Intra-game property of users in online games: Features of legal regulation

Disclaimer: This text will be filled with legal terminology and some points may remain incomprehensible to a simple reader.

Surely, many lovers of multiplayer games who have acquired intra-game attributes (no matter whether cosmetic or capable of affecting the gameplay) asked the question whether the law of these very objects regulates the law and whether they can be the subject of judicial disputes. With the advent of demand for a certain game “cosmetics”, a proposal is also formed: from the developer, user, and a separate skin market, it does not matter. Here, the most important issue is whether these actions are subject to the framework of the law and are regulated: the presence of rights and their possible methods of protection, regulation of the payment process and transfer to the player of the subject and another. Let’s deal with all aspects in order with visual examples of certain issues.

That there are intra -game objects and to whom they belong?

To begin to deal with the legal aspects of intra-game items, for starters we will give some more or less suitable for this phrase the definition. Intra -game objects are an attribute that affects the gameplay or is only a cosmetic character that a player can get during the game or acquire for real currency.

Any layman who does not have a legal education and are not familiar with the theory of law, can say that “well, since I can buy it for money, it means it belongs to me” is not entirely like that. Let us give a simple analogy with the purchase of equipment in the store: I come to the store and pay the appropriate amount and receive the right to own, use and dispose of the thing for it, in other words, it fully belongs to me, which means that the same principle acts with intra -game objects. However, any acquisition of “pixels” is only a convention. Any game is an object of intellectual property, and, therefore, it has a copyright holder (often a developer for them), which establishes the conventional boundaries of the possible use of their game and its individual elements, therefore, the acquisition of objects is carried out only in the game, but not a legal field as an object of the user’s separate property. In a simpler language, buying some object we do not get a thing as such as an object of our property, we acquire only the right to use it. A reasonable question may arise “why is it so?”. It’s simple: pixels that we buy, even for our real savings accumulated from school breakfasts, are not a material object (which we can feel conditionally), therefore, they are limited by the place of use. In other words, we can use the bought lasso in the dota only in the game itself, but beyond its borders.

Buying and selling intra -game ownership

Any property in the game has its own price depending on its rarity and features that it gives the player. Sometimes the price tags for very rare skins that do not give game advantages reach some space numbers for simple pixel sets: for example, the same Buying a courier in Dota 2 or acquisition of AVP and AK-47 For fabulous 775.000 USD. As you can understand from these examples, demand gives birth to an offer, therefore, the owner of a certain game property wants to sooner or later want to benefit from it.

What are the user ways to extract benefits? As we have already determined, all objects of the game world belong to its developer, which means that it is they who have the right to establish the rules of sale and regulate them through the user agreement. The developers are clearly not configured to provide the player with the possibility of withdrawing real funds from his wallet;Many companies do not even give the right to players to exchange objects between each other in the framework of the site on which they function: such prohibitions can be found in user agreements from Wargaming and Activision Blizzard, which prohibit not only the transfer of objects, but also the exchange of accounts, so as not to “abuse” possible gaps in their agreement, regarding the exchange of objects. And they have every right to do so, since intra -game objects are still not independent property objects, but rather part of the game, the rights to which belong to the developer.

But not everything is so blessed and hopeless for players. Since ancient times, the internal trading platforms began to emerge, to which the user’s wallet with real means that he can spend on the purchase and sale of objects from different games (for example in Steam). However, even here, all aspects of such operations are enshrined in agreements, which are often regulated by the developer and it also prohibits the withdrawal of funds to his real bank account. What is then the essence of such sites? The sites, like Steam, act as a relatively reliable intermediary between players to avoid fraud or deceit when making these purchases.

However, such sites, in Spinpanda-casino.co.uk addition to their reliability, which, undoubtedly, is their plus, have their negative aspects: the absence of the possibility of withdrawal of funds, the limit of the price set for the subject, the probability of losing your account, and with it and its items. Such restrictions encourage players to look for third -party exits from the current situation in the gray market. For a long time there have long been more than a dozen third -party sites on which you can trade your things bypassing the prohibition of developers. The system confirms the availability of such an item and at the time of transfer of the required amount gives you an exchange of exchange through which you will receive the desired subject. It is logical that such transactions cannot be legally protected, since they are essentially illegal due to a user agreement that prohibits such schemes.

Of course, you can do without intermediaries, like such marketplaces, and agree on a personal meeting with the buyer of objects, as did in the aforementioned case with the sale of two skins from CS: Go for 775.000 dollars. In fact, you risk being less deceived in such cases, because, in such cases, the item will be provided only after payment, although there is still a risk of being “thrown” by the seller, but there are always risks.

