Virtual Property Under The Civil Law

According to the Chinese game industry blue book "1-6months of2012China Game Industry Report" shows that the first half of2012, the actual sales income of Chinese game market is24.84billion Yuan. Along with the rapid development of network technology, China’s online game industry has reached an unprecedented height; network game has also become one of the entertainments for a lot of people, and meanwhile, triggered by the network game various forms of property disputes are increasing. However, the virtual property in network games in China has not been given the strong protection, although the "Interim Measures" network game management in March17,2010by the Ministry of culture ministerial meeting examined and adopted, and since August1,2010formally implemented, however, the regulations do not explicitly put forward the concept of virtual property in the network games, protection of network game player just in the twenty-third article speak generally, does not have the required operational. In2012April the Shanghai Higher People’s Court issued a judicial protection of intellectual property in the ten cases, the network game "plug-in" conviction, become our country will be in the grey area of network game "plug-in" first crime area. At present, both academic and practical circles have given the virtual property in the network games enough attention, but the protection path of virtual property in the network games is still insufficient, with the existing laws and regulations to resolve such disputes are still a bit "powerless". Therefore, the author tries to treat the network virtual property from the perspective of civil law and property ownership issues, through the comparison of legal protection of virtual property and the related countries, regional conditions, especially from the point of view of property law, tort and contract law and the present law and tries to find the way to solve these problems and disputes.This text is divided into five parts:The first part has made a general instruction about network virtual property. First, it basicly expounds the definition and types about network virtual property.In order to distinguish the difference between the virtual property and property of the real world, and it put forward four characteristics of network virtual property. The second part introduces the theory of intellectual property rights、Creditor’s rights、The real right about the attribute of law’s analysis of network virtual property. Based on the analysis of these theories, this passage give the affirmation about the real right about the attribute of law. On exploring this isseues about virtual property rights belonging to network operators or web users, the author carried on detailed elaboration and finally puts forward the author’s own views.The third part enumerates the types of disputes caused by the network virtual property in reality; mainly includes the network virtual property is stolen, network operators stop providing services, the data is lossed, the player uses the network and game players are dead etc. Five types which caused by inheritance disputes。The fouth part through the introduction of national and regional legal protection of network virtual property, trying to build around the network virtual property legal system in China。The fifth part introduces the analysis and the necessity of the virtual property protection in China, emphatically from the existing contract law, property law, tort law and the law of succession of the perspective of how to deal with the reality of the existence of the dispute, in order to make the network virtual property be better protected.