The Expansion Of The Object Of Property Crime

Seen from the interactive relationship between science, technology and law, it has become almost the regular in the history that the progress of science and technology results in the legal system not being able to deal with the new developments or even losing all the functions. With the boom of Internet, virtual property on the Internet occurs. Since its occurrence, the debate about whether virtual property has value, legal character, and how to define the legal remedies has never stopped.Although damaging Internet virtual property causes seriously adverse social impacts, the existing criminal regulations in China have not included Internet virtual property as the object of property crime. Analyzed from the range, the legal nature, the characteristics and the model of value calculation, this article argues the feasibility and necessity to consider Internet virtual property as real property, and thus include it in the objects of property crime. Based on the argument, the article further explores the potential challenges to include Internet virtual property as the object of property crime in the existing criminal regulations and theories.The article is divided into 4 chapters with a preamble.The first chapter gives a brief overview of the development and forms of internet virtual property, compares and comments on the three existing criteria of the range of internet virtual property, and thus put forwards a new criterion named "middle path".The second chapter starts with analyzing the commons and differences between Internet virtual property and real property based on the legal nature and intrinsic characteristics of property. Then the chapter combines the development of civil law, and therefore proposes that the legal status of internet virtual property is "propretilization of obligation". In the end, the chapter argues the value of Internetvirtual property.Based on the first two chapters, the third chapter analyzes the necessary, special and common characteristics of Internet virtual property, and lists the calculation models and the measurement criteria of the Internet virtual property value.The fourth chapter studies on the potential conflicts with existing criminal regulations on property crime in its' objective and subjective aspects, and with existing criminal theories with regard to principle of a legally prescribed punishment for a specified crime and the restrictive principle of criminal law, if including internet virtual property as the object of property crime.