User agreement and why it is important

So that the player does not have a post -fact of disturbances about the injustice of the fate of the things acquired by him, it is necessary to read the same annoying User agreement, in which such issues are often regulated.

I will explain why this is important, on a specific example. There is such an MMO as Entropia Universe, in which one of the players purchased intra -game real estate in the amount of 2.5 million USD. In fact, the game makes you an accomplice in a transaction in which you can acquire a certain territory, for transactions on which the owner will receive a certain percentage. Often in online games, the copyright holder tries to limit the player in using his in-game property, inserting him into the framework of the game itself and not allowing him to gain benefits from this. In the case of this game, the situation is different: in the user agreement to this project, it is directly said that the player can make a profit from the acquired intra -game property, which, if desired, can be converted into real currency.

Another example is the case between one of the Lineage 2 players and Innova, which essentially accompanied and regulated the game in the Russian Federation. The user agreement in the “line” is quite tough in issues of regulating the gray and black market of intra -game items (for reference: in 2018 in the Russian Federation the volume of money turnover of users who purchased intra -game objects in the gray and black markets amounted to 11.6 billion rubles, in my opinion, a fairly impressive amount), therefore, for any such attempts that violate the user agreement, followedsanctions, including account blocking. What happened to the account of one of the users, who almost directly at the call of the support service admitted that he acquired intra -game property in the gray market. In the court of first instance, Innovo lost the dispute, but in the appeal instance the court sided with the company and recognized the player’s actions illegal.

Law enforcement practice in Russia

This issue is quite relevant today due to the development of games and the market of intra -game objects, and, as a result, the number of claims and trials related to disputes arising on this basis is growing. Throughout the world at the moment there is no single legal concept of how to regulate such issues in the legal field. In the United States, lawyers have developed the so -called concept Magic Circle, The essence of which lies in the fact that only those cases in which players go beyond the game world and flow into reality: for example, a conditional hacking of e -mail tied to the game account and the subsequent assignment of this account for itself. As we understand, in different countries there are different legal regulation of such disputes. In China, there is a loud, from the point of view of precedent law, the case, in which the court sided with the player who mistakenly sold his character for the costs inappropriate to spend, as a result of which the operation was canceled, and the failed buyer received impressive compensation.

In Russia, the situation is different and the regulation of such issues is practically not regulated, although there are serious precedents. The courts adhere to their decisions of general legal principles, namely,. 1062 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, which allows the courts not to consider such disputes due to the fact that such disputes are related to games, including online games (The appeal rulings of the Moscow City Court of 20.05.2019 in case No. 33-21065/2019 and No. 33-24464 dated 14.07.2015.). This also has a connection with the user agreement, which the player confirms at a certain moment, and there are often such moments.

The tax regulation of such transactions also deserves special attention. It is not without reason that in some user agreements the copyright holder seeks to fight the gray markets of intra -game items, since such transactions can summarize a significant percentage of the tax deduction, which passes by the state, which is the result of which a significant article of the country’s income is lost. There is a satisfied loud business between the Federal Tax Service of Russia and Mail.ru Group (Case No. A40-91072/2014), in which a similar aspect is just touched upon. As I mentioned earlier, intra -game objects are not always a simple set of pixels that can lure the player only with a beautiful picture on the monitor. In many online games, there are also objects that affect the change in the gameplay in favor of the player who bought and activated the product (conditional purchase of some high-level tank in World of Tanks). The essence of this dispute is that PP. 26 p. 2 tbsp. 149 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation provides a certain kind of benefits for the payment of VAT in cases where such transactions are based on the provisions of the license agreement. In this dispute, the Federal Tax Service considered that in a particular situation, such purchases are the provision of services on the game process. In other words, the player acquires the lines of the code, with the activation of which he receives an advantage over other players and therefore such purchases are the provision of services. Initially, Mail.ru lost the dispute, reaching even the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation (Determination of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation of 30.09.2015 in case No. 305-kg15-12154).

However, then they managed to prove that such transactions are still more to provide access to digital content, and not by the game process, which led to the fact that the Federal Tax Service confirmed the position that this is the provision of the right to access unexplored data and teams of the game related to the provisions of the license agreement, which, in turn, falls under the provisions of the above article (Letter of the Federal Tax Service of January 23, 2017. No. SD-4-3/988). The company’s position is still close to me, because if this idea is to develop this transactions are the provision of services, imagine a situation in which I have acquired some kind of attributes, which, by its properties, should facilitate and speed up the process of passage, but due to my game skills I could not realize this thing for such a purpose, whether it is worthwhile to regard the low-quality provision of services, and as in this case it is worth conducting myself, taking into account the provisions of the useragreements. The question is quite debatable, there is something to think about.

