Can virtual property be the subject of property crime?

Nuosavybė ginama nuo Senovės Romos laikų. Tuo metu turtas apimdavo ne tik materialią vertę turinčius daiktus, bet ir tam tikras nuosavybės teises, kurios neturėjo jokio fizinio pavidalo. Akivaizdu, kad jau nuo romėnų teisės ištakų buvo formuojamos teisės normos, kad nuosavybė nebūtinai turi būti materiali, nuosavybės teisėje buvo galima tiesiog turėti tiesioginę teisę į nematerialų turtą. Virtualios nuosavybės pagrindinės problemos atsiranda dėl to, kad ji neturi jokio materialaus pavidalo, fizinių išmatavimų. Virtualios nuosavybės egzistavimas įmanomas tik elektroninėje erdvėje, kur ją kuria, bei turi galimybę realizuoti visi vartotojai. Lietuvos Respublikos Baudžiamasis kodeksas nenumato apsaugos turto, jei šis neturi fizinių parametrų. Lietuvoje nusikaltimo nuosavybei dalykas privalo būti materialus, turėti fizinį pavidalą su galimybe nustatyti dydį arba turėti materialinę vertę oficialiai paremta rinkos kaina, pirkimo - pardavimo sandoriu, taip pat privalo priklausyti kažkam nuosavybės teise. Egzistuojanti virtualaus turto apsauga Azijos šalyse yra visiškai priimtinas ir pasiteisinęs dalykas. Įvedant virtualaus turto apsaugą buvo argumentuojama tuo, kad žaidėjų paskyros, kaip ir turtas jose yra virtualios ir gali būti įkainuojamos realiame pasaulyje. Žaidėjai gali pirkti ir parduoti šią nuosavybę internete. Todėl ši nuosavybė turi būti prilyginta tikram turtui, fizinius parametrus turinčiai nuosavybei. Europos sąjungos šalyse teismų praktika atskleidžia galimybę įvesti virtualaus turto apsaugą vienu sprendimu precedento neturinčiose bylose. Apibendrinus visą išanalizuotą medžiagą galima daryti išvadą, kad Lietuvoje nėra išnaudojamos visos galimybės kuriant ir tobulinant virtualios nuosavybės apsaugą. Priežastis dėl to galėtų būti vartotojų ir teisininkų žinių stoka ir supratimas, kad tokia nuosavybė gali būti ginama.The property has been protected since the time of ancient Rome. At that time the property used to cover not only the tangible values, but also certain property rights, which had no physical shape. It is evident that the formation of legal norms was started in the Roman times to consider the property not only as tangible values, but also as direct right to intangible assets. The existence of virtual property is inseparable from any online activity. Regardless to the type of online activity (e-mailing, game playing, trade in virtual currency or pleasant leisure), the entire time spend in the virtual world generates certain result. Often the person cannot even imagine the real value of the virtual property. The big part of virtual assets may be priced in real money, because similarly to the real world, in order to accumulate virtual assets, the person has to invest personal time. Similarly to the property of physical shape, the virtual property may be destroyed, lost, embezzled or sold without any feedback. The protection of virtual property in Lithuania is a phenomenon without precedent. It is stated in the Criminal Code of the Republic of Lithuania that the object of crime against property has to be tangible, in physical shape, and provide a possibility to determine its size or material value based on the market value, sale-purchase transaction or in other mode discussed in case law. In addition, the object of the crime must have an owner, a person with the right to the crime’s object, and it does not matter completely whether it is a natural person, legal person, municipality or State. The reasons, why the protection of virtual property may be problematic, is that the virtual property may be stolen, destroyed or resold from any part of the world, so the protection cannot be applied. Besides, it is not clear how the law should protect the users’ interests, developers of internet portals and games, and received virtual resources from virtual world. One of the possible solutions is to expand the limits of property rights as much as to cover the generation of virtual resources in virtual world. The main function of the territorial principle in Lithuania is to grant the right to the Lithuanian courts to judge the persons, who have committed crimes in the territory of the Republic of Lithuania. The Criminal Code of the Republic of Lithuania consolidates the provision that the persons, who have committed crimes in the territory of the Republic of Lithuania, must be held liable in accordance with the laws of the Republic of Lithuania. When the territorial principles were analyzed deeper, the attempt to find the legal interest of the Republic of Lithuania online related to virtual property in virtual space was unsuccessful neither in the case law nor in legal acts or scientific articles. The officers cannot control the continuously changing information flow and thus to trace all the operations, which could be directed against the citizens of the Republic of Lithuania, who have virtual assets in their disposition. The protection of virtual property in the Asian countries has been available since 1997. The main reason of such early presence of virtual protection was that the game markets of the Asian countries are much larger and that the majority of population are playing various games. Such a big number of players also determined high rate of crimes related to thefts of virtual assets. The origin of the protection of virtual property is reasoned on the fact that the player’s accounts and the property they contained are virtual and may be priced in the real world. The players may sell and buy such assets online. Therefore this property should be equalized to the real property that has physical parameters. The protection has to be the same. The case law of the European Union’s Member States (Netherlands and United Kingdom) is quite short. So it provides the opportunity to enter the protection of virtual property by one decision in the matters without precedent. This could be a perfect example for Lithuania that is on the path of innovations and that is introducing the protection of virtual property. To summarize the entire analyzed material, it is possible to conclude that Lithuania has not exhausted all the possibilities to introduce protection of virtual property or to protect it factually. The reasons are the lack of knowledge by the users and lawyers, and of the understanding that such a property is priced and could be protected