Criminal Law Cognizance Of The Act Of Stealing Virtual Property

Nowadays,network technology is developing at an amazing speed,rights are increasing quickly and being stored,transmitted and shared in the form of data,which has evolved into virtual property.While the types and quantities of virtual property have increased dramatically,the number of cases of stealing virtual property has also increased synchronously.It has been a controversial issue in judicial practice to determine the charges of related cases,and there are many controversies in the theoretical circles.The conflict between the judgment and the existing ideas in the theory has brought great confusion to the judicial practitioners.Therefore,from the perspective of criminal law identification of stealing of virtual property,this paper summarizes and analyses the relevant theories and judicial practice judgments in the academic circles,with a view to clarifying the controversial points of conviction and sentencing of theft of virtual property,and then puts forward the view that different types of virtual property should be identified on different charges with different legal nature.It is also concluded that under the current criminal law framework of China,specific standards and operational approaches for identifying the act of stealing virtual property emerge in endless forms and means to cope with the crime of stealing virtual property,so as to make up for the lag of the law in time.This paper is divided into three chapters except the introduction and conclusion.The introduction mainly discusses the current situation of the development ofvirtual property,and briefly introduces the judgment and punishment of stealing of virtual property in judicial practice.After recognizing the necessity of legal protection of virtual property,it puts forward that the legal status of virtual property should be further clarified in order that judicial practice can use accurate accusations to determine the act of stealing virtual property.To identify the act of stealing virtual property,the concept of virtual property should be defined first.The first chapter of this paper mainly discusses the connotation of virtual property in criminal law,further defines the concept of virtual property.At the same time,it sorts out the similarities and differences between virtual property and traditional property.This paper holds that the definition of virtual property should adopt a broad view,that is,accounts,game equipment,points on the Internet belong to virtual property.After defining the concept,Chapter II analyses the types and characteristics of the act of stealing virtual property,and introduces the disputes about the confirmation of the act of stealing virtual property in the current theoretical circles and judicial practice from three aspects: legal attribute,value proof and the effect of the regulation of charges,and then puts forward the view of this paper: virtual property because of its special form,has the data attributes that traditional property does not have,but not all virtual property has the property attributes of traditional property.Property attributes need to be added through transaction behavior.Whether the property attribute exists or not directly determine what is the charge of the act of stealing of virtual property.At the same time,the paper points out that in the current judicial practice,there is a situation that judicial personnel confuse the data attribute of "virtual property" with the property attribute.What's more,because the data attribute judgment only needs a simple technical investigation and does not need a legal interest investigation,it directly replaces the property attribute judgment with the data attribute judgment.The result of this non-standard practice is that quite a part of the illegal acquisition of network data is directly evaluated as the crime of illegal access to computer information system data due to the absence of due process of judging legal interests,which makes the use of this crime pocket trend.The pocketing of theaccusation is an overhead of partial violation of citizens' personal information crimes and intellectual property crimes,as well as erosion of property crimes such as theft.On the basis of the viewpoints put forward in Chapter II,Chapter III elaborates on the two most frequently applicable charges of theft of virtual property,which are applicable in judicial practice,from the aspects of object of crime,infringement of legal interests,purpose of action and amount(value determination),and the views held in this paper were further demonstrated through typical cases in judicial practice.