Originally posted by Presbytier
I personally am not a fan of gold sellers(many get their gold from hacked accounts, so even if Blizzard allows them to use the RMAH and sell their gold it still does not stop the fact that most their gold comes form hacked accounts). Not only does it hurt the overall in-game economy; the fact they usually use iligal means to aquire their gold is wrong.

I think we all agree with you my friend.

The question is , should Gold Selling/Buying be made illegal (as in punishible by law) and the word "Felony" was even mentioned in the title.

Hacking already has LAWS in place regarding this...Right now, Gold Selling/buying (Hell, Include account sales even) is not ILLEGAL it just breaks the EULA and you can be banned.

-So, in order to make this Illegal we first need Police Powers given to an agency which would need be under International Law. But even IF it could be done nationally it means extra Police Powers, folks imprisoned and more surveilence. Probably undercover Police playing these games to "bust" Gold sellers... Who pays for this? Is this the direction you wish our society to go?

These are very important and fundamental questions which REALLY demand thought and meditation.

ADD- Look our economy is in terrible shape (Worldwide for the most part) we are cutting services, laying off teachers and Police and our infrastructure is crumbling. Our Court systems are bursting at the seams and our Prisons are so far past capacity it is inhumane.

Corporate profits are at an all time high.

And you would even entertain the notion of adding new Laws and manpower and Prisoners to pad a gaming companies bottom line. Incresed taxes even?

Originally posted by SaintPhilip

Originally posted by Presbytier
I personally am not a fan of gold sellers(many get their gold from hacked accounts, so even if Blizzard allows them to use the RMAH and sell their gold it still does not stop the fact that most their gold comes form hacked accounts). Not only does it hurt the overall in-game economy; the fact they usually use iligal means to aquire their gold is wrong.

I think we all agree with you my friend.

The question is , should Gold Selling/Buying be made illegal (as in punishible by law) and the word "Felony" was even mentioned in the title.

Hacking already has LAWS in place regarding this...Right now, Gold Selling/buying (Hell, Include account sales even) is not ILLEGAL it just breaks the EULA and you can be banned.

-So, in order to make this Illegal we first need Police Powers given to an agency which would need be under International Law. But even IF it could be done nationally it means extra Police Powers, folks imprisoned and more surveilence. Probably undercover Police playing these games to "bust" Gold sellers... Who pays for this? Is this the direction you wish our society to go?

These are very important and fundamental questions which REALLY demand thought and meditation.

ADD- Look our economy is in terrible shape (Worldwide for the most part) we are cutting services, laying off teachers and Police and our infrastructure is crumbling. Our Court systems are bursting at the seams and our Prisons are so far past capacity it is inhumane.

Corporate profits are at an all time high.

And you would even entertain the notion of adding new Laws and manpower and Prisoners to pad a gaming companies bottom line. Incresed taxes even?

 

New laws..no.Making Gold selling illegal..no. I do believe that hacking accounts is a form of theft and should be prosecuted.

if you're going to charge gold farming, target the way they actually do their work. Such as stealing other places accounts. In an example of GW2, you can then look at that days gold to real dollars value through Arenanets cash store and use that to figure in how much money they stole. Most of it would just be midemeanors. There are a couple of problems though with trying with any criminal charge anywas.

1.) No matter what the punishment is, you're not going to deter people. Several people will have the mindset of, "Well sure you arrested all these other guys but they're morons. I am a criminal genuis and will never get caught." Then they will proceed to continue the crime.

2.) How are you going to charge a lot of these people? I know its steryptypical, but a fair number are in China, others I believe South Korea. They're out of the United State jurisdiction and neither of those countries would extradite these people for the crime of gold farming/selling, just like the United States wouldn't if the roles were reversed.

Just two issues I see.

Originally posted by strangepower

 

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Originally posted by just1opinion

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Originally posted by Aerowyn

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Originally posted by strangepower  

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Originally posted by Aerowyn you are making money off of someone else's product illegally.. don't see it any differn't than people who rip movies or games and sell pirated copies and that's a felony... 

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  With that sort of rationale you would see it fit to charge the gold buyers with a felony too for facilitation of a Black Market, like busting the john and the prostitute as well? Sounds like a well thought out idea...

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yes same as it's illegal to buy pirated copies of video games.. usually the punishment is worse for the supplier than the buyer as with most things

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I understand what you're saying and I agree with you.  The same people that think gold farming and selling gold is okay are probably the people that think ripping CDs or movies and selling them is okay.  Intellectual copyright laws mean nothing to these people, but they do to me and I agree with what you've said.

 

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How do you draw the parallel between copyright infringement and gold selling?

 

In game gold is the creation and intellectual property of the company that made it. Creative license should apply. It's their creation, not that of those selling it, unless the company that made it is the one selling it.  You don't have to agree with me, and I'm sure I'm not "legally" accurate, but I do have an opinion as to what SHOULD be the case.  If you now intend to give me a 3 paragraph lecture on legalities, don't bother.

No point in going after the farmers.   Much like the music industry it is much easier to go after the buyers.

Just make it illegal to purchase gold from 3rd party sites for real money.    Not that hard to get a bank record of the transaction.

Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by Jakdstripper

hgahahahahahah!

 

yes... because the girl that got raped, the child that got molested, the bystander that got stabbed, the husband that got run over....should all wait in line while the courts deliberate on Joe Blow for farming make believe gold in an online game....

 

.....please just delete this thread.

heh obviously it wouldn't be enforced as such but classifying something as a felony does put a damper on what people are willing to do. 

 what is the point of making laws that wont be enforced. completely rediculous. if it's made law then some companies/studios will take lawsuit actions vs individuals and that WILL take up the justice system's time.

it's completely ludicrous to believe that you can make a law, not enforce it and people will just follow it because they will be scared of braking the law....which you dont enforce to begin with.  

please just stop making no sense.

