Research On Tort Liability Of Network Virtual Property

With the rapid development of science and technology,the Internet industry has continued to grow and become an important part of our country's emerging industries.In recent years,there have been endless disputes over liability for tort of virtual property on the Internet in our country,but the lag of relevant legislation has made it impossible to protect the legitimate rights and interests of the victims.The academic research on the basic theory of virtual property on the Internet is not mature enough.The lack of uniform standards for court judgments has led to frequent occurrences of different judgments in the same case,which has seriously affected judicial credibility.“Zhang Ge v.Beijing Huaqing Feiyang Network Co.,Ltd.Network Infringement Case” and “Shen Chuan v.Perfect Group Network Infringement Case” reflect that the core of the infringement liability of network virtual property is the legal attribute,ownership and value of the network virtual property evaluation issues,distribution of burden of proof,and compensation for mental damage.Legal attributes are the basis for the design of rights rules,network virtual property rights are property rights,and the subject of rights are network users.The evaluations of the value of network virtual property are the need of judicial justice and the need of the healthy development of the Internet industry.However,the value evaluation system of our country's network virtual property has the problems of unclear evaluation subjects and unclear evaluation standards.Therefore,a third-party authoritative appraisal institution should be used as the main body of network virtual property value evaluation,and socially necessary labor time should be used as the value evaluation standard of network virtual property.Regarding the distribution of the burden of proof,in online virtual property infringement liability disputes,the principle of presumption of fault liability should be applied,and the system of inverting the burden of proof should be implemented,and network service operators should bear the heavier burden of proof.Specifically,network users should provide evidence on the authenticity of the facts of the service contract and the damage facts,the network service operator shall prove that it has no fault for the occurrence of the damage fact,whether there is a causal relationship between the infringement and the damage result,and the exemption reasons.The application of the mental damage compensation system to the infringement of property rights is a manifestation of the essence of the mental damage compensation system,which is conducive to protecting human rights and balancing the interests of both parties.However,not all network virtual properties can be compensated for mental damages if they are damaged.The two conditions must be met at the same time that the network virtual property has spiritual benefits and the infringed suffers a great loss of spiritual benefits before the court can support the victim's request for compensation for spiritual damage.Our country's mental damage compensation system cannot meet the needs of the development of network virtual property,so it should be further improved,that is: broaden its scope of application,comprehensively measure the spiritual benefits of network virtual property,and clarify and refine the compensation standards.