Criminal Games

Doing research on other issues, I stumbled across two interesting state criminal statutes.  Permit these a broad interpretation and then apply them to Julian's Bone Crusher theft (described here, discussed by Dan and I here) -- would the statutes criminalize the theft of a virtual item with the intent to realize a real-world profit?

With my emphasis, here is the California Penal Code §  332:

(a) Every person who by the game of "three card monte," so-called, or any other game, device, sleight of hand, pretensions to fortune telling, trick, or other means whatever, by use of cards or other implements or instruments, or while betting on sides or hands of any play or game, fraudulently obtains from another person money or property of any description, shall be punished as in case of larceny of property of like value.

(b) For the purposes of this section, "fraudulently obtains" includes, but is not limited to, cheating, including, for example, gaining an unfair advantage for any player in any game through a technique or device not sanctioned by the rules of the game.  (I love that bit!)

(c) For the purposes of establishing the value of property under this section, poker chips, tokens, or markers have the monetary value assigned to them by the players in any game.

Louisiana Statute 14:90.3  is kind of long, so here are some key excerpts, again with my emphasis:

§  14:90.3. Gambling by computer
...
B. Gambling by computer is the intentional conducting, or directly assisting in the conducting as a business of any game, contest, lottery, or contrivance whereby a person risks the loss of anything of value in order to realize a profit when accessing the Internet, World Wide Web, or any part thereof by way of any computer, computer system, computer network, computer software, or any server.
...
D. Whoever commits the crime of gambling by computer shall be fined not more than five hundred dollars, or imprisoned for not more than six months, or both.
...
H. Nothing in this Section shall prohibit, limit, or otherwise restrict the purchase, sale, exchange, or other transaction related to stocks, bonds, futures, options, commodities, or other similar instruments or transactions occurring on a stock or commodities exchange, brokerage house, or similar entity.  (Can't make the scope of this too broad, after all.)

Of course, as Professor Bill Stuntz has pointed out in a recent article, The Pathological Politics of Criminal Law, (where I found the reference to the California statute), overbroad criminal law definitions are more and more the norm, and we seem to rely on prosecutors to sense that there are limits to the spirit of the law they are enforcing.  As Stuntz points out, though, quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Comments

[Rohan Verghese]

1.

I'm still a little unclear on what exactly happened with the Bone Crusher item, but it seems to me that 'theft' in UO is a technique sanctioned by the rules of the game. Therefore the California law is not violated.

As for the Louisiana law, I don't see what is being risked. If it is the Bone Crusher item, it was acquired in game, and cannot really be said to be 'risked' in the same manner as an outside resource. After all, a level 1 character playing the exact same game is not risking anything, so how can a high-level character all of a sudden be risking something? I don't see how this law applies either.

[Endie]

2.

The Californian article seems not to be too much of a stretch, to me: certainly requiring a less broad and interpretation of the law than many US judges have been willing to adopt of late. But Californian law is a long way from the system I'm trained in.

Louisiana law, however, is a mixed common/codified system, not just far closer to the code I studied in (Scots Law) but actually used for practical examples in our degree. And I must say that ss.B is a remarkably badly-worded piece of statute. Amazingly so. The sort of drafting that is so widely applicable that a decent judge deliberately takes a narrow view of legislatory intent. After all, you could apply it to eBay: a "...contrivance whereby a person risks the loss of anything of value in order to realize a profit when accessing the Internet". Sounds like bad law made in haste.

[CrazyKinux]

3.

Interesting article over at NewScientist about a man who was arrested in Japan, on suspicion using bot to beat up and rob characters in Lineage II:

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7865

So far, most of the individuals that have committed these RL crime for VL goods seem to be all in Asia. Is this a cultural phenoma, or will western culture eventually catch-up?

[Torley Wong/Torley Torgeson]

4.

That's beautiful typesetting in that PDF but all the words get washed off on me. The same words used to define law allow for the lawless. By the time so much is written, antiquation sets in (especially in the dazy futureshock of today) and a new revision is needed. Sure, tricks run years deep, and there are so many variations on a theme—I really do wish there were more paradigm shifts to throw things off. I just can't relate to it.

(Trainwise, I like how simple Creative Commons is to use.)

That Lineage II case is spooky, having a bot to do that sounds eerily like what Bender would gumbo up in Futurama. o.O

[James Kwan]

5.

People are a bunch of ignorant fascists, you know? I was totally amazed by the comments people started making around the time of the Hot Coffee debacle, but now I've finally figured it out. There are no social rules in place about games. Everyone knows that you're not supposed to say fascistic shit about art and religion, but games have not attained that place in our culture.

This came to me as I was browsing used titles at Gamestop and overheard some employees talking about "fags" and thought to myself, They would never say that about black people. Their social consciousness just has not integrated that minority element yet, because they do not recognize that society at large deems "fags" important. Video games: same thing.

That this kind of stuff goes on even here amazes me. It's like if someone posted an article about Hitler gassing Jews and someone said, "I wonder what the academic implications are for prison population maintenance."

People should stand up and type in ALL CAPS that this stuff is CRAZY. You do not criminalize games. Take a moral stand for your art!