Law of the Level : Video Game Lawyer & Attorney : Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton Law Firm : Intellectual Property, Patents

Facebook Credits are here, and they’re sparking quite a bit of debate. Credits are the virtual currency that Facebook hopes third-party game makers will use so that there’s a single, consistent currency across all the games in the Facebook community. But if you’re going to use Credits, you not only have to pay Facebook a 30 percent cut of any transaction you make with the currency, you also have to keep to some pretty stringent terms dictated by Facebook.

This article by Shawn Foust was originally published in the Social Beat. To read the article please click here.

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Until very recently, virtual currency trading has been widely accepted in China. Billions of RMB in virtual currency have been traded online, and this amount has been increasing by 20% every year. The practice is so common that around the world, "Chinese Gold Farmers" have become a well-known staple of such popular multiplayer online games as World of Warcraft, and in many parts of the world, this is the image most commonly attributed to virtual currency trading. However, with the blossoming popularity of virtual currency trading in China, concerns have arisen that serious problems could stem from mixing virtual world economies with the real world's economy—problems such as inflation, money laundering, and gambling. 
 

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ARS Technica recently reported on the theft of significant amount of virtual currency from an online bank.  The theft was carried out by the former CEO of the bank and the virtual currency was eventually sold for the very real amount of $5,000.

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China's State Administration of Taxation recently announced a tax levy on individual income made through virtual currency transactions, despite a February 2007 ban on the trading of virtual currency.

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