VeeJay Burns of the MindBlizzard blog has kindly translated the Court Ruling in the RuneScape Case that was the subject of a post a couple of days ago.
As the virtual amulet and virtual mask as defined in the case at hand meet the aforementioned criteria, the court is of the opinion that these virtual goods are to be included in the concept of ‘goods’ as provided for in Artcile 310 of the Penal Code and belonged to the declarant.
What is most curious to me is how shallow the treatment of “possession” is here:
Case law has previously determined the foregoing is not applicable in case of a PIN number, computer data and phone call minutes in a subscription bundle. In this case the virtual goods, namely a virtual amulet and a virtual mask, were in posession of the declarant. Only he had actual control over these goods.
Manifestly, Jagex has greater “actual control” but the issue of Jagex’s interests in the case doesn’t seem to come up at all.
