Topic: Is stealing Bitcoins illegal? - page 8. (Read 24258 times)

Ah I see. Stealing bitcoins from someone living in New Jersey is illegal but stealing bitcoins from someone living in Iran or Syria is legal? Sounds like a double standard to me.

Why is it so important to you people that bitcoins be prosecuted as theft?
If it's so important to you get the laws changed.  You want an example of a law that would likely protect you?

Here let us read New Jersey's.

2C:20-1. Definitions.

  "Property" means anything of value, including real estate, tangible and intangible personal property, trade secrets, contract rights, choses in action and other interests in or claims to wealth, admission or transportation tickets, captured or domestic animals, food and drink, electric, gas, steam or other power, financial instruments, information, data, and computer software, in either human readable or computer readable form, copies or originals.

Sounds a little different doesn't it?

Bitcoins are probably considered propriety in New Jersey but many other places do not enumerate such specific rights.

Aaaaand back to the Supreme court of the Netherlands:


Using another person's private key to sign over the control over their bitcoins to yourself fits the above definition quite well.

(Don't worry, the same reasoning applies in other countries as well)

And yes, using a password you find on pastebin to take control over someone else's property would also apply.

Does a password have value?  A private key is a password and you can't steal a password.  If you could pastebin would be guilty of a billion counts of handling stolen property every time anonymous posted their latest password dump.

Of course it isn't inclusive... it doesn't list a great many types of financial derivatives
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_(finance)
But they still protected.
It has to be similar to thing things on the list; IE you can't steal air for example no matter how much value you'd like to assign to it because it's like nothing else on the list.

No!
That's why people share them in their freaking sigs. It's an account number.  You can't steal someone's account number.
Absolutely not.  If they did I can generate a few 1000 address per second.  You want to buy some?
No?  That doesn't seem germane though...

Alternately, you can refer to unspent outputs.

I would change this to say "Does a Bitcoin private key have value", to which the answer is yes, because only with the key you can sign a transaction transferring the value stored in the block chain.

Is it really that hard to see if Bitcoin falls into this definition?

Is a Bitcoin address a claim, interest, right or "other thing"?
Does a Bitcoin address have value?
Can a Bitcoin address be seen, felt, weighed, measured, or otherwise perceived by the senses?

The list was not exclusive, as has already been pointed out.


Sure!


There you go!

There are general laws of morality that apply to all humans, regardless of one's belief in them (or lack thereof). The constitution of the USA (correctly) acknowledges the rights of all individuals under God. It is this reality that all who presume to reside in a moral vacuum, are blinded against.

Bitcoins aren't virtual goods...  They aren't goods at all.  It's simply a ledger of 'transactions'.  Bitcoins aren't a real thing they don't even represent a real thing.  There are no bitcoins on your computer there are no bitcoins anywhere.  Only the argeed upon rules of the 'game' allow bitcoins to exist.


Basiclly you have a file on your computer that says
5 to bob
6 from sue
1 to mack
4 from bob
3 to sue
and so on

And I log into your computer
and add
1000 to reyals

That's theft?  Because that's what you're saying.  I haven't taken anything I've simply created a frauduinty entry in a ledger of a system that is afford no special legal proection (which is why this would be a crime if you tried it with stocks)

If data representing nonreal things was afford these protections then it would open a huge can of worms...
Can someone be arrested for taking my stuff in EvE online even though it's allowed by the game?  No?
So then they could be arrested for taking stuff in WoW because it's not allowed there?  Yes?
Ok so if Dark Ages of Camelot crashes and deletes my items is Mythic liabel for destroying my property?
What if someone hacks WoW and deletes my items?  Does blizzard have to pay?  I mean the items were in their 'bank'.

Lets be totally assine now.  What if I hack bitcointalk.org and change my post count to 10000 and yours to 1?  Did I steal posts from you? Because that's what you're saying. 


