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Virtual crime

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Not to be confused with cybercrime.

Virtual crime or in-game crime refers to a virtual criminal act that takes place in a massively multiplayer online game (such as an MMORPG), or within the broader metaverse. The huge time and effort invested into such games can lead online "crime" to spill over into real world crime, and even blur the distinctions between the two. Some countries have introduced special police investigation units to cover such "virtual crimes". South Korea is one such country and looked into 22,000 cases in the first six months of 2003.[1]

Notable virtual crimes occurred in 2021[2][3] on the Horizon Worlds platform, leading to a renewed conversation about safety in the metaverse.[4][5][6]

Meaning

Several interpretations of the term "virtual crime" exist. Some legal scholars opt for a definition based on a report written by freelance journalist Julian Dibbell on what was the first prominent case, "a rape in cyberspace."[7] One such scholar defined virtual crime as needing to have all the qualities of a real crime, and so was not a new subset of crime at all.[8] Conversely, it has also been said that the connection between virtual crimes and real crimes are "tenuous at best: It is the link between a brutal rape and a fictional story of a brutal rape. Surely the difference is more striking than any similarity."[9] It is difficult to prove that there are real-life implications of virtual crime, so it is not widely accepted as prosecutable.

To rectify this, the modern interpretation of the term "virtual" must be amended such that it carries the traditional implication; "that is such in essence or effect, though not recognised as such in name or according to strict definition."[10] In this sense, it "would include those crimes that somehow evoke and approach the effect and essence of real crime, but are not considered crimes."[11]

Virtual economies

Main article: Virtual economy

Over time, players build their characters and collect in-game items. Some such items may have been obtained through months of gameplay, involving various tasks and a substantial level of effort. According to standard conceptions of economic value, the goods and services of virtual economies do have a demonstrable value. Since players of these games are willing to substitute real economic resources of time and money (monthly fees) in exchange for these resources, by definition they have demonstrated utility to the user.

Stemming from their value in the virtual economy, these items, and the characters themselves, have gained monetary value in the real world. eBay, along with specialist trading sites, have allowed players to sell their wares. This has attracted fraudulent sales as well as theft. Many game developers, such as Blizzard Entertainment (responsible for World of Warcraft) oppose and even prohibit the practice. Some argue that to allow in-game items to have monetary values makes these games, essentially, gambling venues.

In the online world of Brittania, the currency of one Annum equates to about $3.4 US.[12] If someone were to steal another player's virtual currency, they could convert it to US dollars via PayPal. This stems controversy over whether or not this should be dealt with like real crime, as there are real-life implications.

In most games, players do not own, materially or intellectually, any part of the game world, and merely pay to use it. Because this "virtual property" is actually owned by the game developer, a developer who opposed real commerce of in-game currencies would have the right to destroy virtual goods as soon as they were listed on eBay or otherwise offered for real trade.

Known cases

In South Korea, where the number of computer game players is massive, some have reported the emergence of gangs and mafia, where powerful players steal and demand that beginners give them virtual money for their "protection".[citation needed]

In China, Qiu Chengwei was sentenced to life in prison after stabbing and killing fellow The Legend of Mir 3 gamer Zhu Caoyuan. In the game Qiu had lent Zhu a powerful sword (a "dragon sabre"), which Zhu then went on to sell on eBay for 7,200 Yuan (about £473 or US$870). With no Chinese laws covering the online dispute, there was nothing the police could do.[13][14]

In the game The Sims Online a 17-year-old boy going by the in-game name "Evangeline", was discovered in 2005 to have built a cyber-brothel, where customers would pay sim-money for minutes of cybersex. This led to the cancellation of his accounts but no legal action, mainly because he was above the age of consent.[15][16][17]

The term "virtual mugging" was coined when some players of Lineage II used bots to defeat other player's characters and take their items. In Japan, the Kagawa prefectural police arrested a Chinese foreign exchange student on 16 August 2005 following the reports of virtual mugging and the online sale of the stolen items.[18]

The virtual economies of many MMOs and the exchange of virtual items and currency for real money has triggered the birth of the game sweatshop, in which workers in the developing world, typically China (although there has been reports of this type of activity in Eastern European countries), earn real-world wages for long days spent monotonously performing in-game tasks. Most instances typically involve farming of resources or currency, which has given rise to the epithet Chinese Adena Farmer, because of its first reported widespread use in Lineage II. More egregious cases involve using exploits such as in duping money or items, such as a large-scale incident in Star Wars Galaxies.[19] Both practices can place great stress on the creators' artificial economy, requiring robust design, and often repeated updates, to preserve reasonable work/reward ratios and game balance. There have also been reports of collusion (or vertical integration, depending on the source) among farmers and online currency exchanges. In 2002, a company called Blacksnow Interactive, a game currency exchange, admitted to using workers in a "virtual sweatshop" in Tijuana, Mexico to farm money and items from Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot. When Mythic Entertainment cracked down on the practice, Blacksnow attempted to sue the game company.

