Problems of Protecting Virtual Game Property by Means of Criminal Law

The legal regulation of social relations in virtual reality is attracting an increasing attention of scholars. There are corresponding Russian and foreign publications concerning different branches of law: civil, tax, labor, international humanitarian, and criminology. Criminological research is based, among other things, on the analysis of sociocultural factors: how online gaming behavior influences the «cultural normalization» of similar behavior in the real world, the problems and boundaries of permitted violence. At the same time, the problem of infringements on virtual game property is becoming more urgent. The first reason for this is the fact that the possession of virtual property can have legal and economic consequences in the real world. The second reason is connected with the absence, in most jurisdictions, of the legal regulation of the emerging property rights (or other «rights in rem») to game property, which hinders prosecution for crimes against it, or makes it impossible in some countries where criminal law protection is linked to positive legislation. The authors believe that it is best to view these crimes as offences against property, and not cybercrimes in the narrow sense of the word. It is obvious that the problems of defining the crime of theft in the virtual space are connected with the understanding of the object and other features of theft, and the analysis thus mainly focuses on comparing the legal nature of virtual game property with how it corresponds to the features of theft in the current legislation. Key concepts of the legal nature of virtual game property are formulated, which are then analyzed from the standpoint of their applicability in criminal law. According to the authors, there are two main ways to solve the problem of virtual game property protection: either, following the approaches found in foreign practice, the definition of theft should be broadened, or the legal protection regime sui generis should be created to deal with the protection of all cyber aspects of property relations.