Internet Theft- Moral Values? Your thoughts please.

[Alkhara Majere]

Let's say someone gets their Spellstrike Helm made. A man steals it somehow. Should the thief be convicted of a crime and punished in the real world? Did you snort with laughter at that question? Why?

The victim worked many hours to "earn" the object.
The victim used it daily and depended on it. He derived happiness and satisfaction from it.

So why shouldn't depriving him of it be punishable by law? If you say, "but it's just something he used in a game," I'll say that golf is also just a game. Want to see what happens to me when I steal a new set of golf clubs?

If you say, "but the Spellstrike Helm doesn't even exist," I'll say it exists in exactly the same way that the songs and software I download off Bittorrent exist. And yet stealing them is a crime. The only difference is that when I steal a song, nobody else is deprived of the song. When that guy had his helm stolen, he was left unarmed and forced to go find a replacement. That theft actually hurts more, not less.

Your thoughts, please.

[WoWLegend]

someone steal your spellstrike hood alk?

joking

but yes i hate people who steal in video games
and thats why i steer clear of the scams section

[EliMob441]

When You sign the user agreement with blizzard , blizz states that everything(Account and all) is belonging to blizzard, so in a way its not a crime and this does not have to do with anything in the real world. losing a item in a game wont destroy your job, your love life , and there are ways to get it back, like blizz ticket, just like the police, Stealing in a game is bad and to me it is bad moral but people do it, you lose they win

[valon]

Honestly last time i tried to do this i got flamed. Here is my thoughts. It should be punishable by law in my opinion that person spent his time and his money to play the game in the first place then to be deprived of his personally property by some kid looking for laughs? I think it is wrong and if it should never be punishable by law then we should have all rights to download anything we want no matter the price without ever having worry.

Now punishable by law i mean it should not be to harsh but he should get what he got taken back and an interest or something so if someone gets their account scammed and the price was $500 he should get the his account and around double the amount back.

just my twocents

[Alkhara Majere]

Honestly last time i tried to do this i got flamed. Here is my thoughts. It should be punishable by law in my opinion that person spent his time and his money to play the game in the first place then to be deprived of his personally property by some kid looking for laughs? I think it is wrong and if it should never be punishable by law then we should have all rights to download anything we want no matter the price without ever having worry.

Now punishable by law i mean it should not be to harsh but he should get what he got taken back and an interest or something so if someone gets their account scammed and the price was $500 he should get the his account and around double the amount back.

just my twocents

Well said.

[EliMob441]

Now punishable by law i mean it should not be to harsh but he should get what he got taken back and an interest or something so if someone gets their account scammed and the price was $500 he should get the his account and around double the amount back.

just my twocents

By law, if he dude scams a man like selling a account, he should get his account back and no money he is taking the risk already. if you are trading accounts blizzards urge's not to do, so it is your fault if you get scamed , you cant run to blizzz cause they wont support it, you got yourself into the mess now get yourself out. But it is like a spellstrikehood like inagmne item, and sombody scam's you ingame blizz can help but selling trading all i see are fool harty people taking big risk for a small chance or getting a account or money in return,

[Loveshock]

If people could get in trouble with the authorities for stealing a so-called virtual piece of property, then a ton of people would be getting in trouble for this. Trying to punish these people would be a futile attempt to do justice because there's just too many of them who "steal" in this game. Computer game crimes should be the least of the world's worries now-a-days with all the other stuff going on.

[Marlo]

You cannot steal that which does not exist. So taking some hat from a game really shouldn't be punishable by law imho.

[Obex]

Erm the hood dosnt exist but music dose you dont steal music you break creative rights its only stealing if you took the cd from the store its copyright if your torrenting

a person who steals in game should be punsihed in game so its equle punishment for the crime

lets say tommorw you when out and bought the Mona lisa and a postcard if a theif stole your postcard it would be less of a crime than staling the mona lisa

Virtual item theift is not as seriouse as real theift

[Alkhara Majere]

You cannot steal that which does not exist. So taking some hat from a game really shouldn't be punishable by law imho.

Not even 10% of the money in the American economy exists as physical, printed currency. All of the rest exists on servers and hard drives and in the imaginations of the people. It has value for the exact same reason WoW gold has value: because people think it has value.

[Obex]

Not even 10% of the money in the American economy exists as physical, printed currency. All of the rest exists on servers and hard drives and in the imaginations of the people. It has value for the exact same reason WoW gold has value: because people think it has value.

but who (apart from wow players) cares about a virtual hat ?

i mean if some noob came to this fourm going WHAHA I GOT PKED ON RS AND LOST MY FULL RUNE AND (inster decent RS wepon here) I WANA SUE HIM he would get flamed because no one apart from rs players gives 2 shits that you lost your full rune Vise versa for wow

[Alkhara Majere]

but who (apart from wow players) cares about a virtual hat ?

i mean if some noob came to this fourm going WHAHA I GOT PKED ON RS AND LOST MY FULL RUNE AND (inster decent RS wepon here) I WANA SUE HIM he would get flamed because no one apart from rs players gives 2 shits that you lost your full rune Vise versa for wow

That is why the discussion is on moral values and not currency.

[kelat]

As much as I would like to say that it should be punishable, I believe that it cannot be. All actions exist within the game environment created by Blizzard, known as World of Warcraft. Thusly, Blizzard becomes the highest authority in this world as opposed to say the President or some other person. All complaints are brought to them and them alone. As well, I believe that not many people would care about such a theft, and dismiss it as just a game. Also, people in this virtual world are masked by anonymity, so they are willing perform acts such as stealing with almost no moral question. This is why scams run rampant in WoW, no 12yo would be out on the street stealing from other people. Or at least I would hope not

[Enfeebleness]

Stealing someones items is causing that person to be at a loss, for something they worked for.
But this is stealing from a person that's going "I just got my super sweet hat!" not someone that makes hats for a living and then trys to sell them.

A record company produces the songs for their jobs, and if you steal one, frankly, it's not a big deal, thousands of others baught it.

It's like you made that hat, and people can steal it, or buy it, but the hat itself is still there, you don't need to make more of that hat, you just need to make more different hats.

[Alkhara Majere]

You all make excellent points that I had not taken into consideration.