Lawsuits triggered by actions in the virtual world?

How is that? Online gaming and playing games is a growing business for many companies and it is fun for those who participate in it - if you stay inside the line, meaning, if you don't become addicted to it and can still differentiate between the real and the virtual world. Or, if no one is going to cheat you. It costs money to participate - telephone costs, if you dial-up (which can be very expensive), or the normal monthly fees to participate in the game. Now, as it is nearly always the case, cottage industry develops around successful business models - sometimes good ones, sometimes bad ones.

In China, there just happened a bad one - a man who was apparently very active in a game called "Mir 3", managed, after a long time, to earn enough virtual money to buy a virtual sword from an opponent - only to discover a couple of days later, that the sword has been deleted by the company. Reason stated by the company, called Optisp: It was illegally duplicated. "Optisp said it discovered four swords with the same code in the No. 6 service area, proving the swords were duplicates.

"Some top-grade players duplicate high-level equipment by copying their programs. Then they sell them to earn money," said Zhang Hua, the attorney for Optisp. "This isn't allowed by the cyber game rules because it will destroy balance in the game." Okay, they state, that it is forbidden to use dupblicates, but the player didn't know. So how? Who is the one who has done the damage, since the player didn't have a clue, what happened. You can see, that a new industry or diversification develops. Lawyers now can add - experienced in solving online and virtual cases - to their business card. Or how else?

(By Asia Business Consulting)