A man boasts his most precious possession in front of his friend. The conniving friend later steals the object in question from him. The rightful owner goes to the police but when they are unable to help, he takes matters into his own hands and takes revenge by killing his thieving friend and reclaiming the precious object.  He then surrenders to the authorities and spends the rest of his life in jail.

Sounds like a Hollywood movie, right? Except that in this case, the precious object in question is an image on a computer screen: a sword in a virtual world. This is the true story of Qiu Chengwei, a 41-year-old Chinese man who was an avid player of the MMORPG Legend of Mir 3 and had spent numerous hours of gameplay in order to finally earn the powerful Dragon Sabre, a mighty virtual sword. When his gamer friend, Zhu Caoyuan, asked to borrow the sword for his own avatar, and then refused to give it back, Chengwei took the matter to the Chinese police. However, the police declared that they cannot pursue an investigation in this case because the stolen object was not a material possession and Chinese laws do not protect virtual property. So Chengwei decided to take the law in his own hands and found and murdered Zhu Caoyuan, stabbing him in the chest. He then surrendered to the police and gave a full confession of the crime, receiving a life sentence for the murder.

I was immediately struck by this story when I found it in a fantastic new book by Greg Lastowka: Virtual Justice. Lastowka's exploration of law and justice in virtual worlds is as timely as it is fascinating. He makes a very convincing argument regarding the critical necessity of opening up a debate about virtual laws - which he calls, within the broader field of technology law, "canaries in a goldmine" - since such issues, especially as they relate to virtual property and virtual crime, will inevitably filter through to the broader environment and affect both online and offline communities in critical ways. As Lastowka notes, the notion of virtual law is further complicated by the very nature of virtual worlds as walking a constant tightrope between the real and the fictional. Although the contents of virtual worlds are not grounded in material existence - in the conventional sense of this concept - the experience of being part of a virtual world is very real, and people devote real time and (sometimes) money to this endeavor. Therefore, as Lastowka puts it, "to what extent should the things that are happening in these environments be treated as if they were happening in physical space or in conventional online forums, email or blogs?"

Another interesting issue to ponder is the relationship between code and legal transgressions. As Lawrence Lessig famously declared more than a decade ago, "code is law" - in other words, the planned structure of virtual worlds completely determines what is possible within the realm of that universe. In the context of our discussion of virtual justice, this seems to imply that if a certain virtual act is made possible by the code, then it must be considered an acceptable choice. If stealing swords would be "wrong", why would the code of the game allow it?

I must admit that I am completely fascinated with the moral, social and philosophical implications of the virtual law conundrum. Given how we envision our social and technological future, it is vital to acknowledge the significance of these implications for both online and offline communities, and open this issue up for debate within these virtual worlds and outside of them as well. In addition, if done right, this could be a valuable exercise in virtual democracy. Julian Dibbell's account of the democratic decision of LambdaMOO community members to "toad" avatars that displayed unlawful or immoral behavior by turning them into frogs is a relevant anecdote in this respect. While the limits of legality will surely be fluid and an unanimous consensus will be difficult to reach, the participation of entire communities in the decision-making process is certainly a powerful model of civic engagement. And since - I believe - virtual frogs cannot handle swords very well, perhaps if Zhu Caoyuan had been toaded by the Legend of Mir community instead of being allowed to get away with the theft, his destiny, and that of Qiu Chengwei, would have turned out quite differently.