In what other cases, judicial protection measures in the issue of intra -game property can be applied. Of course, in cases where your acquired game property was lost due to its theft or fraud (since using computer technology). As I said earlier, the court will not consider cases of theft of property if they do not go beyond the game process, t. e. If the game implies the possibility of transferring an object to another user inside the game itself, but when receiving a thing, he did not fulfill the conditions that you have come together, then such disputes will not be subject to judicial protection of the player’s interests. Another story with situations when you have lost property due to some interactions with another person in real life, for example, the same hacking of email to assign an account with your property (such issues are regulated. 272 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation; Appeal Resolution of the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Court of 22.03.2018 in case No. 22-1216/2018) or threats, pressure on a person in order to receive the desired from him (in our case, so that the victim provides intra -game things to its offenders). Such issues can naturally be considered in court, but law enforcement practice in the Russian Federation still does not have the proper baggage of experience and permitted cases so that you can calmly file an application with the aforementioned cases. Similar is still more likely an exception than the rule.

What do we have as a result?

What can we take out of all this? In fact, I would single out several of the most significant points from the above:
1. Intra -game objects are part of the game: this is not a separate object and intangible property, therefore, all issues regarding the regulation of actions with such things remain with the copyright holder, that is, the developer who formulates his requirements in the user agreement. In fact, with the acquisition of such items, the user does not have the right to own a thing, rather this is the right to access the developer for a certain fee. A similar principle acts with money on our debit cards: we do not own the figure indicated in the card account, we have the right to require the bank to grant us for use and disposal the amount that is indicated there. Yes, there are several legal theories of the classification of intra -game objects. The same Joshua Ferfield (Joshua Fairfield, ‘‘ Virtual Property ’’ (2005) 85 b.U.L.) is a supporter property theory and defines such pixels as things, classifying them with emphasis on a number of criteria: exclusivity of possession-the ability to use something single-handed, excluding others;constancy – the quality of the object that has durability (the online artifact will not disappear after leaving the game) and exchanging – the ability to transfer virtual objects between various players (participation in circulation, we recall access to marketplaces). Contractual theory, In turn, it just accepts the concept of belonging to rights to intra-game attributes to the developer, and is ensured by creating a license agreement (Eula for example – approx. English. “End-User License Agreement”). Utility theory based on the concept of “the creation of property rights should bring common benefit or social welfare”. The basis of this theory can be described by a quote from John Chifrino’s work: “Wider ownership of virtual objects will also attract investors, which will increase economic efficiency” (Cifrino ch. AND. Virtual Property, Virtual Rights: Who Contract Law, Not Property Law, Must Be the Governing Para-Digm in the Law of Virtual Worlds. P. 122.). However, even this theory has its drawbacks: with such a concept, the developer has the risks of losing his financial welfare due to disproportionate investments and the profit from players. In addition, such a theory creates additional obligations to the developer to users due to possible judicial disputes that may arise if the player does not arrange the conditions for the provision of property (for example, the developer will not be able to close the unprofitable game, since the players will immediately fill up with lawsuits on the insecure of the preservation of their gaming property). Finally, due to a similar theory that allows the possibility of exchange between players, it can affect the yield of the game: users can provide each other with objects that affect the alleviation of each other’s gameplay, as a result of which they will be lost to get the same objects from the developer from the developer. The aforementioned marketplaces will be a compromise in such a situation, on which the developer charges a certain tax from the sales of players in his favor, thereby reducing the losses of losses.
2. The court will not interfere in the regulation of intra -game property until this creates a threat to real human rights. As we have already figured out, the law enforcement practice in this matter still has no clear boundaries and is in a shaky and ambiguous position due to the lack of proper number of precedents on which the courts could rely in their subsequent decisions. One thing we can say for sure: disputes, regarding intra -game property are sorted out in the courts only when it affects the real rights and interests of the person, and not game, but even here the distinction between such situations at the moment will be more subjective and not have a closed list of such situations – over time, the spectrum of such issues will only expand.
3. Items are just a good way to attract players. After such a statement, some may be outraged and say, “Well, why did you tell us all this to us?”. To show how much this issue is still ambiguous and not having clear definitions and interpretations. In any case, no matter how people relate to this, the developers introduce such transactions into their games primarily in order to attract an audience, which, in turn, will fill the wallet of the copyright holder even more and will motivate his project in the future.

P. WITH. I express special gratitude to my comrade, George Tsurtsumiy, for help in providing useful information.