Bitcoin is to weird...  If bitcoin wants to be protected by theft statues then the law needs to be updated.  Right now though it's still protected by computer laws.

100% NO
'Money' only comes from the government.
Sticking with Florida
UNIFORM COMMERCIAL CODE: GENERAL PROVISIONS

671.201 General definitions.—Unless the context otherwise requires, words or phrases defined in this section, or in the additional definitions contained in other chapters of this code which apply to particular chapters or parts thereof, have the meanings stated. Subject to definitions contained in other chapters of this code which apply to particular chapters or parts thereof, the term:
.....
(24) “Money” means a medium of exchange currently authorized or adopted by a domestic or foreign government. The term includes a monetary unit of account established by an intergovernmental organization or by agreement between two or more countries.

It's a complete list of examples and none come close to bitcoin.

Maybe we can try Florida?
(14) “Intangible property” includes, by way of illustration and not limitation:
(a) Moneys, checks, drafts, deposits, interest, dividends, and income.
(b) Credit balances, customer overpayments, security deposits and other instruments as defined by chapter 679, refunds, unpaid wages, unused airline tickets, and unidentified remittances.
(c) Stocks, and other intangible ownership interests in business associations.
(d) Moneys deposited to redeem stocks, bonds, bearer bonds, original issue discount bonds, coupons, and other securities, or to make distributions.
(e) Amounts due and payable under the terms of insurance policies.
(f) Amounts distributable from a trust or custodial fund established under a plan to provide any health, welfare, pension, vacation, severance, retirement, death, stock purchase, profit sharing, employee savings, supplemental unemployment insurance, or similar benefit.

Still nothing that comes close to bitcoin.


Your problem is you don't seem to understand that your wallet.dat is not 'filled' with bitcoins.  It's just a big long number... it's the same as someone stealing your password.  Even you should be able to see that charging someone with stealing a password is absurd.  It's the actions you take with the stolen password that matter.
So you can't STEAL bitcoins.  You can only gain unauthorized access to the network and execute actions and that's covered under standard computer law.
The real legal question is it's easy to see how someone can gain unauthorized access to a big monolithic server with a password but it would be interesting to see how the law comes down on unauthorized access to a p2p network with a private crypto key....  That's where the real legal loophole might be.

I can't speak, to UK law, as I have no clue what it says.  But in the US intangible property really isn't that strictly defined.  It is basically anything you can't see or touch that has value.  Since the previous poster used the Texas state statute, we'll stick to that.  


Anything that has value yet cannot be perceived by the senses is intangible property.  That strikes me as the very essence of a bitcoin.  

The state of TX then goes on to list numerous examples.

Most of these are difficult to steal, I'll grant you.  But if you do, you have committed theft.  

its just magic nerd money.. sure stealing it is wrong and I am sure thieves feel horrible about taking it and have many sleepless nights but it is not illegal.. nobody has ever went to prison over it and nobody ever will.

You're right about the state action.  The overwhelming majority of criminal charges are brought by the state.  The feds don't have a straight up "theft" statute, as typically there has to be something more complicated than just stealing something before the feds even have jurisdiction, such as stealing something in interstate commerce.  So §641 is one of the closest statutes you can get to, to see what the federal courts feel about the issue. 

The part you didn't bold is where I feel bitcoin falls in the Texas statute. 
The part you bolded was just a bunch of examples the TX legislature gave.  It isn't meant to be an exclusive list. 

Performing illegal action against illegal (virtual) object is perfectly legal...After all, this what the so called war on terror is about. We learn from our governments, right?

Yes, without finding the most relevant supreme court decision. To answer the question you pose in the OP: Yes, stealing Bitcoins is illegal, and would be prosecuted everywhere there's a functioning legal system.

You have provided no support whatsoever for any other interpretation of relevant law that has been cited in this thread. I'll re-quote the Supreme court in the Netherlands below:


Your personal views to the contrary are not relevant.