand a chance (on the bitcoins not being currency bit), but court isn't really the issue here. I think that since Jagex owns the game, the law is very happy to let them do whatever they want ban-wise :P. I don't think customer protection laws extend to virtual goods any more than fraud, or theft, or destruction of property laws.

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99 herblore (22nd March 2012) | 99 firemaking (26th March 2012) | 99 cooking (2nd July 2012) | 99 runecrafting (12th March 2012) | 99 crafting (26th August 2012) | 99 agility (19th November 2012)

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Glacor drops: four pairs of ragefire boots, one pair of steadfast boots, six effigies, two hundred lots of Armadyl shards, three elite clues | Nex split: Torva boots | Kalphite King split: off-hand drygore mace

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If this writer thinks that things done on the computer have no value, I'd like to see how'd he react to a 20 page story being deleted off his hard drive with no back ups. I mean, it didn't really exist right? All he really lost was some of his free time which doesn't really have any value right?

 

We all know Jagex likes to say that all this is there property and there's no real world value to the GP. Something tells me that the courts are going to rule that actually these accounts and the items on them do have value because people have placed a value on them. As such, companies like Jagex that open up virtual environments will be held to higher standards and conditions with how they treat that environment and the accounts associated with it. It can be like conditions placed on landlords where the person renting has many rights that cannot be violated just because they don't own the property such as kicking them out without notice or cause.

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The guy was convicted under the computer misuse act for making unauthorised modifications to computer material. That places value on the account as not to be able to modify it without permission. It's not the coin value of the gp itself it's the fact that he did anything to the account at all.

 

For those who think the fine was measly, it is meant to be a token fine. The guy now has a criminal conviction. That will have a much more significant impact on his life as it can be used against him in his future. That's far more of an impact than a fine.

 

As to my opinion of whether he deserved it, of course he did. No-one wants their accounts hacked. His own fault for being an immature spiteful little so-and-so.

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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. :-|

 

I know. Which is why he should have been fined for the theft of her commodities in addition to that. I didn't 'miss' anything, you just misinterpreted what I said. I know he didn't actually receive any penalty for the theft of her RS stuff. I am saying that the sum total of his fine should have at least matched the value of what he stole. I disagree with the court not fining the guy for the theft of virtual goods as I view them in exactly the same way as physical commodities, as my previous post explains. Which is why a £100 fine seems low to me.

By this logic, should the 'commodities' we earn in-game not be subject to taxation, since they allegedly have a real value and therefore qualify as a source of income?

 

Or... we could just accept that all in-game items remain owned by Jagex and avoid a lot of complications. Baring in mind that RS gold only has a value when you sell it, which involves breaching the terms and conditions of playing the game.

 

RS Gold has a real cash value whether you are interested in selling it or not. For the sake of argument let's say the price of eoc gold is £0.15/M. If you have 500M then it is worth approximately £75 whether you intend to sell it or not. If I have no intentions of selling my Sony stocks or my gold bullion (I wish I actually owned these things), those things still have a value. Virtual currency is no different.

 

You don't pay tax on commodities you own, you only pay tax on your income from those commodities. If I had a pile of gold bars sitting in my room, I wouldn't pay tax on them as I derive no income from them. Same with a pile of RSGP. It is only when you sell those items - real or virtual - that you obtain a taxable income from them, although that does not stop those items from having a value.

 

Whilst I don't dispute that all in game items are owned by Jagex, Jagex has shown a remarkably small interest in preventing the sale of those items. Less than 100 people have been banned for RWT in the past 12 months; and at a conservative estimate, of the order of tens of thousands of unique accounts have bought or sold virtual items for real currency in the last year using the most popular black market site alone. More likely that number is far higher.

 

Until Jagex show more interest in taking action against people selling items they own, the fact that they own them is effectively irrelevant in the same way that a law enforced in fewer than 1% of cases would be irrelevant.

 

 

You would have to sell a substantial amount of gp in order for it to become taxable. That's providing you declare it of course - I think you can store £20,000 in a paypal account. We're talking over 120B gp of gold at the price you said. If you bought and sold you would have to sell even more for it to become taxable. I think a bigger issue would be if you were able to sell over £75,000 of it. You would legally have to charge VAT on all UK sales. But I think that if you could even get to that point would only be applicable to the difference of price bought/sold. Example if you bought £100 worth and sold for £105. Then £5 would be vatable making £6 the gross amount.

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It may not have monetary value in terms of tax laws. But definitely the definition of monetary value is "how much will someone pay for this?"

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I once bought 5 Monopoly Dollars for $5CAD. Does that mean Monopoly money is worth real money? Just because someone spends money on something doesn't mean in inherently has a monetary value.

 

Just as something like a painting or pottery from an archeological dig in Africa may not be worth money to everyone, to the right person it can have substantial value. Monopoly money obviously has an extremely low value to most people, but to the right person (such as yourself) it can be worth a lot.

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