It was reported on 14 November 2007 that a Dutch teenager had been arrested for allegedly stealing virtual furniture from "rooms" in 3D social-networking website Habbo Hotel. The teenagers involved were accused of creating fake Habbo websites in order to lure users into entering their account details, which would then be used to steal virtual furniture bought with real money totalling €4000.[20]

In July 2018 a mother in the United States posted on Facebook that her daughter's avatar on Roblox had been gang raped by two other users. Roblox later responded stating that they were outraged that a "bad actor" had violated its community policies and rules of conduct, and that they had zero tolerance over the user behavior shown during the incident.[21] The incident led to The Village Voice reprinting A Rape in Cyberspace.[22]

In July 2021 a formally convicted sex offender was arrested in Illinois for allegedly grooming and solicitating a minor through the use of Roblox.[23]

On 26 November 2021, a beta user of Horizon Worlds reported being groped in-game,[24] and that other users supported the conduct.[25] Meta responded that there are built-in tools to block interactions with other users, which are not enabled by default, and that although the incident was "absolutely unfortunate" it would provide good feedback because they "want to make [the blocking feature] trivially easy and findable."[26]

In December of 2021, metaverse researcher and psychotherapist Nina Jane Patel reported that her avatar was gang-raped within 60 seconds of joining Meta's Horizon Worlds platform.[27] Elena Martellozzo, an associate professor of Criminology at Middlesex University says that a disinhibition process occurs on-line, due to the lack of face-to-face interaction, and that the metaverse "enhances this disinhibition process even more greatly."[28]

