JDB, iLawyer?

It's one thing to specialize in computer law, but are we on the verge of needing virtual attorneys? This week, the Volokh Conspiracy noted two interesting cases of real world legal consequences coming out of virtual worlds.

The first comes from the Netherlands, where two yutes (or however you pronounce "youths" in Dutch) were convicted of extortion for actions in an online game:

The Leeuwarden District Court says the culprits, 15 and 14 years old, coerced a 13-year-old boy into transferring a 'virtual amulet and a virtual mask' from the online adventure game RuneScape to their game accounts.

'These virtual goods are goods (under Dutch law), so this is theft,' the court said Tuesday in a summary of its ruling....

Now the coercion, which included physical violence, took place in the real world, so legal consequences make sense. But what if everything happened in the context of the game?

The second is from Japan, involved a sort of virtual homicide:

A 43-year-old Japanese piano teacher's sudden divorce from her online husband in a virtual game world made her so angry that she logged on and killed his digital persona, police said Thursday.

The woman, who has been jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his identification and password to log onto popular interactive game 'Maple Story' to carry out the virtual murder in mid-May, a police official in northern Sapporo City said ....

Apparently, the woman got a hold of her "husband's" login info while they were married and she used that info to login and "kill" his avatar. Like the Dutch case, the actual criminal activity - unauthorized access of a computer account - took place in the real world.

Most online worlds, from what I've read, have rules and regulations, but not much of a way to enforce them. Is it only a matter of time before "attorney" characters join the mages, orcs, and what have you in World of Warcraft?