In South Korea, according to the statistics of the Korean Police Department, from June/KOOC-0/day to June/KOOC-0/0, 2002, there were 25,000 network-related crimes, of which virtual crimes related to online games accounted for 26%, reaching 65/KOOC-0/9. The investigation results of computer crimes released by the Search Department of Seoul National Police Department show that online game hackers and frauds account for 47.9%, general frauds account for 10.7%, hackers and virus spreading account for 7.4%, and personal information infringement accounts for 6. 1%. According to the analysis of Korean experts, the phenomenon of teenagers committing crimes because of curiosity and impulsiveness has obviously decreased, but on the contrary, online games, cash transactions and other fraudulent acts of obtaining property have increased, and young people are the main perpetrators of such crimes. The existence of these phenomena urges South Korea to face up to the ownership of virtual property, and clearly stipulates that virtual characters and virtual objects in online games have property values independent of service providers. The service provider only provides a storage place for these private properties of players and has no right to modify or delete them at will. There is no essential difference between the nature of this network wealth and the money in the bank account.
(2) Hong Kong area
In Hong Kong, in recent years, due to the expensive weapons of online games, "online weapons theft" has emerged one after another. 165438+mid-October 2002. Hong Kong Kwai Chung/KLOC-Liang, a 0/6-year-old game participant, committed suicide by jumping off a building because he couldn't bear the theft of online "weapons" obtained through hard work. The occurrence of this case has aroused the serious concern of Hong Kong police on the legal protection of virtual property in online games. Earlier, the Hong Kong police took action against virtual property theft for the first time and arrested three "cyber thieves" aged between 16 and 19. On June 10, 2002, a 6-year-old boy from Hong Kong left after playing an online role-playing adventure game in an Internet cafe in Causeway Bay, but later he found that 15 weapons (cloak, armor, sword) in his game account were transferred to other accounts privately, with a total value of 5,000 yuan, so he called the police for help. After in-depth investigation, officers of the Science and Technology Crime Section of the Commercial Crime Bureau found that after the victim left an Internet cafe in Causeway Bay on June 10, his game account was re-logged by others, and the weapons in his account were also transferred to other accounts. The officers of the Science and Technology Crime Unit searched the computer records and finally successfully confirmed the identities of three game users, suspecting that they were related to the theft and were suspected of committing the crime of "using computers with criminal or dishonest intent". On June 5438+065438+ 10, 2002, the police arrested three teenagers aged between 16 and 19 in Quarry Bay, Wan Chai and Western District respectively. This is the first time that Hong Kong police have detected a case of stealing virtual property from online games.
In 2002, the Hong Kong police received a total of 272 computer crimes, including 164 cases of illegal intrusion into computer systems and 25 cases of other computer theft, which was 45% higher than the previous year and nearly doubled. However, online game developers in Hong Kong pointed out that the number of alarms is only the tip of the iceberg. According to an online game supplier, on average, more than 100 complaints are received every day, all related to the disappearance of "weapons" stored in online games, which shows that the situation is quite serious. Weapons in online games are often sold on the international auction website "Yi Bei" or local websites. Rare weapons in some popular games, such as DiabloII and Everquest, can cost as much as one hundred dollars. Some players bluntly said that most of these weapons auctioned online are of unknown origin.
Hong Kong police believe that the weapons of online games have become transferable and have monetary value, and the police will always pay attention to the theft of online games tools. For this emerging crime in the virtual world, the Hong Kong police set up a special project department to deal with it. A police spokesman also stressed that it is illegal to obtain game weapons by stealing, regardless of the quantity. Once convicted, the maximum penalty is 5 to 10 years imprisonment. The representative of Interpol warned that once such cases involve cross-border crimes, Interpol will certainly cooperate with overseas law enforcement officers, including Hong Kong, to hunt down criminal suspects on a global scale, and parents should take good care of their children to avoid falling into the law. Lei Baoya, a professional consultant of Interpol's management monitoring and business performance evaluation team, said in an interview that we should not mistakenly think that stealing virtual weapons in online games is a trivial matter. The suspect knowingly commits a crime, and theft is a criminal offence. Once it is proved that there is a cross-border crime, regardless of the size of the case, Interpol will definitely work together to crack down.
In order to effectively control more and more information technology crimes related to computers and the Internet, the Hong Kong government has successively revised various laws and regulations. For example, according to section 27A of the Telecommunications Ordinance, it is illegal for anyone to knowingly make a computer perform any function through telecommunications, thereby accessing any program or data stored in a computer without authorization, and the maximum penalty is a fine of $20,000. According to section 16 1 of the Crimes Ordinance. According to Article 200 of the Criminal Code, anyone who commits a crime or dishonestly uses a computer for his own benefit or causes losses to others can be sentenced to five years' imprisonment. Whoever obtains property by deception can be sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in prison according to Article 20 1 7 of the Regulations.
(3) Taiwan Province Province
In Taiwan Province Province, online game crime is a high-incidence case, accounting for the second place in the whole network crime case. The data shows that in 2002, for example, among a total of 3,000 cyber crimes, more than 1000 were online game crimes. The types of crimes include: stealing players' virtual treasures, virtual currency and game accounts, and using social or Trojan tools to invade or defraud fraudulent virtual goods and accounts. There are also incidents such as robbers and threats to obtain game-related items.