See also

References

  1. ^ Ward, Mark. "Does virtual crime need real justice?" at BBC News, (September 29, 2003)
  2. ^ Basu, Tanya (16 December 2021). "The metaverse has a groping problem already". MIT Technology Review. Archived from the original on 30 May 2022. Retrieved 5 June 2022.
  3. ^ Oppenheim, Maya (16 February 2022). "'Repeated rape threats': Sexual violence and racist abuse in the metaverse". The Independent. Archived from the original on 12 April 2022. Retrieved 5 June 2022.
  4. ^ Robertson, Harry (25 December 2021). "Wall Street is pumped about the metaverse. But critics say it's massively overhyped and will be a regulatory minefield". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 30 May 2022. Retrieved 5 June 2022. [T]he need to police virtual worlds to protect safety and free speech — and onerous regulation related to this — may turn out to be the biggest stumbling block. Women have reported they've been harassed, groped or made to feel uncomfortable in various metaverses. That underlines the conundrum for companies that want to create worlds anyone can freely join. As tech giants have learned, scandals bring political scrutiny.
  5. ^ Bokinni, Yinka (25 April 2022). "A barrage of assault, racism and rape jokes: my nightmare trip into the metaverse". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 30 May 2022. Retrieved 5 June 2022. No doubt some metaverse apps are better at moderating content than the ones I tried. But the point is that we need legal change. There's an online safety bill coming up, and it needs to put more responsibility on the creators of this technology. A lot of these chat rooms are user generated content, and at the moment, the responsibility is on the users to moderate the content. Given how toxic the environment has become and how much awful behaviour you're dealing with, that just feels impossible – like trying to mop up the ocean.
  6. ^ Clarke, Laurie (14 May 2022). "Can we create a moral metaverse?". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 31 May 2022. Retrieved 5 June 2022. Emerging reports depict a metaverse more akin to the lawless chat rooms that dominated the early internet than the moderated and algorithmically pruned digital gardens we mostly occupy today. A recent Channel 4 Dispatches investigation documented metaverses rife with hate speech, sexual harassment, paedophilia, and avatars simulating sex in spaces accessible to children ... Stepping from a social media platform such as Facebook into the metaverse means a shift from moderating content to moderating behaviour. Doing the latter 'at any meaningful scale is practically impossible', admitted Facebook's chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth in a leaked internal memo last November.
  7. ^ Julian Dibbell, A Rape in Cyberspace, Village Voice, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 51 (December 21, 1993)
  8. ^ Susan W. Brenner, Is There Such a Thing as "Virtual Crime?”, 4 Cal. Crim. Law Rev. 1,105-11 (2001)
  9. ^ Kerr, Problem of Perspective at 372-73 n.66
  10. ^ OED
  11. ^ Cf. Brenner, Virtual Crime, 4 Cal. Crim. Law Rev. 1 at ¶125-27
  12. ^ Lastowka, Greg; Hunter, Dan (2004-07-19). "Virtual Crime". Rochester, NY. SSRN 564801. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  13. ^ "'Game theft' led to fatal attack" at BBC News. Retrieved 9 June 2005.
  14. ^ Ward, Mark (29 September 2003). "Does virtual crime need real justice?". BBC News.
  15. ^ Bray, Hiawatha. "Justice has its price in Sim world". Retrieved 9 June 2005.
  16. ^ Schaeffer, Jim. "Sex And The Simulated City: Virtual world raises issues in the real one ". Retrieved 10 June 2005.].
  17. ^ "Evangeline: Interview with a Child cyber-Prostitute in TSO". Retrieved 11 June 2005. Dead link as of 27 May 2010. Archived here
  18. ^ "New Scientist Breaking News - Computer characters mugged in virtual crime spree". www.newscientist.com. Archived from the original on 2005-10-03.
  19. ^ Koster, Raph (2004-04-30). "Economy Stats". Retrieved 2009-10-08.
  20. ^ "'Virtual theft' leads to arrest". BBC News. 14 November 2007.
  21. ^ "Roblox 'gang rape' shocks mother". BBC News. 2018-07-03. Retrieved 2022-01-19.
  22. ^ "Before Roblox: An Online Rape When Cyberspace Was New". The Village Voice. 2018-07-25. Retrieved 2022-01-19.
  23. ^ jbonty@daily-journal.com | 815-937-3366, Jeff Bonty |. "Man charged with soliciting juvenile through Roblox". The Daily Journal. Retrieved 2022-01-19.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  24. ^ Basu, Tanya (16 December 2021). "The metaverse has a groping problem already". MIT Technology Review. Archived from the original on 30 May 2022. Retrieved 5 June 2022. According to Meta, on November 26, a beta tester reported something deeply troubling: she had been groped by a stranger on Horizon Worlds. On December 1, Meta revealed that she'd posted her experience in the Horizon Worlds beta testing group on Facebook.
  25. ^ Heath, Alex (9 December 2021). "Meta opens up access to its VR social platform Horizon Worlds". The Verge. Archived from the original on 28 May 2022. Retrieved 5 June 2022. Safety is a big concern for a VR environment like Horizon Worlds, where you can easily interact with someone you don't know. Earlier this month, a beta tester posted in the official Horizon group on Facebook about how her avatar was groped by a stranger. 'Sexual harassment is no joke on the regular internet, but being in VR adds another layer that makes the event more intense,' she wrote. 'Not only was I groped last night, but there were other people there who supported this behavior which made me feel isolated in the Plaza.'
  26. ^ Heath, Alex (9 December 2021). "Meta opens up access to its VR social platform Horizon Worlds". The Verge. Archived from the original on 28 May 2022. Retrieved 5 June 2022. [Vivek Sharma, Meta's VP of Horizon] calls the incident 'absolutely unfortunate' and says that after Meta reviewed the incident, the company determined that the beta tester didn't utilize the safety features built into Horizon Worlds, including the ability to block someone from interacting with you. (When you're in Horizon, a rolling buffer of what you see is saved locally on your Oculus headset and then sent to Meta for human review if an incident is reported.)
  27. ^ Oppenheim, Maya (16 February 2022). "'Repeated rape threats': Sexual violence and racist abuse in the metaverse". The Independent. Archived from the original on 12 April 2022. Retrieved 5 June 2022. Within 60 seconds of joining I was verbally and sexually harassed. Three or four male avatars, with male voices, essentially, virtually gang-raped my avatar and took photos — as I tried to get away they yelled: 'Don't pretend you didn't love it,' and 'go rub yourself off to the photo'.
  28. ^ Oppenheim, Maya (16 February 2022). "'Repeated rape threats': Sexual violence and racist abuse in the metaverse". The Independent. Archived from the original on 12 April 2022. Retrieved 5 June 2022. Elena Martellozzo, associate professor in Criminology at Middlesex University's Centre for Child Abuse and Trauma Studies, argues that while the benefits of the metaverse include a sense of anonymity and freedom to play, there are downsides due to its potentially heightening the lack of inhibition that people sometimes display in digital spheres.

External references

  • Lastowka, Greg (2010). Virtual Justice. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-14120-7.
  • Thomas-Gabriel Rüdiger: Sex offenders in the virtual worlds. Brandenburg 2013
  • Thomas-Gabriel Rüdiger: The Real World of Sexual Predators and Online Gaming . Be a kids hero, 2015 [1]
  • Susan W. Brenner. Is There Such a Thing as "Virtual Crime"? 4 Cal. Crim. Law Rev. 1 [2]
  • 7 July 2005. "Wage Slaves" at 1up.com. Retrieved 19 August 2005
  • 7 February 2005. "Virtual worlds wind up in real world's courts at MSNBC. Retrieved 19 August 2005
  • Lastowka, Greg and Hunter, Dan. "Virtual Crimes" New York Law School Law Review.
  • Diana Selck, Thomas-Gabriel Rüdiger: Online games as risk generators for children and adolescents – Analysing risk factors in gaming environments criminologia, 2016 [3]
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