A possible crime in Second Life to face court

6 traders in New York reported a man for falsifying their products. This wouldn't be relevant in real life, but the facts happened in Second Life, a virtual world formed by nearly 10 million citizens.

In this case, the first know case, nearly everything is virtual: the traders, the forger, the products and the city. However, the report is real: it was presented in October in a Court of Brooklyn, and the reported man is also real: his name is Thomas Simon, he is 36 and he lives in Queens (New York).

Now the judge has to decide if crime is real and Simon has to be sentenced or as we are talking about a virtual world he cannot be charged in real life.

In Second life, such as in real life, citizens spend thousands of dollars each month in buying virtual producrs and services and pay with a fictitious coin: the linden.

In order or have money in the game, the players change real coins for lindens (one dollar for 300 lindens), and then the players can spend the money in buying normal things such as clothes, food, going to the cinema, concerts, and so on.

Nearly a million-dollar is used in Second Life and some people have this game as the only way of earning money.

For the plaintiff, what Simon does is to commit piracy and put in danger what for others is their only way of earning money. The plaintiff ask Simon to give them back the triple of what they think they lost due to his piracy, though they don't say the amount of money.

On the other hand, the reported person say that it is only a video game and that he haven't committed a real crime, and those virtual crimes doesn't appear in the legislation.