Is Virtual Crime Illegal?

If a crime occurs in a virtual world, is it still illegal?

As social networks which utilize virtual worlds become more popular, it's inevitable that some virtual events may occur that violate the laws of the citizens' own real-world countries. Right now, the offline world is still catching up with the online one, so we are literally watching a culture develop right before our eyes, complete with all the issues you'd expect of a new civilization.

One site is already dedicated to these issues. Called Virtually Blind, it's a blog that focuses exclusively on the legality of issues in virtual social networks and games.

One key issue is the prevalence of virtual trademark infringement. It may seem like a non-issue, but from virtual items to software distribution, it may have both a monetary as well as legal impact on the companies in question. With an estimated 1.4 million transactions in Second Life alone per year, it may create a two-fold problem. First, with the real monetary exchange between virtual currency and real-world dollars, there is definitely money to be made that the company is losing to the trademark users. The second issue may have much larger legal ramifications: companies who fail to diligently protect their trademark are in danger of using it. The proliferation of virtual trademarked goods may be considered a dilution of a company's trademark. If a brand becomes common enough outside of a company's own use, the trademark is lost, much like thermos or aspirin were.

The second legal arena that is cropping up is even more difficult to sort through. While trademark dilution may seem only slightly grey, it gets even more vague when it comes to virtual crime. In April, a brief article mentioned a police investigation in Belgium based on a woman's allegations of virtual rape in Second Life. Not long after, Linden Lab themselves announced an issue that had been brought to their attention: a German television station doing a documentary provided screenshots of what appeared to be an adult and a child engaging in sexual behavior. The two were later found to both be adults, and they were banned from Second Life. More troubling, however, was that the documentary crew also discovered photographs of child pornography on the site.

While the German police are investigating, Linden Lab actually has no knowledge of where the images were found. The problem with not only Second Life, but other virtual and non-virtual social networks is that they have grown exponentially, and are so large it can be difficult to really have a handle on the content being shared by their members. While Usenet has long had issues in this regard, the proliferation as well as exponential growth of virtual and non-virtual social networks has given people a new venue for sharing illegal pornography, and the laws are racing to catch up. In the United State, a law was struck down in 2002 that would have prohibited virtual child pornography such as what the German documentary crew witnessed, but other countries prohibit it.

The result of what is currently playing out with Second Life may have repercussions that stretch to other social networks as well as up-and-coming virtual social networks.

Additional source: Factmonster