(Virtual) Crime and Punishment

The Dutch. Sterotyped for clogs, legal drugs and tulips. Perhaps now to be known as the first country to prosecute a real person for the theft of virtual furniture.

A 17 year old and a few of his friends have been arrested for hacking into users accounts over at Habbo Hotel and stealing their furniture to place into their own rooms of the same game.

As you have to use real money to buy the furniture (by calling premium rate phone lines) that constitues a crime in the real world and so they are to be charged with hacking and burglary.

There are going to be some interesting legal challenges over the coming years as the boundaries between real and virtual continue to blur.

:~Dax~:

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