Research Related To Legal Issues Of Online Game Virtual Barter

Online game industry is developing quickly in our country these years. The online game operators in China had changed their online game operating model from "Charged on the basis of the amount of online time spent by the online game end users" to "Free To Play and Charge For Virtual Substance" ("FTP Model") and most market shares of In-Game virtual substance transactions are taken up by the third party online transaction portal. There with it, transactions about In-Game virtual substance are becoming more and more and In-Game substance transaction is now the critical issue of the online game industry. At the same time, problems are becoming more and more severe due to the lack of clear legal positioning of the nature of In-Game virtual substance transaction. Research on civilian problems and rules in these transactions will develop the visual field of traditional civil law. The author begins the research about the legal relationship among the participators, the legal nature and legal positioning of the In-Game virtual substance transaction on the basis of the production of scholars. The paper has four parts.The first part starts with the discussion of the definition of In-Game virtual substance and transaction of In-Game virtual substance. And then analyzes development phases as well as characteristic transactions of In-Game virtual substance.The second part starts with the discussion of the necessity of transactions about In-Game virtual substance under the FTP Model of online game industry. This part also discuss the major ways of doing transactions about In-Game virtual substance as well as the major ways of doing transactions on the professional third party online transaction portal and further makes a deep exploration of their legal nature. The part also touches upon the legal positioning of professional third party online transaction portal and further concludes that it's legal position should be an "Internet Presence Provider" and it should be held for the direct legal responsibility.The third part first makes analysis on the updated legislation and jurisdiction practice of America, South Korea and Taiwan district of China as well as several Chinese cases about transaction of In-Game virtual substance. Second, this part will discuss the existing In-Game virtual substance legal nature theory, which has been one of the most significant impacts on the legal positioning about the transaction of In-Game virtual substance. Third, this part further makes a exploration of studying the of ownership of In-Game virtual substance within games and further concludes that the legal nature of In-Game virtual substance is one kind of real rights and the legal nature of transaction about In-Game virtual substance is assignment of right to use of In-Game virtual substance. The author holds the opinion that the ownership of In-Game virtual substance should be held by the online game operator while the right to use of In-Game virtual substance should be owned by the online game end user and the author also believe that this point of view will be a solution to the dilemma of transaction about In-Game virtual substance. At the end of this part, the author analyzes the legal relationship among the participators of transactions about In-Game virtual substance, especially the legal relationship between the online game operator and third party online transaction portal operator/online game end users.The fourth part discusses why the transaction about In-Game virtual substance is reasonable under the FTP Model in our country and analyzes how to constitute criterions of transaction about In-Game virtual substance. Finally the author gives his beneficial suggestions to strengthen and improve the legislation of transaction about In-Game virtual substance and regulate transactions about In-Game virtual substance by way of using some concrete implemental measures.