Originally posted by Presbytier

New laws..no.Making Gold selling illegal..no. I do believe that hacking accounts is a form of theft and should be prosecuted.

I agree with you about account cracking (hacking? I don't thing that hackers are interested about any kind of account) and thieving.

But if MMO software houses do a char backup it's a problem easy to solve. And my Eden Eternal account was cracked around 1 year ago: no money, no objects... nothing, only a nude char.

Yes it should.

But I think it is easier to punish the game makers instead of the farmers, you will never stop the farmers, but you can stop companies from doing RMT in their games.

Stopping RMT is the first step into stopping farming.

Virtual goods should not be allowed to be traded for real money. It saddens me to see those poll results.

Originally posted by Jakdstripper

Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by Jakdstripper

hgahahahahahah!

 

yes... because the girl that got raped, the child that got molested, the bystander that got stabbed, the husband that got run over....should all wait in line while the courts deliberate on Joe Blow for farming make believe gold in an online game....

 

.....please just delete this thread.

heh obviously it wouldn't be enforced as such but classifying something as a felony does put a damper on what people are willing to do. 

 what is the point of making laws that wont be enforced. completely rediculous. if it's made law then some companies/studios will take lawsuit actions vs individuals and that WILL take up the justice system's time.

it's completely ludicrous to believe that you can make a law, not enforce it and people will just follow it because they will be scared of braking the law....which you dont enforce to begin with.  

please just stop making no sense.

why i even bother..  the context was it wouldn't be enforced as such like a murder or something of that nature.. of course If put into law if would need to be enforced but obviously law enforcement has priorities on things and even if this was made into a law obviously it wouldn't be as high on the totem pole for them.

Scene in prison:

Melvin to new cellmate: Um. What are you in for?

Juggernaut: Rape, Murder and general mayhem.  What are you in for little man?

Melvin: I hacked my sisters Hello Kitty Online account to steal some pink rabbit ears.

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Scene in prison:

 

Melvin to new cellmate: Um. What are you in for?

Juggernaut: Rape, Murder and general mayhem.  What are you in for little man?

Melvin: I hacked my sisters Hello Kitty Online account to steal some pink rabbit ears.

 

To be fair, in Asia RMT is used to launder money, it's no longer petty crime at that point.

RMT is also used to steal credit card numbers from Westerners.

Originally posted by CalmOceans

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Scene in prison:

 Melvin to new cellmate: Um. What are you in for?

Juggernaut: Rape, Murder and general mayhem.  What are you in for little man?

Melvin: I hacked my sisters Hello Kitty Online account to steal some pink rabbit ears.

 To be fair, in Asia RMT is used to launder money, it's no longer petty crime at that point.

RMT is also used to steal credit card numbers from Westerners.

in most ASIAN countries is a legal bussiness (China, Hong Kong, S. Korea, SIngapure)

and for the record most hackers are from Russia and Avganistan

watching global news from time to to time will do good

Thats not good if they launder money that way. That said the problem with gold farmers is they are how u get hacked, If u buy gold these people will hack u still all yoru stuff and sell to some other idiot. 

So while most of its not illegal , it is very immoral and while most gold farmers may not be bad the people who use it to steal account info and all yoru stuff make gold farming a bad thing.  not to mention they ruin in game economies. 

Originally posted by defector1968

Originally posted by CalmOceans

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Scene in prison:

 

Melvin to new cellmate: Um. What are you in for?

Juggernaut: Rape, Murder and general mayhem.  What are you in for little man?

Melvin: I hacked my sisters Hello Kitty Online account to steal some pink rabbit ears.

 

To be fair, in Asia RMT is used to launder money, it's no longer petty crime at that point.

RMT is also used to steal credit card numbers from Westerners.

in most ASIAN countries is a legal bussiness (China, Hong Kong, S. Korea, SIngapure)

Laundering money isn't a legal business anywhere, it's crime money, blood money.

It's used to conceal the origin of the money, and RMT is a decent method to do this.

Originally posted by Aerowyn
you are making money off of someone else's product illegally.. don't see it any differn't than people who rip movies or games and sell pirated copies and that's a felony... 

It's not illegal..that's what this whole thread is about.

This is a victimless crime.

I've been saying for years, it's just like the real life "War on Drugs"... You arrest people for selling, arrest people for buying... What are they doing morally wrong exactly?

There is nothing inherently wrong with "Gold Selling" - it's the things that come from making it illegal, that are morally wrong. You make it bannable, so people steal accounts to gold farm. You make selling weed illegal, so people settle their disagreements in the streets with violence instead of using the legal system.

People just never learn.

Originally posted by CalmOceans

Originally posted by defector1968

Originally posted by CalmOceans

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Scene in prison:

 

Melvin to new cellmate: Um. What are you in for?

Juggernaut: Rape, Murder and general mayhem.  What are you in for little man?

Melvin: I hacked my sisters Hello Kitty Online account to steal some pink rabbit ears.

 

To be fair, in Asia RMT is used to launder money, it's no longer petty crime at that point.

RMT is also used to steal credit card numbers from Westerners.

in most ASIAN countries is a legal bussiness (China, Hong Kong, S. Korea, SIngapure)

Laundering money isn't a legal business anywhere, it's crime money, blood money.

It's used to conceal the origin of the money, and RMT is a decent method to do this.

and in USA, France, UK, Germany dont do laundrey money? And u know the bigest hackers are Russians and Avgans, just for the record