1997, the Legislative Yuan of Taiwan Province Province passed an amendment to the Criminal Law, which changed Article 323 "Energy such as electric energy and thermal energy is regarded as a crime in this chapter and is movable property" to "Energy such as electric energy and thermal energy or electromagnetic records is regarded as a crime in this chapter and is movable property". The amendment lists "electromagnetic records" as "movable property", so that online game accounts can finally be stolen, and people who steal virtual treasures from other people's accounts can no longer get away with it. Regarding the real right effect of virtual property, the Ministry of Justice officially explained in February 2000 1,1that electromagnetic records are all chattels in the chapter of fraud and theft, and information such as online game accounts and props are stored in the game server in the form of electromagnetic records. Although the game characters and props are virtual, they all have certain property value in the real world, and players can auction or exchange them, which has nothing to do with the real world property. It can be seen that the virtual property of online games is regarded as movable property in law, and the ownership of players is protected by law. The owner may, in accordance with the provisions of Article 767 of the Civil Law, request the return of the property that he has no right to possess or detain. Those who steal other people's accounts can also be punished as theft according to Article 320 of the Criminal Law, "Those who steal other people's movable property with the intention of illegally possessing it for themselves or a third person". At present, there have been actual judgments on the crimes of online games, such as the criminal summary judgment No.3993 of the Taipei District Court. According to the fact that the criminal suspect continuously obtained illegal property benefits by deception, he was sentenced to 50 days of criminal detention. For example, he was fined by Yi Ke, and 300 yuan converted it into one day and suspended for two years. This is the first case of online game theft in Taiwan Province Province. Because criminal law scholars and judicial practitioners in Taiwan Province have always believed that the crime of theft in criminal law must meet the requirements of destroying others' possession and establishing their own possession, and electromagnetic records are reproducible, which is different from the characteristics of electric energy, heat energy or other energy exhaustion after use; Moreover, when the actor establishes his own possession, he shall not destroy the possession of electromagnetic records by others at the same time (for example, obtaining electromagnetic records of others by copying). Therefore, it is different from the traditional elements of theft to bring the crime of electromagnetic recording into criminal law. Therefore, at the end of 2002, Taiwan Province Province passed an amendment to the Criminal Law, which changed Article 323, "Energy or electromagnetic records such as electric energy and thermal energy, regarding crimes in this chapter" to "movable property" and changed it back to "Energy such as electric energy and thermal energy, regarding crimes in this chapter, is movable property". On June 27th, 2003, the Criminal Law of Taiwan Province Province added Chapter 36 "Special Chapter on Computer Crimes", in which the crime of trespassing on computers without reason was added: "Whoever intrudes on other people's computers or their related equipment by entering other people's account passwords without reason, cracking protective measures for using computers or taking advantage of loopholes in computer systems shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, criminal detention or a fine of not more than 100,000 yuan." The newly added regulation on "Protection of Electromagnetic Records" (Article 359) clearly states: "Whoever obtains, deletes or changes the electromagnetic records of other people's computers or related equipment without reason and causes damage to the public or others shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years, criminal detention or a fine of not more than 200,000 yuan."
After a special chapter on computer crime was added to the Criminal Law, the Ministry of Justice invited operators to have a discussion with relevant units to discuss online game disputes. Regarding whether disputes in the virtual world should be punished by criminal law, delegates and lawyers held that problems arising from online games should not be punished by criminal law, but should be regarded as different occasions, even as right and wrong. For example, Lai Wenzhi, a lawyer who attended the meeting, said that activities in the pure virtual world should only be part of the game, which is not suitable for criminal law and should be innocent. However, Ye Qixin, the current procurator of the Procuratorial Department of the Ministry of Justice, who founded the "Special Chapter on Computer Crime", believes that the question of whether theft and fraud of virtual treasures should be punished by criminal law is academically valuable, but in the past two years, judges and prosecutors have a high degree of understanding of such cases and have been convicted. And from a legal point of view, virtual treasures are indeed valuable, regardless of whether game manufacturers are allowed to buy and sell virtual treasures. However, due to the huge number of such cases, last year, for example, the police transferred more than 1000 cases of virtual treasures, most of which were minor. In order to avoid wasting the limited investigation manpower of procuratorial organs and police, and to avoid the trouble of litigation in courts and police stations through reconciliation, the special chapter on computer crime in the Criminal Law, which came into effect on June 27, 2003, has listed the principle of computer crime as no prosecution and no trial. Ye Qixin said that when this law was compiled, it coincided with the adoption of the European Convention on Cybercrime in 200 1. Because the European Convention on Cybercrime is the first set of provisions on cybercrime in the world, and it is just like a set of standards, so that countries can follow its standards and make appropriate norms and punishments according to different needs and laws, he has also newly drafted the 36th chapter "Special Chapter on Computer Crime" which is most suitable for Taiwan Province Province for reference and comparison. "In fact, many players just want things back, and they don't have to blame each other. Therefore, if the game company can help players find stolen treasures and accounts, under the new legal framework of computer crime, the chances of reconciliation between players are high. " Ye Qixin said that before a special chapter on computer crimes was added to the criminal law in June 2003, these cases were still treated as crimes of theft, robbery, fraud and intimidation in the criminal law in judicial practice. Because many of the cases involved are minors, most of them are decided by juvenile courts. In order to protect the rights and interests of young people, the results of these cases will not be published. Relatively speaking, it is hoped that teenagers suspected of committing crimes will have a chance to turn over a new leaf. As for cases involving adults, there were hundreds of convictions last year, which shows that the number of crimes in the virtual world is still amazing. After adding a chapter on computer crime to the Criminal Law, cases after the end of June this year will be punished by the new law in practice. Although the punishment has not changed, they are all fixed-term imprisonment of less than five years, but the new law has been changed to no prosecution and no trial, hoping to give players more room for reconciliation.