The Protection Of Internet Virtual Property On Civil Law

With the rapid development of network technology and the expansion of Internetusers, the frequency of network Internet property issues is getting higher and higher,and also the type of Internet virtual property cases is tend to be diversified. In the past,the focus of the Internet virtual property cases is mainly concentrated on the networkgame virtual goods and virtual characters. Nowadays, the cases that claim to inheritthe web accounts and disputes related to the network account transfer are increasing.However, existing civil legal regulations have not been able to regulate the Internetvirtual property issues effectively, and when the Internet users face to virtual propertyissues, they can hardly judge or confirm their own rights. At the same time, there isno specific legal basis as reference for the judicial organizations to deal with theInternet virtual property cases, so this is not conducive to solve the Internet virtualproperty cases in China.This article illustrates the meaning and characteristics of Internet virtual propertyfrom the definition of the Internet virtual property and delimitation of the Internetvirtual property rights, and also puts forward a new classification for the Internetvirtual property, namely, according to different content of the Internet virtual propertyderivative value and by the base content which refers to network account andpassword, Internet virtual property should be divided into virtual property with realright, the virtual property with creditor’s rights, virtual property with intellectualproperty rights, virtual property with the rights of privacy, and other derivativecontent of the virtual property. In this way, we will have a comprehensive cognitionfor the Internet virtual property issues, and it is conducive to identify Internet virtualproperty by civil law. Civil rights of Internet virtual property is to rule Internet virtualproperty be a civil right. This article analyzes the feasibility and necessity of the civilright for Internet virtual property, and puts forward the concept of network virtualproperty rights. After this, this article discusses and evaluates the different points ofview on the existing Internet virtual property rights, and finally clarify my ownunderstanding for Internet virtual property issues which is Internet virtual property rights belong to the category of special creditor’s rights.Since Internet virtual property has not been identified by civil law in China,there exists many imperfections on legislative protection of the Internet virtualproperty. This article anaylzes these imperfections from four points. Firstly, sinceInternet virtual property has not been identified to be a legitimate right, Internetvirtual property is only a legitimate benefit for users. Secondly, the insufficient rulesabout right of claim to the users’ property can not provide effective protection.Thirdly, the rules on Internet tort liability are too general to apply to specific tortcases of Internet virtual property. Finally, since lack of explicitly regulations onInternet application operators, it is hard to protect the user’s rights on contracts ofInternet virtual property. Contrapose these legislative imperfections on Internet virtualproperty, this paper proposes suggestions to solve these problems. These suggestionsare that the law should establish an independent right of Internet virtual proterty andshould clearly defined specific claims of virtual property, then the law should detailprovisions of network tort liability, and at last, the law should standardize theobligations of operators of the Internet applications.At the same time, this paper mainly aims at four aspects on those existing civiljudicial protection problems for Internet virtual property, one is that it is difficult toidentity and confirm the Internet users, and it is hard for users to get evidence, andalso it is not easy to determine the value of virtual property in certain cases, and it ishard to identify whether to protect the request of compensation for mental damage ornot. Finally, this paper proposes to mature the network real-name system for onlineidentity validation, and to build a platform to keep the evidence for users, and to buildthe network virtual property value evaluation mechanism to facilitate theconfirmation for the value of Internet virtual property, and to seriously protect therequests of compensation for mental injury cases on Internet virtual property in thejudicial practice.